THERE was a fever of apprehension among the Freshmen. For the past few days all sorts of weird tales about what Sophomores do on Senior reception night had been cooked up for them to feast on. They had been warned by their Junior sisters to take the keys from their doors for safekeeping, and to lock up their rooms when they went to the reception. Tommy immediately secured her key; but Molly and Frances, carelessly scorning suggestion, were too late and lost theirs.
"Oh, Molly," said Tommy, "they'll get you, sure!"
"Oh, well, the man don't care!" said Molly, tossing her head disdainfully, and speaking in a voice that could be heard over the transom in Edith's room, for she suspected Edith had captured her key. "I'd just as soon they'd haze me. My room isn't in too fine a condition now; a little upsetting, more or less, might really put things to rights. Frances is constantly nagging me about it."
"And the more I nag --" put in Frances.
"The sounder the nag sleeps. But let them come on and haze me!"
"Oh, really, Molly, don't talk like that," said Helen apprehensively. "They might accommodate you. I shouldn't like to have my room tumbled up."
"What can you except when you're fresh?"
"Am I, really?"
"Well, now, you don't suppose I'm without company! But rest easy; you can lock up your room."
"Ye-es --"
Tommy didn't rest easy, however, and the eventful day came with mixed emotions of expectation and apprehension. Tommy was said to be exceptionally "fresh," and she had much to fear; the day of reckoning had too long been disregarded by her.
In the afternoon she joined a party of girls pressing their dresses and ribbons in the laundry, but she was too preoccupied to take part in their chatter. She finished her dress quickly and made room for the next applicant at the ironing board.
Toward evening, however, with the great occasion at hand and a healthy mind to aid her, Helen's true ego reasserted itself, and apprehension was tossed to the winds. Supper was hardly tasted; Helen stayed through for propriety's sake. When napkins were folded and chairs pushed back at her table, she made her way quickly to her room to get ready.
She and Fanny helped each other to dress in a fever of excitement, putting one to the other all the girlish touches and vanities. Tommy, on the doctor's permission, had discarded her gauze bandages that morning, and, but for the wide, red scars across her hands, there was nothing objectionable to be noticed. She was like a big, white butterfly in her graduating dress, surpassed only by Fanny, whose smaller and daintier lines in soft, pale yellow, made her seem a noiseless sunbeam.
Friends -- and enemies -- came to admire them as they dressed; Sophomores in special, contrasting in their plain, everyday clothes, came in to assist -- so they said.
"We came to see if we can help," said one, smiling, her eyes making an ostentatious and critical circle of the room.
"Oh, thank you," smiled Fanny. "I'm afraid we don't need any more help."
"Wouldn't you like to have me tie your sash, Tommy?" asked another.
"No, indeed; thank you just the same. But if you only stop looking around and taking in my room, I would be exceedingly thankful to you. It makes me nervous."
"I was looking at your beautiful decorations," explained the Sophomore, laughing. "I thought they might look better arranged differently."
"Won't you stop in and visit us some other time -- and offer suggestions?" asked Fanny.
"Oh, yes; we'll visit you -- later in the evening, perhaps."
"Oh, no, you won't," put in Tommy, drawing herself erect. "We don't receive visitors to-night. The entrance will be barred. See, here is the key," triumphantly producing the door key, with its little brass number tag dangling, that had been nestling up her sleeve.
The Sophomores present, who had taken possession of the couches, only chuckled.
"You seem to have been forewarned about some catastrophe. But why you will be so inhospitable, we can't see."
"You surely don't think it proper to visit while the hostess is away," said Fanny.
"Oh, of course not. But if the hostess won't stay and entertain her visitors -- And then, you see, we'll have to have some consolation for not being invited to join the fun in Assembly Hall."
In the midst of this Gail Calder arrived, charmingly attired, and carried off Fanny.
"Good-by," waved the Sophomores. "Don't stay out too late. We'll sit up for you."
"Well, you needn't," objected Tommy indignantly.
"Oh, really! We have work to do."
"What do you intend to do?" she demanded.
"Oh, I've a notion to make some fudge in your chafing dish."
"Well, take it out now. You'll find chocolate and sugar on the bottom shelf of the bookcase."
