Her college days; a story for girls

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I Hunting a Home 7

II The Freshman Frolic 16

Chapter I

One afternoon in early autumn, as the “ Limited ” was pulling into Somerfield, there sat side by side in the Boston sleeper a fair, sweetfaced woman, wearing the subdued gray of half mourning, brightened by a touch of heliotrope, and a slender, graceful girl with golden-bronze hair. The train stopped at the handsome gray stone station, the mother and daughter gathered up their books and umbrellas, while the assiduous porter took possession of their bags and saw them safely across the tracks and on board the Boston & Merrimac train, waiting to bear them to Norwood.

“ Ugh,” said the girl, as they settled themselves in their seats ; “ how it rains ! To think of not a drop of rain for two months, and arriving at Norwood in a steady downpour.”

“Yes, it is dismal/' responded her mother, “ and in spite of the untold blessing this rain is bringing to thousands of people, I can't help wishing we had arrived the day before it, or the day after, and not just in the midst of it."

“ What a nice way you have of putting things, mamma. Now, of course, I knew how much this rain is needed, and that it is saving millions of money and perhaps thousands of lives ; hut instead of wishing we had come a day earlier or a day later, I was just wickedly wishing it would stop and let us have a comfortable time hunting up a boarding place this afternoon."

“ Oh ! those hills !" she added, quickly, as they swept out of the city and began to follow the windings of the river northward, “ that’s just one thing we miss at home — the grand old hills and the clear, winding streams."

“ Would you be willing to exchange St. Mark's for the New England scenery?"

“ Oh no, no, no ! I wouldn't exchange dear, darling St. Mark’s for anything the world can give — not even for Paris or Eome, if it had to be for always. But I am glad, since I must be away from St. Mark's, that I am to have my fill of beautiful rivers and mountains/'

“ And elms,” suggested Mrs. Darcy. “You know everybody tells us we will think we have never seen elms when we see those of the Camelot Valley.”

“ Oh yes, elms,” sighed Lois, “ the Apollo of trees ! How could God make anything so beautiful as an elm ?” And the rest of the ride was one series of exclamations from the enthusiastic girl, as picture after picture, each more beautiful than the other, whirled by their windows and the last part of their way with those stately twin giants, Mt. Hoaryhead and Mt. Ben, in attendance, one on either hand, Lois said was like a grand triumphal entry into Norwood.

But it was still raining hard, which was not quite the thing for a triumphal entry, it made the conquering heroes look so slinky and drabbled, Lois commented, as they made a dive for the nearest carriage. They had determined upon a line of action — to drive to a hotel for dinner and then, if the elements still showed no signs of relenting, to take a carriage, and, armed with their list of boarding-houses, go boldly forth in quest of a home. It had not been possible for them to engage a boarding place in advance, and they knew now that it was so near the opening of college the desirable places were probably all taken. So they felt that, in spite of the unpropitious weather, they had not a moment to lose, and they had a very earnest desire to get into their rooms and get settled as quickly as possible.

That was a dreary afternoon’s work. They had left home with no provision for rain except their umbrellas, and getting in and out of the carriage they soon found themselves as effectually drenched as if they had been on foot. Indeed, they found the carriage but little help, for the places were so close together on Elm Street that getting in to ride a few feet seemed a farce. But Lois said she hoped it gave them a semblance of respectability, and it certainly did help them to enter pretty houses, their skirts dripping and their shoes squashing over newly-polished floors, with an air of confidence it would have been difficult to maintain otherwise.

There were some redeeming features in the disagreeable employment. Everywhere they found busy housekeepers putting finishing touches, to be ready for the rush of girls next week ; curtains going up, carpets going down, the sound of the hammer and the broom prevailing. But everywhere the busy women, directing all the work, found time to stop and take the kindliest interest in their affairs. No one had any place for them, but every one was full of suggestions as to where they might find rooms, and disinterestedly anxious that they should secure a pleasant home.

The afternoon was fast waning. Their thin, low shoes were soaked through, and Mrs. Darcy began to fear that if they did not soon find some rooms where they could have their baggage and get into dry clothes, Lois would be sick with a cold, that would be a bad beginning for her college life.

“ We will try this one more place, Lois, and if we are not successful there, we will go back to the hotel, have our trunks sent up, and try to make ourselves comfortable over Sunday.”

“ Oh ! I can’t bear the thought of that dismal hotel, mamma, and I did want to get settled to-day,” pleaded Lois.

“ Yes, I know ; but it is running too great a risk. I am chilled through, and you are shivering at this moment. We will try Mrs. Waters, and if we fail, go back to the hotel.”

