Chapter V: College Callers

One afternoon as Julia and Ruth were walking toward Elmwood a human whirlwind stormed past them, composed, as it seemed, chiefly of woollen sweaters and legs in knee breeches.

“There,” said Ruth, “what geese boys can make of themselves! Actually, I think that I recognized Philip among them.”

“Yes, I believe he’s in training.”

“Well, I’m glad that he has something to do. But I wonder that he and Will haven’t called on us.”

“Seeing us may remind them. I know that they have been intending to call.”

Julia’s surmise proved correct, and that very evening the cards of the two Seniors were brought to them. When Julia and Ruth went downstairs to see them, Philip said in half apology:

“We’ve often wandered in this direction in our evening strolls, but we have never had the courage to come in.”

“What in the world made you so courageous tonight?”

“Well, you see,” said Will, “Philip came back to the club after dinner with glowing accounts of you both. He said that he could not see that you had changed a hair since coming to Radcliffe.”

“What in the name of common sense did he expect?” Ruth’s voice had a note of indignation.

“Why, we expected a great alteration. In the first place, to be typical Radcliffe girls you ought to wear glasses. Then I am sure that you ought to have had a huge bundle of books under your arm, and your clothes—it gets on my nerves to see the clothes most of the Cambridge girls wear; I suppose they are Radcliffe girls. But I could see that you looked as up-to-date as Edith.”

Philip, almost out of breath with the exertion of explaining himself, was disconcerted by the laughter that greeted his words.

“It is greatly to be feared,” said Ruth, “that the typical Radcliffe girl would be as hard to find as the average Harvard student. I haven’t seen either of them yet. But it’s really too funny for you to have expected Julia and me to develop our college peculiarities so soon. Give us time and we may become typical.”

“Ah, well, of course now,” said Philip, “I did not expect to find you entirely changed, although you know yourself that college might make a difference.”

“Naturally we’d rather not belong to the tiresome class of persons who are always the same, yet we do not wish our friends to find us altered.”

“No, you were well enough before,” and Will glanced toward Ruth.

“So you thought it best to let well enough alone?”

“Now, really you are severe! But not to dwell on personalities—how do you like your rooms here? They seem very domestic.”

“These are not our special rooms,” explained Julia; “our study is upstairs.”

“When are we to see your study, or ‘den,’ as I suppose you will come to call it?”

“I’m afraid that you would not think it typical enough to be called a den.”

“But when _are_ we to see it?”

“Oh, later we’ll give you a tea, with Aunt Anna or Mrs. Blair to chaperon us. You’ll have a chance then to offer any amount of advice.”

“We’ll give you points that may be useful next year.”

“Ah! next year we’ll be Sophomores, and Sophomores know everything,” retorted Julia.

“Yes, and sometimes more than everything. _We_ did, didn’t we, Philip?”

“I should say so! I’ve never since been so wise as I was in that Sophomore year. I’d almost like to be a Sophomore again.”

“You may have the chance,” interposed Will, “if you drop down a class at a time.”

Philip looked uncomfortable.

“Be careful, please; no twitting on facts.”

“On facts?” queried Ruth. “Is it as bad as that?”

“Oh, the Faculty has a wretched habit of giving a fellow warnings, especially at the beginning of the Senior year, just to see how he will take them.”

“Why,” said Julia, “I should take them as warnings.”

She saw by Philip’s expression that there was more than a mere suggestion of truth in what Will had said, and she resolved at the first favorable opportunity to have a serious talk with him. She remembered that the preceding year he had spoken of one or two conditions to be worked off before the close of his Senior year, and she began to fear that he had neglected to do this. In spite of his little affectations, Philip had a charm for Julia. At least she felt a genuine interest in him, partly on his own account, and partly because she was so fond of Edith. She hoped that he would make more of himself than some of the young men in his set had thought it worth while to make of themselves.

While her thoughts were wandering, the conversation of the other three went straight on.

“If we only knew what you would like,” Philip was saying, “we might give you something more substantial than points for your room. I have a fine ‘To Let’ sign that was hung out originally somewhere down in the ‘Port.’ I haven’t really room for it, and—”

“Oh, that’s only black and white. When you make a present, you ought not to be mean,” said Will. “What’s the matter with that barber’s pole that you cherish so carefully in a corner of your room? I hear that its former owner is still searching for it. A Radcliffe room would really be a safer retreat for it than yours.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t get these girls into trouble. If I present them with anything it must be something ennobling,—a tidy, or—or—a picture-scarf, or something of that kind.”

“We haven’t a tidy in our room,” interposed Ruth triumphantly.

“Then it must have a very unfeminine appearance,” responded Philip. “I am sorry that Radcliffe influences are so hardening. It wasn’t that way when you helped in that Bazaar. Don’t you remember what work I had to find something suitable for a college room, and there was nothing to be had but tidies, and dolls, and things like that? Your minds were all feminine enough then.”

“I remember that I found just what I wanted,” said Will, smiling at Ruth. “A very beautiful sofa pillow, with a crimson ‘H’ embroidered upon it.”

