CHAPTER V

Being a Genius

“Prexie wants to see you in the office, Myra,” said Elinor as she entered the study on the afternoon of Washington’s Birthday, “here’s the note I found pinned under your engaged sign. Isn’t Ruth here, or Lydia? I never knew you to use a sign all by yourself before. Such industry is shocking. Or if Prexie doesn’t ask to see you at present he very likely will some day.”

“Well, what have I done now?” complained Myra, reaching for the bit of paper. Elinor pretended that she had not observed her startled jump at the opening of the door or the guilty haste with which she had cleared away the writing on her desk.

“Oh, it isn’t from Prexie at all, you mean girl! It is from a freshman who wishes to borrow my long cape to wear to the ball to-night. She’s going as a witch. You were cruel to scare me so. I thought maybe Prexie had found out who hung that declaration of rights on the blackboard in Latin this morning. The faculty haven’t any business to deprive us of a holiday like this. Still, I’m getting tired of being called up for interviews. Our corridor warden is forever reasoning with me about disturbances — and she only a junior herself. Mrs. Vernon was mighty hard to manage about my going to New York without permission. I hate to bother with chaperons anywhere. Miss Ewers warned me that my English wasn’t up to the scratch. In fact, that is what occupies me this afternoon. I’m — writing.”

“Don’t!” Under her chaffing manner Elinor regarded Myra keenly, for this speech did not ring with her usual frankness. “If you turn literary, too, I shall certainly pack up and leave. One genius in the family is just about my limit. Beware! Ruth hasn’t any digestion. She hasn’t any friends in particular, unless you count Miss Ewers.”

“Of course, she’s only a faculty but she isn’t very old yet. I believe she’s about twenty-five and strangers take her for a student. When Ruth feels blue, she looks older than Miss Ewers. Ruth worried terribly about what she said to me before I disappeared.”

“Indeed?” Elinor began to snip impatiently at strips of white paper which were to serve as ruffs and cuffs for their colonial costumes that evening. “I apologized for blaming her, and what do you suppose she answered? She said that she knew I tried to be sorry because I thought I ought to. Gracious, wasn’t it? She is the crudest person I ever had the misfortune to meet.”

“You behave friendly enough.”

“Oh, yes, we get along. It is easy to act sweet and say pleasant things, but, oh, dear! I am so tired of feeling cross inside all the time. People say marriage is a discipline, and that is living with just one person; while here there are four of us jostled in together through the winter. I shall have nervous prostration before June.”

Myra’s expression of alarm changed to bright interest as her glance fell upon the packet of notes in one pigeonhole and then sought the carefully scribbled sheet on her pad. “What you need is excitement. This is an awfully monotonous place. I heard a graduate fellow say so. We live from mail to meal — sleep, eat, exercise, work, rest. No wonder you long for thrills! We ought to brace up and make things happen. Haven’t you read how reporters when news is scarce manufacture something? They get robbed or murdered or commit a crime or arrange an accident. I’d love to write for the papers, as Ruth does. Why, I’d be willing to correspond without any pay.”

Elinor sniffed. “Prexie says the college receives gratis all the notoriety it can assimilate.”

“Ye-es,” the hazel eyes again lingered affectionately upon the pad, “but publicity is different from notoriety, don’t you think? President Roosevelt believes in publicity; and I’m a republican. It seems to me,” she mused, “that he would not have deprived us of a holiday on Washington’s Birthday. The faculty ought to be taught a lesson in patriotism.” The seniors evidently held a similar opinion, for they marched to dinner that evening in the guise of a funeral procession. A rumor of the plan spread through the other classes and caused them to assemble at the door of the great dining-room. After the gong had ceased its clangor, far away strains of Auld Lang Syne sounded down the main, corridor. Louder and clearer swelled the music above the tread of footsteps rhythmically in measure. Tiny flames twinkled out in the dusky tunnel and moved nearer two by two, till in the brighter illumination of the central hall advanced a long array of figures draped in black, each one bearing a candle in her hand. Some were dressed as veiled nuns, and some aa hooded monks, and some wore scholars’ caps and gowns. Aloft above their downcast heads was reared a banner inscribed with the words: “In memoriam. In memory of the memory of G. W., slain by the faculty February 22, 190-.”

Myra, who wore her gymnasium suit and Lydia’s best jacket turned inside out, watched and listened with such zealous attention that she almost missed enjoying the scene. Now and then she scrawled a word or two on her paper ruffles. Elinor was dressed in the dovelike costume of Priscilla. Powder and patches, kerchiefs and curls, transformed plain girls into pretty ones and pretty ones into beauties. Lydia was a magnificent dame in flowing silk, with her own great-grandmother’s silver comb in her whitened hair. Ruth in a prim gingham, with steelbowed spectacles insecurely perched upon her nose displayed unsuspected ability to act the part of Myra’s fussy old aunt from the country. The rolling of her eyeballs, the fidgety twitches of her elbows, and her shocked shrieks over finding her nephew’s arm around Priscilla’s waist, kept the tableful in a twitter. Lydia’s indulgent, “Ah, my dear madam, but boys will be boys!” sent Elinor sliding out of her seat in helpless laughter.

