THE car was packed to the brim, conductor and motorman lending a gentlemanly hand to the embarkation. They were off -- scurrying across the shallow Connecticut over the trestle, past the Falls corner, and into the broad, open country, with Mount Tom rising up in the distance, its mountain house dazzling white in the afternoon sun.
"How beautiful it is, Miss Clark!" cried Helen ecstatically, breathing in the cool, fresh air laden with grassy, woody odors.
"Yes, indeed," agreed Miss Clark, flicking a grasshopper that had alighted on her muslin dress when they stopped at a switch. "It's glorious!"
"And look -- there's a song bird."
"Oh, it's a paradise for them here. There are still a few left as late as this."
"What are those mountains?"
"Anna, oh, Anna!" interrupted somebody from the back. "Nan, dear!"
"Why, Gail!", she called, looking around and waving toward the rear. "I didn't see you. I didn't know you were on this car." And a matchlessly sweet smile was shot back.
"One of the Seniors," she explained, settling in her seat again. "Lives in Porter Hall. She's president of the Y. W. C. A. -- You know, it's the Y. W. C. A. that sent you your little handbook this summer. And I'm on the receiving committee, too. That's how I happened to come and meet you. You must join next Sunday."
"Who, I? Why, I never thought of such a thing!"
"Why not? Practically the whole college belongs, Faculty and students."
"Why, I thought that was the Student League."
"Oh, no; the Student League is the student body."
"Well, and what's the difference?" asked Helen, hopelessly bewildered.
"Well," laughed Nan. " I suppose the Y. W. C. A. might be called the student soul."
The remark was greeted with a general laugh from those who happened to hear, after which Helen subsided into silence.
"I suppose," she said at last, "I really ought to join to be decent. Why, I'm a perfect little heathen. I barely go to church, because I don't like the minister, and mamma is easy with us."
And now the car began to climb up something of a hill, and beyond the trees was hidden the college. Somebody struck up a song -- the Holyoke song -- and the carload of young people joined in with a vim.
"Long ago she rose and stood
In a quiet valley;
Girt about by hill and wood,
Where the sunbeams rally.
"Holyoke -- Hol-yoke -- tried and true,
We will love -- her ever;
Alma Mater and the blue
We'll forget--no, never!"
"There it is! There it is! Rockefeller Hall. And Mead -- Hurray!"
The college buildings came in sight, looming up in the sunshine. Light-gowned girls passed over the green sward, and further greetings met the young women that alighted along College Street. The Freshmen were taken straight to Mary Lyon Hall to meet the registrar, that august person who had for so long ruled over their destinies. Leaving bag and baggage outside in the corridor, Nan escorted Helen into the sanctum.
"Miss Borden, I have brought you a new Freshman -- Miss Helen Thompson."
"Oh, I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Thompson," and the tall, suave lady shook hands. " Let me see -- you come from Erasmus," fingering through a pile of certificates. "Oh, yes. You enter on a certificate; An examination in algebra to-morrow at ten in the lecture room, Shattuck Hall."
" And -- do -- do -- I enter all right?"
"Oh, yes. You are one of us," said the registrar, smiling, "as soon as you have registered your name here. Now, let me see. Here is your schedule of work for the semester. Latin, mathematics, English, Bible, and French."
" French! Must I take French?"
"I should advise you to. You entered with four years' German."
" But I don't like French."
"You never had any -- according to your certificate. How can you tell?"
"Well, that's just the reason --"
"I'm afraid it's all settled now. The divisions are made up. You will have to see Miss Herzog about it. She lives in Mary Wilder Hall."
"Oh -- thank you. And -- and -- am I going to be on the campus?"
"Yes, I rather think so. But Miss Stone will tell you about that. Miss Clark, will you please do us a further service?"
"Yes, indeed. This way, Miss Thompson." And she led to another office, where she introduced Helen to a lady in eyeglasses.