"Thanks; we'll bear that in mind."
"Don't mention it."
"No, I'll keep it secret."
"So you are going with Helen Crosby?" said another Sophomore. "What an honor!"
"Yes," said Tommy, in mock meekness, "I appreciate it fully," waving to Elinor Haskell, who passed in the corridor with two Freshmen.
"You have a very bad crush," commented the upperclassmen.
"No crush at all," protested Tommy. "It's a really, truly --"
But just at this point, like "angel's wings," Miss Crosby made her appearance at the door.
"Are you ready, Helen?" she asked sweetly. I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long; but you see it takes some time to dress."
"I am with you in a moment," said Tommy, throwing a liberty silk scarf over her head and giving her hair a few touches in the glass. She turned hesitatingly to the Sophomores still lolling on the couches. "Won't you come again?"
"Oh, indeed we shall!" not stirring.
"But -- but -- you see I have a 'previous engagement' now. It wouldn't be proper for me to leave you to amuse yourselves."
"Oh," protested the Sophomores, "pray do not entertain any fears in our behalf." And a bandying of words ensued.
"I'm afraid we'll have to be going," said Miss Crosby at last, looking at the culprits as severely as her brown eyes could. "And I think Miss Thompson wants to lock her room -- for fear of burglars."
"And I'm sure it wouldn't be proper to lock you in," added Tommy hurriedly.
"Oh, that's it!" exclaimed the Sophomores, rising. "We misunderstood you all the time. Please do not let us spoil your evening. Good night."
"Good night; you surely won't."
Tommy turned out the light, and locked her door carefully and with great satisfaction; Helen Crosby laughed.
"You are taking every precaution, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Tommy, smiling, "or I won't find any room left when I get back. They can never get in here now. Frances and Molly next door had their key taken. But Esther Linden, a Junior, promised to stay there all the evening to see that nothing happened."
The Senior-Freshman reception was certainly a splendid affair. Assembly Hall was filled with lights and pretty gowns and palms brought up from the plant houses. The odor of flowers worn on filmy corsages pervaded the place, and from a palm-filled corner came the soft, sweet music of a string orchestra. Light blue Holyoke banners were hung at intervals on the walls among smilax, while up in the corner where the reception committee were standing, a great dark blue banner, bearing the year 1905, showed among the tall palms. Under the 1905 on the blue background, woven of smilax, was the legend '1908," for the first time arresting the attention of the newly arrived girls with its significance.
At the head of the receiving party stood the college President, her eyes brilliant with pride, her lips smiling welcome, with an apt and original word for each one. Next to her, Helen Crosby looked good to the eye as she received a line of new students and their escorting Seniors, the curves of her white neck and shoulders showing soft in the low-cut gown she was wearing. Beside her, on the right, stood Grace Waldon, the vice president, to whom she in turn passed an introduced guest, and who again passed her on to the secretary and treasurer.
Outside of the receiving line and the line being received (which the students called ''running the gantlet"), the rest of Assembly Hall was gay and festive. Charming, dignified Seniors were talking to and making at home sweet, young, undeveloped girls, who had but recently "done up" their hair, and who in their white graduating dresses had been at last allowed to wear skirts that "touched." The hum of introductions sounded incessantly, and talk and bright laughter. Tommy, carried here and there by Elinor Haskell, was her own brilliant self. Elinor had already two other Freshmen -- "candidates for her sorority," Tommy thought, with a certain hope in her heart. Many were the acquaintances she made, people who resembled friends, and people who knew friends; by open windows that let in the cool night air of the campus upon the hot room, cherished reminiscences were dug out and exchanged, experiences compared and commented upon. Altogether it was a great gathering!
The refreshments served were fitting to the splendid occasion. The Seniors helped their young friends to frappe, so gratifying in this now overheated assembly room, and ice cream in fancy shapes, with dainty French cakes. The little silver spoons, with MT. HOLYOKE COLLEGE engraved on them, had a history of their own, which shall be recounted here not only because interesting, but to make a dire example of those who had a wicked part in it!