Her cavalier dragged her tenderly into an upright position. “Sweetest, adorable Priscilla, I love you to distraction, even maudlin as you are! But pray, pray, drop your tears of joy on the other side because this satin lining belongs to Lydia. Say!” in a whisper with a quick change of manner, “Ruth’s a dandy, isn’t she? What fun she’d have been if she’d had half a chance as a youngster! I wish I could write a story about her.”

“That cacoethes scribendi is certainly catching!” sighed Elinor, “well, I observe that you have your other cuff still blank for notes of her conversation.” Then she laughed mischievously at Myra’s guilty start of dismay over this proof that others had noticed her scribbling.

After Chapel services, the girls hurried away to the dancing hall in the gymnasium. George and Martha Washington received their guests — George bowing his stately head beside fat little Martha. There were periwigged gentlemen, short-waisted ladies, plump girls with frocks slipping from rounded shoulders; there were witches with peaked caps above their wide ruffs, and new brooms under their red cloaks. There were a dozen imps in butterfly skirts of scarlet tarletan; there were soldiers and Indians and sooty-faced slaves whirling amicably together in modern waltzes or gliding through an old-time minuet.

When the refreshments of popcorn balls were dispensed by a bevy of ridiculous darkeys, Myra remembered that her latest good resolution was against eating between meals — and anyhow she did not care much for popcorn. While the rest were feasting, she wandered upon the stage to examine the assembled curios. The famous cherry tree was represented by an evergreen twig conspicuously labelled. There was a gun described as the identical weapon with which George shot the robin in the cherry tree. A table in the foreground was adorned with a piece of Martha’s wedding cake, a snow-shoe which had belonged to Pocahontas, the first pair of skates used on the Hudson by Peter Stuyvesant, socks worn by Arnold at the age of three, and the actual cigar which André had been smoking at the time of his arrest. The sight of a baby’s shoe half hidden by a placard which declared it to be the property of the first college granddaughter sent Myra’s gaze roving over the hall in search of Elinor.

Ah, there she was sitting on the steps that led to the stage dressing-room. With a popcorn ball in each hand — how greedy! Had she seen the shoe yet? Myra slipping through the wings to reach the steps by a short cut wasted a moment to smirk at her gentlemanly self in a cracked mirror. A careless sweep of her arm as she bent closer brushed off a powder-box from the dressing-table. When she stooped to pick it up, she caught a glimpse of a torn sheet of paper on a broken-legged chair. Though this was by no means the only tattered bit of paper in that littered greenroom, it was bigger than the others and lay there in such an untidy blur against the shadows that Myra half automatically crumpled it in her hand.

After she had groped her way to the door and emerged into the light, she found that Elinor had been captured to meet the guest of the evening, an author who had lectured before the college historical society that afternoon. While awaiting her release, Myra absently smoothed out the sheet in her hand and glanced over the writing.

“Wedding of Sophie Moore to Professor Geo. Metry. (Symbolical of the election of mathematics by the class.) I, Sophie Moore, take you, Geo. Metry, for better and for worse, through exams and crams, and ex and gym, and Bible lectures and Chapel exhortations, and rice pudding and tombstone, and written quizzes and essays, and — ” Here the page had been torn in two and apparently tossed aside.

“Tombstone,” repeated Myra idly, “that’s the Bavarian cream which we have for dinner on Tuesday. Sophie Moore — who’s she, I wonder. Sophie Moore — ah, I see. Sophomore, of course! Geo. Metry — geometry! Oh, crackie! This is their secret. This is part of Trig Ceremonies. Somebody said they had begun to rehearse here. A wedding! That’s the secret. A wedding between the class and the mathematical department — that is the theme of the play. The success of the Ceremonies depends upon a complete surprise, does it? And — and — and I haven’t quite forgotten Hallowe’en. Ah-h-haha!”

“Myra Dickinson!” One of the imps in scarlet tarletan darted up to her. “Remember the charivari at eleven. The girls will bring combs and horns and bells and tin pans. Some of them have backed out but there’ll be ten anyhow. Won’t the seniors be delighted to hear us serenading the faculty houses! Lesson number two in patriotism! Those whitecap notes — “

“Hush!” Myra clapped a hand over the unwary mouth and dragged its owner into the dance, for she saw Elinor approaching. Elinor did not approve of this particular freshman and her band of harum scarum followers, and she had warned Myra against being drawn into their ranks. They had almost quarreled over this, Myra charging Elinor with being undemocratic and hypercritical, and anyhow a girl needed some fun to balance the extra studying which had been necessary since the midyears.

