Betty Wales on the campus

When Betty first unfolded what Will flippantly called the Morton-Prexy Proposition to the family circle, the “if” loomed very large indeed on mother’s face and larger still on Dorothy’s.

It would be too much for Betty, mother said. “And I don’t want my little girl to get tired and dragged-out and old before she has to. There was some reason in her trying to earn money in her own way last year, but now there isn’t the least sense in plunging into this project, just when the tea-shop is so nicely started and she has won the right to an easy time.”

“But, mother dear,” Betty interposed, “an easy time isn’t the chief thing in life.”

“Not exactly a cause worth living for, is it, child?” laughed father. “And being cook to the Wales family in the intervals when they happen to have a kitchen never did seem to satisfy your lofty aspirations.”

“Yes, it does, father,” declared Betty soberly, “but you’re going to board again this winter, so I can’t be cook much longer. It’s just a question of where I’m needed most. That sounds dreadfully conceited, but it really isn’t.”

So father laughed, and said that he and mother would “talk it over,” whereat Will winked wickedly at Betty in a way that meant, “Everything’s settled your way, then,” and hustled her off to dress for a tennis match, in which the skill of the Wales family was to be pitted against that of the Bensons. And just as the Wales family had won two sets out of a hard-fought three, father was saying diplomatically to mother on the piazza, “Well, dear, I think you’re right as usual; we ought to let her go and try herself out. It’s not many parents whose daughters are sought for to fill positions of such trust and responsibility.”

“I hope she won’t have to learn to run a typewriter like a regular secretary,” sighed mother, who had never in the world meant to let herself be coaxed, by father’s adroit methods, into approving or even permitting another of those “dreadful modern departures” that her old-school training and conservative temper united to disapprove.

Father smiled at her indulgently. “If girls learned to write a copper-plate hand nowadays as they did when you were young, we shouldn’t be so dependent on typewriters. Betty’s scrawl is no worse than the rest. Well, now that this matter is settled and off our minds, let’s walk out to the big bluff before dark.”

So the discussion was closed, the “if” dwindled to nothingness once more, and two weeks after Jim Watson had assisted Mr. Morton to see Betty off in a fashion befitting that gentleman’s idea of her importance, he was at the Harding station to meet her—quite without assistance.

“Was I the last straw?” he inquired gaily, as they walked down the long platform toward Main Street.

“The last straw?” repeated Betty absently. She was wondering whether the Student’s Aid seniors would expect her to help meet the freshmen at their trains.

“Well, the last figure in the column that you added up in order to estimate the possibilities of Harding as a mission field,” amended Jim. “Because if I helped to turn the scales in favor of your coming here I can at last consider myself a useful member of society.”

“Now don’t be absurd, Jim,” Betty ordered sternly. “Whatever else you do, I’m sure you’ll never succeed in being a brilliant object of charity.”

“Unappreciated, as usual,” sighed Jim. “Nevertheless I invite you to have an ice at Cuyler’s. It’s going to be very awkward, Betty—your being proprietress of the Tally-ho. I can never ask you to feed there.”

“But you can ask all the pretty girls I’m going to introduce you to,” Betty suggested, but Jim only shrugged his shoulders sceptically.

“Pretty girls are all right,” he said, “but I already know as many girls here as I can manage—or I shall when they all arrive. Don’t forget that I’m to help you meet Miss Helen Chase Adams to-night, and Miss Morrison to-morrow, and Miss Ayres whenever she telegraphs.”

“You mustn’t neglect your work,” Betty warned him.

“Shan’t,” Jim assured her. “I’ve merely arranged it so I can meet all Eleanor’s friends’ trains. There’s everything in arrangement. I generally begin my arduous duties at nine, but to-morrow seven o’clock shall see me up and at ’em—meaning the carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, sewing-machine agents, and all the rest of my menials.”

“With all the extra men that Mr. Morton had sent up, can’t you possibly get through before Christmas?” demanded Betty eagerly.

“I can’t say yet,” Jim told her. “Is it so long to wait for your sewing-machines and things?”

“Perfect ages!”

Jim frowned. Betty didn’t mean to be unkind, but any one else, he reflected sadly, would have considered the personal side of the matter. Betty was a jolly girl, but all she really cared for was this confounded philanthropic job—and her tea-shop, maybe. She expected a fellow to be the same—all wrapped up in his job.

Madeline arrived, according to custom, ten minutes before her telegram, and swung up the Tally-ho steps to the lilting tune of her famous song, “Back to the College Again.”