"Oh, I am very glad to meet you, Miss Thompson. We have been interested to know who you were. Your father wrote us a very nice letter -- very nice. We have done the best we could for you. You are to room in" -- referring to a book and then running her finger across a chart -- "in Porter Hall, on the second floor. Room No. 21. And your roommate is" -- readjusting her glasses over the note book -- "Miss Fanny Wallace, Freshman, of Newton, Mass. Now, I hope you will be happy in your new quarters. I'm sure we have done the very best we could to make it pleasant for you."
"Thank you, Miss Stone. I'm sure I shall be happy. Oh, Miss Clark, you're a perfect dear to be toting me around like this."
" I want to see you safe in your own abode before I leave you."
A short walk down the path toward the grove brought them to Porter Hall, where, on the second floor, they found the matron, Mrs. Jones, inspecting the setting out of rugs around No. 21 by one of the scrubwomen.
"Oh-h, we have just finished," remarked that good-natured, motherly lady, who was noted for the good meals she gave her girls. "Is this one of my Freshmen?"
"Yes, my name is Helen Thompson."
"Oh-h-h, yes! I hope you will be comfortable. You get the sun here all day."
And with that she and the maid withdrew.
"Well," said Helen, plumping herself down on the bare mattress of a little cot, "it sure does look as if I'm here at last!"
"It certainly does. Now, can I help you with anything else?"
"Oh, no, no! You must be very busy yourself. You've been a perfect jewel to me. I shall never forget it."
"Well, if you want any more help, come to No. 20 Mary Brigham Hall. Look for your trunks back of Pearsons to-morrow. Good-by. Come and see me."
Left to herself, Helen sat an her cot and surveyed the room: fair-sized and high-ceilinged, with two cots, one chiffonier, table, washstand, two rockers, two plain chairs, three rugs of graded sizes, and a roomy closet. The review was very satisfactory; but oh, it was so bare as yet -- so lonely. And it made her feel -- would she be homesick here? Would she miss that dear, indulgent mother, and that fond old daddy? Homesick! She brushed the worrying thought from her mind. No, she would not be homesick. She threw off her hat and began unpacking her suitcase.
"My! Don't I look like a nigger," she commented, surveying herself in the glass.
She gave herself a severe whisk-brooming and went out into the hall with the big pitcher to find out where to get water. Before she had gone two steps she caught the sound of a song wafted by a delicious voice, a voice too good for it, from the next room:
"You are ma honey -- honey-suckle,
Ah am the bee"-
She knocked.
"Come!"
"Awfully sorry to disturb you --"
"Oh, come in," commanded the sweet-voiced singer, with something of an Irish brogue. "Come in and shut the door so the mosquitoes won't get in!"
"Mosquitoes! Are there mosquitoes here?"
"Oh, well," laughed the other, a blue-eyed young woman on whose thin Irish face a look of mischief was constant, "loh, well, there's a New Jersey girl lives over there across the corridor. She just came a few minutes ago, and brought some in her trunk. What is it? Do you want --"
"Yes, where can I get water?"
"Well, you certainly need a scrubbing. You look like a niggah. Come and sit down. Oh, Frances, doesn't she look natural to you? Is that the kind you have daown Kanetucky?"
"No, indeed," responded a small, pretty girl with baby-soft skin and blue eyes. "No, indeed; they doan't allaow them to sit on the mistresses' beds daown theyre, with the ladies standing araound." And her eyes covered themselves coyly as she laughed.
"Are you our next-door neighbor? Well, I'm glad to know. Freshman? We're Freshmen, too. My roommate's Frances Chambley from the moonshine State. I'm plain Molly Walsh from Boston -- though you wouldn't ever guess it. But go and shovel off some of that coal dust, child, and let us see what you look like. Get water at the end of the corridor."
Helen breathed a sigh of relief when she had "shoveled off" the coal dust, and could recognize herself in the mirror once more.
"That's something like," she commented. "Now I feel as if I can pass any algebra exam on earth."
