Chapter III: Fraternity Girls

SCARCELY had Janet become accustomed to her new surroundings, before she found herself the object of special attention from certain girls in the college, and she quite plumed herself upon being so popular with these students in the upper classes. She took pains, however, to hide her elation, for she had wit enough to discover that most of the freshmen were very well satisfied with themselves, and that it was the aim of the sophs to take them down, a wholesome discipline, to be sure, for the majority of them. Indeed, it was in talking to Rosalie Trent, a junior who had selected Janet for special attention, that she learned what was expected of the freshmen, and how far many of them failed in meeting the expectation.

"They know it all," exclaimed Rosalie. "I don't mean you, Janet dear, for even if you think yourself a star of the first magnitude you have sense enough to keep your opinions to yourself. But the consequential airs of some of the new girls actually put me in a temper. I met one of these important individuals waiting for the elevator awhile ago; Nell Deford was there, too; you know how we all regard Nell, and even if she were not a senior, we'd show her deference. Well, what does this little whipper-snapper do, but push herself into the elevator ahead of Nell."

"What did you do?" asked Janet, appalled at such an impertinence on the part of a freshman.

"I swept her back and said, 'Miss Deford first, if you please.' Then I stepped in after Nell, and let Miss Fresh enter last. I must say that she had the grace to look abashed. You see why we have to sit on such creatures once in awhile, or they would simply run the whole place. You are going to the tea with me, aren't you, Janet? Becky Burdett is a girl worth knowing."

"And she is a senior? I think it is lovely of her to want me to come, and I shall surely go."

"You will meet some of our nicest girls there, and Becky has a very pleasant home."

"I think it just dear of you to take me," said Janet gratefully. She was a little bewildered by Rosalie's evident desire to please her, and wondered why she should have so attracted her. It was after Rosalie left the room and Cordelia came in that she found out.

"I see Rosalie Trent is rushing you," she said.

"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Janet.

"Wasn't she just here, and haven't you been walking with her and meeting her after class to walk home with her?"

"Why, yes, I have sometimes."

"They say that it is a great compliment to be asked to join the fraternity that Nell Deford and Becky Burdett belong to, and you ought to feel flattered."

"Fraternity? Rosalie has never mentioned the word to me."

"Of course not. It would be the greatest breach of etiquette to think of doing that, and Rosalie would rather die than mention it to you; all the same she is rushing you, it is very plain to be seen. You didn't suppose she was showering her attentions upon you simply because she loved you for yourself alone, did you?"

"I didn't know. Some of the others have done the same."

"They are frat girls, too, and nothing is too much for a rushee."

"Well I think it is very nice to be a rushee. I like all this attention whether they want me in their fraternity or not. Any way you put it, it is a compliment, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course, for they are supposed to be very particular whom they ask. Shall you join that one, Janet, or any at all?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. Shall you?"

"No, I think not. I rather think I shall be a non-frat. It takes up such a lot of time and there are expenses for one thing and another, and I would rather spend my money some other way."

"But there are advantages," said Janet. "You meet a lot of nice girls, and you may make acquaintances that will be a pleasure and a benefit to you all your life."

"That is true, but I can get along without that, I think. Is Ted going to join?"

"I don't know. We haven't discussed it."

"What do you talk about, pray?"

"Oh, a thousand things. Heaven knows there is enough to talk about, isn't there?"

"Well, yes, if one wants to merely say words. It doesn't appear to me that there are many girls here worth holding a real conversation with."

"Another argument for a frat," said Janet. "You might meet a kindred soul, if you joined one," she continued, searching in her bureau drawer for a pair of light gloves. "There's Ted now! If you want to talk frats to her, you can do it, and I will ask to be excused while I complete my toilet, for I am going with Rosalie to the halls of the rich and the great."

Teddy and Cordelia soon left her, and she started off with Rosalie for the tea, which proved to be an occasion for a perfect ovation. Every girl present seemed to want to make herself as agreeable as she knew how, and lavished compliments upon Janet till she might well have become vain.

"I have wanted so much to meet you," said Becky Burdett. "Rosalie has been talking of Janet Ferguson till we all feel that not to know you is to have lost something. Nell Deford has been asking about you. Will you let me bring her over to talk to you?"

