Betty Wales decides

Pre-Christmas excitements and Christmas gaieties were alike things of the past. Harding was bleak and snow-bound in the clutches of a real old-fashioned New England January. And the college cynics declared gloomily that the cold and forbidding weather was a symbol of cold and unforgiving faculty hearts.

“There are too many of us,” sighed Straight, who was more worried than she cared to admit over her record in junior argument. “Prexy thinks this college is getting too big. Maybe it is, but can’t they wait till next year to have it get smaller? It’s rather hard on us, I think, to try to crowd us out, just because they calmly let in such a huge mob of freshmen.”

“Well, the whole huge mob wanted to come and passed its exams all right,” argued Fluffy. “So how could it be lawfully kept out? But imagine the freshmen’s states of mind about now, poor things, with all these horrid rumors flying around. Why, if I were a this year’s freshman I believe I should give up the game and end my days in a boarding-school.”

“You would!” sniffed Straight. “You’re a nice one to sympathize with frightened freshies. You never got warned in your life!”

“Well, just the same I’ve been scared times enough,” demurred Fluffy. “Being scared hasn’t anything to do with a good reason for being scared, specially not for freshmen.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Straight reflectively. “I’ve seen several prods act speechless with fright, but I always thought it indicated that they weren’t genuine prods at all,—only clever bluffers.”

“You mean me for one, I suppose,” said Fluffy cheerfully. “Now just to show you that I’m a really-truly prod and no bluffer, I’ll take you home and tell you about a priori argument. And then maybe you’ll have a little more respect for the high quality of my brains.”

Montana Marie O’Toole shared keenly in the prevalent mood of depression. Her radiant smile was dimmed; her cheerful interest in each and every aspect of college life waned. She concentrated her mind on her work so violently that she grew pale and thin under the strain. Betty and the Concentrating Influence united in protests against the wanton sacrifice of so much youth and beauty; but Montana Marie stood firm.

“It’s now or never for little me. I’m bright enough to see that far in front of me,” she told them with forced gaiety. “I guess I can better afford to lose a little sleep and exercise than I can to risk failing in these awful mid-years.”

A little tremor of fright and nervous dread shook Miss O’Toole’s fine shoulders, and Betty, feeling that she had been pushing her protégée much too hard, took her out for a walk and a merry dinner at the Tally-ho, at which kind-hearted Fluffy poohed at mid-year terrors, Madeline Ayres led Marie on to reminisce of dear old Paree, Babbie Hildreth won her heart by asking advice about bridesmaids’ dresses, and the mirth of the company in general left her utterly forgetful of math., Latin prose, and English One, of concentration, mid-years, and the strenuous life of a conditioned freshman.

“I’ve had a perfectly grand time,” she told Betty, as they parted in the corridor at Morton Hall. “Gracious, but I do love a good time. I’d like to do nothing but enjoy myself for one solid week. I shan’t work so hard after mid-years are over—if I’m not over then too.” Marie’s laugh at her own joke was rather spiritless, and her expression grew suddenly serious. For mid-years would not be over for another two weeks, and Mrs. Hinsdale’s long round of visits had resulted disastrously to progress in Latin prose. Connie could not help with that, but she was splendid about the originals in solid geometry.

“If I owned a school,” Marie told her gratefully, “I’d hire you and Mrs. Hinsdale and Miss Mason, and I guess Miss Adams, to teach there. Only of course Miss Adams wouldn’t leave Harding, and Mrs. Hinsdale couldn’t leave her husband, and Miss Mason is going to Germany next year to study. But you’d come, wouldn’t you? Only of course I don’t own a school, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.”

“I’m just as much obliged for your offer,” Connie told her brightly. “Now you’d better go right to bed and get well rested. It’s less than a week before you’ll have to begin to cram.”

“What in the world do you mean by cram?” inquired Marie blankly.

Connie explained, and Marie gave a despairing sigh. “Blanket your windows, or get a special permit from the matron, drink coffee, tie a wet towel around your head, and study till three A. M.,” she repeated aghast. “Well, I guess I will go right to bed. Just the thought of this cramming prospect makes me tired. Is it compulsory?”