By that time the supper bell rang, and the early arrivals -- for it was only Tuesday night, and college did not open officially until Thursday -- gathered around a few lonely tables and ate silently. The air smelled too much of "exams" to make anything but a dull meal for the Freshmen. The upperclassmen talked cheerily enough, but were too much engrossed over their summer vacations to do anything more than feed the newcomers. New Freshmen, let me say by way of remark, eat voraciously, and are known to outgrow their dresses before they have been in college a month.
But to-night, supper over, the Freshmen quickly withdrew.
For an hour or two Helen sat, swathed in a thin wrapper, in a rocking chair in her room, working away at her algebra, cramming in all sorts of handy rules and formulae, working out problems to the nth power, cube-rooting and arithmetically or geometrically progressing. So thoroughly lost in the maze of her subject was she, that the rap on the door startled her.
"C-Come!" she answered, dropping her book and pulling her feet from the mattress where they had been resting.
"Is there any Freshman here who needs our assistance? We are helping the babies to bed."
The speaker was a tall, handsome girl, about four years Helen's senior, with fine, regular features, and hair that bronzed in the gaslight. She carried herself with the confidence of seniority, and a calm smile lit her face. For all the world she looked like an American beauty.
"I live opposite you; I'm Elinor Haskell -- one of the Seniors. Do you --"
"Oh," gasped Helen. "Won't -- won't you sit down?"
"I only came in to see if you wanted something. Your name is Helen Thompson, is it not?"
" Why, who told you?"
"Oh, a little robin, perhaps. And you come from Flatbush, from Erasmus."
"Why -- why --"
"Perhaps you had better stick your card outside your door," laughed the other, "so people won't have to ask embarrassing questions. I see your bed isn't made. Don't you think you can make it up?"
"Oh, I was waiting for the maid."
" Maid! We don't have any maids here. Haven't you read your catalogue about the time-honored dum-work system that prevails here?"
"Dumb work?"
"Domestic work. My child, each one is her own housewife. Now let me show you how to make your bed."
"Oh, thank you, but --"
"First you lay down the -- which couch will you take; this? Where is my precious roommate? O Edith!"
"Did you call?" came a voice from the corridor.
At the door appeared a grinning image in a sky-blue bathrobe, with a dull gold triangle, bearing the legend A E, pinned on the left side, similar to the one Helen noticed Miss Haskell wearing.
"Why--Miss B-Brewster!" stammered Helen.
"Oh, have you met?" in apparent surprise. "Well, Miss Thompson, she's one of the most overconfident, gay young Sophomores in the --"
"Sophomore!" and Helen collapsed upon the couch.
"Why, what is the matter?" broke in Edith. "We can't make up your bed if you sit here."
"Matter--matter?" cried Helen, getting up and pressing her knuckles over her mortified eyes. "Why, I've told you all my most vaunting ambitions and innermost secrets in that heart-to-heart talk on the train!"
The others were laughing, but Helen was red with embarrassment. Yet in the end she, too, got over her mortification and joined in the laugh at her expense.
"After all," she said, brightening, "it is rather a pleasant thing to have one's bed made up by a Senior. Hem! I think I shall sit down and watch. Oh, I'll write home all about it. And now, Miss Soph-o-more -- I am watching you. Please don't put any pins in it."
And so Helen sat, legs folded under her, on the other bed and watched, never lifting a helping finger, while Edith was eating her heart out at her freshness.
"There," remarked Miss Haskell at last, pushing back the couch to the wall. "I hope you will have sweet dreams."
"I ought to, seeing who made this bed. And I am ever so grateful to you for showing me. The only beds I ever made were out camping. Good night."
"What a goose I was," she groaned when they were gone. "I had never asked her if she was a Freshman. I took it for granted. But she needn't have told me yarns. And they belong to the same frat, too," looking down at her own black diamond from Erasmus, which she was still "sporting" on her heart side. "I wonder if they are rushing me!"
But Helen was too sleepy by this time to be interested in anything but bed. She arranged the windows to her hygienic taste, and, shivering in the chill night air that came in, tumbled into bed; it was not long before she was tucked away and sound asleep.