IT was Wednesday--the first midweek recreation day of the year. But it was hardly to recreation that the Freshmen were giving their time. For all day long the corridors were lined with chairs and tables piled with pillows, while girls were heard sweeping inside their rooms. It was house-cleaning day and, besides sweeping up their rooms, and going to Holyoke to see what odds and ends they could buy for their households, some of the more enterprising girls had planned to do their own washing! It was a feat they had looked forward to, and they did it. Ay, and more, too!
"Oh, Fanny, look at my hands!" said Frances Chambley, who had never done a stroke of work in her life, much less any of washing.
"Mercy ! what have you done?" asked Fanny, putting down the "De Amicitia" from which she had been studying.
"Scraped the skin all off the back of my fingers," laughed Frances, wincing at her hands. "Molly insisted she would do her washing, and af course I wouldn't be behindhand."
"Well, you needn't complain," giggled Molly, who had followed her roommate in and settled herself on one of the couches. "I didn't think you'd be such an id as to scrub with the back of your fingers."
"Did you do all your washing, Frances?" inquired Fanny.
"Ye-es -- every stitch! But doan't anybody mention it again! Catch me repeating the performance. My back is almost broken !"
"Where is Tommy?" asked Molly.
"Went around to do math with Ruth Saunders. She said she'd be home by three."
They were settling back to talk the college commonplaces when, happening to glance out of the window, Molly caught sight of Edith Brewster disappearing into the gymnasium with a smiling, beardless youth.
"Oh, 'a man'!" she cried. "There's Edith's man!"
Three heads were at the window in an instant, for the sight of "a man " was a thrilling one. There was but a handful of men who really belonged to the college. Mr. Dale the superintendent, who occasionally skimmed over the grounds; Professor Howard, head of the music department, whom all the girls adored; Mr. Adam Eastman, in charge of the horticultural work, who closely kept to his bees and plant houses; four or five others of the Faculty; and last, but not least, Jim Finnigan, who did chores for the houses and dragged himself at intervals on long, lanky legs to and from the village post office behind a small hand truck laden with college mail to which he was furnishing feeble motive power. Of others there were few, for how could those poor college boys come visiting, although they would have "given their ears" for it, when they themselves were handicapped with work, and Sunday, their only day of recreation, was at Holyoke barred by Faculty law to the "entering wedge"? But it was Professor Howard who at last came to the rescue with the institution of vesper service, and vespers has become a grand excuse, of which youths do not fail to take advantage.
"Well, he was nice-looking, anyway," commented the girls.
"I saw two of them floating araound the Art Building this morning," put in Frances.
"You are to be congratulated," said her roommate, bowing.
"Oh, thank --"
"Hullo, people! " came a voice from the corridor, and the girl who followed it was Tommy, in a trim white jumper suit. With her was another Freshman. "Ruth and I are going over to Williston to see the fossil museum. Come along?"
"Why, yes, let's," said Fanny. " I've been intending to go through that and Dwight Hall ever since we came."
"I, too," said Frances. "We ought to get acquainted with our surroundings as soon as possible."
In a few minutes the whole party of them were in the museum in the basement of Williston Hall, busy examining the great fossil slabs with the footprints of the extinct creatures.
"'Footprints on the sands of time,' " quoth Molly.
"You don't want to walk on the paths outside when the asphalt's soft," cautioned Tommy. "You'll leave footprints there, and our great-great-great-descendants will gather them up and wonder what sort of beast made them."
The great skeleton of the whale, strung up along the ceiling, claimed their marveling attention. They tried to find the hole in the top of its head out of which it spouted water, and, failing, decided it must also be a prehistoric whale, that hadn't begun to spout water yet. Anyway, there was plenty of room in it for Jonah.
