Chapter V: The Finals

As the days went on, neither Janet nor Edna chanced to meet the unseen Mr. Van Austin. The other girls, partly to tease them and partly because the two declared they really wanted to keep up the mystery, would tell them nothing about their hero, and as the time drew near for the finals, they were too absorbed in making up for lost hours to think of anything but geometry and German, Greek and Latin, and other subjects more or less akin.

"I know I shall flunk in geometry; I just know it," wailed Janet who was huddled in one corner of the room one day with a pile of books beside her.

"Oh, Janet, don't talk that way," begged Edna. "It's bad enough for me to get rattled, but when you do, I am simply left without a leg to stand on. It isn't geometry that I am so worried over; it is Latin. If I flunk in that, I shall never hold up my head again."

"Well, Teddy Waite, if Miss Drake hasn't some commiseration for you after all the violets you have been lavishing upon her, I have my opinion of Miss Drake."

"Oh, Janet, don't talk so. She couldn't make an exception of me if she wanted to; and it is just because she is so adorable that I am so miserable about not doing well. Don't you understand?"

"If that's the case," said Janet, "I ought to pass a brilliant examination, for I don't adore Professor Satterthwaite. I'll pluck up courage, Ted, if the rule works that way. Use your mind as Charity Shepherd says. I believe Charity's half inclination toward Christian Science is what she is depending upon, for she is very cheerful."

"If we had studied as hard as Charity has, we might have the same reason for being cheerful," remarked Edna. "I think I will get her to go over this with me."

She whirled her books together and carried them out of the room, leaving Janet plodding over her geometry. She sat on the floor with her feet stretched out and her eyes fixed on the book before her. Once in a while, she would strike the page with her clenched fist, then she would seize a paper and pencil and scribble away for some minutes.

After a while some one tapped at the door, and Rosalie Trent entered, at first seeing no one. "Janet Ferguson," she cried, "where are you?"

"Here," answered Janet from her corner, giving a deep sigh and lifting her head.

"What are you doing over there?"

"Cramming for the finals. Geometry comes to-morrow, and I am in a blue funk over it. I truly am, Rosalie."

Her friend came and sat down near her, leaning forward with her chin in her hands. "Why, aren't you pretty good in math?" she asked.

"No,—oh, I don't know. I'm not good in anything. I'm 'a po' ign'ant creetur', as my old mammy used to say. My head whirls so that I don't know an equilateral triangle from a buzz-saw."

Rosalie looked at her with compassion. "I'll venture to say you haven't poked your nose out of doors this week, such beautiful weather as it is, too. How long have you been working this way?"

"Oh, I don't know," responded Janet wearily. "Since I was born, it seems to me. I can't remember ever having done anything else. Once in a former existence I have a dim consciousness of baying been free and happy, but that was eons ago."

"Well, if you don't stop this minute, and go out for a walk, you will be in the infirmary within twenty-four hours. What you need is fresh air and a relief from this steady strain," said Rosalie.

"Yes, doctor."

"And you'd better go right away without any delay."

"Yes, ma'am, I would go if I could. None would do it more gladly; but with the sword of Damocles banging over my head, how could I enjoy it or derive any benefit from it even if I could take the time, I should like to know."

"Oh, you could, and go you must. It's time we juniors were looking after our sister class in the direction of health, I think. You must take your exams, as a matter of course, but they are not a question of life and death. Just keep a pleasant thought in your mind, as they say when you go to have your photograph taken, and say to yourself: This time next week it will all be over, and this time two weeks I shall be at home."

"And then nothing matters much, does it?" said Janet. Then suddenly she realized all that going home meant, and the old familiar scenes arose before her: the long low house with its portico in front, the orchard, the tall trees bordering the lane, the flashing blue water of the bay, the familiar forms moving about the house and grounds, Dicky whistling, old Hooker singing a camp-meeting hymn, Eliza in the kitchen, Ginny in the house. Up-stairs watching, waiting, longing for her, her mother, her face full of joy at the thought of her home coming. She sprang suddenly to her feet.

