A STRANGE sensation of "Where am I?" came over Helen as she opened her eyes to the early morning sun the following day. But she soon located herself and smiled to think that she was really in college -- that dream of years! -- and free and independent from those influences that made her wear a coat when she didn't want to, and take medicines when there really was nothing the matter with her. She now reached her hand under the pillow and drew out her watch. Five minutes of five! Helen jumped out of bed and rubbed her eyes. It was time she was at her algebra again. She pulled up the shade and peered out over the bright south campus, yet sleeping and still, except for the boisterous cheer-re-ry of a few robins in the tall treetops along College Street. Then the big bell on the clock tower of Mary Lyon began to strike the hour.
Helen put on her diaphanous wrapper and began "digging" at her algebra, working away until the rising bell rang. And after breakfast, a hearty one in spite of the fact that she was excited, she went at it once more, until her brain was in a muddle.
"What's the use?" she cried, after a few minutes' work. "I'm so cram-jam full now and so tightly corked, they'll have hard work starting me when we get to the examination."
She made up her bed the way Miss Haskell had shown her, and went out. It was about half past eight. She didn't know where she was going, but she thought she'd go back of Pearsons to see if her trunks had come yet. She was all at sea about cardinal points; but strange to say, after walking out in a straight line to nowhere, knowing neither geography nor direction, she found herself across College Street, back of Pearsons, where Mr. Sawyer's men were unloading trunks: dumping them down from tremendous heights, dropping others on top of them at their most vulnerable points, and smashing in holes without extra charge.
"Dreadful!" remarked Helen to a young woman next to her, surveying the scene from the broad back piazza of Pearsons. "Why, if you have any jars of jam or things in your trunk, you are done for."
"Yes," responded the other. "And I've been waiting two days for mine, and it hasn't come yet. I need it very badly."
"You poor child," said Helen consolingly, putting her arm around the stranger. "I'm glad I brought sheets in my suitcase, so I could make my bed."
"And I've too much to do to be out here all the time. I have an algebra examination at ten."
"Algebra? You poor little Freshman!" incautiousiy, for she evidently had not yet learned her les- son about jumping at conclusions. " Why, I have one at ten, too, and have done nothing all night but say formula backward in my sleep."
The other laughed.
"I hope you will pass," she said.
"Thank you. I hope you do, too. I don't think there is any doubt about my passing, though. It comes easy to me. I had an average of ninety-nine per cent for three years in mathematics. If they flunk me, it's pure murder."
They went down among the trunks, trying to identify their belongings; but after a fruitless, or trunkless, search, they returned again arm in arm to the campus, where they separated.
Helen then ran into some Freshmen who said they were going to buy "blue books" for their algebra examination, and she went with them to the stationery office, making her first acquaintance with these much exorcised instruments of torture. She bought a stack of these blank books -- their covers of the softest, most patriotic Holyoke blue -- two or three lead pencils and an eraser, and sat down on the library steps with the others to await the arrival of the dreaded hour. Before the hands of the clock went around to ten, they all swarmed down over the walk to Shattuck.
In the lecture room the chairs were arranged about two feet apart, and on each was deposited a printed sheet of questions. At the foot of the bank of chairs, behind the lecture table, stood the instructor in charge of the division, and -- Helen dropped into her chair, ready to faint. The instructor, a young mathematics assistant, was none other than the little "Freshman" she had met back of Pearsons, whom she had so charitably caressed! A smile shone through the eyes of the latter as she recognized Helen.
"You will find the examination questions on sheets of paper on the chairs," she announced to the division. "As you finish, please leave your blue books on the table and pass out. I hope you will all have the best of success."
There is no need to follow our friend through the torture of the next two hours. Expert heads had been put together during the summer, and had concocted all sorts of mind acrobatics. "Shark" though she was, Helen was hard put to it, for no amount of formulae could get past desperately vexatious equations that ended like this:
But she pegged away at it, and though many went out before the two hours were over, she, contrite now at the thought of her recent vauntings of superiority, stayed to the last stroke of twelve.
"I did my best," she said, discouraged and doubly apologetic, to the instructor. "I hope you'll forget what I said this morning."
