"So long as I have the fond regard of Jeremiah I can stand a few cold breezes." Marjorie reached across the width of the table and administered a fond pat to Jerry"s plump hand.
"There"s worse"n me, lady," croaked Jerry in her tramp voice, which made them both laugh.
It having been decided by the Nineteen Travelers not to undertake the giving of an entertainment until after Thanksgiving, Marjorie had a fair amount of time to give to basket ball. Professor Leonard had asked her and her three a.s.sistants on committee to drop in at the gymnasium occasionally during practice. "It will give you a line on the teams. I am anxious for fair play and no favors. I want the morale of these teams kept up. I recall a time when it was sadly lacking."
The instructor was brutally candid in referring to the underhanded methods of the departed Sans. He would never get over his utter loathing for their lack of principle.
As for Augusta Forbes, energetic center on her team, her unreasoning dislike for Marjorie and Jerry had not abated. She was greatly displeased to find Marjorie at the head of the sports committee. She talked loudly in the privacy of her room about not expecting a square deal from the "wonderful" committee. She attributed her position on the freshman team entirely to Professor Leonard"s superior judgment. As a matter of fact, the committee had had the deciding word. Contrary to usual custom, the players received notices of their election to the teams the following day instead of on the floor. This gave the director and his committee an opportunity to talk matters over before deciding.
Unlike the rest of her Bertram chums, Gussie had put in a more or less stormy fall on the campus. She was not specially tactful and often gave unnecessary offense. She had a habit of blurting out the truth regardless of whose feelings might suffer. Yet she was quick to praise when something pleased her, and generous to a fault.
Unfortunately, she had made the one mistake of briefly cultivating Elizabeth Walbert. The after effects of that mistake still lingered to disturb her peace of mind. In keeping with her spiteful resolve, Elizabeth had not lost an opportunity to ridicule or annoy Gussie. Her influence among the half dozen freshmen at the Hall with whom she consorted was great enough to incite them to mischief against tall, babyish Gussie.
One evening she returned from dinner to find all her framed pictures turned toward the wall, her bed dismantled, the sheets and covers tied in hard knots, her text books lodged in the wastebasket. Another rainy evening she returned from the dining room to open windows. The rain was beating in the room and no amount of pressure would close them. Wrathful examination discovered nails as the opposing force-cleverly driven in the sashes so as almost to escape notice. On still another occasion, she was decidedly startled to come upon a masked, black-garbed figure stretched on her couch bed. It turned out to be a dummy made of her clothing and attired in an old black domino; one of the very dominos worn by the Sans on the night they had hazed Marjorie. Elizabeth Walbert had found it tucked away on a top closet shelf of her room, where it had escaped the notice of the maid during the summer house cleaning.
Such practical jokes, to Elizabeth"s mind, amounted to nothing. She yearned to do something really malicious. Ridicule of Gussie appeared to do her little damage. What the "baby elephant" needed was a good scare.
With this in mind, she sought the help of Lola Elster and Alida Burton.
Gussie had scoffed openly at Lola"s mannish attire and bold manner. She had been treated by both seniors with a haughty disdain which she deeply resented. Therefore she had not hesitated to express to other freshmen a frankly unflattering opinion of Lola and Alida. During her brief stretch of friendship with Elizabeth, Gussie had repeated it to the junior.
It was on a rainy evening in late October that Elizabeth laid her grievance before the two seniors. She had hardly stepped over their threshold when she burst forth with: "I came to have a talk with you about that horrid Miss Forbes. I won"t endure any more insults from her.
Will you two help me teach her a lesson?"
"How?" inquired Alida, laying down her text book and staring interestedly.
"That"s what I must think out. She has said rude, cutting things about all of us. This afternoon I met her and a gang of girls coming across the campus. The minute she spied me she said something to the rest of them. The whole crowd turned and walked away around me; just as though they couldn"t bear to come near me, even in pa.s.sing. I felt _so_ humiliated. That is only a very small item compared to some of the hateful things she has said about me. And why? Simply because I didn"t stay near her every minute at the frolic."
"Yes, Bess; we have heard all that lingo before," Lola said with a touch of insolent indifference. "We know your trials with the "baby elephant."
What do you expect us to do about it? _We_ simply ignore her. You do the same and she will let you alone."
"I"ll do more than that. I think," Elizabeth lowered her voice, "she ought to be hazed."
"No _sir-ee_!" Lola"s lips set tightly after the totally disapproving e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "Don"t you ever mention hazing in this room. You must be crazy. Why were the Sans expelled? For hazing Miss Dean. You know that.
Do you imagine for a second that Alida and I, in our _senior year_, would take the chances Les Cairns did?"
"I wouldn"t haze _anyone_," declared Alida emphatically.
"Wise child; neither would I." Lola fixed half scornful eyes on Elizabeth. "What ever made you light upon such a foolhardy idea? Where and how would you haze her?"
"I don"t know yet what I would do," pouted Elizabeth. "There are lots of ways of hazing a person. The girls have done a few little things to her room, as it is. Nothing was said to them about it." She related with relish the tricks that had been played on Gussie.
"All that"s _hazing_," flatly maintained Lola. "This freshie must be pretty white or she would have reported it to Remson. You say nothing"s been said. That means she can keep her affairs to herself."