For the remainder of the evening Myra avoided Elinor, who was sufficiently offended by such neglect to assume indifference. She sought Ruth who was standing happily in a corner, looking on, and made herself exceptionally charming till good-night time. Some minutes before that, Myra and most of the red imps had vanished from the ball room.

Shortly after eleven o’clock the sound of an appalling uproar traveled through the night from the direction of faculty row. When the jangling of bells, tooting of horns, clattering of pans, and squeaking of combs had subsided, and the students, some laughing, some scolding, had gone back to sleep, Myra stole quietly into the study. Elinor heard her but gave no sign. An hour later she awoke from an uneasy nap, crept to her portière, peered through and saw Myra scribbling away in a fury of composition. Presently the scratching of the pen ceased, and steps tiptoed into the corridor. In twenty minutes or so she re-entered the room, turned out the gas, and slid noiselessly to bed.

At breakfast the college was ringing with reports of the freshman charivari at faculty row. At noon a rumor spread that anonymous notes written in the style of the white-caps and threatening all sorts of ridiculous retribution for the loss of the holiday had been slipped under the door of every teacher and professor living in the dormitories. At dinner the news flew from table to table that the Trig Ceremonies would surely take place the following night.

Myra who had been strangely studious and retiring all day — perhaps also somewhat drowsy — brightened to hilarity for the rest of the evening. The next morning she was still in a wild mood of gayety. During luncheon she grew pensive, absently piling half a butterball on each tiny oyster cracker and dreamily shaking pepper into her oyster-stew, till Elinor caught her wrist in horror at such indiscretion. Before the last spoonful of her applesauce had vanished she became so alarmingly silent that Ruth eyed her askance and Elinor inquired if she had a headache or anything.

“Oh, no!” she answered quickly, and then stopped herself to touch her suddenly corrugated brow and mutter that possibly she did feel a weeny ache coming on, and anyhow she did not care to go to town that afternoon, as had been proposed. Even the erstwhile irresistible bribe of pistachio ice-cream at their favorite restaurant failed to win her acceptance. Finding her obdurate, Elinor departed to do her shopping alone, Lydia withdrew to a committee meeting, and Ruth disappeared in the direction of the library.

For a few moments after being left in solitude, Myra kept up her pretense of studying. Perhaps one of the girls might have forgotten something and be coming back to interrupt. No footfall broke the quiet of the alleyway. Myra drew a long breath of relief, threw aside her book, and walking to the couch stealthily extricated a newspaper from its hiding-place amid the pillows. Upon her return from luncheon she had spied it lying among the rest of the noon mail on the center table, and she had hastily thrust it out of sight. She wanted to be alone when she read it first.

To judge from the expression of awed pride and the blissful incredulous smile that quivered about her lips, the article sounded even more beautiful in print than in writing. To be sure, the editor had clipped some of her sentences and added more vivid color to incidents here and there, but the result was still a delight and a joy to an author’s heart. Wouldn’t the girls be excited when they saw it! Doubtless the regular college copy was already being doubled over its holder in the reading-room. Her boy friends would be mightily interested too, and could never again sneer over the mild lemonade fun that girls had together. She hoped that she could make her next article quite as thrilling. Of course it would be about Trig Ceremonies.

Ah! in the beatitude of actually being a successful writer, she was forgetting her scheme of inflicting vengeance upon the sophomores. No wonder geniuses like Ruth were occasionally absent-minded! she must surely attend to this episode of the freshman revenge at once, for she would need to use it in her article. Perhaps she could also bring in a really pathetic account of the Hallowe’en cruelty.

The peace of Saturday afternoon was brooding over the deserted corridors, when a nimble young person stole down to the bulletin board on the second floor and posted a placard with cautious speed. After one fond lingering exultant glance flung back over her shoulder at the staring black letters outlined in red ink, she fled from the scene.

Three minutes later a little figure wearing a scarlet coat and woolly tam-o’shanter sped down the stairs in the most distant section of the building. Out over the winding paths between high walls of snow she hurried skipping and swinging her arms in reckless disregard for a judicious conservation of energy. A sociable dog crouching at the Lodge gates responded with yelping joy to her invitation to race. Away they scampered along the hedge to the pines, where half-a-dozen freshmen conscientiously taking a walk paused to laugh at the pranks of the rollicking pair. When Myra sprang to reach the boughs bending overhead and shook the fluffy white burden down into their protesting faces, they started to pursue her, on vengeance intent. But ploughing through the deep snow she taunted them to follow from the safely trodden way. Then up through the orchard and out upon Sunset Hill she skimmed gleefully. There under the evergreens, with the wide white world spread below her, she bubbled over with singing and shouting and sweet high-pitched yodeling that made the small dog sit up on his haunches in dismay and join in with a howl. It was probably the best he could do in howls, and doubtless answered its purpose; for Myra doubled up and dropped on a snowy bench to giggle to her heart’s content, before trotting back, breathless and rosy and eager, with dancing eyes and dimpling mouth, to the triumph that she knew must surely by this time be awaiting her in front of the bulletin board.