Having seen all they had wanted to down here, they were soon climbing up the toilsome Williston stairs to the fossil room on the second floor. In this great casts of extinct animals were kept -- a mastodon climbing a tree; an armadillo with his head on an elastic steel bar, so tempting to the girls that they loved to set it springing up and down as they passed through going to recitations; some more slabs of preserved footprints. Then there were collections of minerals in glass cases around the museum, and two smaller rooms on the side were filled with rare and common stuffed birds.
They were making a tour of these curiosities when who should come upon them but Edith Brewster, puffing from climbing the stairs. She had come up to get a literature notebook she had left in the little library in the rear.
"Why, why!" exclaimed Molly. "What did you do with your 'man,' Miss Brewster?"
"My 'man'? Oh, just casually dropped him on the three o'clock car," said Edith, feeling a little crusty at their being so inquisitive.
"Had a good time?"
"Dandy."
"Did you take him to the Pepper-box?" "Had lunch at the Art Nook?" "Go horseback riding on the horse in the gym?"
"You are perfectly silly," cried Edith, exasperated at their trifling. " I can't see why you should take it upon yourselves to inquire into my affairs, anyway. What are you doing up here?"
"Oh," said Molly, "just kinder looking around at these distinguished fossils. By the way, where's that 'ere mock turtle?"
"Oh, you haven't experienced that yet? Come along here." Before one of the specimens Edith stopped -- a cast of the great shell of a monster turtle, hollowed out, with head, feet, and insides gone, leaving a big, cavernous opening.
"Oh, is that it?" cried Helen; "why there's room enough to dance in there."
"We could have a Virginia reel inside that," commented Molly.
"Go on in and try it. Every Freshman must before she can become a Sophomore."
The girls shrank back shyly, protesting they never would -- all but Molly, who thought it was a "jolly hole."
"Well, suppose you start, then, Miss Walsh. You are so anxious," suggested Edith.
"Which is the entrance?" giggled Molly.
She dived into it head first, crawling along on her stomach and getting the dust of ages on the front of a spotless dress, put on fresh that afternoon.
"Oh, the dust in here is vile! It will ruin my beautiful soprano voice," was coughed out from the interior. "Why didn't you tell me about that?"
She wiggled herself out of the other end, sprawling on outstretched arms, to the applause of the others, who shook hands with her pretentiously, as with a great hero.
"Very beautifully done," approved Edith. "I should advise you to go home and get washed now."
"Oh, look at my pinafore! Why, I put it on speck clean this P.M."
"Well, it's a speck dirty now. Miss Thompson, your turn next."
"Oh, dear! Must I really go in?"
"Oh, Tommy, it's thrilling!" recommended Molly.
Helen did not dive. She sat down very cautiously, to save her dress and neatly arranged hair; and in doing so got into difficulties. She almost sprained her neck getting her head in, and that inside she was cramped in a semisitting position, with her feet still protruding.
"What kind of a beast is this?" exclaimed Edith. "Pretty kind of a turtle, with two feet where a head ought to be!"
"Now, don't you laugh at me," came a muffled voice within.
"Draw in those tan legs, please -- hurry, or the fish out here will snap them off."
This kind of criticism did not help Helen any, for giggling and choking she struggled into the limited space.
"Why, I can hardly breathe," she laughed.
"Aha, big enough to dance a Virginia reel in it?"
"I only need a partner for a dance," and Helen bumped her head, trying to get out at one of the holes for the legs at the other end.
"There is no exit at the top," remarked Edith.
"Feel fine in theyre?" laughed Frances.
"Oh, keep still. I can't even rub the bump; and there's nothing to breathe but dust."
Three or four students passing through joined the party, which was getting hilarious and applauding Helen's repeated efforts inside. Just then something unexpected happened. From her lecture room in the front part of the building, Miss Stone, head of the geology department and guardian of the cherished collection of fossils and pseudo-fossils, came into the museum with a tray of magnesium ores she had been examining. Upon sight of her a sudden hush fell upon the party, and Edith, the others instinctively following her example, stood before the opening of the mock turtle.
