"I"m going to do what might be greatly criticised, Suttie, I"m going to tell you that I think it would be a very good thing for Martha Williams if you would quietly go in and room with her and let Mary come in with Alberta. Now, I"ve done no beating about the bush--I"ve told you out straight and plain. What do you say?"
"I say it"s a fool arrangement, and that I won"t have a thing to do with it," said Sutton M., promptly.
"All right," returned Biscuits, calmly, "that"s all. Is that apple green? I don"t mind it, but it makes some people sick."
"You know perfectly well Martha"s the last girl in the world--we"d fight night and day."
"I know she"s one of the brightest girls in the college, and that she"s getting low in her work, and it"s a shame, too," said Biscuits.
"Would I make her higher?"
Sutton M. tried to be sarcastic, but she showed in her manner the effect of the confidence.
"Yes, you would," said Biscuits. "Mary Winter"s just spoiling her.
She"s a perfect nonent.i.ty, and she studies like a grammar-school girl--it just disgusts Martha. And Mary admires her so that Martha just rides over her and gets to despise good regular studying because Mary does it so childishly. If some one could be with her who was bright and jolly and liked fun and had a sense of humor and did good work, too, for you two do study well--I"ll give you that credit--it would be the making of her. And Mary"s such an idiot. She shows that Martha shocks her so much that Martha just keeps it up to horrify her--"
"I know," said Sutton M., wisely, "like those cigarettes--Martha never really liked them."
"Exactly," Biscuits agreed, though with an effort, for the Twins certainly knew far too much. "The moment I told Martha that it wasn"t in the least a question of morals with us but entirely a matter of good taste--that we didn"t think she was wicked at all but that it was very bad for the house, and that when we were all represented in the _Police Gazette_ as trotting over the campus with cigarettes in our mouths, the college would get all the credit and she wouldn"t get any--why, she stopped right away. And considering how it irritated her I think she was very nice and sensible about it."
"But just because Kate and I studied, Martha wouldn"t, would she?"
"Yes, I think she would. She"d feel that it was an example to you if she didn"t. And she"s so bright. It"s a shame she should flunk as she does. She knows we all know she could get any marks she chose, so she doesn"t care."
Sutton M. looked thoughtful. "I think her stories are fine," she remarked. "And I suppose I"d have to go with some spook, if I don"t,"
she added gloomily.
"Mrs. Harrow feels bad enough about the change," Biscuits interposed, "and she said she"d act very severely next time. I persuaded her that you"d--that is, I didn"t persuade her, I"m afraid. Of course, she feels that if you _should_ by any chance drag Martha into your kiddish nonsense, why--she doesn"t like Martha any too well, you know, and--"
"Biscuits," interrupted Sutton M., hastily, "if I _should_ go in with Martha, and I must say I should think _anybody"d_ be welcome to her after that stick of a Mary Winter, I wouldn"t drag her into a thing--truly, I wouldn"t. I"d be careful! Kate says that Patsy says she"s lots of fun and awfully jolly and nice when you know her," she added.
Biscuits a.s.sented warmly. "And you understand, Suttie," she continued, "that it"s not everybody I"d speak to in this way or that Martha would have. Martha"s rather particular: she understands that Alberta May is a little trying, good and kind as she is. But I realize what a good thing it would be for Martha to be with somebody who wouldn"t be so shocked whenever she said anything to that skull."
"Oh, that skull!" said Sutton M., with a wave of her brown hand. She looked up and caught Biscuits" eye with the sharp, uncompromisingly literal Sutton twinkle. "Biscuits," she demanded, "did anybody ever know of anything really _bad_ that Martha ever did--ever?"
"Never," said Biscuits, promptly.
Sutton M. chuckled: "That"s what we always thought," she said, and added: "Well, I"ll try it, and," very solemnly, "you can trust me, Biscuits--I promise you."
When Biscuits went back to Martha"s room she missed the skull, and beheld on the newly dusted bookshelves a decorous row of historical works and an a.s.sortment of German cla.s.sics. This gratified her, for it was with the German department that Martha"s erratic methods of study most obviously clashed. Martha was detaching from the wall a pleasing engraving representing a long white lady with her head hanging off from a couch, on which she somewhat obtrusively reclined, an unwholesome demon perching upon her chest and a ghastly white horse peeping at her between gloomy curtains. This cheerful effect was ent.i.tled "The Nightmare," and as it left the wall, Martha fell upon an enlargement in colored chalk of one of Mr. Beardsley"s most vivid conceptions, and laid them away together.
"Why, Martha!" she exclaimed, "this is really too much--there"s no reason why you should take your things down!"
Martha smiled tolerantly. "Oh, it makes no matter to me," she said indifferently. "I know the Loti by heart, anyhow, and though none of these things affect me in the slightest way--I really can"t see anything in them one way or the other--still I frankly refuse to take any responsibility. If the child should happen to feel that the skull, for instance--"
Biscuits grinned. "It"s one less thing to dust, anyway," she remarked, and left Martha to her work of reconstruction.