"I will go to walk," she cried. "Nothing makes the slightest difference once one is at home. Come quick, Rosalie, before I am seized again by the giant math." She snatched up her hat and the two sallied forth.

"You've saved my life," Janet said, taking a long breath as she stepped out into the sunshine. "Isn't it a blessing to have a home? Two weeks and all this will be a dream. We can shake off all the terrors and horrors of flunks and funks and thunks and go scot free till next fall."

"Yes, it is a comfort," returned Rosalie with a little sigh, "yet I shall be sorry to have my college days over when the day comes for me to say good-bye to my alma mater."

"I suppose I shall feel that way too, at the end of four years," said Janet. "Gracious, Rosalie, there comes Professor Satterthwaite. Oh, dear, why did he have to come this way just when I was trying to forget him? I will have to run, or I am lost."

"You'll do no such thing," said Rosalie, grasping her firmly. "Miss Drake is with him, and she saw us. She will think we are trying to avoid her."

"But you can explain. Say anything, that I have a sudden nose-bleed, or that I—oh, anything. Do let me go, Rosalie."

"I'll do no such thing," declared Rosalie continuing to hold her in a tight grasp, though Janet struggled to get away, till confused and not in a very good humor, she was compelled to stand still and face the approaching pair.

Miss Drake greeted her cordially, but the professor fixed his keen eyes upon her as he shook hands with her.

"You're looking pale, Miss Ferguson," said Miss Drake. "Have you been ill?" Indeed, the dark circles around Janet's eyes and the pallor of her usually blooming cheeks, gave reason for the question.

"No," Rosalie answered for her, "she isn't really ill, but she soon will be, if she doesn't stop working herself to death. It is simply an attack of midnight oil, Miss Drake. I found her in the throes of a cram, and so I dragged her out, much against her will. She has been hard at it without cessation for days, and she will collapse utterly, if she doesn't take any fresh air."

Professor Satterthwaite shook his head. "That's wrong, Miss Ferguson. It doesn't do to burn the candle at both ends. What are you working at so specially hard?"

Rosalie laughed. "I wouldn't question her too closely, Mr. Satterthwaite; it might strike too near home."

Janet bit her lip to keep it from trembling, and the tears were very near her eyes as she looked down afraid to meet the professor's gaze.

"Why, my child," he said in such kindly tones as went to Janet's heart, "your work is not bad. I am sure there is no need of such desperate measures. I don't see any reason why you should not make a creditable examination."

Janet raised her eyes gratefully to meet a very gentle expression in the face which had always appeared so stern to her.

"There, there, my dear," he said, patting her shoulder kindly, "don't let yourself lose your courage. It is not going to be so difficult, I promise you. Keep her out in this fine air as long as you can, Miss Trent. There's nothing like fresh air and sunshine for flagging spirits." And he passed on with an encouraging smile.

"Oh!" Janet drew a long breath. "I wouldn't have missed that for a kingdom. To think that he smiled and called me 'my dear'! He is human after all."

"He is a perfect old dear when you once arouse his interest," said Rosalie. "That's why I was bound you shouldn't run away. I wanted him to get up a little interest in you. Now that you have seen his best side, I am sure it will come easier to you to-morrow."

"Of course it will. I shall not be afraid of the-man-with-the-stone-face any more. Thank you, Rosalie, for insisting upon my standing my ground. I find that college is much like the Pilgrim's Progress, for when you come face to face with the lions, they are no longer to be feared."

"It took me to the end of my freshman year to discover that, too," Rosalie told her. "Many of the things you mind very much this year will seem mere bagatelles next."

Therefore Janet went home comforted, and retailed her experience to Edna whom she persuaded to take some exercise in the open air. And though both girls sat up half the night, it was less of a tax upon their strength than it would have been if they had not bestirred themselves to take the dose of fresh air insisted upon by Dr. Rosalie Trent.