But the mischief had already been done. Professor Stone, having heard the laughter, and seeing an unusual crowd of girls admiring her pet animals, felt that something was amiss.
"What is the matter? " she asked, placing her tray in a near-by cabinet.
But no explanation was forthcoming from the confused girls, over whom it dawned now for the first time that they had been doing something reprehensible. Professor Stone's was the only voice to be heard.
"What is the trouble?" she repeated, smiling at the girls.
Suddenly from the depths of the extinct beast came a voice:
"Well, I know now how Jonah must have felt!" Smothered giggling and furtive glances followed this remark.
"What's the matter with you girls?" continued the unconscious prisoner, never imagining anything untoward had happened. "Come and help me out, you chumps."
The color went out of Professor Stone's face. The truth dawned upon her, and she spoke severely:
"How did you get in there?"
"How ! Why, I crawled in. Didn't you see me?"
"Indeed! Then, why don't you crawl out again?"
"I can't. I'm stuck in this creature's anatomy."
"Please do not trifle any further, young lady. This is Miss Stone."
"Oh--" It was a gasping cry. " I -- I really --"
"You had better come out here and explain."
"But -- but -- will you please tell me h-h-how?"
"I have never been in there myself," said Miss Stone, "but I presume if you lie down flat on your -- chest, you will be able --"
Helen was already on the exit, and her head was protruding from the mock turtle, the rest of her soon following.
"You have succeeded in making a smudge of yourself," remarked Miss Stone, piercing the sufferer through her eyeglasses, and, having effected the rescue, returned to her duty of further examination. "Please tell me what you were doing in there."
"Why -- why --" faltered Helen, "I was going through the mock turtle."
"And pray, why do you presume to go through such an exhibition?"
"Why? Oh, you know -- it's -- it's a Freshman stunt. All Freshmen have to go through that," blurted Helen.
"Indeed! All Freshmen!" holding up her hands in horror. "I am astonished at such a declaration."
"Why -- why -- Miss Brewster --"
"Oh, Miss Brewster," turning her attention to the latter, who had been standing sheepishly by, rather fearful of the outcome. "What do you mean, Miss Brewster? Is this one of your own bright ideas -- or is it customary among you young ladies?"
"Oh -- why -- I -- I'm sure we didn't intend --"
"'Intend' is a very good word in its place. I presume you do not know with what effort these casts and specimens were collected, or you would not have such intentions."
"But, Miss Stone," continued Edith, trying to excuse herself, "we are not the only ones that have done it. All --"
"Not the only ones! I thought as much. I suppose this is a customary 'stunt,' as you call it. It is very good for the fossils -- very good. You students do not seem to prize or value anything. Only last year the head of the Uprorius lafibus was swung off its hinge and broken. We had to get an expert to put it together again, at much expense. And now you are attempting to go through this terrapin shell. I shall hold you responsible, Miss Brewster, for anything these Freshmen have done. I intend to put a stop to these performances. You ought to feel some shame over this, Miss Brewster. Please call to-night at my apartments at Pearsons Hall. I wish to have a talk with you."
Like wet hens they all marched down the stairs, guilty and not guilty alike feeling a shame and responsibility in the crime committed. Only Molly giggled as they went back through the grove.
"We look as if we're coming from a funeral," she commented.
But Edith was not feeling in sorts after the humiliating encounter, and the more dreaded one to come.
"I did not know, Miss Thompson," she said, as they came upon their corridor, "that you could be such a coward as to betray one."
"I did not intend to give you away," parried the other. "Your name simply slipped from my mouth."
"Did it? It certainly slipped very easily."
"If you think I have no more honor than that --"
"You had no business to tattle!"
"Well, if you can't --"
"Oh, come away, Tommy," interrupted Molly, drawing Helen away. "What's the use of making it any worse?"
"Well," snapped Edith, "you girls will be sorry for it!"
And with that she slammed her door, and Helen slammed bers.