Would she let her? Janet was overwhelmed, for of all persons whom she desired to meet, the stately Miss Deford was the one; and when she found herself listening to pretty speeches from this paragon, she was in the seventh heaven of delight. That she, Janet Ferguson, a country girl, a freshman, with nothing special to recommend her, should be receiving friendly advances from the star of the senior class, who had written clever stories, who had an enviable record for brilliant work in more than one course, who was editor-in-chief of the college magazine, and who, altogether, was a person of importance—this was a privilege that Janet never expected to come her way.

She went home in a transport of delight. "I've had the loveliest time," she exclaimed as she drew off her gloves. "I wish you could have gone, Teddy. Just think, I met Nell Deford and Becky Burdett, and some of the loveliest girls, and they were so sweet to me. I think it is perfectly delicious to be rushed."

"One of the seniors invited me to go to a lecture with her," said Edna.

"Which one of the girls was it?"

"I forget her name, but she wears a hat trimmed with a centrepiece and a feather duster."

Janet laughed. "Oh, that's Theresa McGarvey. She is great fun. She had that hat on this afternoon, and she certainly looks like a guy, but she is so droll and so full of life, nobody cares how she looks. I hope you are going to accept her invitation, for if we join any frat it should be that one; the very nicest and brightest of the girls belong to it. How did you happen to meet Miss McGarvey?"

"She came up and spoke to me after Latin this morning. She asked if the nice fresh-looking girl with dark hair whom she saw so often with Rosalie Trent were not my roommate. I replied that she was. Then she asked your name and I told her. Then she asked if I had many friends here, and I said, yes, that I had numbers, that I believed I had as many as six; then she invited me to go to the lecture with her."

"Oh, I do hope she means to rush you, Ted. You don't know what fun it is. I must confess, however, that it plays havoc with one's outside plans, but Cordelia says they don't keep it up very long. I wish you could go to Miss Burdett's; she has such a lovely home. I noticed that she had several awfully good casts in her room. I mean to get some, a Barrye lion, I think, and one of those fascinating heads like hers."

"Has she a fascinating head? It didn't strike me so when you pointed her out to me in chapel."

"Goose, I mean her cast of a head, of course. Say, Teddy, don't forget that it is as much as your life's worth to mention the word frat to any of these girls. One of the freshmen didn't know she oughtn't to, and she asked one of the rushers when pledge day would be; they dropped her instantly, and she couldn't imagine why. We must never give them a suspicion of a hint that we know why they are nice to us. Cordelia told me all that. I don't know what we should do without Cordelia; she is so well posted, you know, because her sister was graduated here last year."

A knock at the door interrupted their talk, and Janet admitted a stylishly dressed girl who asked, "Isn't this Miss Ferguson?"

"Yes, I am Janet Ferguson," was the reply.

"My friend, Effie Chandler, told me to be sure to look you up," said the stranger as Janet ushered her into the room.

"Oh, then you must be Hester Reeves," said Janet. "Effie told me I should see you here. Do let me call Teddy. This is Effie's friend, Miss Reeves, Ted. It is nice to meet friends of your friends when you are away from home, isn't it?" she said turning to the visitor.

Hester smiled. "It is for me in this case. What lovely rooms you have. Aren't those portières the quaintest things. I always envy the girls who can have a sitting room and a bedroom, too."

"We like it so, though I do sleep in the sitting room," said Janet. "We thought it would be better to do that way, and then if one must sit up late studying, the other, who may not have to, can go to bed early and need not be disturbed. Are you in one of the dormitories, Miss Reeves?"

"No," was the answer, "I board outside. I tried Hopper Hall for two years and got tired of it, so this year I concluded to go to one of the boarding houses. It gives me a little more freedom, I find."

"Then if you have been here two years, you are a junior, aren't you?" said Edna. "Dear me, it seems a long time before we shall be in your shoes."

Hester laughed. "It always seems long at the start, but when I think that next year will be my last I cannot realize it, and begin to feel very regretful that the time is so short."

Then followed a lot of personal talk, and at length Hester invited both the girls to go to a matinée with her the next Saturday, and shortly took her leave.

"Well," said Janet, when the door had closed after their guest, "there is one girl who has no axe to grind, and who is going to be nice to us, Teddy. Do you like her?"

"Yes," returned she, "but I should say she was a person fond of her own way."

"Who isn't fond of it?" laughed Janet. "I'm sure I am."