And she flung out of the building, trying to forget what she thought her certain defeat. Bursting into her room at Porter, she startled a young woman who was emptying a suitcase on the unmade bed.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "I beg your pardon! Are you my roommate?"
"I believe so," replied the young woman.
"Then you are Fanny Wallace?"
"And you are Helen Thompson?"
"Yes; let's shake hands."
There was nothing remarkable about this meeting of roommates. Fanny was as restrained and reserved as Helen was impulsive. A quiet girI, but with that in her solemn brown eyes that told of great depths; she was small and slight -- a wind could have blown her over -- but of such a stout, sterling New England character as the Pilgrims brought over with them.
"I have just come from an algebra exam," began Helen. "Don't you have any?"
"I took all mine in the spring," answered Fanny.
"And you survived?"
"Well, you see I took all summer to recuperate."
The two laughed, and were good chums in five minutes.
The rest of the day they spent in planning out the physical geography of their room, and in making journeys back of Pearsons to look for their trunks. One of Helen's finally arrived, and she hunted out her box of things at Mr. Sawyer's house, sent a week before by express. They went to Bradley's general store in the town (known as Brad's) after picture hooks and wire, and corn cakes and candy to keep them from getting hungry while they worked. Pictures were hung up, taken down again, tried in another place and critically surveyed. The chiffonier was tried here and there, and finally put at one side of the room; while the couches, with Bagdad or near-Bagdad covers and pillows, made an inviting place of rest in a corner opposite, by the window. The washstand was pushed into the closet, to be routed out a short time after by Mrs. Jones, on her rounds to see that the girls did not pin anything to the walls. She informed them that this, too, was against the rules, a copy of which was stuck in the mirror. So they decided to make a dressing table of it, with green and white cretonne drapery, and the mirror hung over at such an angle that they could see from their crowntops to their toetips, if they stood far enough away.
They were as dirty as the proverbial pig when the five-minute bell rang for supper that night. They stopped and surveyed themselves in dismay. Then Helen made a dive for the wash basin, rubbed herself over nicely, Fanny following suit. The two were washed and combed and tidied in record time, and long before the next bell rang.
"They say we have to dress on the wing generally -- when we oversleep -- and we might as well learn to do it now."
"Clang-clang! Clang-clang!" The bell on Mary Lyon was ringing for chapel the next morning.
"Well, this is our first day of college," said Fanny, putting her bed slippers in the closet and touching for the final time her hair in the glass. " So we will have to start right off and be there on time."
She and Helen were soon out on the asphalt path, joining a stream of girls on their way to chapel. Being yet a few minutes early, all trooped into the post office in the basement to look at the bulletin boards, where had been put up all sorts of notices -- of books bought or sold or rented, second-hand room furnishings, and fudge and other delicacies to be had at the Art Nook and elsewhere.
At the official bulletin boards, anxious Freshmen were scanning the lists of those passed in examinations. Helen and Fanny made their way to these -- but alas! the algebra examination had not yet been posted. They were turning away disappointed when Helen espied the young instructor she had so affectionately coddled the day before making her way to the board with a typewritten list in her hand. Saved! There was her name -- " Helen Thompson." It must have been "by the skin of her teeth," but she had passed, passed! With relief and exultation she made her way up to chapel, where the organ was already softly playing.
"Now if I can only get the German professor to take me away from French," she whispered to Fanny.
"Hush!" cautioned that pious little body, smiling. "We're not supposed to talk in chapel."
They were shown seats in the choir, while the Faculty began to fill the platform. At the three tolls of the bell, the President appeared in her doctor's gown and took the great chair behind the desk, and a smile -- that wonderful smile -- played over her face and was reflected in her keen, dark eyes, as she watched her girls, bright and cheery from their summer holiday, gather once more after so long an absence. Softer and softer became the music, until the organ was silent and the President arose for the opening prayer:
"O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise!"
The sweet, calm words, heard thus for the first time by these little Freshmen, and the simple but fitting prayer that followed filled them with a sense of beauty never to be forgotten. Here they were, away from parents and responsible only to themselves; but they felt secure in the great Oversight above them, and there was one on the platform who was to represent father, mother, and friends to them.
They scarcely heard the hymn announced, but as the great organ began to boom they all joined in, Helen carried away with the glory of emotion:
"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word;
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled --
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled!"