Upon reaching the building she was smitten by an extraordinary attack of shyness at thought of the rejoicing and congratulation about to shower upon her. She could almost feel the hearty kisses, the clutch of arms around her neck, the enthusiastic pats. She could almost hear them say that Myra Dickinson was bright enough even if she had flunked in Latin and math.’ Very likely they would give her a vote of thanks from the class for so brilliantly rescuing them from utter discomfiture before the enemy. Blushing in anticipation Myra slipped in at a side door and stole up the narrow stairs of the transverse. At the second floor she could not forbear to peek around the corner in the direction of the bulletin board. Yes, there certainly was a crowd of girls gathered before it.

Myra crept light-footed up to the fourth story, tweaked her tam straight^ brushed the quiver from her happy lips, tried to drive the delighted twinkle from her eyes — and marched down the corridor. At the window opposite their alleyway Lydia was standing in the center of an excited group of freshmen. The little figure in red sauntered nonchalantly up to it.

“Isn’t it the most disgraceful thing!” exclaimed someone.

Lydia spoke in a voice rather deeper and more quick-toned than usual. “You say that there is a notice posted on the bulletin board, telling the main secret of the Trig Ceremonies, and that everybody suspects our class of having done it?”

“Yes, and isn’t it the most underhanded thing to find out a secret and then publish it anonymously like that? That person, whoever she may be, had no right even to know it, let alone tell it”

“The juniors are going to call a meeting to disclaim having any hand in the affair. The seniors will probably do the same. The freshmen of course are the most natural suspects because the Ceremonies are directed chiefly against us. If we don’t follow the example of the other classes, they will be sure we did it. Isn’t it perfectly horrible! Prexie says it is the most dishonorable deed ever committed in this college.”

Here fair-minded Lydia protested in the name of common sense. “Prexie has just returned from New York fifteen minutes ago, girls, and he isn’t likely to have heard a word about it yet. I passed him in the vestibule and he looked too anxious and angry over more important matters to trouble concerning this right away. However that does not alter our difficulty. I cannot believe that any freshman has had the tip of a finger in this outrage. We certainly do not wish to be mixed up in such a scandal. I shall summon a meeting — “

“And pass resolutions,” broke in another, “Call the roll and deny it by name. We could pledge ourselves to assist in detecting the criminal.”

“Coward! To watch the blame falling on us!”

“A sneak! That’s what she is! A sneak and a spy and a thief! I can’t believe that a freshman did it. Ostracism would be too good for her. Expulsion — “

“Myra! Lydia! Quick!” Elinor came flying down the corridor in a passion of excitement that had broken down the barriers of her usual reserve. “Girls, have you seen the paper? It’s all over town. The newsboys are crying it on the corners. It’s an article about Washington’s Birthday — the rebellion against being deprived of a holiday, the funeral procession, the charivari, the white-cap notes, everything! It’s cooked up — colored in the yellowest way — the most sensational — it gives an impression of us — of the college — oh, such a shameful untrue impression! Prexie is almost down sick over it. He has sent for Ruth. That’s the paper which she writes for. I saw her going into the office. Lydia, what shall we do? She will be exp — “

Then Elinor caught sight of Myra’s face. “Oh!” she moaned, flinging out her hands helplessly, ” oh, oh, oh, Myra!”

“Yes,” said Myra, ” I did it.”

In the stillness, Elinor pulled herself together, straightened her shoulders, and glanced from one excited face to another.

“— with my little hatchet,” she murmured, and began to laugh hysterically.

Myra looked at her and smiled. Myra was always lovely about appreciating a joke. But it was an agonized little smile and flickered in an unsteady fashion as if annoyed by the quivering of the round chin.

“I — I cannot tell a lie.” She half raised one hand toward her throat. It felt so queer and choked. “I wrote the article and I posted the notice about the wedding too. I — I — I — am going to see Prexie now.”

She walked away bravely enough before all the eyes. Nevertheless late that evening, after the Ceremonies had sparkled to their pyrotechnic close, through the wedding and everything even to the apparition of a green cheesecloth gown upon the actor who represented the freshman class, Myra escaped into her own room at the earliest available moment. When Elinor patted her comfortingly upon the head, she tried to smile, but gulped instead. At the touch of a caressing arm, her lip quivered irresistibly. She thrust out both hands to push Elinor away.

“Oh, don’t!” she wailed, “now you’e d-done it! I’m g-g-going to have a b-b-b-big howl.”

And Elinor very wisely let her howl undisturbed.