FOLLOWING the escapade of the mock turtle, the intercourse between Helen and Edith became strained. Edith never mentioned to anybody what Miss Stone said to her that night; it was only noticed that her demeanor toward Freshmen became more subdued. But the volcano of her resentment was smoldering the more hotly underneath the crust. Elinor soothed her roommate's ruffled feelings; but she laughed at it all right heartily, while she lectured Edith for the good of her disposition.
The witnesses to the mock turtle episode were many and graphic, and they did credit particularly to Helen and Professor Stone. It tickled Gail Calder's sense of humor and she wondered what "that Freshman" would do next. Considering that it was only going on the second week that Helen had been at college, it must be conceded that she was furnishing more than her share of material for gossip.
Whenever Helen's pride had a downfall like the last, she buried herself more deeply in work, in the shame and contrition of her sensitive nature. She now "dug" away at her books and applied herself most assiduously to all other duties. Even the domestic work assigned to her claimed most scrupulous care; for the supper tables were set to Mrs. Jones's infinite satisfaction, the bread, also within Helen's province, being cut on the patent bread-cutter with the skill and the nicety of a veteran. Not once did she slice off an intruding fingertip, though many of her colleagues, through their lack of care, had already cut themselves so badly -- a common enough thing in those days -- as to become patients at the infirmary. If a girl was seen with her hands bandaged, it meant "bread-cutter."
But unfortunately, these spells of diligence on Helen's part did not last very long.
On Friday evening after supper, the various campus houses had elections of house officers. Mount Holyoke has a most admirable system of self-government. There are few rules, and these few are self-imposed by the girls. It rests on the students' honor to follow them, and so they are seldom infringed upon, punishment for such being very rarely heard of. There is a "police" system among the students, whose members are known as "proctors," one proctor for each corridor or half corridor, and these unwilling officials have to see that there is quiet during the quiet hours and that the lights are turned out in every room at ten o'clock. They are responsible to the house chairman, who is a Senior elected for the year by the house body. She, in turn, is responsible to the president and executive committee of the Student League, and acts with the Faculty head of the house in keeping the morals and manners of the students above reproach. The matron, already spoken of, is not part of this system. She is the house manager or housekeeper who looks out for the material well-being of the girls.
And so, gathered in the students' parlor, the girls balloted for house chairman, to which office the popular Elinor Haskell was almost unanimously elected. Then followed elections of proctors for the term, the office of proctor being one a girl always makes a show of unwillingness in taking. Edith was elected for the second floor, and she promised the girls responsible for her election a very severe time. After the lecture of the newly elected house chairman regarding quiet, and church, and absence from college, and chaperons, the assembly was dismissed.
Saturday for our Freshmen was an easy day, with hardly any recitations. Most of them had only English, and to-night they gathered in Helen's room to write their themes, to the accompaniment of fudge being made by the hostess, the fumes of which were pouring out over the transom and flooding the corridor.
"Well, children," remarked the cook, stirring the concoction in the chafing dish, "are you nearly through with your themes? This fudge is almost done. Fanny, would you mind buttering the tray?"
"Gladly," said the latter, and, dropping her pencil and paper, set to work buttering the home-made trays constructed of theme paper. Into these the fudge was poured, and set on the window sill to cool.
"Well," said Molly, who had been working very solemnly over her theme for some time, "I guess I have about the dandiest 'autobiography' of anybody here. Wait till we get to eating that fudge and I'll read it to you."
"Oh, I finished mine yesterday," said Helen, who was no mean writer, as her accomplishments in that line at Erasmus would verify. "Mine is an 'auto'biography. It is humorous."
"So is mine -- humorous, I mean," laughed Molly; "and it's true. Only I don't know if anybody will believe it."
"Well," put in Frances, who was usually seen and not heard, "if we-all work as hard as we're working to-night, we'll be in good shape for the Freshman story next spring."
"Oh, yes," said Fanny, "we'll all work hard, anyway. But Helen's is perfectly great!"
"Read it to us, Tommy. Read it!"
"Oh, no; give me a rest for a while. I've just been cooking. Molly must read hers first."
The fudge was soon hard enough to cut and, with care, could be handed around without burning the fingers of the girls who could not wait for it to be properly cooled. In the midst of this, a knock on the door announced two or three more Freshmen who lived in the same corridor.
"Hullo! Plugging?" they asked.
"No; fudge! Come in, everybody, and have some," invited Helen.
"Yes, come on in, girls; I was just about to read my autobiography," said Molly, as she licked her fingers and reached for another piece. "Now, I don't pretend to be a hauthor, but just listen to my wonderful story." And she spread her sheets of paper to the Welsbach light.
