Betty Wales, Freshman. Dunton Edith Kellogg
didn’t need rescuing, thank you,” said Katherine. “Did you see any men?” she whispered to Betty.
Betty nodded. “Four, driving a span. They were awfully amused. Miss King was in another of the carriages,” she added sadly. Then she caught sight of Roberta and began to laugh again. “You were so funny with that cookie in your mouth,” she said. “Were you dreadfully frightened?”
“No,” said Roberta, with a guilty blush. “I always expect something to happen. Horses are such uncertain creatures.”
They drove back through the meadows at a moderate pace, deposited the horse and a certified opinion of him with an apologetic liveryman, and carried their lunch down to Paradise. “For it’s as pretty as any place and near, and we’re all hungry,” Alice said.
Paradise was deserted, for the girls had preferred to range further afield on Mountain Day. So the five freshmen chose two boats, rowed up stream without misadventure, spread out their luncheon on a grassy knoll, and ate, talked, and read till dinner time. As they crossed the campus, they met parties of dusty, disheveled pedestrians, laden with purple asters and autumn branches. A barge stopped at the gateway to deposit the campus contingent of the sophomore decorating committee, and in front of the various dwelling-houses empty buckboards, surreys and express wagons, waiting to be called for, showed that the holiday was over.
“I don’t think our first Mountain Day has been so bad after all, in spite of that dreadful horse,” said Rachel.
“So much pleasant variety about it,” added Katherine.
“Let’s not tell about the runaway,” said Alice who hated to be teased.
“But Miss King saw us,” expostulated Betty, “and you can trust Mary Brooks to know all about it.”
When Mary, who was late in dressing, entered the dining-room, she gave a theatrical cry of joy. “I’m so glad you’re all safe,” she said. “And how about that cookie, Roberta?”
“I’m sorry, but it’s gone. They’re all gone,” said Roberta coolly. “Now you might as well tell us how you knew.”
“Knew!” repeated Mary scornfully. “The whole college knows by this time. We were lunching on the notch road, near the top, when four Winsted men came up, and asked if they might join us. They knew most of us. So we said yes, if they’d brought any candy, and they told us a strange story about five girls–very young girls, they said,” interpolated Mary emphatically, “that they’d seen dashing down the notch. One was trying to eat a cookie, and another was pulling the horse’s tail, and the rest were screaming at the top of their lungs, so naturally the horse was frightened to death. Pretty soon three carriage loads of juniors came along and they confirmed the awful news and gave us the names of the victims, and you can imagine how I felt. The men want to meet you, but I told them they couldn’t because of course you’d be drowned in the river.”
“I hope you’ll relieve their minds the next time they come to see you,” said Katherine. “Are they the youths who monopolize our piazza every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon?”
“Two of them help occasionally.”
Katherine winked meaningly at the rest of the Mountain Day party. “We’ll be there,” she said, “though it goes against my conscience to receive calls from such untruthful young gentlemen.”
The next Saturday afternoon Betty and Katherine established themselves ostentatiously on the front piazza to await the arrival of Mary’s callers, Rachel had gone to play basket-ball, and Roberta had refused to conspire against Mary’s peace of mind, particularly since the plot might involve having to talk to a man. Promptly at three o’clock two gentlemen arrived.
“Miss Brooks is that sorry, but she had to go out,” announced the maid in tones plainly audible to the two eavesdroppers. “Would you please to come back at four?”
Katherine and Betty exchanged disappointed glances. “Checked again. She’s too much for us,” murmured Katherine. “Shall we wait?”
“And is Miss Wales in–Miss Betty Wales?” pursued the spokesman, after a slight pause.
The maid looked severely at the occupants of the piazza. “Yes, sor, you can see that yoursilf,” she said and abruptly withdrew.
The man laughed and came quickly toward Betty, who had risen to meet him. “I’m John Parsons,” he said. “I roomed with your brother at Andover. He told me you were here and asked me to call. Didn’t he write to you too? Miss Brooks promised to present me, but as she isn’t in – ”
“Oh, yes, Will wrote, and I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Parsons,” Betty broke in. “Only I didn’t know you were–I mean I didn’t know that Miss Brooks’s caller was you. Miss Kittredge, Mr. Parsons. Wasn’t your friend going to wait?”
“Bob,” called Mr. Parsons after the retreating figure of his companion, “come back and hear about the runaway. You’re wanted.”
It was fully half-past four when Messrs. Parsons and Hughes, remembering that they had another engagement, left their escorts by request at the gymnasium and returned from a pleasant walk through Paradise and the campus to Meriden Place, where a rather frigid reception awaited them. Betty and Katherine, having watched the finish of the basket-ball game, followed them, and spent the time before dinner in painting a poster which they hung conspicuously on Mary’s door. On it a green dragon, recently adopted as freshman class animal, charged the sophomores’ purple cow and waved a long and very curly tail in triumph. Underneath was written in large letters, “Quits. Who is going to the ΚΦ dance at Winsted?”
“I’m dreadfully afraid mother won’t let me go though,” said Betty as they hammered in the pins with Helen’s paper-weight. “And anyhow it’s not for three whole weeks.”
When the drawing was securely fastened, Betty surveyed it doubtfully. “I wonder if we’d better take it down,” she said at last. “I don’t believe it’s very dignified. I’m afraid I oughtn’t to have asked Mr. Parsons to call his friend back, but I did so want to meet both of them and crow over Mary. And it was they who suggested the walk. Katherine, do you mind if we take this down?”
“Why, no, if you don’t want to leave it,” said Katherine looking puzzled. “I’m afraid Mr. Hughes didn’t have a very good time. Men aren’t my long suit. But otherwise I think we did this up brown.”
Just then Eleanor came up, and Katherine gave her an enthusiastic account of the afternoon’s adventure. Betty was silent. Presently she asked, “Girls, what is a back row reputation?”
“I don’t know. Why?” asked Eleanor.
“Well, you know I stopped at the college, Katherine, to get my history paper back. Miss Ellis looked hard at me when I went in and stammered out what I wanted. She hunted up the paper and gave it to me and then she said, ‘With which division do you recite, Miss Wales?’ I told her at ten, and she looked at me hard again and said, ‘You have been present in class twelve times and I’ve never noticed you. Don’t acquire a back row reputation, Miss Wales. Good-day,’ and I can tell you I backed out in a hurry.”
“I suppose she means that we sit on the back rows when we don’t know the lesson,” said Helen who had joined the group.
“I see,” said Betty. “And do you suppose the faculty notice such things as that and comment on them to one another?”
“Of course,” said Eleanor wisely. “They size us up right off. So does our class, and the upper class girls.”
“Gracious!” said Betty. “I wish I hadn’t promised to go to a spread on the campus to-night. I wish – What a nuisance so many reputations are!” And she crumpled the purple cow and the green dragon into a shapeless wad and threw it at Rachel, who was coming up-stairs swinging her gym shoes by their strings.
CHAPTER VI
LETTERS HOME
Betty was cross and “just a tiny speck homesick,” so she confided to the green lizard. Nothing interesting