For the next two weeks, Hester saw a great deal of the two girls and was constantly asking them out to dinner, to drive, to walk, and showered so many attentions on them, that they were convinced that she was really very fond of them. Then came pledge day, and both girls, who had decided to join the fraternity to which Becky Burdett, Nell Deford, and Rosalie Trent belonged, donned their pledge pins and came out ardent frat girls.

It was the same day that Janet came in to the room where Edna was hard at work over her daily theme.

"Weren't we to go somewhere this afternoon?" asked Janet.

"We were, but we are not," replied Edna without looking up. "There's a note there on the table from Hester Reeves asking us to excuse her from going to Mrs. Talbot's tea."

"That's funny," returned Janet. "I met Hester in the library just now and she barely spoke to me. What have we done, Ted?"

"I'm sure I don't know," responded Edna, looking puzzled. "I am quite sure I haven't made fun of any of her relations, and I did not monopolize her best young man at the reception the other night."

"I cannot plead guilty to either of those crimes, nor to having been anything but most amiable. It's sort of awkward, isn't it, Ted, to be treated as if you were guilty when you are in a state of conscious innocence? What are these?" She took up two notes lying on the table.

"Oh those? I suppose yours is the same as mine. I am glad we have settled on our fraternity."

Janet glanced at her note. "Ted," she exclaimed, "I do believe this accounts for it. Hester Reeves has been rushing us after all, and we silly-billies didn't see through it. We thought it was all for our own sweet sakes, or for the sake of Effie Chandler." She sat down and began to laugh.

"I wonder if that is it," said Edna after a moment's thought.

"I certainly believe it is."

"Well, I said she looked like a person who was bound to have her own way. I'll bet she is furious."

"Dear me, then let her be," said Janet. "We can't help it. I'd rather it were that, than something else, though I can't help laughing to think how we have been fooled, and how she has been, too, for that matter. I like the girls in our frat so much the best of any, and even if we hadn't pledged, I wouldn't change, would you?"

"Indeed, I would not," replied Edna. "We must not breathe a word of this to any of the other girls, though," she said, as she went back to her theme.

Their conjectures proved to be quite true, for from that time, Hester dropped them, and not only she but several others, who had been particularly agreeable to Janet and Edna in the interest of their fraternity, after this had no more attentions for them.

However, with their new friends, the girls were content, and felt that their fraternity privileges were very great, since it gave them an intimacy with those of the seniors whom it would have been difficult in any other way to meet.

It was to Becky Burdett's pretty home that the girls liked specially to go, for Becky was a city girl and could eschew boarding houses, dormitories and regulations, and was much sought after because of this, and because she was a thoroughly generous-hearted, loyal and lovable girl. She was friendly, too, with a number of the faculty, and visited Professor Newcomb's wife and Professor Satterthwaite's daughters, so that she seemed to the innocent little freshmen a person living within a charmed circle.

"Could you ever, ever imagine yourself on jocose terms with your professor of mathematics?" said Janet as the two girls settled down one afternoon for hard work. "I nearly have nervous prostration if I happen to come face to face with him on the street, and to sit at his right hand at table would finish me completely."

"Well, since you don't have to sit at his right hand," said Edna, "why these remarks?"

"I was thinking of something Becky Burdett told me; of a joke Mr. Satterthwaite told her, and I couldn't imagine his condescending to anything so light."

"My dear, he is but a man, and probably his wife finds him very human," returned Edna sagely. "I am not half so much afraid of him as of Miss Drake. She is so terribly dignified and stately that she freezes me to an icicle. Imagine kissing her, or having little quips with her. Gracious! I'd as soon try to tickle an iceberg or a polar bear."

"Who's a polar bear?" asked some one putting her head in at the door. "I knocked, but you didn't hear. I came to borrow some alcohol."

"Goodness, Lee, we haven't a drop," Janet told her. "What do you want with it?"

"Gwine mek a cup o' tea fo' Miss Meadows an' de gals," returned Lee; "by Miss Meadows meaning Miss Drake."

"Not Miss Drake, the instructor in Latin? We were just talking about her."

"It was not she whom you were calling a polar bear, was it?"

"Oh, but we said first an iceberg; she's so very dignified, you know."

Lee laughed. "Come in and have a cup of tea with us. Ted said you were going to Mrs. Talbot's tea or I would have asked you before."

"With Miss Drake there?" ejaculated both the girls.