"'I was not born in my native town, but on a visit to my grandmother's --'"
A roar of laughter came from the girls in front of her at this unexpected statement. They shook with it and the tears fairly rolled out of their eyes. Fanny, who had just put a piece of fudge into her mouth, choked over it.
"You're not really going to give that in," protested Helen, between gasps.
"Why not, I should like to know? It's as good as any you can write!"
In the midst of this uproar a peremptory knock came on the door, and, upon invitation, the new proctor put her head inside.
"Girls, I can't have this racket in this room!" she said. "This is the quiet hour, and you must realize there are some people who want to study, if you don't." The Freshmen set up a giggle as the door shut again.
"Well, did you ever!" exclaimed the outraged Molly. "And I the cause of it!"
"I suppose she couldn't help squelching us," defended Fanny. "We were making so much noise."
"She said she 'couldn't -- have -- this -- racket -- in -- this -- room '!" persisted Molly indignantly.
"Well," laughed Tommy, as an idea struck her, "if she means my tennis racquet, we'll have to put it outside the door."
And suiting action to word, she took the offending article from the top of the bookcase and set it outside.
"Hope she'll be satisfied now," laughed the Freshmen. "Edith Brewster is so bumptious, she is probably tickled to pieces to have us make a noise just to squelch us."
"I suppose so," put in Tommy. "But quiet hour is League rules, and they placard the corridors so you could make no mistake. The minute you come inside the door downstairs, QUIET HOURS stares you in the face."
"League rules are funny things!" drawled Molly. "They disturb one's peace of mind when one is seriously engaged in growing fat -- if you fathom that subtle point. Proctors make it their business to construct mountains out of golf hills. They will cry 'Murder!' when they smell a mouse in a trap. Two mice make two murders; three mice make three murders; four --"
"Why, you are crazy!" cried the convulsed Freshmen. "You'll have us in a fit!"
"-- mice make four murders," continued Molly; "five mice make --"
"What has got through her to-night! "
"Oh, stuff her mouth, somebody," said Tommy. "Put a pillow over her mouth and stop her."
Molly was rolled back on the couch and pillows from too willing Freshmen hushed her rigmarole to a mumble.
"Did you ever see such an id?" they laughed.
"You are vilely prejudiced against me, comrades," the smothered Molly managed to say. "Give me air, oh, give me air!"
A loud knocking sounded on the door, and, without waiting to be bidden "Come," the proctor threw the door open and stood in the opening.
"Girls, I must ask you to make less noise! I've told you this once before and --"
"Oh, no, you didn't," broke in Molly, sitting up disheveled. "You told us you couldn't have this racquet in this room. There it is outside the door. We've put it out."
Edith stared at the thing in the corridor beside her. A wave of crimson came across her face and indignation fought with humor over the possession of it. But the latter triumphed and, herself giggling, she closed the door on the Freshmen and went away.
"Molly," said Fanny, when the merriment had subsided, "are you going to join the vesper choir?"
"Oh, yes, indeedy! Tommy and I are both going."
"Oh, I don't know about that," protested Tommy. " I don't care much for church music. I want to join the Glee Club."
"Oh, well, just as you like. But you'll change your mind, I misdoubt me, when you see the choir pro-cess."
"And then I can't take in everything," continued Helen. "Girls, you all want to go to the basketball trials. They are going to form classes at the gym. You wou!dn't think Fanny here could play basketball -- she's such an angel! But she does, and she's a peach!"
Several others were found to be athletes, and the meeting turned into an enthusiastic athletic conference. All their ambitions for the future were discussed, the Freshmen being none too backward about divulging them. Tommy made some more fudge, and Lil Howe brought a glass of strawberry jam from her room and some Scarrs (the official college biscuits) to spread it on, and passed the good things around. But when nine o'clock struck -- the end of the quiet hour -- they decided that they must have a dance. Frances was coaxed into getting out her mandolin, and all adjourned to the corridor.
"Aren't we the greatest crowd!" said Molly. "This is Paradise Alley for fair."
"That's it -- that's it! 'Paradise Alley!' Let's call it that. We are going to have the best times here!"
And so "Paradise Alley" it was.
Frances sat down on the stairs leading to the next floor, coyly handling her mandolin, and began to play. They danced softly to the waltzes she played, and hummed themselves, two and two, up and down the corridor. Edith, scandalized, came out to them again and told them, eyes flashing, that they were keeping only the letter of the law and not the spirit. Molly recommended that she put her head in the wastebasket and forget it, and Edith shut the door upon them with indignation. But they tired of dancing very soon, for the corridor was filled with wardrobes and the space narrow, and when somebody suggested fire-escapes, they went back into Helen's and Molly's rooms, ready for a lark.