A year or two before, the trustees had been so good as to present to the college several hundred of these plain, solid, little silver spoons to be used in such affairs as this, and, much delighted, the students obtained permission to use them for the first time at a reception following a glee club concert. The improvement over the spoons the caterer furnished was vastly appreciated, especially by the college "men" whom the students were entertaining from Amherst, New Haven, Hartford, and elsewhere.
The next morning, however, after the affair was over and the maids were cleaning up, the number of the silver spoons was found to be reduced by about seventy-five. For it seems that few of these college men proved impermeable to the souvenir mania, while their less scrupulous brethren slipped the costly enough souvenirs up their sleeves or into their pockets. One repentant gentleman later returned his trophy to the registrar with an anonymous, conscience-stricken note. Another, on the same occasion, equally repentant, though perhaps with more sense of humor, sent one of the Seniors a beautiful Yale banner, as fair exchange for a Holyoke one he had "swiped" from the walls, on the back of which he had found her name pinned as owner. For the benefit of any reader who may be curious on this point, let us say -- they did not either of them try to find out who the other was, and so no romance followed.
Toward the end of the evening the orchestra began to play "Long ago she rose and stood," and the Seniors and Freshmen joined in the singing. It was a light-hearted, happy company that separated, and the Freshmen got back to earth again when they went out on the cool, dark campus.
If the Sophomores had for a while been forgotten, they were now brought to mind with disastrous force. Tommy climbed up the stairs, clutching her door key triumphantly and feeling secure in its possession. Outside of No. 21 she found Fanny standing, waiting for her to open the door.
"Helen, why did you leave our gas burning?" asked Fanny. "Mrs. Jones will fine us twenty-five cents for it now."
"Why," exclaimed Helen, "I didn't leave it burning! I distinctly remember turning it out."
"That's funny; and nobody's --"
"No, nobody could get into our room. See, I have the key."
"Do you suppose --"
"Sophomores could not get in -- possibly."
Two of the just-named passed, in bath robes and with their hair down, carrying pitchers, ostensibly going to fetch drinking water from the serving room downstairs.
"What is the matter with you girls?" they queried, halting at the head of the stairs and looking back.
"Nothing," was the reply.
"Then why don't you go in and go to bed?"
"What's that to you?" Tommy wanted to know.
"Oh, nothing. Let's stay here, Mabel, and see the fun." And the Sophs squatted on the lowest step of the up-going flight, commanding a grand view of No. 21 and vicinity.
By this time Molly and Frances came up, expecting to find the Junior, Esther Linden, mounted on guard against their appearance. But their room was dark and tenantless, and, hunting for matches, Frances could not find even the table on which they had rested.
"Oh, come, girls," pleaded Frances of the others, "go into your room and give us some matches."
"You are not going to camp out here all night, because you're afraid to go in?" queried Molly, as giggles and exclamations of surprise from returning Freshmen began to run through the house.
"Oh, I'm not afraid," boasted Tommy. "Here goes to show you."
Curious Freshmen and Sophomores flocked out from various rooms in the corridor as Tommy inserted the key in the lock of her door.
"Oh, you needn't expect to see anything," remarked Tommy. "The door's been locked all evening."
But the boast was a little too "previous"; the throwing open of the door revealed a dreadful con- dition of things. The room had been raided, and one side of it was stripped and topsy-turvy, presenting the appearance of a bearded man shaved on one side of his face only.
It was Tommy's couch that had been stripped and turned upside down on its bare springs, with the mattress and bedclothes piled on top of its legs. It was Tommy's desk that was overturned in a comer and its contents stuffed into the wastebasket, and it was Tommy's pictures that had been recognized and hung upside down in their places. On the mattress of Tommy's couch was set Tommy's Morris chair, with a suit of Tommy's stuffed out with pillows and settled in the chair like a lady visitor, wearing Tommy's best hat. On the figure's bosom hung a placard, with many flourishes, bearing the legend: "Why aren't you in when visitors call?"
Fanny's side was untouched.
At first Tommy flushed with shame and anger, and scathing words came to her tongue; the laughter of friends and enemies was more than she could stand. But, when they crowded in and began to tell tales of what had happened in other parts of the house, her resentment was somewhat allayed and she consented to be amused.