"Why not?"

"She isn't really in your room, is she?"

"Of course she is. I've known her all my life."

"And you're not scared to death of her?"

"Of Tilly Drake, as mamma calls her? I see myself. You won't be either, though perhaps it is wise to allow you to retain a little wholesome fear. Let me tell you something: Tilly's dignity is all assumed. I'm letting you into a secret, mind. I believe in my heart of hearts that she is as much scared of the girls as they are of her, and so she takes refuge in the heavy dignity. You'd better come and see her. I know Charity Shepherd has some alcohol. It would be against her New England thrift to allow herself to be out of it, so I'll go there. If I tell her it is for Miss Drake, she will give it to me. Ordinarily one has to bind and gag her in order to get it, for she will not succumb to fair means. She'll let me have it for Miss Drake though."

The girls looked at each other as Lee danced out. "Shall we go?" said Janet. "I'm willing."

"I'll go if you will keep me in countenance," returned Edna. "If you see me frozen with fright, just chip in and keep the ball of conversation rolling. Fortunately it's just the next room, so if we make any dreadful breaks, we can run and look the door before Miss Drake can catch us."

Janet laughed. The idea of the dignified Miss Drake phasing them home was too absurd.

"My teeth are fairly chattering," said Edna in a whisper, as they reached Lee's door, "and just feel my hands, Janet."

"They're like ice. You poor thing, I believe you actually are rattled," Janet returned, and just then the door opened to admit them. "Here are two frightened doves, Miss Drake," said Lee. "Come up and meet the ogress, girls."

Miss Drake laughed. She looked very handsome and quite approachable as she sat there in her plumed hat, wearing a very feminine cloth skirt, and a white silk waist on which was pinned a bunch of violets. In the class-room, she dressed severely in a plain black gown with no ornaments at all, and the effect of the becoming hat and the soft lace at throat and wrists was to alter her appearance decidedly. She held out a welcoming hand to the girls. "I'm glad to meet you in this informal way," she said. "Do I really scare you?"

Edna sat down uneasily on the edge of a chair, but Janet was more confident. "I think I don't usually come from your class quite as stiff with fright as Ted does," she answered. "It usually takes me quite an hour to get her limbered up. Professor Satterthwaite is my Gorgon. When he turns those penetrating eyes of his upon me, I feel the blood slowly congealing in my veins, and can't for the life of me tell a theorem from a broomstick. I think I shall give up mathematics, if I live through this semester."

"I used to feel just that way about Professor Satterthwaite when I was a freshman," said Miss Drake, "so you have my warmest sympathies."

Edna settled herself a little more comfortably on her chair. "Dear me," she said, "was he ever your professor, Miss Drake?"

Miss Drake smiled. "Why yes, my dear. Back in the dark ages, some ten or twelve years ago he was."

Edna opened her eyes, yet it certainly was easier to imagine this Miss Drake as a college student less time ago than that, though the instructor who sternly conducted the Latin class—in which the freshman sat, might well have been a fellow student with Professor Satterthwaite, Edna reflected. She thawed out enough to say:

"It must be pleasant to come back and teach in the college where you were once a student."

"Yes, it is," returned Miss Drake with a twinkle in her eye, "except when my girls think me an iceberg."

Edna turned scarlet, and Janet turned indignantly on Lee. "I think that was horrid of you, Lee Penrose."

"What was horrid?" asked Lee innocently turning from her occupation of making tea.

"To tell Miss Drake that we called her an iceberg."

"Oh, but I didn't, did I, Miss Drake?" said Lee.

"No, really she did not. That was merely a haphazard hit. When the girls are scared, they always call me that, and so I guessed that you did," explained Miss Drake. "Come here, Miss Waite, and see how comfortable this divan is with three pillows at one's back."

Edna rather timidly came and sat by her, and felt her hand clasped in the soft warm one of the "iceberg" who smiled down at her and said, "Do I freeze you?"

"Not a bit," replied Edna taking courage.

"Here, Ted, give her a cup of tea," said Lee, and Edna, only too willing, jumped up to wait on the woman with whom she was now fast falling desperately in love. Her conquest was complete when, before she departed, Miss Drake divided her bunch of violets with her.

"She is simply adorable," said Teddy ecstatically when she and Janet had returned to their own room. "Oh, Janet, if she should ever kiss me, I should die of joy."