On and on floated the hymn, carried up among the great wooden beams by hundreds of young voices full of the strength and bloom of youth. All hearts rose with it and stood breathless as on wings. For there indeed was the promise held out to them, and each in her soul believed what her lips formed in words. Helen gripped the hymn book tighter and stealthily flicked away a tear she was ashamed of; but she sang on:
"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to His foes;
That soul though all Hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never! no, never forsake!
I'll never, no, never! no, never forsake!"
"Oh, that was wonderful," whispered Helen, as she and Fanny emerged out of the ivy-covered door upon the chapel lawn after the service was over. "I -- I think I can do almost anything now. But, Fanny dear, I don't feel a bit like going to recitations; do you?"
"No; but I suppose you must go and see Miss Herzog about your French. Really, if I were you, I would go on and take French without saying anything more about it. I am going to."
Helen shook her head.
"I abominate it," she said. "But so long!"
"Good-by. I hope to see you in French at 10.50."
" Good-by. I hope you won't."
Jauntily Helen made her way down to Wilder, mapping out what she was going to say and what arguments she was going to use to the German professor.
"Come," said a voice within, in answer to her knock on the professor's door.
"Is this Miss Herzog?" she asked of the gray-haired little lady in lavender who confronted her.
" Yes, it iss. Vhat can I do for zyou?"
"Oh, Miss Herzog," burst out Helen, " they want me to take up French and give up German. I've had four years of German at Erasmus and I adore it. I want to take all I can. I'm German, German, German, from top to toe, and I don't see how I can give it up. I can't take French !"
"Oh-h-h! But vhy don't zyou vant to take ze French? Zyou hev hed Cherman enough for a vhile."
"But I loathe French! I abominate it. They talk through their noses and drop their letters and are so affected -- like so many monkeys."
"Zey talk srough zeir noses, par example! Ze child iss crazy! Ze language of ze gods! Oh, zyou vill make me faint!" exclaimed Miss Herzog, fanning herself furiously.
"But -- but -- I don't understand," stammered Helen, seeing that something was wrong. "Are you not Miss Herzog?"
"Mais oui; but please call me Mademoiselle Herzog."
"Mademoiselle?"
"Oui, I am French always, and I neffer allow --"
"French! Are you not head of the German department?"
"Tsch, tsch! Child, zyour vits are all tied up in a knot. Zyou must unravel zem. Oui, my name iss Cherman. I came from ze Alsace. But my heart iss French. And, my child," she continued, as Helen was making her way dazedly to the door, "zyou had better come and hand in zyour card at 10.50. Iss zat zyour division?"
"I -- I will," stammered Helen, "and -- and I beg your pardon," and burst out of the room.
Shamed and humiliated, she went blindly forward, up the little hilly path to Porter, and burst into No. 21. Molly Walsh was squatted on Helen's couch, while Fanny, on top of a stepladder, was hanging up an engraving of the bust of Hermes.
"Why, what is the matter~ " asked Fanny, seeing the tears running down her roommate's red face. "My dear!" hurrying down the ladder and going to her friend, who had flung herself face down upon the empty couch.
With her roommate's arms around her, and a little coaxing from Molly, Helen was persuaded to get up and tell her story through the tears.
"Oh, if I had never gone there," she blubbered. "Think of the dreadful things I said!"
"Oh, forget them, Tommy," counseled the goodnatured Molly, consolingly. "What good will it do?"
"But how can I ever take French with that woman after all this?"
"Why, of course you can," consoled Fanny. " I'm going to take it, and so is Molly, and we are both in the same division as you."
"Of course; yes, I'm going to parley-vous. I'm taking French just because I'm Oirish. And, Tommy -- I'm going to call you Tommy, short for Thompson, hereafter, because you're such a jolly good fellow. Oh, oh! Think of telling Mademoiselle she was a monkey and talked through her nose! You've Darwin beat all hollow. Oh, oh, oh!"
"Oh, shut up, Molly. You were telling me to forget it a minute ago."
"Helen," said her roommate, "why are you so impulsive? You ought to control yourself."
"But, Fanny, you yourself didn't know she was the French teacher!"