They found good Mrs. Waters as busy as everybody else, directing plumbers and carpet men, but also, like everybody else, willing to do all she could to help.

“ I have no rooms,” she said, “ but I think if you go across to Mrs. Harding’s, you may find some. She doesn’t take boarders, but if you don’t mind going out of the house you can come here for your meals.”

That was a new idea, but worth trying. Fortunately, Mrs. Harding had two rooms, the best they had seen yet for their purpose, large and sunny, and well furnished with closets, with a dressing-room between them.

Mrs. Harding rather demurred at the idea of having them take possession at once, but when Lois pleaded that they could not go back to the dreary hotel, she yielded, and Lois flew across the street to send the carriage for their trunks and tell Mrs. Waters she must expect them to supper. She returned to find Mrs. Harding making a fire in the open fireplace of the larger of the two rooms, the one they had already fixed upon as their sitting-room. The open fireplace had been one of the features of the room that had particularly attracted them, it was so like their old home in St. Mark’s.

There was only time before supper to change their wet clothing and take their dresses from the trunks, shake them out of their folds, and hang them in the closets. And after supper, tired with their long journey and room hunting, they sat before the blazing fire and talked of St. Mark’s and the dear friends they had left there, until the four years stretching before them began to look like a dreary exile from home and loved ones.

“ This will never do, Lois,” said Mrs. Darcy at last. “ If we let ourselves think of St. Mark’s too much, we will be taking the early train for home Monday morning.”

“ Not a bit of it,” said Lois, stoutly ; “ I may long for St. Mark’s and be a little homesick sometimes, but I am eager for Gale. Nothing could induce me to give up my college career, and I intend to make these four years tell, mamma dear. I shall be so learned and so accomplished and so ‘ improved,’ you will be proud of your daughter when we go back to St. Mark’s.”

Mrs. Darcy looked fondly up at her, for Lois had risen in her earnestness and was standing before the fire. She did not say anything for a moment, her heart was just running over with pride and happiness and thankfulness to God for giving her such a daughter. When she did speak, it was to say, as she glanced around the room :

“ I think we have every reason to be grateful for being so comfortably housed this stormy night. This is better than I expected, and I foresee a very cozy, happy home for us here the next four years.”

“ Yes, and there are such capabilities in this room. I am glad the furniture is so nice and old-fashioned. That mahogany chest of drawers and that beautiful old table with its polished top and brass claws are darling. Let’s go to bed, mamma, so Monday morning will hurry up and come and we can get to work fixing up our rooms.”

All the past was behind Lois now, and she was eager for the future. The healthful sleep of youth visited her as soon as her head touched the pillow, and mingled in her dreams in a strange jumble were divans and tea tables for her room, and splendid triumphs in college — distinguishing herself in her classes, and always, as at home, a leader among the girls.

But it was long before Mrs. Darcy fell asleep, and when at last she did, her dreams only continued her waking thoughts. And they were of the dear little home in St. Mark’s, and the happy hours she had spent there with the baby Lois in her arms, or the golden-haired little girl running in and out, or the fair young maiden full of eager ambitions. Baby, child, and maiden, filling the house with sunshine, and the mother’s heart with love and happiness.

CHAPTEK II

The next week was a happy and a busy one for Lois and her mother. By the time the day of the college opening arrived their rooms were cozy and pretty with hangings, hooks, rugs, and pictures from home, and dainty frilled muslin at the windows. In one corner, Lois’s special corner, was the coveted divan piled high with sofa pillows, and on one end of the white fur rug in front of it stood the pretty tea table with its shining brass samovar .and delicate china.

There were no examinations for Lois to take. She had entered Classical on a certificate from her school, and so was saved the dreaded ordeal. She had not realized until she saw the anxious faces of the Literaries and Scientifics how much she had escaped.

The traditional “ Freshman rain ” was falling in a monotonous drizzle as the girls and their friends filled to overflowing the beautiful chapel. The college bell ceased tolling, and instantly the 16 sweet voices of eiglit hundred girls, clear, ringing sopranos and rich altos, accompanied by the low rolling bass of the organ rose in the chant for the day. Then the President read the one hundred and twenty-third Psalm — stirring, inspiring, comforting words, and in the prayer that followed he seemed to know every heart bowed before him, and presented its inmost desire in his petitions.

At the close of the prayer many of the new girls raised their heads, but quickly dropped them again as they saw the old ones remained bowed. Then softly the choir and the girls chanted, “ Our Father who art in heaven.”

