Marjorie Dean, College Freshman

“You can place the blame upon the Silverton Hall crowd, with Miss Graham and Miss Page as ringleaders,” informed Miss Reid sourly.

Leslie shrugged sceptically. “Oh, I don’t know,” she differed. “Nat thinks Miss Dean’s crowd started it. They took up the cudgels for that dig, Miss Langly. The minute we started to rag her for being so bull-headed about her room, this crowd of sillies started in rooting for her. Now old Proffy Wenderblatt and his family have taken her up and they make a fuss over her. She and the green-eyed Sanford dig are so chummy. They make me sick. We have to be careful now about ragging her. Wenderblatt is a terror when he isn’t pleased. He would report us to Doctor Matthews. Ragging is forbidden here, same as hazing. I’d do both to any one I didn’t like, if I thought I could get away with it.”

Despite Leslie Cairns’ threats, made not only to Miss Reid but to Natalie Weyman and a few others, life slid along very peacefully for the Five Travelers. The holidays past, they found enjoyment in settling down for the winter term to uninterrupted study, lightened by impromptu social gatherings, held in one another’s rooms. Occasionally they made dinner engagements at Silverton or Acasia House or entertained at Baretti’s, their favorite haunt when in search of good cheer. Once a week they spent an hour together as the Five Travelers, and found the little confidential session helpful. No misunderstandings had crept in among them. Often their talks branched off into impersonalities, of interest to all.

Neither Marjorie nor Muriel had entered the second basket ball try-out. Both had decided to wait until their sophomore year. Fond of the game, they dropped into the gymnasium occasionally for an hour’s work with the ball by way of keeping up practice. There were always plenty of subs willing to make up a team.

February came, bringing with it St. Valentine’s day, and the masque which the juniors always gave on St. Valentine’s night. A Valentine post box was one of the features. For days beforehand the girls spent odd moments in making valentines, the rule being that all valentines posted must have been hand wrought. Marjorie, remembering the cunning little-girl costume Mary Raymond had worn to Mignon La Salle’s fancy dress party, shortened a frilled pink organdie gown of hers and went back to childhood for a night. With pink flat-heeled kid slippers and pink silk stockings, an immense pink top-knot bow tying up a portion of her curls, she was a pretty sight. Ronny went as a Watteau shepherdess, Lucy as a Japanese girl, Muriel as Rosalind in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” and Jerry as a clown.

The valentine party was always a delightful feature of the college year, for the reason that it was a masquerade. Though the Sans had been holding themselves rigidly aloof from all but a few students since the downfall of Lola Elster as a basket ball star, they could not resist the lure of a masquerade. They took good care to keep together until after the unmasking, presumably for fear of mingling with what they considered as “the common herd.”

“Anyone with a good pair of keen eyes can tell the precious Sans though they should be happening to wear a dozen masks,” Leila Harper had derided. “They wear such silks and satins and velvets and jewels! They are wearying to the sight with their fine clothes. Look at me. A poor Irish colleen with nothing silk about me but one small neckerchief.”

Following the masquerade by only a few days came the excitement of the first game between the new team and the sophomores. The latter had not challenged the freshman team after its reorganization, as Leslie Cairns had voiced against it and neither Natalie nor Joan Myers cared to oppose her. Leslie possessed a very large fortune in her own right. In consequence she always had money in abundance. While the former had large allowances, they managed usually to overstep them. In such case they fell back on Leslie and were invariably in her debt.

Later Leslie changed her mind about not wishing the sophomores to play against the “upstarts,” as she termed them. Having overheard on the campus that the sophs were afraid to meet the freshies, she accordingly urged Joan to challenge the freshman team.

When the game came off on the third Saturday in February, the freshmen gave the sophomores a drubbing they would not soon forget. It was not a whitewash, but it was painfully near it. The sophomore players took the defeat with very poor grace. The freshman class had gone wild when the game had ended 26-10 in favor of the freshmen. While the sophs had not expected a walk-away victory, they had confidently expected to win. Further, Leslie had promised them a dinner at Baretti’s that should outdo anything she had given that year. Now that they had lost the game, she obstinately refused to keep her word.