Nevertheless, it was a wan and trembling pair who gathered themselves together preparatory to the examinations. How Janet got through her ordeal in mathematics she never knew, but she declared it was because Professor Satterthwaite had told her she would, and because she kept saying to herself: "Two weeks from to-day I shall be at home, and then none of all this will matter at all."

"I think," she said to Edna as they walked home across the campus, "that I would like to go to bed and stay there forever."

But, with other examinations crowding close, and equally important matters looming up in the chain of days immediately ahead, anything like a halt was not to be thought of; and Janet, with the rest of the girls, found herself caught in a whirl of events which bore her along to Class Day, with Commencement Day just ahead. It gave her a great thrill to think of the latter. She would be a sophomore after that, no longer a freshman with perked up opinions and bewildered ideas.

She would come back another year with an exact knowledge of what college life was, and there would be other freshmen who would have to learn, as she had learned, things not taught in books, who would be bewildered, and would fight hard for their opinions. Nell Deford and Becky Burdett would have passed out "into the wide, wide world" with the other "grand old seniors," but Rosalie would be there still, herself a senior.

She was disturbed in her meditations by the rush of feet along the corridor, and the entering the room of a crowd of girls.

"Where are you, Janet?" cried Lee Penrose. "Gracious, girl, don't you know what time it is? You mustn't be mooning here. Have you forgotten that this is Class Day?"

Janet turned and looked over the group of faces grown familiar to her these past months. "I'm coming," she said. "I had finished college when you came in, but I suppose I must do it all over again." She perched her college cap upon her head and arranged the tassel carefully. "Doesn't it strike you all as pathetic?" she said, when she had adjusted it.

"Does what strike us as pathetic?" asked Lee. "What's the matter with you this morning, Janet?"

"Nothing, except that any change makes me pensive."

"Even small change?" asked Lee laughing at her own nonsense.

Janet was too serious to notice her. "Even the small change of altering the position of a tassel that you have worn in one way for nearly a year. After Commencement Day, I'll never be a freshman any more."

"I'll never see my Annie any more," chanted Lee. "Do stop all this sentimentality, Janet. I shall keep all my regrets and bewailings till I leave college for good. We can't wait while you gather all your tears in a bottle, and if you are going to stand there all day and apostrophize that old tassel, we will not wait for you."

Janet came back to solid facts, and they all crowded out into the corridor and down the stairs, chattering, laughing, whispering, singing, out into the summer sunshine and across the campus, their class flag floating before them. At the chapel door they gathered in a body to give their class yell, and then they filed in.

It made Janet feel cold "all down her spine," she told Teddy afterward, when she saw the sophomores ranged each side the entrance, lifting their caps and forming an arch under which the seniors walked. It was like some triumphal procession of which she was part and parcel. She belonged to Class Day. All those exercises, of which she had so often read, were being carried out because she and others like her made up a grand whole without which there could be no college. She looked around at the sea of faces, and for the first time in her life felt the seriousness of the thought that each individual is responsible for its class, whether it be at college or elsewhere. Then came the opening prayer, and she entered, heart and soul, into the day's proceedings.

Commencement Day was less impressive to her, for her one great interest lay in the act of changing the place of the college cap so that its position would mean that the wearer had taken a step upward, and that henceforth Janet Ferguson would no longer be known as a freshman.

The next excitement was the packing, and the departure for home. Becky Burdett she would see again at frat meetings and elsewhere, but Nell Deford would step out into the past and become a memory. Janet's lips trembled as she kissed Nell good-bye, and more than one girl wept over her. Then came other partings, gay ones, and those full of the promise of meeting in a few months. Edna was to spend part of her summer at Janet's home, and Rosalie exacted a few days from them both before they should settle down in their rooms in the fall.

Of the rest, some traveled southward part of the way with Janet, and others stood upon the platform to see them off, their college yell being the last sound that was drowned by the shriek of the locomotive. So Janet traveled on; and as the scenes grew more and more familiar, her thoughts and desires were all flying ahead of her, to meet her as facts on the threshold of the home she had left nearly nine months before.