“Hello, Betty! Hello, Emily! Hello, Nora and Bridget! I say, but isn’t this Improved Version of the Tally-ho almost too grand? No, I didn’t write. I couldn’t; I didn’t decide in time. I had a special article on fresh air children to write up for a friend of Dick’s, and a Woman’s Page for the ‘Leader,’ because the person who does it usually, known to Newspaper Row as Madam Bon Ton, has gone on a vacation to Atlantic City. But I sat up all last night out at Bob’s, listening to her merry tales and writing them down, and then pinching her awake to tell me more whenever I ran out of material. And I did the Woman’s Page on the train coming up here. We ought to have a real celebration for me after I’ve worked so hard as all that just to come.”

“You go ahead and plan one and we’ll have it,” Betty promised recklessly.

Madeline nodded, and rushed on to something else. “Is Rachel really going to teach Zoo, and is Helen Chase Adams going to adorn the English department? Christy wrote me about her appointment for History. Why, Betty, there’ll be a regular Harding colony of the finest class this year. You round them all up for tea to-morrow, and I’ll have the celebration ready. Never fear about that!”

“You want Mary Brooks Hinsdale, of course,” Betty suggested.

Madeline nodded. “All the old bunch, but nobody who’s still in college. It’s to be strictly a B. C. A. party, tell them.”

“Madeline,” demanded Emily sternly, “do you know what that stands for, or are you going to think something up later?”

Madeline grinned placidly. “Dearest girl, as Madam Bon Ton calls all her fair correspondents, never so far forget your breeding as to give way to idle curiosity. It tends to create wrinkles. And speaking of wrinkles, do you suppose Georgia will murder or otherwise dispose of her new roommate and take me in for the night?”

They were all there the next afternoon. Little Helen Chase Adams was just as prim and demure as ever, but the great honor that had come to her had put a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and added a comical touch of confidence to her manner. Rachel’s air of quiet dignity that the head of her department approved of only made the funny stories she told of her first experiences as a “faculty” all the funnier. Christy was her old, serene, dependable self. Mary, in a very becoming new suit, smiled her “beamish” smile at everybody, and argued violently with Madeline about the relative importance of being a “small” faculty or a “big” faculty’s wife.

“George Garrison Hinsdale is a genius, and he says he couldn’t live without me,” declared Mary modestly but firmly. Then she smiled again at the obvious humor of George Garrison Hinsdale’s remark. “Of course he did live without me until he discovered me.”

“We couldn’t live without you either, Mary dear,” Rachel assured her.

“No indeed we couldn’t, you Perfect Patron,” added Madeline. “And that reminds me that if you don’t hustle around and do something nice for the Tally-ho right away, you’ll be expelled from the society.”

“There’s no rule about how often you have to do things,” declared Mary indignantly, “and anyway I can’t be expelled when I’m the only member. It’s too utterly absurd.”

“Is the Perfect Patrons a society?” demanded Christy eagerly. “Can’t we join? It’s not limited to faculty’s wives, is it?”

“Rules for the Perfect Patron,” chanted Madeline impressively. “Rule one: Only the prettiest and best-dressed faculty wife existing at Harding is eligible. Rule two: In estimating Perfection patronizing the firm is counted against patronizing the menu. That’s where little Mary always meets her Waterloo.”

“I do not, and anyway those rules aren’t half so funny as the real ones that you made up first,” interpolated Mary sweetly.

“Well, I’ve forgotten the real ones. Anyway, we don’t need Perfect Patrons nowadays as much as we did when we were young and poor, instead of prosperous and almost too elegant. So suppose we attend to the organization of the B. C. A.’s.”

“Is that a society, too?” demanded Helen the practical.

“No, it’s a cult,” explained Madeline curtly.

“What’s a cult?”

“What does it stand for?”

“We’re all ‘Merry Hearts.’ What’s the use of any more clubs?”

Madeline met the avalanche of questions calmly.

“A cult is a highly exclusive club—nothing vulgar and common about a cult, like the Perfect Patrons’ Society, with its crowded membership list. As for the B. C. A. part, you can take a turn at guessing that. If any one gets it right we shall know that it’s too easy and that we’d better change to Greek letters or something. When you’ve guessed what it’s the cult of, of course you’ll understand the object of organizing it.”

“Very lucid indeed,” said Christy solemnly.

