"Oh, I am simply rea.s.suring Lucy. Now that we are almost in sight of our Mecca, she is beginning to be scared."
"A nice kind of rea.s.surance," scoffed Lucy. "She just finished telling me the grind hunters would lie in wait for me and to look out for them."
"We"ll protect you, Lucy," promised Marjorie lightly. "When we leave the train we will walk two on each side of you. Then you will be safe from--"
"Stretch-your-necks, wags and grind hunters," supplied Jerry, now sufficiently aroused to join in the conversation.
"Something like that. So glad to have you with us again, Jeremiah. We must have bored you terribly or you wouldn"t have gone to sleep."
Marjorie had adopted Muriel"s methods.
"Oh, I can"t say I was bored more than usual," drawled Jerry, with a languid wave of her hand. "You are all about the same as ever. No relief in sight before next June. I must do the best I can. In the words of good old Proffy Fontaine: "No wan can do mo-rr-rr!"" Jerry"s imitation of the sorely-tried French professor evoked a chorus of reminiscent giggles.
"Much obliged for your high opinion of our society," said Veronica. "All we can do is to trail around after you, hopeful that someday you will discover how brilliant we really are."
"You may hope," graciously permitted Jerry. "If I discover signs of brilliancy sprouting in any of you, I"ll let you know instantly. I won"t keep the precious knowledge to myself. There"s nothing stingy about me."
"Thank you, thank you," was the united, grateful answer, ending in a burst of low-toned laughter which caused several older persons to smile indulgently upon the bevy of merry-faced girls.
Nine o"clock that morning had seen the five travelers to Hamilton playing their parts at the Sanford station, surrounded by their families and a number of devoted friends. It was not a large crowd that had gathered at the nine-twenty train, but it was a loyal one.
Marjorie had felt very sad and solemn during that last brief wait for the train which was to bear her from home and her own. When it had arrived she had made brave farewells to her captain and general. She had fought hard to keep a smile on her face. Complete control of her emotions returned from a sudden mishap to Jerry. An unexpected jarring of the train threw Jerry off her balance as she was about to deposit a traveling bag in the rack above her head. With a forward lurch, she described a wavering semi-circle in the air with the bag. Banging it down on Muriel"s lap, she sprawled helplessly between Muriel and Veronica.
Her timely spill turned the tide of mourning into mirth. Marjorie forgot her sadness, for the time being, in listening with laughter to Jerry"s scathing remarks on the subject of trains.
Now, after the greater part of the day spent on the cars, the somewhat tired Lookouts were nearing their journey"s end. Fifteen minutes and the town of Hamilton would be reached. Marjorie was wondering, as she idly glimpsed the pa.s.sing scenery from the car window, if there were many other Hamilton-bound girls on the train. There were only one or two young girls besides her party in the car they were occupying.
"West Hamilton, children," announced Muriel oracularly. "Observe, if you please, the charming beauty of this little burg." She took on the tone of a hired guide. "One of the most picturesque spots in the United States. We will pretend it is, anyway."
"Nothing like having a vivid imagination," murmured Ronny.
"Quite true Miss Lynne," beamed Muriel. "So glad you appreciate my abilities. You are so different in that respect from some girls." She fixed a significant eye upon Jerry, who merely grinned lazily. "Before I go further in expiating on the scenery of this place, one quarter, please, all around. You pay me another quarter after you"ve seen the town. Just recall that it takes breath and patience to be a successful guide."
"Yes, I guess so," scoffed Jerry. "Kindly tell me where you get the word _guide_ as applying to you. A guide is one who guides. All your guiding is done in your mind. I wouldn"t pay ten cents to see this town at present. I can see it later for nothing. On to Hamilton! That"s my watchword."
"I couldn"t see much of it, guide or no guide," remarked Lucy. "The train went so fast, I"m amazed that Muriel could see it well enough to describe the scenery."
"That"s something we will let Guide Muriel explain before she collects any of our precious quarters," decreed Jerry.
"I"ll do no explaining, and don"t you call me Guide Muriel. Start that and it will stick to me. I can"t shake it off as I did that old rosette.
I see that you and Ronny are determined to make trouble for me. I think I had better keep very quiet from now on."
"Just think what a restful time we might all have had if you had only decided to do that an hour or two earlier," declared Jerry regretfully.
"As it is, we are so tired. I suppose you must be tired, too?" She beamed questioningly on Muriel, who beamed on her in satirical return, wholly unabashed.
"We are five weary travelers," said Veronica, "about to be dumped down in the strange country of college."
"I like that idea," approved Lucy Warner, with the sudden crispness which marked her speech. "I like to fancy us as five travelers in the country of college. We might call ourselves that." Her eyes darkened with the interest of her own suggestion. "I mean, just in private. There is a certain touch of romance about it that pleases me."