Lois’s heart, made very tender by the beautiful devotional service, was thrilled with aspiration and resolve, and her mother’s went out in love and longing and prayer for the young life just starting out in untried paths.

The President’s address, with its kindly words of welcome to the old girls and the new, followed, and then came a thrilling moment. The first class girls were requested to remain after the chapel service, and as soon as the upper classes had filed out, the Greek Professor stepped to the front with a formidable roll of narrow white 2 paper. Yards upon yards of it there seemed to be as he shook it loose from the roll to begin, at the inner end. Every girl knew that her fate was inscribed on those sibylline leaves and in breathless silence they awaited the utterance of the oracle. There were audible sighs of relief as some uncertain candidate heard her name, and sometimes when an anxious listener found her letter of the alphabet finished and her name not read, there was a sudden blanching of the strained face, or quick-springing tears, or even an occasional irrepressible sob. It was a trying ordeal and the Professor, kind-hearted, jolly, and beloved of his pupils, tried to relieve the nervous strain by occasional witty comments that called forth a ready laugh from at least the first part of the alphabet where the tension was relaxed. But it was over at last, and in out-ofthe-way corners there were some harrowing scenes — a daughter throwing herself on her father’s neck and sobbing bitterly, “I can never go home. I am disgraced, disgraced ” — and the father, speechless and trembling for his child. White-faced girls with mothers almost as white, trying in vain to console them, and one irate parent from the rural districts loudly declaring that it was all favoritism. “ Gale don’t want any but rich city girls. Mirandy was head of her class to hum and I guess she knows as much as most girls.”

But it was a large and happy majority who began the work of the day, arranging studies for the coming term, meeting class teachers for the assigning of lessons, and making silent comments on and estimates of their classmates. Mrs. Darcy was almost as happy and busy as Lois, going about with her from one class-room to another, and helping her to decide on her electives. Lois was to take vocal music, that they had decided upon even if it involved the sacrifice of some little luxuries, for Lois’s best gift was a rich, sweet voice, and she was old enough now to begin its cultivation. So together they went over to Music Hall and met ‘the stately, golden-haired secretary of the Music school, and when Lois found herself really registered for vocal lessons under a distinguished teacher, she felt that one of the darling ambitions of her life was at last being realized. She had always sung like a bird, but an untaught bird. She had been young enough, her mother thought, to wait for the lessons, and all the time and money there had been to spare had been put upon the piano. She was quite trembling with happiness and perhaps awe when the secretary took her down and introduced her to Frau Yon Helfenstein, who sent her to the other side of the room and requested her to sing the scale for her. A rather faint and quavery scale, her mother thought, that gave but little idea of Lois’s full, rich voice, but the Frau Yon Helfenstein seemed to find something in it, for she ejaculated, “Gut! gut!” several times, as she had her sing it over and over.

“Ah, I will make a fine singer of your daughter, madam,” she said to Mrs. Darcy as the interview closed, and it would be hard to tell whose heart swelled highest at the words, the mother’s or the daughter’s.

That was a very happy first day at college, and the second was even more so, for at chapel the President announced that the Association for Christian Work would give a reception to the first class in the gymnasium that evening at seven. It was Lois’s introduction to the college dances, those unique entertainments peculiar to women’s colleges, but finding their highest development at Gale.

THE FKESHMAN FKOLIC

It was pretty thoroughly discussed at Mrs. Waters’s dinner table at noon.

“ What kind of a reception will it be, Mrs. Waters? It sounds kind of poky; do you think we will enjoy going?” asked a vivacious, short-haired brunette from Chicago.

“ It will be very informal,” replied Mrs. Waters. “ There will be a reception committee to introduce you to the old girls, and then a little dance.”

“ Dance ! The Association for Christian Work give us a dance!” (she made it rhyme with haunts), said a calm-eyed Boston Freshman.

“Oh! yes. The girls have nick-named it ‘ The Christian Dance.’ It is always the first event of the season, given to make the Freshmen feel at home.”

“And I call that good Christian work,” said Mrs. Darcy, “to help the Freshmen over the first homesickness.”

“ I am so glad there is to be dancing,” said the Chicago brunette, Miss Arden, looking across the table at Lois for sympathy.

“So am I. May I have a two-step with you ?” responded Lois, promptly.

‘ Oh ! won’t there be any men there ?” exclaimed Miss Arden, and her blank face was greeted with peals of laughter.

“Men !” said Miss Hewitt, a Sophomore, and therefore an authority on all college matters. “ Put aside the thought of men, Miss Arden, until you are a Junior. Juniors and Seniors may invite men to their dances, but nobody else.”

