Chapter VI: Setting to Work

Pamela never for a moment felt any lack of liberty in Cambridge, in spite of the fact that she had less of real leisure than most of her classmates. Her life at Radcliffe was so much nearer her ideal than anything she had previously known that she was in a state of constant thankfulness. Clarissa, on the contrary, found the very atmosphere of the college restraining.

So few were the rules at Radcliffe that Clarissa had a breezy way of forgetting that any existed. She disregarded, for example, the notice in the catalogue that students could board only in houses approved by the Dean. She was therefore surprised when the request came that she should call at the office to explain why she had chosen a house where several Harvard men were boarding.

“What funny ideas they have here in Cambridge,” she had said when describing the interview. “Why, Archibald is my third cousin, and we grew up together. My mother and father would just as soon have him in the same house. They’d know that he would look after me. He’s horribly serious. I wonder if the powers that be here in Cambridge ever heard of co-education?”

“Oh, the rule is intended for the greatest good of the greatest number,” replied Julia, to whom she had told her tale of woe. “With fascinating youths in every house where Radcliffe girls board, think of the hours that might be wasted in matching wits!”

“Fascinating!” responded Clarissa disdainfully; “there’s little chance that I would waste time over them. Of course Archibald offered to move, but there were two other Freshman youths in the house, and so I had to go. My present abode is most domestic with ‘Home, sweet home’ worked in worsted on the walls, and a plush-covered album and two Radcliffe students as the chief adornments of the parlor. That ought to suit you, Julia—oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Bourne.”

“Why not Julia?”

“Oh, I notice that people here are so afraid to call one another by their first names. For my part, I always think of the Christian name first. It has so much more character.”

“So few people call me ‘Julia’ that I am always pleased to add a new friend to the list.”

“Well, then, since you are so very kind,” responded Clarissa, smiling, “perhaps you’ll let me give you some suggestions about the approaching mid-years. I believe that I am on the high road to success.”

“Then do tell us,” cried Ruth, who had just entered the room.

“Well, I show a frantic interest in all the reference books mentioned, and I’ve even bought one or two of them. I also make a special note of any witticism—alleged witticism—of my instructor. Then I’m building up a scholarly reputation by adorning my room with books and plaster casts. When I have a brass tea-kettle I shall be ready for company. But it will be tiresome to keep that tea-kettle polished.”

“It’s less trouble than you might think,” said Julia, laughing. “That’s the advantage of owning a roommate.”

“Well, you are an angel. Miss Roberts, do you do all the polishing in this establishment?”

“Ah! it wouldn’t be becoming to disclose how much work I do.”

“Oh, well,” said Clarissa, “it’s a fair division of labor after all for you to do the rubbing and scrubbing, while Julia does the æsthetic and ornamental for the two.”

Ruth colored at this remark, and Julia looked up in surprise at the careless Clarissa. But the Western girl, unconscious of offence, was looking at the photographs on the mantle-piece.

Before Clarissa turned around, Ruth, gathering up her books, had left the room.

“Why did she leave us?” asked Clarissa, discovering her absence.

“Oh, she often studies in her own room. Only on Monday afternoon does she feel perfectly free.”

“I see,” responded Clarissa, “I am a little in the way to-day.”

“Not as far as I am concerned,” responded Julia. “I’ve been studying and I am glad to have a little rest.”

“A little intellectual rest,” responded Clarissa, “as the Bostonian says when he goes to New York. Well, I ought to come on Mondays, only there’s always some one else here.”

Julia was accustomed to Clarissa’s badinage, but Ruth unfortunately did not like Clarissa as well. Julia therefore regretted her ill-considered remark.

Clarissa spent much time bewailing the fact that she had to be a Freshman at Radcliffe when she had already spent a year in a Western university.

“Pa promised me,” she said, “eight hundred dollars a year for three years, and I suppose that I ought to save out of that for my fourth year. I never imagined that I should have to spend four years at Radcliffe; it’s just ridiculous to have to begin all over again. However, what can’t be cured must be endured. But Pa will always think it was my fault in some way that I didn’t get admitted a Sophomore.”

“But you’ve made it clear to him?”

“Oh, yes; but it’s hard to make any one not on the spot understand just how things are. I might get through in three years, just as some of the boys do, but I can’t make up my mind to grind. There are so many interesting things to see and do in Boston. I really can’t pin myself down to hard study. In the first place, I can’t get used to the methods. It seems as if there is nothing to do but listen to lectures and take notes. I’m only beginning to understand how to take notes.”

“It’s a science in itself,” said Julia.

“I should say so,” continued Clarissa. “I shouldn’t like to have any one see what a hodge-podge I made of my note-books the first three or four weeks. I couldn’t make head nor tail of them until I had borrowed the notes of one of the model girls to interpret them by.”

“It was hard for all of us,” said Julia, “at least it was for me.”