"No," admitted Fanny; "but I'd have gone slow and not said such unwise things all at once."
"Well, you and I are different. And I manage to swim in hot water all the time."
They left Helen asleep in her troubles on the couch, while they went out to recitations at 9.55. That period was over, and still Helen slumbered, when suddenly the slamming of a door startled her, and she jumped to her feet and pulled out her watch.
"Five minutes of eleven! Why -- why -- that miserable French comes at 10.50. She'll think I deserted, and then I'll get into no end of trouble."
She recalled the story she had heard of a girl who disliked English, and who, being a Freshman and knowing no better, deliberately stayed away from three successive recitations without so much as "by your leave," intending to cut English permanently. But she was found out by the instructor, and sentenced by the head of the department to take three hours of tutoring in English, at a dollar an hour, to make up for it! No, no! She must not run any more risks. She must go! And late!
She groaned miserably; but she took her card and started out, the red lines of sleep still on her face, and made a short cut across the lawns to Dwight Hall. She found Mademoiselle in the French room, standing up before the class, waving a book in her hand.
"C'est le livre," the instructor was explaining, in lieu of a regular French recitation, showing the class the text-book they were to order at the stationery department. "C'est le livre -- Ah, ma'mselle who doesn't like to talk zrough her nose! What for zyou come late? Because zyou don't like ze French?"
"No, no -- I beg your pardon. I did not know how late it was."
"Vell, hurry up and seet down, and zyou vill soon learn ze hours in French. C'est le livre," she resumed, waving her book again.
To Helen in her ignorance it sounded like "Say le livre." She looked about the class and thought how stupid they must be to sit there and not open their mouths.
"Say le livre," quoth Madenoiselle again.
"Oh, those dumb-oxes," thought Helen, with a feeling of contempt for the class; then, wishing to be accommodating, she piped up: "Le livre!"
"Cest le livre," repeated the French lady, turning squarely on Helen.
"Le livre," repeated Helen pertly.
"I said C'est le livre! Zyou --"
"But I did say it, Mademoiselle. I can't pronounce it any better."
"Oh, non, non, non! Don't say anysing! Ah, ciel! 'C'est le livre' -- 'Zis is ze book!'"
Even the little Mademoiselle dropped into her chair and laughed into "le livre" until the tears blotted the pages; and the class, as the point dawned upon one after another, joined in the hearty laugh. Even Helen fell in at last, mortified though she was, but happy to see that the Mademoiselle had a bump of humor and would probably overlook even the mischances of the earlier morning.
But these rich misadventures of Helen's were not allowed to die on the desert air. Molly expatiated on them at lunch, with a true Irish wit that added spice to the story; and Edith Brewster, hearing them after lunch, interpreted them from her own point of view, and added a few words about Helen's letting a Senior make her bed without offering to help, and various other odds and ends.
"She is no end of fresh," Edith remarked. "If you heard all the things that Freshman said to me on the train! Those Freshmen haven't any sense of propriety. Why, they slam the door in your face and bump even into Faculty. They have more confidence than anybody I ever knew!"
"There, there, you little volcano! " interrupted her Senior roommate. " Freshmen will be Freshmen, and you must make allowances." But the Sophomores, proud in their newly acquired superiority, were evidently beginning to feel that their rights to "freshness" were being usurped, and they were only seeking chances to protest over some new, unheard-of liberty. There being nothing more important to talk of just now, the stories about Helen began to fly from mouth to mouth, and were repeated with a smack and s relish. Those who knew "that Freshman" began to look at her askance when she passed them on the walk, as independently as you please; and Freshmen, while enjoying her crisp frankness, wondered if it wasn't just a mite dangerous to be seen with her too often. But "Tommy" -- for the name Molly had given her stuck -- Tommy only scorned these girls the more, and cried in Fanny's arms at night after the lights were out.
"Oh, Fanny, Fanny dear," she exclaimed, snuggling to her roommate, "aren't you ashamed of me? What can I do to stop them? Oh, if I only were not so fresh!"
"Hush, hush, Helen! You are not really fresh. You are only natural, and are carried away by your impulsiveness. You must try not to give them cause to talk any more. Just let them alone."
And Helen went to sleep with Fanny's soft, soothing hand on her forehead.