“ Then I don’t see how you can have any fun,” said Miss Arden, frankly.

“ Wait till you have been to a few of the college dances; you will find you can have just as nice a time without men as with them.”

Miss Arden looked incredulous, but Miss Doddridge, of Boston, gave her no chance to reply.

“ How about dressing when there are no men ; do we wear our smart frocks ?”

“ Not for this first one ; this is perfectly informal; any light, pretty dress will do. But just wait until the Sophomores give their reception to the Freshmen ; it’s awfully swell. Everbody wears their smartest gowns, and if they haven’t any smart enough, they have one made for the occasion.”

“ Do the Sophomores give us a reception, too? Oh! how lovely!” exclaimed Lois, delightedly.

“ Yes ; that’s one of the ways we Sophomores have of rushing you Freshmen,” responded Miss Hewitt, complacently. “And we think it is a far better way than cane fights and hazing.”

“ If only the men would learn a lesson from you, what a stride forward in the line of civilization it would be,” said Mrs. Darcy.

They were just rising from the table and Lois glanced across at Miss Arden.

“You haven’t given me my answer yet. Am I to have a two-step with you to-night ?”

“ Oh ! I beg your pardon,” said Miss Arden, hastily. “ The idea of no men was such a shock to me I forgot all about it. Of course, I shall be most happy, Miss Darcy, since I can’t have a man,” with a saucy grimace.

The moon was at its full, and Mrs. Darcy and Lois thought they had not often seen anything more beautiful than winding Elm Street, so heavily arched by the beautiful trees that gave it its name that only patches and deckings of the mellow light found their way to the sidewalk. The college buildings that by daylight had seemed a little plain and disappointing to Lois, who had expected so much, were transfigured. Their ivied walls in the soft light might well be gray old cloisters, and as they left the street and entered the campus, shut in by the outer quadrangle of buildings, Lois uttered an exclamation of delight. College Hall, Music Hall, Art Hall, and Science Hall stood dim and dark like sentinels on the outskirts ; but within the quadrangle every college house was ablaze with lights. Harvey and Horton and Washington and Wallace and Jefferson and Hamilton and Morgan, and old Dana, while high over the centre swung the silver lamp of the full moon, drenching with its shining flood, trees and grass, dim sentinel halls and sparkling houses.

They had stopped involuntarily to take in the full beauty of the picture, and now, as they went on, Lois said :

“You know, mamma, how disappointed we felt about the campus of Gale when we first saw it. It seemed such a pity the college could not have been built where it would have had more room. But I believe I am beginning to like this, there is such a classic air about it. It always reminds me of the Canterbury School in ‘ David Copper field,’ and ‘ the close ’ where good old Dr. Strong used to take his walks, I never come into the campus but I feel like calling it ‘ the close/ ”

“ Now that is strange,” said her mother. “ I have caught myself calling it ‘ the close ’ several times. It is because it is so shut in, I suppose. It wouldn’t be very difficult in this light to fancy these were cloistered walls. But see ; we are away behind Mrs. Waters and the girls. We won’t either of us know what to do when we get to the gymnasium.”

Their party was waiting for them at the gymnasium door, and the girls seized on Lois and carried her off with them to be duly tagged, with their respective names written on a piece of white paper. And then some waiting Sophomores took them in charge, and, thanks to the tags, called them at once by name and supplied them with partners, also tagged, for the first dance.

In the meantime, Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Waters had gone in another direction, to the galleries, where they could look down on the gay scene. It was a warm evening, and most of the girls were in their organdies and lawns and muslins. Four hundred girls moved rhythmically to the inspiring strains of “ Auf Wiedersehen,” and not a black coat among them to mar the soft blending of the flower-like hues. It was a novel and a beautiful sight, and Mrs. Darcy felt a little thrill of gratified vanity when, among so many beautiful girls beautifully dressed, none looked lovelier than Lois in her pretty gown of pale-green organdie, flowered with white carnations and trimmed with dainty green ribbons and soft lace.

For Lois it was an occasion of unqualified delight. Just to be dancing was happiness enough. Her little feet would have found it hard work to keep still, with such instant sympathy did they respond to the first strains of a waltz, or a deux temps ; but it was not necessary to fetter them. There were partners in abundance, always provided for her by some polite and attentive Sophomore, and the floor was like glass ; what more could she want ?

In the mazes of a waltz, she met Miss Arden. “ How are you getting on without any men ?” asked Lois.

“ Oh ! isn’t it lovely ?” said the little brunette, inconsequently, her eyes shining and her cheeks glowing. But that was all she saw of Miss Arden until time to go home. The Sophomores kept them both so thoroughly supplied with partners there was no chance for their two-step.