"I like it, too, Lucy," commended Muriel. "I know something we could do as the five travelers, too. Once a week we could meet in one another"s rooms, in the evening, and we could each tell how everything has been for us during the week. Whatever happens, we could agree to keep strictly to ourselves until then. That is, unless it were something that had to be settled at once. In that way we would be certain to keep clear of any silly misunderstandings among ourselves. Close friends that we are, none of us is infallible, you know. We know we are not going to quarrel, of course, but a misunderstanding is different. It crops up when you least expect it."
"I"m filled with admiration for you, clever Muriel," praised Veronica.
"I wish you hadn"t ruined that pretty rosette I made you. I would decorate you all over again. Shall we become the United Order of the Five Travelers? We shall. Our rooms will serve as a wayside inn where we shall gather to tell our tales of joy, woe or adventure. Do tell Marjorie about it. There she sits by her sweet little self, with no idea of the great work going on under her very nose. Here, I"ll tell her myself."
Slipping past Muriel, Ronny crossed the aisle and touched Marjorie on the shoulder. Unable to hear with comfort what was being said by her chums, Marjorie had briefly leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The excitement of the day was beginning to tell on her. She was feeling dispirited. What a long time it had been since she had said good-bye to Captain and General! And yet it was now only late afternoon of the same day.
"Move over," genially ordered Ronny. "I"ve something to report, Lieutenant, and only about five minutes to report it in. We are in sight of the fateful town of Hamilton."
Marjorie obeyed the order, brightening visibly at Ronny"s invasion. "I saw you four with your heads together," she returned. "I knew something was stirring."
"I beg to inform you that you are now a member of the United Order of the Five Travelers," Ronny announced, dropping her arm over Marjorie"s shoulder. Rapidly she repeated what had been talked over across the aisle. Marjorie listened in absorption. Her quick brain instantly grasped the value of the project from its ethical side. It would be good for all of them, she thought, to have these little confidence sessions.
It would be the very best thing in the world for Lucy.
"Hamilton! Hamil-lton-n-n!" The stentorian call echoed through the car.
Their interest centered on the new idea, both girls were startled by the brakeman"s loud tones.
"I must gather up my luggage." Ronny sprang up and hurriedly sought her own seat with: "More later about the Five Travelers."
Marjorie nodded and began mechanically to gather up her own luggage. It consisted of a suit case and a smart leather hand bag across the aisle.
The box of candied fruit, presented to her by Mr. La Salle, was going the rounds for the last time. It had been mischievously started by Muriel and smilingly declined by three canny freshmen.
"You don"t catch me marching out of the train with my mouth full of candy, looking as though I were about seven years old," was Jerry"s decided stand. "Go ahead. Eat some yourself, Muriel."
"I don"t think it would be polite to eat all of Marjorie"s candy,"
declined Muriel.
"The delicate consideration of that girl! Ahem! Here"s your candy, Sweet Marjoram." Reaching over, Jerry deposited it on Marjorie"s seat. "Now for a first timid look at Collegeburg!" As the train began to slow down for a dead stop, Jerry peered curiously out of the car window.
From her own window, Marjorie was also casting her first glances at the Hamilton station. Like the stations of exclusive suburban towns, adjacent to large cities, this one had two separate station buildings; one for outgoing and the other for incoming trains. The two connected by a stone pa.s.sage-way underneath, ascent or descent made possible by a short flight of stone steps at each end of the pa.s.sage.
As it happened, Marjorie had been sitting on the side of the car that faced toward the outgoing trains. In consequence, her first impression of Hamilton was a blank. She had expected to see groups of girls in white and light-colored gowns walking up and down the platform. She had looked forward to a scene of moving color and young life. Now all she saw was a platform, empty save for an elderly man, who was leading a little boy of perhaps five or six years along it. This surely was not the Hamilton of her dreams.
CHAPTER IX.-A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A FRIEND.
A moment later she was moving out of the train with her chums, smiling over her recent flat sense of disappointment. A glance out of a window on the opposite side of the car had proved rea.s.suring. On the platform toward which she and her friends were directing their steps were girls in abundance.
"Look at the mob!" Jerry made this low-tone exclamation over her shoulder as she went down the car steps.
Soon the Five Travelers had left the car behind them and become a part of the throng on the station platform. Unconsciously they drew together in a compact, little bunch, somewhat as a quintette of homeless kittens might have done, who had been thrown out on a very big, inhospitable world to wonder what was going to happen to them next.
There they continued to stand for at least three minutes, each busily forming her own opinions of this particular feature of college life. Two girls who had left the train just ahead of them had already been pounced upon by a group of their friends and whisked off the platform. At the right of them a tall, dignified girl in gla.s.ses was shaking hands warmly with three welcoming friends. She looked as though she might be a senior. It was not until long afterward that Marjorie learned that she was a prospective freshman who failed ignominiously in her entrance examinations and left Hamilton, disconsolate.
The longer they stood and watched what went on around them, the more it became enforced upon them that there was a welcome for everyone but themselves.
"I am afraid they didn"t get our telegram," commented Jerry, with a degree of sarcasm that bespoke her contempt for everything she had ever heard or read of college hospitality and tradition.