Betty Wales on the campus

One lovely afternoon in late October, Jim Watson, arrayed in very correct riding clothes, poked his head gingerly into Betty’s office, and having thus made quite sure that she was alone, stepped briskly inside and stood smiling quizzically down at her over the top of her big desk.

“What’s the joke to-day?” Betty inquired, smiling frankly back at him.

“Same old joke,” said Jim, leaning his elbow comfortably on a pile of pamphlets. “Small person with a generally frivolous appearance, sitting at the biggest roller-top desk on the market, flanked on the right by a filing cabinet and on the left by a typewriter. Vast correspondence strewn over desk. Brow of small person puckered in deep thought. Dimple of small——”

“That’s quite enough,” interrupted Betty severely. “I am not a joke, except to really frivolous persons like you, and I refuse to have my time wasted listening to such nonsense. Where’s Eleanor?”

Jim sighed deeply. “Where is Eleanor, indeed? Paying calls, known as ‘friendly visits,’ on the families of her Terrible Ten—her young Italians. I thought she came up here to comfort and amuse my leisure hours, but that’s certainly not what she’s staying on for. Is this your day for office hours?”

“No-o,” Betty admitted doubtfully, “but I thought I’d stay and——”

“Please think again,” Jim coaxed in his most beguiling fashion. “It’s a gorgeous afternoon. Please come for a ride.”

“But——”

“I’ve engaged Hartman’s best horses—the big bay for me and the little black Queen, that you Harding girls are so crazy about, for you.”

“I thought Virginia Day had Queen every afternoon.”

“Not when I want her. I’m a privileged person at Hartman’s, because I rode every day last summer.”

“Well, but you see——”

“If you come I’ll tell you a grand secret.”

“About Morton Hall?” demanded Betty eagerly.

“No fair guessing. Will you come?”

Betty looked at him hard, and then out the window at the campus, sparkling in the autumn sunshine. “Oh, Jim, yes! I can’t resist such a very nice party. How soon can we start?”

“How soon can you be ready?”

In a flash Betty had snapped down the lid of the absurdly big desk, closed the filing cabinet, adjusted the typewriter top, and picked up a book and her keys. “In ten minutes,” she said, bundling Jim out ahead of her and locking the door. “If you should have to wait, you can be finding me a switch for a riding-crop. Mine’s broken. See you in ten minutes.” And she was off down the hill to change her dress.

Jim watched her lithe little figure out of sight, and then strode off to get the horses, whistling loudly. It was a triumph, even with the assistance of Queen and the promise of a secret, to have lured Betty Wales from her official duties for a whole long, sunshiny afternoon.

They galloped out of town at a pace to scandalize the sedate dwellers on Elm Street. Where the road passed the Golf Club, under the flickering shade of tall oaks, Betty drew up to a walk and leaned forward to pat Queen’s glossy neck.

“That was perfectly splendid, Jim,” she declared. “Doesn’t it make you wish you were a bird?”

“Makes me think I’m a bird when I go cross-country out in Colorado, over a meadow of soft, springy turf, and then splash through a brook, and out into the first real shade I’ve seen for a week, maybe. Makes me wish I was a cow-puncher when I think of it now.”

“Then you couldn’t be the distinguished architect of Morton Hall,” Betty reminded him gaily. “Tell me the grand secret, Jim.”

Jim looked disappointed. He had hoped she would forget about the secret. “Oh, it’s not so much,” he said. “Only if your august Highness wishes to eat her Thanksgiving dinner in Morton Hall, Morton Hall will be ready for her.”

“Jim! How splendid! Are you perfectly sure?”

Jim nodded grimly. “I’ve slaved and I’ve made the men slave, and we didn’t do it for the peppery Mr. Morton, either. We did it for you, because you seemed to think a few days would make such a big difference. Well, they do—in a way, of course.”

“How do you mean?” asked Betty innocently.