“Why spend my good money on a crowd of no accounts like you?” she had roughly queried. “I said if you won I’d give the dinner. You did not, so what’s the use in celebrating. The fault with you girls is you’ve been slackers about practicing. You’ve gone motoring when you should have been in the gym and after the ball.” This rebuke was delivered in the sophs’ dressing room after the game, whence the team had hurried to hide their diminished heads.

“Do you know what I heard out on the floor?” she continued, with intent to hurt. “I heard that the sophs might have won if they had practiced once in a while.”

“Just the same the freshies had coaching all the time and we didn’t,” Dulcie Vale asserted. “Miss Dean and Miss Harding are both expert players. It seems that they play basket ball a lot at these high schools. These girls get to be very clever at it. Like the Indians, you know, who make such good foot ball players. They showed the team different plays to use against us. That’s why they won. They have been over to the gym almost every day.”

Dulcie’s comparison of Muriel and Marjorie to the Indians raised a laugh, as she intended it should. Even Leslie laughed in her peculiar silent fashion. Next instant she frowned. She had again been thwarted by the girls she despised. Things were not going rightly at all. Born a bully, she looked upon even her friends as created only for her amusement. She had the insatiable desire for power, and could not bear defeat. Tucked in an inner pocket of her tweed top coat was a letter she had recently received. It was not the first one she had received from the same source. This particular letter had appeared to afford her great satisfaction on reading. Her hand strayed to the pocket which held it.

“I have a letter here I would like to read to you girls,” she drawled. “On second thoughts I’ll take back what I said. I’ll stand for that blowout at Baretti’s. That would be a good place to read you the letter. Then I would like your advice on it.”

CHAPTER XXVI. – FRIENDS GOOD AND TRUE

“Do you see anything about me to laugh at?” demanded Marjorie one snowy afternoon in early March, as she walked into her room, eyes sparkling, cheeks aglow, not only from the winter air, but from annoyance as well.

Jerry looked up from an illustrated magazine she was interestedly perusing. “No; I don’t. I’ll laugh if you say so. Ha, ha! Ha, ha!” This obligingly and without a smile.

“You needn’t mind. That laugh of yours has a hollow sound. It’s not what I would call true mirth.”

“No wonder it has a hollow sound. I’m hungry,” Jerry complained. “It is almost an hour until dinner, too. Tell me what’s bothering you. It will take my mind off my hungry self.”

“Oh, nothing startling, only every time I meet any of the Sans or those few freshmen who go around with them, they look me all over and then they do everything from smiling just the least bit, a hateful sarcastic smile, to laughing outright. Just now, as I came across the campus, I met Miss Cairns. Miss Elster, Miss Myers and Miss Weyman were with her. As soon as they saw me, they began to talk among themselves, quite loudly. I didn’t hear what they said. I know it was about me. Then they all laughed. The other day I met the same girls and they simply smiled. I know they are doing it purposely; but why?”

“Humph!” ejaculated Jerry, her blue eyes widening in sudden belligerence. “I know why! They have started out to rag you. That’s a nice proposition! I suppose they are sore at you because you were on that committee.”

“But that was quite a while ago. This making fun of me has only been of late. I noticed it first the Sunday after the game. I met a crowd of those girls as I came from chapel. I felt just a little hurt. I had had such a peaceful time in chapel. It was the Sunday you had a cold and did not attend chapel. If they keep it up, I shall probably grow so used to it that it won’t trouble me.”

“Well, if they confine themselves to snickering, smirking, ha-ha-ing and te-he-ing, let ’em enjoy themselves. If they start to say anything to you, for that’s the next stage in ragging, give them one lovely call-down that will settle them for good. You can do it. I’ve heard you speak straight from the shoulder. Will you ever forget the day you and I had the fuss with Rowena Fightena Quarrelena Scrapena?”

“No; I will not.” Marjorie never could resist giggling at the long name which Jerry had applied to Rowena Farnham on account of the latter’s quarrelsome disposition. “I hope none of those Sans will try her tactics. I don’t wish to come to bitter words with any of those girls. They are set against me on account of having served on that committee, perhaps. Maybe because Muriel and I went over to the gym occasionally and helped the team along. They have not liked us, you know, from the night Miss Cairns, Miss Weyman and Miss Vale called and privately rated us as nobodies. It is queer they never tried to take Ronny up, for she has made no secret of her name this year. They must surely have heard of Alfred Lynne, her father. Leila says that Miss Cairns is always writing her father and asking him to have this or that student’s parents looked up financially.”