“Don’t try your patronizing faculty airs on me,” Madeline warned her. “I may say in passing that in my humble opinion no faculty should be caught belonging to a nice frivolous affair like the ‘Merry Hearts.’ A kindly desire not to exclude our faculty friends of 19— from our councils was of course my chief object in promoting the more dignified cult of the B. C. A.’s.”

“B. C. A.—Betty Can’t Argue.” Mary, who had been lost in thought, burst out with her solution. “She can’t, you know. She always smiles and says, ‘I don’t know why I think so, but I do.’”

“Beans Cooked Admirably,” suggested Emily. “Then the obvious entertainment would be Saturday suppers à la Boston.”

“Butter Costs Awfully,” amended Christy. “Then the obvious procedure would be to open a savings account.”

“Better Come Again,” was Rachel’s contribution. “That sounds nice and sociable and Madelineish.”

“Thanks for the compliment. You’re getting the least little speck of a bit warm,” Madeline told her encouragingly.

“Brilliant Collegians’ Association,” interposed Betty eagerly. “That must be right, because you’re all brilliant but me, and I’m the exception that proves it. Have I guessed, Madeline?”

Madeline shook her head. “Certainly not. Brilliance should be seen, not heard, Betty, my child. Besides, according to my well-known theory of names, a good one should bring out subtle, unsuspected qualities. That’s why editors get so excited, and even annoyed, about the titles of my stories; they aren’t generally subtle enough themselves to get my subtle points.”

“Well, I may say that I sympathize with the editors,” declared Mary feelingly. “Hurry and give a guess, Helen Chase, and then maybe she’ll tell us.”

“Bromides Can’t Attend,” said Helen timidly. “I suppose that’s wrong too.”

“Wildly,” Madeline assured her.

“And also senseless, I should say,” added Mary. “What in the world are Bromides?”

“People who ask foolish questions,” explained Christy, “like that one you’ve just propounded. The others are Sulphites. Get the book from Helen, who had it presented to her to read on the train, and then you’ll know all about it. Now, Madeline, tell us quick.”

Madeline shrugged her shoulders and stirred her tea with a provoking air of leisureliness. “It’s nothing to get excited about. Really, after all your ingenious guesses, the humble reality sounds very tame and obvious. We are the B. C. A.’s—the Back-to-the-College Again’s. It sounds simple, but like all my titles it involves deep subtleties. Why are we, of all the 19—’s who would give their best hats to be here, ‘elected’ to honor Harding with our presence? What have we in common? The answer is of course the sign of the cult and the mark of eligibility. It’s rather late to-day, so probably we’d better postpone the discussion until the next weekly tea-drinking.”

“Oh, do we have weekly tea-drinkings?” asked Christy. “Goodie! now tell our fortunes, Madeline.”

“Yes, that’s a lot more fun than a silly old discussion,” said Betty, holding out her cup.

“Wait a minute, Betty,” interrupted the methodical Rachel. “She hasn’t told us the object of the cult yet.”

Madeline swept the circle with a despairing glance. “As if perfectly good tea and talking about that ever-interesting subject, Ourselves, wasn’t ‘object’ enough for anybody. But you can have an ‘object’ if you like. I don’t mind, only you know I always did refuse to get excited over objects and causes and all that sort of thing.” Madeline reached for Betty’s cup, and promptly discovered a tall, fair-haired “suitor” in the bottom of it. “He has an object,” she declared. “Can you guess what it is? It’s Betty Wales.”

“Well, I’m sure Betty’s a worthy object for any suitor or any cult,” Rachel declared. “If you don’t believe it, watch her blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” Betty defended herself vigorously. “I’m only thinking—thinking how nice it would be if the B.C.A.’s would take me for an object. I shall need lots of help and advice, and maybe other things, and I shall make you give them to me anyway, so you’d better elect me to be your object, and then you won’t mind so much.”

“I shall be much relieved, for my part,” declared Madeline. “An object with yellow curls——”

“And a dimple,” put in Mary.

“Isn’t likely to be very much of a bore,” Madeline finished, and turned her attention to tea-grounds again, discovering so many suitors, European trips, and splendid presents, that Christy, who was house teacher at the Westcott, disgraced herself by being late to dinner. As for Mary Brooks Hinsdale, in the excitement of recounting it all to her husband, she utterly forgot that she had promised to chaperon the Westcott House dance and had to be sent for by an irate and anxious committee, who, however, forgave her everything when she arrived in her most becoming pink evening gown, declaring fervently that she should be heart-broken if she couldn’t dance every single number.