Lois was in the midst of a delightful dance with a partner who exactly suited her step, when they were rudely interrupted — or they thought it rude — by some one coming to tell them the lights would be out in a few minutes, and the “ Freshman Frolic ” was over. As they entered their pretty sitting-room, Lois was still rehearsing the delights of the evening to her mother; it had been her theme all the way home.

“ I never had a better time in my life, mamma, and see, it is only just ten o’clock.”

“ Yes, that is one of the nice things about it. It is such a sensible way for girls to enjoy themselves— go at seven and home before ten. No late suppers, no wall-flowers, and no men ; just a good time among themselves. Did you know, Lois, that you still have your tag on ?”

“ Oh yes ! I kept it on purpose. That is for my memory book — my sole souvenir of the ‘ Freshman Frolic/ ”

Chapter III The Little Eift

Those early days of college life were happy ones to Lois and her mother, and they often recalled them in darker hours as among the very happiest in their lives. Every morning Mrs. Darcy walked down to the college with Lois, “ for a constitutional,” she said, but really that she might have the little walk and talk with her darling through the beautiful golden September mornings ; and every day Lois came back with such a budget of college gossip for the mother at home. Everything was so new and interesting to the eager girl, while her mother was interested in anything that concerned Lois even in the remotest way. Sometimes it was a new acquaintance she had made among her classmates. Or an upper-class girl had introduced herself and said she was coming to call; a courtesy which Lois especially appreciated, for she had had an idea that Juniors and Seniors, if they did not actually look down 28 on Freshmen, at least ignored them. Sometimes it was an invitation to a dance at one of the college houses, or some funny incident of the class-room, or a complimentary speech she had overheard about herself. Once it was an invitation to dinner with a Senior at the Hamilton House and chocolate afterward in the Senior’s room, with some of the girls invited in to drink it with her. Indeed the invitations came so fast to suppers, dinners, spreads, and dances that Mrs. Darcy began to fear that the social part of college life was in danger of overshadowing the studies, but Lois assured her that it was not, and she had such confidence in her daughter’s ambition and conscientiousness that she did not have any great fears.

“ Well, mamma,” said Lois one day, as she came into the sunny little sitting-room and laid down her pile of books, “ somebody said I was a ‘ prod ’ in geometry to-day.”

“ A prod ; what is a prod, Lois ?”

Lois laughed at her mother’s anxious countenance.

“ Don’t be alarmed, mamma dear, it isn’t anything very bad. It’s short for prodigy, and when they think a girl is a little smarter than ordinary they call her a ‘ prod.’ I don’t think I am one, but I asked Miss Cutting some questions in class this morning, and the girl next to me whispered, ‘ My ! what a prod you are ! How do you think of all those things ?’ ”

“ Oh ! that is it, is it ? Well, I don’t care how much they call you a 4 prod.’ That is exactly what I want you to be.”

“ Oh ! you vain mamma ! I wonder if it would turn your head completely if I should tell you of a compliment I had from my Latin professor this morning.”

“ Tell me, dear ; I promise to try to be humble. ”

“ You know I have told you before how likely he is to continually interrupt you when you are translating, and make you feel as if you had made such a poor recitation. This morning, luckily for me, when he called on me to recite, he was at one end of the room and his book on his desk at the other. So I plunged in and read straight through the paragraph, hardly stopping for breath, and had translated quite a long and difficult passage before he had had time to more than get his book and find the place. But he is the smartest man I ever saw, if he does sometimes make us appear like dunces. He knows his Livy by heart, text and all, and when I finished, he said :

“ ‘ That’s right, Miss Darcy, that’s right, very good,’ and even after he had called on some one else, he came back to me and said,

“ ‘ That was very good indeed, Miss Darcy.’ Now do you think your daughter is neglecting her studies for society ?”

Her mother smiled. “ And do you think I am the only one in danger of having her head turned ?”

“ Oh ! you don’t really think I am vain, do you, mamma? 'I tell you these things because I think you like to hear them, but I wouldn’t tell them to anybody else. As to the girl calling me a 4 prod,’ that doesn’t amount to anything. I should never think of it again. I was pleased to have my professor compliment me. I admire him greatly, and I have come to the conclusion that the reason I did not quite understand his method of teaching at first was because it is more scholarly than I have been accustomed to in a preparatory school. It is rather unusual for him to be complimentary, and it only made me feel all the more anxious

HER COLLEGE RAYS to keep his good opinion if I had won it. But if you think it sounds vain in me to be repeating such a thing, I never will again.”