“Contemptible!” Jerry’s scorn of such tactics was sweeping. “If ever they try to look me up and I hear of it, even long afterward, I will get them together and give them such a call-down their hair will stand on end and stay that way for a week. If you should happen to see the Sans switching around the campus with their coiffures resembling that of Feejee Islanders, you will know what has occurred to the dear creatures. I shall probably do that, anyhow, if they don’t let you alone.”

“No.” Marjorie’s negative was decided. “You must never fuss with them on my account. I daresay they will grow tired before long of making fun of me. All I can do is this. Appear not to see them at all.”

“I would just as soon fuss with them as look at them,” Jerry declared valorously. “Now who are they, pray tell me? One thing is certain to come to pass. Sooner or later we will have to tell that crowd where they get off at. I have seen it coming ever since the freshman dance. Miss Weyman is so mad at you she can’t see straight. She expected to win that contest. Helen Trent called my attention to her that night. She was posing to beat the band for the judges’ benefit. Helen was worried a little. She thought Leila ought not to have pitted you against Miss Weyman. That is what she did, you know. Afterward Helen said she guessed you would have been unofficially declared the college beauty anyway, for so many of the girls were already raving over you. Now don’t rave at me for telling you that. You are such an old sorehead about that contest. I hardly dare think of it in the same room with you.”

Marjorie sat very still, an expression of blank amazement on her lovely face. She now recalled her own vexation on the night of the dance when Leila had brought her into too prominent notice by hurrying her across one end of the gymnasium to join the line. So Leila had purposely dragged her into that contest! For a moment or two she wavered on the verge of indignation at Leila. Then the Irish girl’s face, brooding and wistful, as she had seen it so many times when Leila was referring to her own affairs, rose before her. No; it was too late to be angry with Leila. Marjorie was tempted to laugh instead at the clever way in which Leila had managed the whole affair.

“You have told me some news,” she said at last. “I had no idea Miss Weyman was anxious to win the contest. I didn’t know, either, that Leila had a hand in it. She didn’t say much about it after it was over, except to congratulate me. I don’t think she has ever mentioned it since.” Marjorie had begun to smile.

“She is a clever one.” Jerry grinned appreciation of the absent Leila. “Why, Marjorie, she arranged that contest! She took it from an old book on the Celts. She brought the book with her from Ireland. She got up the contest to score one against the Sans and take a rise out of Miss Weyman. I would have told you this before, but Helen told me in confidence. She said the other day she didn’t care if I told you, for she felt that you understood Leila well enough now not to be cross with her. She was afraid of making trouble in the beginning if she said anything.”

“It’s past now. I don’t care. Miss Weyman is nothing to me. I am glad I know about it, though.” Marjorie considered for a brief space. “Perhaps that is why those girls are acting so queerly toward me. They may think me very much elated over winning the contest. If that’s the case, all the more reason why I should pay no attention to them.”

Jerry agreed that this was so and the subject was dropped for the time being. Having resolved to appear oblivious to any ill-bred acts on the part of the Sans, Marjorie proceeded to carry out her resolution. For a week or more she presented a strictly impersonal face whenever she chanced to encounter any of the Sans or their friends in going about the college premises. She was greatly annoyed to find that this method seemed to have no effect. Instead, their derision of herself was growing more pronounced. Several times she thought she detected a difference in the salutations of certain upper class students who had formerly shown cordiality of greeting. Late one afternoon she met Miss Kingston, one of the seniors on the sports committee, on the steps of the library, and received from her merely a blank stare. Marjorie went on to the Hall, feeling very much crushed. To be sure she was not particularly interested in Miss Kingston. She had sided with Miss Reid at the try-out. Since the freshmen had regulated matters, however, Miss Kingston had been quite affable to her when they had chanced to meet in the gymnasium.

In the growing dusk of the hall, for the maid had not yet turned on the lights, she ran plump into another girl who had just come from upstairs. “I beg your pardon,” she apologized.

“Ex-cuse me!” exclaimed a familiar voice. “Blame the maid for no light, but never yours truly. And where may you be hurrying to, Miss Marjorie of the Deans?”

“Oh, is that you, Leila? I didn’t know you in the dark until you spoke.”

