"She"s forgotten all about us. Let"s make a break for it," cried Molly.
There was a certain stubbornness in her nature that made her want to finish anything she began no matter whether it was a task or a pleasure.
The cow flicked a fly from her flank with her tail and went on placidly cropping gra.s.s. Apparently, creature comforts had restored her equanimity.
"One, two, three, run!" shouted Judy, and the ten students began the race of their lives.
Not once did the flower and wit of 19-- pause to look back, and so closely did they stick together, the strong helping the weak, that to the watchers on the hill--and, alas! there were several of them--they resembled all together an enormous animal of the imagination with ten pairs of legs and a coat of many colors. At last they fell down, one on top of the other, in a laughing, tumbling heap, in the protecting grove of pine trees, and pausing to look back beheld the ferocious cow amiably swishing her tail as she cropped the luscious turf on the bank of the little stream.
"Asinine old thing," cried Margaret. "She"s just an alarmist of the worst kind."
"Who was the alarmist, did you say, Margaret?" asked Edith, with a wicked smile. But Margaret made no answer, because, as her close friends well knew, she never could stand being teased.
And now the watchers on the hill, having witnessed the entire episode from behind a granite boulder and enjoyed it to the limit of their natures, proceeded to return to Wellington with the story that was too good to keep, and Queen"s girls went on their way rejoicing as the strong man who runs a race and wins.
At two o"clock, after a long, hard climb, they reached the ledges. To Molly and Judy, the leading spirits of the expedition, the beautiful view amply repaid their efforts, but there were those who were too weary to enjoy the scenery. Jessie was one of these.
"I"m not meant for hard work," she groaned, as she reposed on one of the flat rocks which gave the place its name and pillowed her head on Margaret"s lap.
They opened the packages of luncheon and ate with ravenous appet.i.tes, finishing off with fudge and cheese sticks. Then they spread themselves on the table rocks and regarded the scenery pensively. Having climbed up at great expense of strength and effort, it was now necessary to retrace their footsteps. The thought was disconcerting.
Edith, who never moved without a book, pulled a small edition of Keats from her pocket and began to read aloud:
"My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk--"
A short laugh interrupted this scene of intellectual repose. Edith paused and looked up, annoyed.
"I see nothing to laugh at," she said. But the faces of her cla.s.smates were quite serious.
"No one laughed," said Molly.
"A rudely person did laugh," announced Otoyo decisively. "But not of us.
Another hidden behind the rock."
The girls looked around them uneasily. There was no one in sight, apparently, and yet there had been a laugh from somewhere close by.
Coming to think of it, they had all heard it.
"I think we"d better be going," said Margaret, rising hastily. "We can see the view on the other side some other day."
Twice that day Margaret, the coming suffragette, had proved herself lacking in a certain courage generally attributed to the new and independent woman.
"Come on," she continued, irritably. "Don"t stop to gather up those sandwiches. We must hurry."
Perhaps they were all of them a little frightened, but n.o.body was quite so openly and shamelessly scared as President Wakefield. They had seized their sweaters and were about to follow her down the steep path, when another laugh was heard, and suddenly a strange man rushed from behind one of the large boulders and seized Margaret by the arm.
The President gave one long, despairing shriek that waked the echoes, while the other girls, too frightened to move, crouched together in a trembling group.
Then the little j.a.panese bounded from their midst with the most surprising agility, seized the man by his thumb and with a lightning movement of the arm struck him under the chin.
With a cry of intense pain, the tramp, for such he appeared to be, fell back against the rock, his black slouch hat fell off, and a quant.i.ty of dark hair tumbled down on his shoulders. Judith Blount, looking exceedingly ludicrous in a heavy black mustache, stood before them.
"Oh, how you hurt me," she cried, turning angrily on Otoyo.
Otoyo shrank back in amazement.
"Pardon," she said timidly. "I did not know the rudely man was a woman."
The girls were now treated to the rare spectacle of Margaret Wakefield in a rage. The G.o.ddess of War herself could not have been more majestic in her anger, and her choice of words was wonderful as she emptied the vials of her wrath on the head of the luckless Judith. The Williams sisters sat down on a rock, prepared to enjoy the splendid exhibition and the discomfiture of Judith Blount, who for once had gone too far in her practical joking. Molly withdrew somewhat from the scene. Anger always frightened her, but she felt that Margaret was quite justified in what she said.
"How dare you masquerade in those disreputable clothes and frighten us?"
Margaret thundered out. "Do you think such behavior will be tolerated for a moment at a college of the standing of Wellington University? Are you aware that some of us might have been seriously injured by what you would call, I suppose, a practical joke? Is this your idea of amus.e.m.e.nt?
It is not mine. Do you get any enjoyment from such a farce?"
At last Margaret paused for breath, but for once Judith had nothing to say. She hung her head shamefacedly and the girls who were with her, whoever they were, hung back as if they would feign have their share in the affair kept secret.
"I"m sorry," said Judith with unusual humility. "I didn"t realize it was going to frighten you so much. You see, I don"t look much like a man in my gymnasium suit. Of course the mackintosh and hat did look rather realistic, I"ll admit. When we saw you run from the cow this morning, it was so perfectly ludicrous, we decided to have some fun. I put on these togs and we got a vehicle and drove around by the Exmoor road. I"m sorry if you were scared, but I think I came out the worst. My thumb is sprained and I know my neck will be black and blue by to-morrow."
"I advise you to give up playing practical jokes hereafter," said the unrelenting G.o.ddess of War. "If your thumb is sprained, it"s your own fault."
Judith flashed a black glance at her.
"When I lower myself to make you an apology," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "I should think you"d have the courtesy to accept it," and with that she walked swiftly around the edge of the rock, where she joined her confederates, while the Queen"s girls demurely took their way down the side of the hill.
"Was my deed wrongly, then?" asked Otoyo, innocently, feeling somehow that she had been the cause of the great outburst.
"No, indeed, child, your deed was rightly," laughed Margaret. "And I"m going to take jiu jitsu lessons from you right away. If I could twirl a robber around the thumb like that and hit a cow under her chin, I don"t think I"d be such a coward."
Everybody burst out laughing and Molly felt greatly relieved that harmony was once more established. The walk ended happily, and by the time they had reached home, Judith Blount had been relegated to an unimportant place in their minds.
CHAPTER V.
AN UNWILLING EAVESDROPPER.
Busy days followed for Molly. She had been made chairman of the committee on decoration for the soph.o.m.ore-freshman reception along with all her many other duties, and had entered into it as conscientiously as she went into everything. Some days before the semi-official party for the gathering of autumn foliage and evergreens, Chairman Molly and Judy had a consultation.
"What we want is something different," Judy remarked, and Molly smiled, remembering that her friend"s greatest fear in life was to appear commonplace.
"Caroline Brinton will want cheese cloth, of course," said Molly, "but I think she"ll be out-voted if we can only talk to the committee beforehand. My plan is to ma.s.s all the greens around the pillars and hang strings of j.a.panese lanterns between the galleries."
"And," went on fanciful Judy, who adored decoration, "let"s make a big primrose and violet banner exactly the same size as the Wellington banner and hang them from the center of the gymnasium, one on each side of the chandelier."
A meeting of the cla.s.s was called to consider the question of the banner and it was decided not only to have the largest cla.s.s banner ever seen at Wellington, but to give the entire cla.s.s a hand in the making of it.
The money was to be raised partly by subscription and partly by an entertainment to be given later.
The girls were very proud of the gorgeous pennant when it was completed.