“I mean,” declared Jim earnestly, “that I’m a self-sacrificing person, if ever there was one. I’ve deliberately cut myself out of days and weeks of good times here in Harding——”

“Oh, Jim!” Betty flashed him a merry smile. “Please don’t be silly. You know you’re fond of your work and anxious to go where it takes you, and just puffed up with pride to think that you’ve beaten the time limit your firm had set. Why, Jim, Thanksgiving is only four weeks off!”

“I know it,” gloomily.

“And the list of Morton Hall girls isn’t half made out. The matron will manage the moving-in, I suppose—arranging furniture and engaging maids, and all. When can the moving-in begin, Jim?”

“Saturday before Thanksgiving,” still gloomily.

“We must have a grand housewarming,” Betty declared. “The B.C.A.’s have decided on that already, but of course Madeline couldn’t have an inspiration till she knew the date, so she could think of something appropriate. A Thanksgiving housewarming will certainly be appropriate for that house. You’ll stay for it, won’t you, Jim?”

“Thanks,” darkly.

Betty considered, frowning absently. “If it’s a costume party,—and most of Madeline’s nicest ideas are—why, of course, you probably can’t come. That will be a perfect shame, after the way you’ve worked. We’ll have to have another special housewarming for you and Mr. Morton.”

“Thanks awfully.”

Jim’s horse seemed to be giving him a great deal of trouble. It had edged to the extreme other side of the road and was curveting and plunging nervously. Betty turned Queen to the other side after him.

“What’s the matter with Ginger?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Jim assured her coldly. “He’s just wondering whether this is a real ride or only a political procession.”

Betty laughed and started Queen into a canter. “Why didn’t you say you were tired of walking, silly?” she demanded. Then suddenly she had an idea. “Of course you know I shall miss you, Jim,” she said. “We’re too good friends to bother with saying things like that, when we both know them.”

“Just as you say about that,” said Jim with a sudden return of his smile. “But candidly now, Betty, aren’t you too busy to miss people much?”

“When I’m too busy to have friends,” Betty told him earnestly, “I shall just stop being busy. Life wouldn’t be worth living without friends.”

“But you’ve got such a lot, haven’t you?” Jim asked, idly flicking at the scarlet sumach leaves with his crop. They were walking again now.

“Any college girl has a lot, and any college man. Haven’t you?”

Jim nodded. “I was just thinking that one, more or less——”

“Jim!” Betty’s tone was highly indignant. “You’re fishing! But you act so blue to-day, and you’ve worked so hard for Morton Hall, that I’ll just ask you a question. Which one of your good friends, ‘more or less,’ doesn’t matter?”

Jim laughed. “You’re right, of course. I do get blue—it runs in the family, I guess. Eleanor’s that way, too.”

“She’s not half as silly as you are,” laughed Betty. “But seriously, Jim, I don’t know what I shall do when you go. You’re such a splendid safety-valve. And then these glorious rides——”

“We’ve had only two——”

“There you go again,” sighed Betty. “Do you expect a busy person like me to take whole afternoons off every single week? Oh, dear! Aren’t those bittersweet berries on the vines growing over those little trees?”

“I don’t know anything about the habits or appearance of bittersweet berries, but I’ll bring you some.”

He was back in a few minutes with a bunch of the pretty red berries. Betty looked at them closely. “Oh, it is bittersweet!” she cried. “Madeline and Emily want some most dreadfully for the copper jar at the Tally-ho. Could we carry a few sprays back, do you think?”

“Carry a bushel, if you like,” Jim declared. “But first—there’s a trail up there that starts off through the woods. What do you say to trying it?”

They rode as far as they could under the red and yellow boughs, and when the trail stopped Jim discovered a grove of walnut trees, and Betty declared that proved they were almost up Walnut Mountain. So they tied the horses and climbed the rest of the way, up a steep, pebbly path, hearing a partridge whirr on the way and scattering a whole family of lively little chipmunks who ran ahead of them, scolding angrily at so unwarrantable an intrusion of their private playground. They arrived panting at the top at last, and stayed so long looking at the view that they felt obliged to run all the way down to the horses. Then Jim showed Betty how to pack a “bushel” of bittersweet behind her saddle for the Tally-ho, and tied another bunch on his for Morton Hall. They cantered all the way home in the crisp, frosty dusk, and Jim, in answer to Betty’s mocking inquiry about his blues, declared it had been such a ripping afternoon that he believed they were lost forever in the Bay of the Ploshkin.