"Hm-m!" Elizabeth made a pettish gesture. "You are queer. One minute you talk against this hateful creature, the next you praise her. It"s a clear case of blow hot, blow cold with you, Lola."
"If you don"t like my ways, you had best stay away from me." Lola half closed her eyes. Her expression was one of utter boredom.
Elizabeth made no answer to this. She was not ready to stay away from Lola.
"Let me tell you something, Bess." Alida now took the floor, shaking a warning finger at their caller. "Don"t come to us with any scheme for getting even with someone you don"t like. We are not going in for revenge this season. If a really clever scout like Leslie Cairns couldn"t get away with it, neither you nor I could. That is certain."
"Oh, I don"t know. I can"t say I think Leslie was so very clever. She bore the reputation of being a wonder worker, but she made plenty of flivvers. I could have engineered that hazing of Miss Dean and carried it through successfully. She made an awful mess of it."
"I never heard the rights of that affair, so I can"t pa.s.s opinion on what you just said." Lola"s tones were dry to displeasure. She knew enough concerning their caller"s proclivity toward malicious gossiping to weigh well her words. "I prefer to drop the subject entirely, Bess.
It does not interest me. Get it straight, once and for all, Alida and I know when we are well off. We aren"t contemplating any changes in our programme, least of all foolish changes."
"Very well." The reply bristled with offended vanity. It was gall to the conscienceless junior to be thus baldly snubbed. "You girls are _very_ magnanimous. Perhaps you haven"t heard much that Miss Forbes has said against both of you. I a.s.sure you it has been _considerable_."
"Let her rave." Lola shrewdly ignored the bait thrown out by Elizabeth.
"How does it happen that you always hear more of such gossip than any other girl on the campus whom we know?" demanded Alida a trifle sharply.
"I don"t." The red poured into Elizabeth"s cheeks at this thrust. "You two stick together all the time. That"s why you are not in touch with campus gossip, as you call it."
"I see as much of this lovely aggregation as I care to," Lola yawned.
"Forget it, Bess. You can"t stir us into action with that kind of bluff.
You are looking for trouble. You thought it would be nice to have us help you hunt it. Nay, nay, my child! It simply isn"t being done in our circle."
"I might have known better than come to you. I--"
"First sensible thing you"ve said since you came in here," murmured Lola.
"You are simply _hateful_, Lola Elster! Good night!" Elizabeth rose with an angry flop and made for the door.
"Oh, good night," called Lola tantalizingly after her, as she banged the door. Lola turned to Alida, laughing. "That settles her. How she does hate to have her bluff called! Little she cares what that Forbes kid says against us. She only thinks of herself. If we were silly enough to help her in her schemes, we"d get the worst of it in the long run. If trouble came she"d slide from under and leave us to bear the brunt of it."
"Don"t I know it?" nodded Alida. "Bess is good company when she chooses to be, but I never feel that she can be trusted. If I had mentioned to her tonight that I did not like Miss Forbes, I"d probably hear next week that I had said she was a villain of the deepest dye and that I was going to have her expelled from Hamilton. Bess weaves a whole hut from one wisp of straw."
"I decline to furnish a single wisp, then," Lola said lightly. "Bess is riding to a fall. I propose to be so far away from her when it happens that I won"t hear the crash."
CHAPTER XV-INTERNAL WAR
Marjorie thought that she had never longed so much for a holiday to come as Thanksgiving. She was eager to go home and see her general and captain. Then there was Connie"s wedding to be considered. Her mother had written her that the gown she was to wear as maid of honor to Constance was ready and waiting for her. Marjorie did not know its color, texture, what kind of wedding Connie was to have as to color scheme. All of that was being kept away from her as a delightful secret.
Naturally she had a lively yearning for home and its joyous surprises.
There was also the question of the boarding-house proposition which could not be answered until after Thanksgiving. She hoped the owner would not disappoint her and Robin again by remaining away from Hamilton.
She made a valiant effort to forget her own yearnings in taking a kindly interest in basket ball practice, which went on almost every afternoon in the gymnasium. She soon found that the scrub and official soph.o.m.ore teams welcomed her presence at practice. The freshman team did not.
Gussie Forbes glowered rudely at her whenever she chanced to be near enough. The two freshmen forwards, friends of Elizabeth Walbert"s, showed disfavor of Marjorie"s attendance. The other two freshman players took color, chameleon-like, from the belligerent trio and cast indifferently unfriendly glances in her direction.
It did not take Marjorie long to fathom this state of affairs. While it amused her, she was mildly resentful of it. Resolved not to be intimidated by a few black looks, she calmly ignored the situation.
Soon, however, she began to notice that internal war raged on that particular team. As center, Augusta Forbes had not struck a bed of roses. With four of her team-mates arrayed against her, her position had become well-nigh unbearable.
Her childish heart wrapped up in basket ball, she exhibited a noteworthy patience. She was keenly proud of her position on the team and worked with might and main, schooling herself to be indifferent to the contemptible little stings delivered by her team-mates. Considering her tempestuous disposition, she showed remarkable self-restraint, an indication of the fine young woman she would become when college had worn away the rough edges.
"See here, Marvelous Manager," Jerry began one afternoon as the two stood watching a bit of snappy playing, which Augusta had just exhibited. "_L"enfant terrible_ is not getting a fair deal. Did you know that?"