Connie explained the official disapproval of cramming, and then quoted the famous rhyme about the luckless wight who

“I see,” said Montana Marie briefly. The next morning she went down-town and bought a copper coffee-maker. It matched her chafing-dish, added greatly to the elegance of her tea-table, and was the envy of every Morton Hallite. Montana Marie listened politely to the popular chorus of admiration, and said nothing about the real reasons which had actuated her extravagant purchase.

Betty Wales knew nothing about the coffee-maker, or Connie’s ideas on cramming; but she was quite as worried about her protégée’s prospects as Montana Marie could possibly be herself.

“The poor thing is perfectly sure she’s going to flunk,” she told the B. C. A.’s at a special tea-drinking called by Mary to discuss the impending crisis.

“Oh, well, so is every freshman sure she’ll flunk,” condoled Babbie Hildreth easily, “and most sophomores.”

Betty nodded. “Of course. The difference is that the rest won’t flunk, except a few who aren’t expecting to, and Marie will, I guess, from all that I hear.”

The acting tutors exchanged surreptitious glances, and reluctantly agreed that Betty was right.

“Has she really lost her nerve—given up the ship?” asked Madeline thoughtfully.

“Oh, no,” Betty told her, “she’s trying harder than ever. She’s determined to pass.”

“She’s working too hard, probably,” said Mary thoughtfully. “She really knows a good average amount about Latin prose.”

“Her themes are fair now,” put in Madeline.

“She knows heaps more about freshman lit. than I ever did,” acknowledged Helen Adams.

“When she isn’t nervous about it she can reason out her geometry pretty well,” Christy testified. “She’s naturally quite logical.”

“Then,” said Babbie Hildreth, looking sternly at the official tutors, “if you’ve done your duty, as you imply that you have, and she’s fairly well up in everything, why in the world are you so pessimistic about her exams?”

Mary answered for them all. “She is all right enough when she’s only reciting to us, or even in regular class work. But she realizes that the faculty are going to be extra-fussy with her, because of her conditions and the general situation. She never passed a formal exam in her life till she came here last year——”

“And then she flunked more than she passed,” put in Madeline flippantly.

“She thinks, like all little freshmen, that everything depends on mid-years, and she’ll get nervous and excited, and write utter nonsense,” ended Mary, disregarding the interruption.

“Give her soothing syrup,” suggested Madeline, who refused to take Montana Marie’s troubles seriously. Babbie frowned at her, and then, leaning forward on one elbow, she frowned at space, thinking very hard indeed about the far-away days when she was the prettiest, the idlest, the most reckless, and the cleverest of the famous “B” trio, and had mid-years of her own and Bob’s and Babe’s to worry about, and plan to scrape through somehow, for the honor of the B’s and the “finest class” of 19—. Everybody else was thinking, too, but Babbie was the first to have an articulate idea.

“Why, Babe used to be just that way,” she said in a surprised tone. “If she crammed a lot and got to thinking how terrible mid-years are, why, she couldn’t do anything. And Bob was just the opposite—never paid attention in class, just dawdled along, and then sat up all night with the text-book for the course and some prod’s note-book that she’d borrowed, and next day she could answer anything. After mid-years the faculty always thought they’d misjudged Bob.” Babbie giggled cheerfully. “Babe really knew heaps more. We used to have such times persuading her to frivol all mid-year week.”

“How’d you do it?” asked Madeline idly.

“Pretended to frivol ourselves. Did frivol some to get her started. Got up anti-cram movements. Insinuated that we weren’t going to sit up a single night that year. Oh, it was an awful bother getting Bob a chance to grind and keeping Babe from grinding and tending up to things a little myself,” ended Babbie with a reminiscent sigh.

“Well, it’s lucky you had such a lot of practice,” Mary Brooks Hinsdale told her sweetly, “and that you came back here this week to see about the big fireplace for the Robert Thayers’ library. Because you are qualified to act, and are hereby elected to act, as chairman of the committee on the mid-year madness of Montana Marie O’Toole. Betty, the assistant tutors, and everybody else who is needed to divert her mind, are hereby elected to the committee. We’ll get that child through yet, Betty Wales; so please don’t look so discouraged.”