Now, fire-escapes of the rope variety are in every room, and in an emergency are to be used in getting away from the burning building. But how is a person to know the way to manipulate the things if she doesn't practice? It isn't the easiest thing in the world for a girl to abandon herself with all confidence to a patent device that might end in hanging her or breaking her head.
That was the theory which our friends of Paradise Alley put forward. Besides, it was such sport to be swinging -- and no League rule against it -- outside of the house on the end of a rope! And there was nobody to see on a dark night.
"Here, Frances," suggested Molly, always first in everything, "you go down on the one in our room, and I'll take Tommy's fire-escape, and see which one of us will get down first."
"I woan't do anything of the sort," protested the shy Frances.
"Oh, 'fraid-cat!' Why, just put this belt under your arms so and sit on the window sill.Then let yourself down. Oh, come on! I've done it and it's piles of fun! Only, be sure and have the belt end next to the pulley, and the loose end on the ground."
Frances was not too easily persuaded; but with some coaxing from the other girls, she permitted herself to be enthroned on the window sill, and after some maneuvers let herself slowly down. All went well, and a hoot above her from the next fire-escape told her that Molly was following.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" remarked Molly, as their feet touched the ground, after a ride of two stories to the basement floor.
"What in the world are you girls doing?" came a mystified voice over their heads. The Sophomore who lived below them on the first floor, attracted by the talking, had raised her shade and was leaning out of her window to see the fun.
"Oh, practicing fire-escapes," was the short reply. "Tommy, oh, Tommy! Come on down!"
"All right, all right," came the response above.
"Pull up all the rope--through the pulley!"
Tommy was already on the window sill with the belt around her, and with a squeal she let herself go. But it went far faster than she had anticipated; for she was a solidly built girl and weighted the thing down heavily.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried, and, her impulse as usual being too quick to allow proper insight and choice of action, she grasped the part of the rope that was flying up while she was going down, and tried to check herself. A stinging sensation dug into her palms and fingers. She reached the ground none too soon.
"Well, did you get down safely?" they called from above. "Oh, Tommy, did it feel good?"
Tommy mechanically took the belt off her shoulders without a word.
"What's the matter?" asked Molly.
''I -- I don't know. My hands feel wet, and they burn."
She turned them toward the light of the window in the room above. They were smeared with a red stain.
"Why!"
"Why, Tommy! You're hurt!"
"I -- I guess I cut them through trying to hold on to the rope."
But Molly's thoughts were flying, and her action was after her own big heart. She stooped down and tore a great piece from her white petticoat.
"Oh, don't do that!" protested Tommy, but Molly was already wrapping it over the bleeding hands.
"Come into the house, quick," marshaled Molly.
They went around to the front door, and Helen was hurried through the deserted dining room and into the serving room where the water was. The whole troop of girls, hurrying down from the second floor, were ready to give first aid.
"Here, put your hands under the faucet. Oh, how dreadful --" and poor little Tommy, whose hands had been burned almost to the bone with the friction and smarted to her heart, had all she could do to keep from fainting.
While they were running the water, a side door opened from Mrs. Jones's private dining room, and that good lady, having been attracted by the commotion, appeared.
"Why, child! child!" she exclaimed, when the accident was explained to her. "You've cut yourself most drea-ea-eadfully! -- What will those Freshmen do next!" she was heard saying to herself, as she disappeared into her dining room to telephone for the resident physician.
In a few minutes Dr. Doane came hurrying in from Safford Hall with her medical case. She shook her head at the bad mess before her, and proceeded to dress the wounds and to bind them with copious applications of liniment.
"You did pretty thorough work of it," she commented, twisting a strip of gauze round a wounded hand. "They will take a long time to heal."
"But they will heal, won't they?" asked Molly anxiously.
"In the course of time -- yes. Come and see me to-morrow morning at the dispensary before chapel, Miss Thompson."
"Poor Tommy! " consoled her friends, as they escorted her up to her room. "You always seem to be getting into it."
"Because I'm such a chump," was the reply. "But -- but -- the only thing I mind is that I'll have to carry these two white paws around on the campus. Ugh!"
Poor Tommy was undressed and tucked into bed very tenderly that night by a careful roommate, who did not offer a single word of reproach. And when the bell was ringing for "lights out" at ten o'clock, Elinor Haskell, who had been away all evening and had just heard a thorough account of the night's doings from Edith, came in from across the corridor, and sat down in the dark at the head of Helen's bed, and gathered the girl up in her arms.
"Poor Tommy," she said, stroking the soft, curly hair with her hands, and laying her cheek among it. "Poor Tommy, I'm so sorry you hurt yourself."
"Oh, it's good to hear you call me Tommy, E-Elinor," said Helen, cuddling closer. "It -- it -- never sounded so sweet before." (Pause.) "And -- I -- I guess I'm glad I hurt myself, after all!"