In fact, some one was stumbling over something in the next room, and Molly's voice came, calling for help and matches. The crowd adjourned there and lighted up.
No. 22 looked like moving day. Both couches had been stripped, even the legs taken off, and the springs were set up against the wall. Bedclothes and mattresses were rolled up and tied with trunk straps like immigrants' baggage; they were piled up in a corner, with a green flannel waist of Molly's waving a signal of distress on the end of an umbrella on top of all.
"Ah, glory be to Peter! An' doesn't it remind me of lavin' th' auld counthry! " remarked Molly, as she hauled down a chair from the mound and sat down to survey things minutely. "Would ye luke at our beu-chiful pictures now, all shmilin' from the cracks of the wastebasket. Oh, Frances, if yer proud Kaintucky parent could only see himself now--a prisoner in a wastebasket!"
Every picture was down from the walls, and the picture hooks taken away and hidden. Only Frances's fish net kept its accustomed place; but it had lost its photographs and, in lieu of fish, Beman and Smith's solid geometry, and Cicero, and Frazer and Squair were held among its meshes, with sundry fake "flunk notes" as smaller fry.
"A healthy watch you kept, Esther Linden," accused Molly, seeing that young lady putting her head inside the door.
"Why, I really couldn't help it," explained the Junior. "I sat here till half an hour ago, when the telephone gong rang and somebody came and said I was wanted on the long-distance telephone."
"Oh, I guess it was a different kind of long distance you were wanted at. We'll know next time how to set the cat to watch the fish!"
"But, girls," put in Tommy, "how do you suppose they got into our room? The door was locked and I had the key."
"I think I can guess," said Frances. " A few days ago I heard one of the maids in the kitchen say Mrs. Jones had lost her skeleton key."
And so it was; every objectionable Freshman in Porter had been visited by unknown callers -- and the word "objectionable" included nearly the full Freshman rollcall. But if they were overtime getting to bed that night, they were not molested by the proctors.
Tommy only hauled down things and made up a bed, without much bothering about its looks; Molly and Frances slept low on the springs, without taking the trouble to put the legs on the bed body. Another Freshman, who had made a great ostentation about locking her door, and had found the keyhole stuffed with chewing gum upon her return, refused to pick the lock, because she did not wish to "give satisfaction " to some Sophomores who hung about to watch her do it and triumph over her chagrin. She went away, thinking to return after the house was asleep; but the resourceful Sophomores took their pillows and couch covers, and camped outside her door. So she slept on the window seat in the room of a tenderhearted Junior.
This was enough for one night; but next morning the Sophomores showed their tremendously active powers further. They had got up and out very early, when only the cook and the milkman were stirring, and had gathered a crop of big green maple leaves. With these the chairs of the baby Freshmen were decorated, and on the plate of each, when they came to breakfast, was a salad of verdure, copiously sprinkled with salt.
The Freshmen were not the last to appreciate this figure of speech, though for many of them their woes had not yet ended. Our friend Tommy, while trying to look jolly and unconcerned, was really chewing a fresh cud of wrath. The night before she thought that, after all, she had got off quite easily; this morning she changed her mind.
When the rising bell rang, she was not too eager to obey its summons, and naturally had to put on some speed when she did get up. She had been late for breakfast several successive days now, and was getting ashamed of herself. Operations on her toilet were advancing when the five-minute bell rang, and Tommy looked hurriedly for her shoes. No shoes were visible anywhere. Hunt where she would -- and every spot within the four walls of the room and of the closet had been visited -- her shoes, put so carefully in the shoe bag on the inside of the closet door the evening before, were missing, bag and all. Only the light, black dancing slippers she had worn at the reception were to be had.
"I'm so sorry," said Fanny, looking at her own small pairs. "I wish my shoes would fit you."
"I suppose it's those smart Sophomores," said the disgusted Tommy, looking regretfully at her blackstockinged feet swinging down from the bed. "There goes the breakfast bell."
"Shall I ask the girls about them?" suggested Fanny. "It's probably Edith --"
"Don't you do such a thing," forbade Tommy, gritting her teeth. "I'll wear my dancing slippers till they repent and bring me back my shoes. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction --"
And another girl swept down to misery through pride.