Betty laughed. “I was only thinking what a stupid I am, not to have planned all this long ago myself. Of course you’ll get her through! Why, I believe you could get a broomstick doll through mid-years.”

“We are a clever lot,” agreed Madeline complacently. “Well, I must go. Plan the campaign, Babbie, assign parts, and we’ll come in strong at the finish. And the finish shall not involve the finish of Montana Marie. Nay, it must not,” she went on in melodramatic tones. “Montana Marie is a treasure. To bury her in her native state or to return her to dear distant Paree would be to deprive the Harding firmament of its brightest star—and me of my most treasured understudy for a heroine.”

“There she goes again on her Literary Career,” cut in Mary scornfully. “Come home with me for dinner, Babbie, and make plans for the great campaign. I almost promised George to go and call on his new assistant this evening, but I, for one, am capable of unselfish renunciation. And the moral of that,”—Mary fastened her furs and linked arms with the submissive Babbie,—“is: when the new assistant is a frump, George really shouldn’t ask me to call on her. Good-bye, Betty. If you think best, you might relieve Prexy’s mind about his over-conditioned freshman. Not knowing us as well as you do, he may be getting quite desperate.”

The thought of mid-year week had been a nightmare to Montana Marie. Studying every minute, sitting up half the night, worrying, hurrying, spending your time on the questions you weren’t asked and forgetting the answers to the ones you were—that, in brief, had been her notion of the fatal occasion. But a few days before the ordeal she began to get some new ideas. Betty called her into her cozy room at the Morton to say encouraging things about the effort she was making and to advise her not to overwork. Pretty Babbie Hildreth came to call, said more flattering things about Marie’s valuable opinions of bridesmaids’ dresses, and hoped, very casually, that she wasn’t planning to cram; it was just a silly freshman trick, and always did more harm than good. Madeline Ayres dragged Marie off to a matinée at the Junction. Helen Adams took her for a walk at the hour appointed for an English lesson.

“And we talked all the way about men,” Marie told Connie afterward. “Imagine Miss Adams getting on to that subject! She knows quite a lot about it, too. I suppose she takes her ideas out of Shakespeare and Thackeray and Scott and the rest of the classics. I’ve found some of them right here in ‘Much Ado about Nothing.’ I never thought of finding useful ideas in Shakespeare on a real practical subject like men.”

When mid-year week was actually upon her, Montana Marie had no time to grow nervous, or frightened or discouraged, or to overwork. The B. C. A.’s left her mornings and early afternoons undisturbed, save for friendly offers of help from the tutors. But about four there was always some fun afoot. A walk, a skating or snow-shoeing party, a sleigh-ride in Mary’s trim cutter,—then a merry dinner at the Tally-ho or the Belden, and after that you were much too sleepy to sit up and study. So Connie and the new coffee-maker retired behind a screen, and Montana Marie slept the dreamless sleep of those who have had their fill of fresh air.

The first examination she pronounced “pretty fierce.” The next “wasn’t bad.” English, she declared, she really enjoyed.

“And what do you think,” she told Connie in great excitement, “I got in Shakespeare’s ideas about men. I chose it for my theme subject. I may not know much about Shakespeare, but I know a lot about men. I shouldn’t be surprised if that theme made a hit.”

It did. The freshman English teacher showed it to Miss Raymond, and Miss Raymond read it to a senior theme-class as an example of the value of having something to say before you tried to say it.

And so Montana Marie O’Toole passed through the ordeal of mid-years unscathed save for a low-grade or two.

“And what is a low-grade or two?” inquired Babbie scornfully. “Even prods get those.”

“I’ve learned a lot this last week,” Montana Marie informed Betty gratefully. “I’ve learned to do an outer edge on the ice, and to skee—if it isn’t too much of a hill. And I’ve learned what it means to really concentrate your mind. I thought before that it meant to work all the time, just as hard as you can. But it doesn’t. It means to work like anything till you’re tired, and then play like anything till you’re rested. Now that’s my style. Me for concentration. Concentration for mine,” ended Montana Marie, whose smile had recently got back all its former brilliant radiance.