Betty dined at the Tally-ho, with Madeline, Straight Dutton, and Georgia.

“We’ve found a perfect Morton Hall-ite for you,” Georgia informed her eagerly. “Just exactly the kind you want, and she hadn’t applied and wasn’t going to.”

“Who is she?” demanded Betty. “And will she come?”

“Binks Ames didn’t ask her because she was afraid she’d muddle it,” Georgia explained lucidly, putting the cart before the horse. “Binks discovered her, and told us to tell you. She’s in the infirmary—Binks, I mean, and the other girl, too. Got the mumps, Binks has, and the other one had rheumatism or something. Binks is my freshman cousin—the peculiar one from Boston. Her real name is Elizabeth B. Browning Ames—after the poetess. Her mother goes in for Browning classes and things, but Binks is the soul of prose.”

“Tell her about the Morton Hall-ite,” advised Straight. “Binks hasn’t anything to do much with it.”

“That’s so,” agreed Georgia placidly, “but she’s rather an interesting person, and Betty ought to meet her. She’s the kind that’s always discovering things—just the way she discovered this girl.”

“Georgia,” declared Madeline amiably, “I always knew you had a weakness, of course—all mortal creatures have. Now I’ve discovered that it’s a weakness for family history. In order to start you on the right track let me ask you a leading question. What are the Morton Hall-ite’s name, class, and qualifications for admission?”

“Name unknown, class unknown, qualifications extreme general forlornness, and a boarding place at the end of nowhere.”

“Where is that?” asked Betty smilingly.

“Oh, Binks didn’t dare ask,” explained Georgia. “You see Binks knows she’s an awful blunderer at being nice to people.”

“Then how——” began Betty.

“Oh, that’s all arranged,” explained Georgia easily. “You can come with me to-morrow when I go to see Binks, and if we explain a little to the matron she’ll let you in to see the other one. Everybody is sorry for her, because she seems so blue and forlorn, and never gets calls or flowers or letters.”

“She sounds rather formidable, some way,” Betty demurred. “I think it would be better for one of the faculty members of the board to go and see her and ask her.”

“But I promised Binks I’d bring you. You can at least cheer up the other one, and if you funk on asking her then you can send a faculty later.”

“That reminds me that there isn’t going to be any too much ‘later.’” Betty told them the great news, ending with, “So please plan a scrumptious housewarming right away, Madeline.”

And Madeline promised, grumbling, however, about the constant interruptions to which her aspiring genius was subject.

“You want a housewarming,” she wailed. “Eleanor wants a masque for the Terrible Ten. Mary wants an alumnæ stunt for Dramatic Club’s June meeting. Dick Blake wants a pantomime for the Vagabonds’ ladies’ night. So it goes! And the worst of it is that the editors sternly refuse to want anything of me—except the Sunday Supplement people, and they want nothing but Vapor for the Vacant-Minded. I’m losing my mind—what little I have—trying to make the articles sound silly enough.”

Betty went next day with Georgia to see Binks Ames, who proved to be a thin, brown little freshman, with wonderful gray eyes and a friendly, impulsive manner.

“It’s queer about me,” she told them. “I seem to attract freaks. All my friends at school were queer unfortunates that my brothers fussed at having to take around when they came to visit me. And now the first thing I’ve done at Harding is to have mumps at the same time with Miss Ellison, who writes poems——”

“Technically known as the C. P., or College Poet,” Georgia interrupted.