As it was Ruth who had made this pillow for the Bazaar given by the Four Club, and as Will had insisted on buying it as soon as he learned that it was the work of her hands, she naturally looked conscious at this reminiscence.

Thus the conversation of the four young people flowed on; and although the girls tried not to be too serious, they really did glean some useful information from the two Seniors. The gossip of undergraduates about professors, their fancied insight into the methods of their instructors is harmless enough. Yet critical listeners might have questioned the correctness of some of the judgments so glibly put forth by Philip and Will.

Philip, to tell the truth, was surprised to find himself encouraging the girls in their college career by even these scraps of information. He liked Julia so well that he could not reconcile himself to her going to college.

“It is different,” he had said to her magnificently one day at Brenda’s, “it is different, of course, in the case of a man. If he doesn’t go to college he doesn’t amount to much. People think it’s because he can’t get in, and that kind of thing. But for a girl, why you know that it really hurts her in the opinion of most people if she goes to college.”

Like his sister Edith, Philip was occasionally rather tactless, although both had the best intentions in the world.

“I hope that I won’t be hurt, at least in the opinion of my friends, by going to college,” said Julia quietly.

“Of course not,” rejoined Philip. “I might feel that way about some other girl, but not about you.”

Julia accepted the apology, but she remembered the incident. She thought of it again, as she sat before her fire that evening, and then her thoughts travelled toward Brenda. Brenda, too, had never really approved of Julia’s going to college.

“It was funny, although not exactly amusing,” reflected Julia, “when she let Belle persuade her that it was an affront to the family when I wished to study anything so unconventional—for a girl—as Greek. Yet all’s well that ends well, and Brenda is so different now that I can hardly believe that it is only two years since she was so pettish and inconsiderate.”

Yet although Brenda had certainly improved in the past two years she was still as far from perfection as most young girls of sixteen or seventeen. She was still impulsive, and disinclined to receive advice. But remembering her past mistakes, she was less ready than formerly to find fault with Julia.

One thing that had brought the two girls together was a common interest in a poor Portuguese family. The helpless Rosas living at the North End had appealed very strongly to Julia, and for a time she had feared that she might not be able to do much for them, because Brenda and her three most intimate friends had undertaken to make the mother and children their especial protégés. At length Julia’s opportunity had come, and she had not only shared in the Bazaar by which “The Four” had raised money for Mrs. Rosa, but she had also assisted in moving the family from the North End to a healthier home in the pretty village of Shiloh.

Since then the Rosas had apparently prospered, and Julia could think of them with satisfaction. Her interest in them had a double thread, for besides sympathizing with their helplessness, she felt that but for the Rosas, and the events connected with their removal to Shiloh, she could hardly have had so complete an understanding with Brenda.

Yet in her heart Julia realized that as they grew older she and Brenda were likely to see less rather than more of each other, their tastes were so very different. Brenda had still a year more of school before her, and when that was completed she would enter society. For a few years life would be a whirl of pleasure, and she would give comparatively little time to serious things. She was bound to be a butterfly of fashion, though her father and mother would have encouraged her had she wished to take life more seriously. On the other hand, they would have been glad had Julia, their niece, shown some interest in other things besides her studies.

“I do care for other things,” said Julia to herself, as she sat before the fire this evening. “I do care for other things, though it is hard to make Aunt Anna and Uncle Robert believe that I am not entirely bound up in my studies. I really believe that I should enjoy a year of society almost as much as Brenda. But the trouble is, I might grow to care for it too much. I love study, too, and I should be afraid that if I were to put aside my plans for college, even for a single year, I might in the end regard college work as a task, and wake up too late to find society all hollow. No, it is better as it is, although Aunt Anna feels that she has failed in her duty to me, because she cannot introduce me formally to society.”

To some girls situated as Julia was, the line of work that she had laid out would have been hard to follow; for although not a great heiress, she had inherited fortune enough to make her perfectly independent. Her purpose in going to college was not to fit herself to earn her living.

“I should like to feel that I _could_ earn my own living if I should ever lose my money. It is not pleasant to feel that one is only a consumer, a cumberer of the ground, and not a helper.”

Now Julia had already discovered that not all the girls in college were there to carry out the loftiest aims. Some were as evidently bent on enjoying themselves as the girls of Brenda’s set. Even thus early in her Freshman year Julia had noted the difference between the two classes, the workers and the shirkers. Of course, in her short time at Radcliffe, she had not attempted to put all her acquaintances into one or the other of these classes. But she had already seen considerable difference in the methods of her classmates. Some sat dreamily, even idly, through a lecture, making only occasional notes. Others hung on the words of their instructor, writing pages and seeming fearful of losing a word.

Some took down the names of any books the instructor named as useful for further reference. Others seemed absolutely indifferent to everything of this kind.

Julia was not really a severe critic, and she made allowances. “I must not forget to tell Brenda that there are, at least, two or three girls at Radcliffe who really enjoy frivolity.”