“Nor I you,” returned Leila. “I have been to your room twice looking for you. I was just going back to see if Miss Remson knew where you were. Ronny is in my room. I am needing you there, too. Will you come up with me now?” Leila turned toward the stairs.

“Certainly, I will. What has happened, Leila?”

“Nothing, dear heart. Only Vera and I have something to talk over with you and Ronny.” Leila spoke in the friendliest kind of tones. Marjorie followed her up the stairs to the third floor where Leila and Nella Sherman roomed. Nella was absent, but Vera and Ronny greeted their entrance with expressions of satisfaction.

“I had the good fortune to bump into Marjorie in the hall,” Leila said, as she ranged herself beside Marjorie, who had taken a seat on Leila’s couch bed. “Now for the talk I must give you. Some of it will make you laugh and some of it will not. May I ask you, Ronny, do you spell your name L-y-n-n or L-i-n-d?”

“Neither way. It is spelled L-y-n-n-e,” responded Ronny. “It is an old English name.”

Leila and Vera both broke into laughter. Marjorie and Ronny regarded them with mild wonderment.

“Oh, my gracious! Did you know, Ronny, that the thick-headed Sans call you Lind? They are walking about on the campus proclaiming that you are a poor Swedish servant girl who lived with the principal, Miss Someone, I have not the name, of Sanford High School. She pays your expenses here. You are not much, Ronny, so never think you are.” Again Leila broke into laughter. “Do poor Swedish servant girls have imported gowns of gray chiffon? I am remembering one of yours.”

“They do not, as a rule.” Ronny’s whole face was alive with mirth. “Now who could have started that absurd tale?” She turned to Marjorie.

“I don’t know.” Marjorie looked troubled. Incidental with Leila’s recital, Jerry’s remarks concerning being “looked up” by the Sans had returned to her. “Part of that amazing information must have come from some one in Sanford who wanted to be malicious. Not the Lind part. That is funny.” Her sober features relaxed into an amused smile. “You had better explain to the girls about the servant girl part, Ronny.”

“O-h-h!” sighed Ronny. “You tell them, please, Marjorie.”

“All right; glad to.” Marjorie’s revelation of the part Ronny had played during the previous year at high school was received with absorbed attention. When she went on to say that Ronny’s father was Alfred Lynne, the noted western philanthropist, Leila gave a sharp little whistle of surprise.

“Oh, the poor Sans!” she chuckled. “Might not your father be able to buy out all their fathers and still have a dollar left?”

“He might,” emphasized Ronny, with a companion chuckle. “I haven’t made a secret of my identity this year. Oh, those simpletons! Well, I shall not disabuse them of their beliefs concerning me. Let them hug them to their hearts if they choose.”

“That is not all, girls.” Leila’s features grew suddenly grave. “The rest has to do with you, Marjorie. We can’t get at it. A sophomore friend of ours told Vera and me this. She asked us to pass it on to you. The Sans are talking you over among the upper class girls. Those who will listen, I mean. Our friend heard it from a soph who is about half snob, half democrat. One of the Sans received a letter from someone who seems to know all about your town and you, Marjorie. The letter is making mischief. There is something against your high school record in it. We have found out that much. We believe in you. We would like to know what you wish done concerning it.”

As Leila continued speaking, Marjorie had turned very white. It was the white of righteous wrath. “There is only one person I know in Sanford who would write such a letter,” she said, her voice thick with anger. “I mean Rowena Farnham, Ronny. How she happens to be in touch with the Sans I do not know. It isn’t surprising. She is ill-bred, unfair and untruthful; a girl, who, without knowing me, tried to make trouble for me on her very first day at high school. I will find out who has that letter and make the person read it to me. Then I shall post a notice on the bulletin board saying that an untruthful, injurious letter is being circulated at Hamilton about me. I will not allow such a letter to gain headway!” Her tones rose in passionate protest.

“Easy, now. Don’t worry.” Leila’s hand, warm and reassuring, closed over Marjorie’s clenched fingers. “You can’t make the Sans give up the letter, Marjorie. The ring king of ’em has it. Leslie Cairns is carrying this outrage on. I believe you are right about this Farnham person. Where is she now?”