“And a queer scientific person with a bulging forehead and a squint, named Jones. We weren’t any of us very sick, and we sat and talked by the hour, and hit it off beautifully. And now they’ve gone”—she lowered her voice—“there’s the Mystery. We named her that because she spooked around and never came near us, except by mistake. But the last two days, since we’ve been here alone, we’ve become quite dangerously chummy, and she’s told me things to make your heart ache.”

The sympathetic thrill in Binks’ voice explained sufficiently why unfortunates always sought her out, and her next remark gave further testimony to her real genius for friendship. “I never let them see that I understand. It would scare them off. I act as if they were like everybody else. Seeing that people know you’re a freak or an unfortunate only makes you more of a one, don’t you think? But Georgia has told me that you are the kind that can straighten things out—not just let the poor things stick to you like burrs and try to make up to them, the silly way I do. Now, Georgia, you’d better wait here. I’ll take Miss Wales in to her myself, and then you’ll be an excuse for me to get away and leave her there.”

The Mystery was crouching by a west window, looking out at Paradise, with the low sun tangled in the yellow elms on the hill beyond. She was tall and slight and stooped, with a muddy complexion and a dull, expressionless face. She flushed uncomfortably when she saw them, and received Binks’ stammered explanation about wanting to share her callers with stolid indifference. Left alone with her, Betty remembered Anne Carter, the girl with the scar, and wished she had made Binks tell her what in this girl’s life had left her so frightened and hopeless and so bitterly reticent. She was a junior. She lived on Porter Hill—about a mile from the campus. She didn’t mind the walk; you could count it in your exercise hours. She was not particularly interested in any study; she just took what seemed best. If you meant to teach it wasn’t wise to specialize too much; you might have to take a position for Latin or Algebra when you had applied for History. She would prefer to teach English herself. Betty had brought Binks a new “Argus” to read. She asked the Mystery—her name was Esther Bond—if she had seen Helena Mason’s new story.

“It’s awfully clever,” she said. “All her stories sound so knowing, some way, as if she had seen and done lots of unusual story-book sort of things. They have what Miss Raymond calls atmosphere and the note of reality.”

“Yes,” said Miss Bond.

“She’s in your class, isn’t she?” Betty rattled on. “Do you know her?”

“Yes, I know her.”

“Is she really as unusual and fascinating as her stories seem?” Betty pursued.

“I consider her one of the most commonplace girls in Harding,” said Miss Bond stolidly.

“Well, at least you’ve at last said something besides yes and no,” Betty reflected, and turned the talk to Binks, the infirmary régime, and finally to campus life.

When at last, having decided that nothing was to be gained by delay, she made her suggestion about Miss Bond’s coming into Morton Hall, the Mystery laughed a queer, rasping laugh.

“I knew that’s what you were getting at,” she said. “You’re the new secretary. I’m not so out of things that I don’t know that.”

“And you’ll come?” Betty asked cordially.

“I think not. I’d rather be out of the campus fun altogether than in it on charity.”

Betty explained as tactfully as possible the difference between what she called Mr. Morton’s kindness and what was sometimes meant by charity, and suggested a few of the advantages to be gained from living on the campus for a while.

The Mystery listened apathetically.

“Well, it doesn’t matter much what I do. Perhaps I may as well come. Only is there a room that I can have off by itself somewhere? I couldn’t stand being tumbled in with a stranger, or having my door open right against hers.”

“Then,” said Betty eagerly, “you shall have the tower room. It’s so much by itself that I told Mr. Watson—he’s the architect in charge—that I was afraid no girl would dare to sleep alone there. It’s like an island surrounded by linen closets, and then being in a tower it juts out quite away from everything else. And it’s the very prettiest room in the house,” she added enthusiastically.

Miss Bond didn’t know that she cared much how it looked.

“I’ll let you know in a day or two how I decide,” she said. “I should have to see—there are some things to consider. Do you know if the junior novel course has a written lesson to-morrow?”

Betty didn’t know, and neither did Georgia, whom she applied to for the information; but she promised to find out and let the Mystery know by telephone. Miss Bond thanked her with the first touch of real feeling she had shown that afternoon.