She wandered in, one evening, two or three weeks later, to get a German dictionary, and beheld with a pardonable pride the Twins gabbling their irregular verbs in whispers by the lamp, while Martha, stretched on the couch beneath the gas, communed with Schiller and the dictionary. The Twins gave her one swift ineffable glance, kicked each other under the table, and bent their eyes upon their grammars: Martha nodded to her, indicated the Twins with one of her three-volume smiles, and drawled as she handed her the dictionary, "In the words of Mr. Dooley and the Cubans, "Pa-pa has lost his job, and all is now happiness and a cottage-organ"!"
THE FIFTH STORY
_THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH_
V
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH
I
FROM MISS ELIZABETH STOCKTON TO MISS CAROLYN SAWYER
_Lowell, Ma.s.s., Sept. 10, 189-._
MY DEAREST CAROL: The thing we have both wished so much has happened!
Papa has finally consented to let me go to college! It has taken a long time and a _great deal_ of persuasion, and Mamma never cared _anything_ about it, you know, herself. But I laid it before her in a way that I really am ashamed of! I never thought I"d do anything like it! But I _had_ to, it seemed to me. I told her that she had often spoken of what a mistake Mrs. Hall made in letting Marjory come out so soon, and that I should _certainly_ be unwilling to stay at Mrs.
Meade"s another year. I"m doing advanced work now, and I"m _terribly_ bored. The girls all seem so very young, somehow! And I said that I couldn"t come out till I was twenty-two, if I went to college. I teased so that she gave way, but we had a _terrible_ siege with Papa.
He is the _dearest_ man in the world, but just a little _tiny_ bit prejudiced, you know. He wants me to finish at Mrs. Meade"s and then go abroad for a year or two. He wants me to do something with my music. But I told him of the _fine_ Music School there was at Smith, and how much _harder_ I should work there, _naturally_. He talked a good deal about the art advantages and travel and French--you know what I think about the _terrible narrowness_ of a boarding-school education! It is _shameful_, that an intellectual girl of this century should be tied down to _French_ and _Music_! And how can the sc.r.a.ppy little bit of gallery sight-seeing that I should do _possibly_ equal four years of earnest, intelligent, _regular_ college work? He said something about marriage--oh, dear! It is _horrible_ that one should have to think of that! I told him, with a great deal of dignity and rather coldly, I"m afraid, that _my_ life would be, I hoped, _something more_ than the mere _evanescent glitter_ of a _social b.u.t.terfly_! I think it really impressed him. He said, "Oh, very well--very well!" So I"m coming, dearest, and you must write me all about what books I"d better get and just what I"d better know of the college customs. I"m _so_ glad you"re on the campus. You know Uncle Wendell knows the President very well indeed--he was in college with him--and, somehow or other, I"ve got a room in the Lawrence, though we didn"t expect it so soon! I feel inspired already when I think of the chapel and the big Science Building and that _beautiful_ library!
I"ve laid out a course of work that Miss Beverly--that"s the literature teacher--thinks very ambitious, but I am afraid she doesn"t realize the intention of a _college_, which is a little different, I suppose, from a _boarding-school_(!) I have planned to take sixteen hours for the four years. I must say I think it"s rather absurd to limit a girl to that who _really_ is _perfectly_ able to do more.
Perhaps you could see the Register--if that"s what it is--and tell him I could just as well take eighteen, and then I could do that other Literature. I must go to try on something--really, it"s very hard to convince Mamma that Smith isn"t a _summer resort_! Good-by, dearest, we shall have such _beautiful_ times together--I"m sure you"ll be as excited as I am. We shall _for once_ see as much of each other as we want to--I wish I could study with you! I"m coming up on the 8.20 Wednesday morning.
Devotedly yours, ELIZABETH.
II
FROM MISS CAROLYN SAWYER TO MISS ELIZABETH STOCKTON
_Lake Forest, Ill., Sept. 17, 189-._
DEAR BESS: I"m very glad you"re coming up--it"s the only place in the world. I"m not going to be able to meet you--I"m coming back late this year--Mrs. Harte is going to give our crowd a house-party at Lakemere.
Isn"t that gay? I met Arnold Ritch this summer. He knows you, he said.
I never heard you speak of him. He"s perfectly _smooth_--his tennis is all right, too. For heaven"s sake, don"t try to take sixteen hours--on the campus, too! It will break you all up. You"ll get on the Glee Club, probably--bring up your songs, by the way--and you"ll want to be on the Team. Have you got that blue organdie? You"ll want something about like that, pretty soon. If you can help it, don"t get one of those Bagdad things for your couch. I"m deadly sick of mine. Get that portiere thing you used to have on the big chair at home. It"s more individual. We"re getting up a little dance for the 26th. If you know any man you could have up, you can come--it will be a good chance to meet some of the upper-cla.s.s girls. We may not be able to have it, though. Don"t tell Kate Saunders about this, please. She"d ask Lockwood over from Amherst, and I"ve promised Jessie Holden to ask him for her. We shall probably have Sue for cla.s.s president this year--I"m glad of it, too. There will be a decent set of ushers. I suppose you"ll want me for your senior for the soph.o.m.ore-senior thing. I"ll keep that if you wish. I shall get up by the 24th. I"m in the Morris.
Don"t forget your songs.
Yours in haste, C. P. S.
III
FROM MRS. HENRY STOCKTON TO MRS. JOHN SAWYER