“Well, our first hour examination showed that we must remember the instructor’s words, that it wasn’t enough to imbed them in hieroglyphics. Allusions that I had considered mere ornaments I soon found ought to have been taken seriously. Little innocent references to some reserved book were of more importance than hours of lectures. Alas! alas!”

Julia smiled at her expression of sorrow.

“You need not laugh,” said Clarissa. “I had meant to do most of my reading next summer, and I had not even taken the trouble to note the names of the books referred to. But I find that having electives does not mean that you can elect to study or not, just as you please. The mid-years will be serious enough, judging by the samples we have had.”

Clarissa was not the only Freshman to find difficulty in accustoming herself to Radcliffe methods. Many others, unused to the lecture system, had rested too securely in the hope that before the mid-years they could make up all deficiencies. As the college year went on they were bound to find, like all preceding Freshmen, that lectures in the end were far more stimulating than recitations from even the best of text-books, and in the course of time, too, even the dullest was likely to acquire the art of successful note-taking.

The hour examinations at irregular intervals before Christmas were often rude awakeners for careless girls. Others were agreeably surprised to find their marks better than they had hoped.

“It’s uncertainty that kills one,” said Clarissa. “I mean to work so that my mid-years will give me ‘B,’ or at any rate ‘C’ in English. The warning, you will see, shall not have been in vain. I used to think that I knew something about Rhetoric, but it seems that I was wrong, though I studied it years ago in the High School.”

Although Clarissa’s rather original manner of expressing herself did not wholly meet the approval of her English instructor, since the first examination he had expressed a certain restrained approval of some of her written work.

In November even the shyest Freshmen had begun to find their place at Radcliffe, and to feel that they had some individuality. The classes, relatively small compared with Harvard, enabled the members of each class to know one another by sight and name, even if the acquaintance went no further. But the new girls were impressed by the fact that intimacies in no way followed class lines. The elective system made it possible in many courses for Freshmen and Seniors to sit side by side, nor did a Senior lose dignity by associating with the lower classes. Clarissa constantly commented on this evidence of a spirit so different from that to which she had been accustomed at her Western college.

Pamela accepted everything at Cambridge as a matter of course. Nothing seemed strange to her because she had expected everything to be strange. Whatever was, was right for Pamela, so far as Radcliffe and Cambridge were concerned, and she lacked Clarissa’s bubbling energy, which constantly sought some object to reform.

“I can’t say that I disapprove of the present state of things, though I really cannot understand it. Here we are in the same town with hundreds—yes, thousands—of students, and yet we see few of them at close range, and then those we know are only our brothers or cousins or something of that kind.”

“‘Something of that kind’ is delightfully indefinite,” said Polly Porson, the little Georgian whose condescension as a Sophomore had won Julia’s gratitude at the beginning of the term. “You speak like you were disappointed,” continued Miss Porson, “but if you stop to think, it’s well that we have so little to distract us. We are not forbidden to cross the college yard if we really wish to. But only think what a nuisance if they were permitted to walk about our little campus!”

“Do you suppose that there is any rule against it?” asked Clarissa mischievously.

Polly laughed in reply. “Well, the average undergraduate would almost rather be suspended for three months than find himself within our grounds. Some of them make a virtue of not knowing just where Fay House is, and you’d be surprised to find that many explain with pride that they’ve never met a Radcliffe girl.”

“We must change all that,” cried Clarissa. “Not that we are anxious to have the acquaintance of those callow youths,—for they must be callow to look at us in that tone of voice,—but we must do something or have something here that will make them anxious to know us better.”

“We can get along very well without their society,” interposed Elspeth Gray, who happened to be passing through the conversation room where Clarissa and Polly and one or two others were talking. “We’re not exactly cloistered here in Cambridge, as girls are at some colleges. Most of us have the society, more or less, of real men, and we do not depend on undergraduates.”

“All the same,” said Clarissa, “we might have a little more fun here. Now, Polly Porson, you must admit that it’s a trifle slow here for a college town.”

“Most of us were not looking for fun when we undertook to come to Radcliffe. Cambridge never had the reputation of being very amusing. But I’ll tell you something to raise your spirits. Rumors of the charm and wit of the Idler theatricals have begun to penetrate the brick walls of Harvard, and last year we heard of sorrow in college halls because men were not admitted to the performances. What we couldn’t attain through our work we have accomplished by our play. They wouldn’t lift their hands to read one of our examination books, but they would give more than the admission fee to see us act.”

“Aren’t they permitted to come?”

“No, indeed, although we really ought to find some way of letting them reciprocate our interest in the yearly Pudding theatricals.”

“We ought to be able to get up something to interest them,” said Clarissa.

“Can you act?” asked Polly abruptly.

“Why, yes, after a fashion,” responded Clarissa.

“Well, then, do give your name to Miss Witherspoon. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to find girls willing to do their part. But there! you must have heard the invitation given at the first meeting.”

“I heard it without taking it to myself. I’m not the person of talent for whom the Idler is looking.”

Whatever her other faults, Clarissa could not be accused of vanity.