“At boarding school, I suppose. She went away to school last year. The Farnhams have a cottage at the sea shore. It is about ten miles from Severn Beach. That’s where the Macys always go. Maybe Miss Cairns met Rowena there,” Marjorie speculated. “I am going to tell you the whole story of my trouble with Rowena Farnham. Then you will see for yourselves the sort of a person she is.”

It was a long story Marjorie had to tell. It was listened to with deep interest. Ronny had already heard the details of it from her God-mother.

“Whatever she has said against me she has made up. That doesn’t remedy things; just to know yourself that it is all untrue,” she concluded almost piteously. “I didn’t wish such troubles to creep into my college life like hideous snakes.”

“It remedies matters when you have some one to fight for you,” asserted Ronny, her gray eyes steely with purpose. “I am going to make an ally of Miss Remson. Now this is my plan. I shall ask her to notify all the students that she wishes them to come to the living room at a certain time, on a certain evening. They will all respond for they will think it is something concerning their own welfare. Then I shall rise and lay down the law. You won’t need to resort to the bulletin board, Marjorie. We will quash the whole thing right in the living room of Wayland Hall.”

“That will be best,” nodded Vera. “Miss Remson will be there and she won’t stand any nonsense from the Sans. She doesn’t need to accept their applications for rooms at the Hall next year.”

“Well they know it,” put in Leila. “Remember we shall all be there to support you, Ronny. We will rage like lions at your command.”

“I shall not need it. I mean I can forge through alone. I shall love your support.” Ronny’s face had taken on the old mysterious expression. Too much engrossed in her own sense of injury, Marjorie did not notice this.

“My advice to you, Marjorie, is – act as though you had never seen any of the Sans when you meet them,” counseled Vera. “The sooner we can call the house together the better. It is easier to spread scandal than to crush it. We must lose no time.”

“This is Monday,” mused Ronny. “Friday night will be best, I think.”

“That is late, Ronny,” objected Leila. Marjorie also regarded her chum with somber anxiety.

“It must be then,” Ronny made firm reply. “Trust me in this. I have my own reasons for setting the date for Friday. There is one little item in my plan that I am not going to speak of just yet. All I can say is that it will be of great help when the time comes.”

CHAPTER XXVII. – THE SECOND VICTORY

That particular week seemed the longest to Marjorie she had ever spent. While she could only guess that the damaging letter held by Leslie Cairns was from Rowena Farnham, she was quite positive that there was no one else who would be mean-spirited enough to write it. Her high school record entirely clear, still it would have to be proven. She had been vilified by Rowena, and lies about her published among the students of Hamilton. Unchecked, there was no telling how wide a circulation it might gain.

Jerry, who had been told of the trouble, was ready to descend upon the entire college and vanquish it single-handed. Muriel and Lucy were no less incensed. As for Miss Remson, she was for vindication on Friday night. Being as shrewd as she was good, she merely posted a notice on the house board requesting every student at the Hall to meet her in the living room at eight o’clock on Friday evening. All attempts to find out from her the nature of the meeting were fruitless. She kept her own counsel. The Sans, not wishing to curtail their chances for next year’s accommodations, prudently decided to attend in a body.

“It is better to meet her, girls,” Natalie Weyman urged. “She won’t keep us long. She has some idiotic bee in her bonnet that is aching to buzz. We had best humor her.”

“It isn’t my policy to humor anyone,” objected Leslie Cairns.

“Except Lola Elster,” cut in Natalie with jealous sarcasm.

“That will be about all from you,” retorted Leslie, insolence animating her heavy features.

“Oh, really!” flashed back Natalie, ready for battle. “How long since you acquired any authority over me?”

“Forget it,” advised Joan Myers wearily. “All you two have done this evening is quarrel. I thought we were to meet in Nat’s room for a good time, not a general row.”

“Nat is to blame,” muttered Leslie. “Let her be a little less waspish and I will try to get along with her. This is no time for us to fuss. I have been a good friend to Nat. She forgets that.”

“I don’t,” icily contradicted Natalie. “Only I won’t take dictation from my father and mother, let alone my friends.”

“Drop it, then, and listen to me.” Leslie still continued to dictate, but in a modified tone. This was not lost on Natalie. She bore it, however, in discreet silence. “It is time to start on that Dean girl. I mean, to do some talking. We must catch her out on the campus and rag her a little. Leave it to me. I know how to begin on her. The rest of you, who happen to be along, can join in. Notice what I say and how I say it.”