May Day was drawing toward sunset, and the trees on the hill were casting longer and longer shadows. The May queen had been crowned amid the acclaim of her loyal subjects. The Maypole had been wound. The throngs of revelers and spectators had flowed from a dance of flowers and bees to Noah's ark and an old York mystery play. In a green glad Robin Hood, Little John, and Maid Marian had blithely gone through many adventures. Against a background of dusky boughs the morris men had pranced and capered. Every one was now resting before the dance of the clouds and the evening play in the outdoor theatre.
Four girls of the familiar five, with Frances and Wally and Eunice Berg, sat on the grass under the trees on the edge of the hill, and consumed sandwiches, olives, and coffee.
Round them on the hill other little groups were eating. Men and milkmaids, bees, flowers, and light-gowned girls hurried by, carrying cups and plates. Noah's First Son, in pink satin and silver, wandered by, looking for friends. A figure clad in Lincoln green slid into sight from behind a tree. It was all very picturesque.
Suddenly a pansy ran up to the group under the trees. "Oh, I'm so hungry! Where -"
"You cute thing!"
"Every one's talking about you."
"Turn round, please. I couldn't get anywhere near the dance."
Doris blushed and laughed, and dropped them a shy little curtsy. "I want to know where to get a sandwich," she said. I've been helping an old gentleman find his party."
"Here," said Eunice Berg. She pulled Doris down beside her, and began to feed her.
"You didn't see anything of Tiny-for-Short, did you?" asked Barbara.
"No. I saw nearly everyone else, though. She was a part of one of the elephants, wasn't she?"
"She was not." Tiny reached over Barbara's shoulder and seized Barbara's sandwich. "She was a giraffe. And let me tell you that in May weather it's not the coolest or the prettiest or the easiest thing in the world to be the forelegs and neck of a giraffe, with an extension for more neck, and a head on top of that. Did you like my ears?"
They assured her that they had liked her ears. They had no words to tell her quite how much they had liked them.
"I worked them with a string. Some trick, that. Hope every one appreciated them."
"The man who stood next to me nearly had apoplexy from laughing at them," said Nina.
"That's all right then. I suppose you've heard that the dog has run away?"
"The one that's been tied up on the Safford porch ever since noon?" Migs asked.
"Sensible dog," said Wally.
"He was the right breed for the play to-night," Tiny explained. "Gnawed himself loose. Now they'll have to use Dash. But nobody is going to know the difference.
"They couldn't have made that dog go on the stage," said Fuzz.
"They can't keep Dash off when he isn't supposed to be on, unless they tie him up," Barbara said. "Does every one here call for ice cream?"
Barbara and Frances and Eunice went off to get it; they were dressed as milkmaids in pink, yellow and blue skirts, and black bodices laced over white blouses.
"I never saw anything prettier than that Maypole dance," Doris remarked happily to Wally as she watched the girls go.
May Day had slipped into the midst of her worries like a day out of another world, and she was sensibly taking it as such. Doris could hardly believe that worries and disappointments existed when she found herself merrymaking in this pleasant company.
But there were people, it soon appeared, who could think of serious matters even on May Day. When the three girls returned, they had with them Ethel Conrad and Sally King.
"We wanted to get with some of the performers," Sally said. "It's more cheerful."
"The others made room for them. Sally's brisk businesslike ways were recognized as revealing an energy very useful to Nineteen Blank. She might lose her head at Basket ball, but she was a born manager.
The group ate ice cream and lady fingers, and watched the sun sink lower.
"It will be down before you finish that ice cream, Tiny."
"No, it won't, Bab."
"How far?" inquired Migs, in the interest of accuracy. "Clear down, or only part way?"
"Clear down. It goes fast when it starts."
"That's right," said Sally King. "It goes as fast as the rest of this year is going."
"Don't!" Doris cried, impulsively. "I don't like to think of being a sophomore."
"I do," said Tiny. "I'm crazy to be one. When you're a sophomore you're not the newest thing here."
"Poor Tiny! Haven't they stopped teasing you yet?" asked Barbara.
"And never will, I'm thinking," said Eunice Berg, "if she and Bab keep on shaving cats' tails in patterns. Don't try to look innocent. Every one knows you did it."
"Well, anyway," said Sally King, "we can't help being sophomores. And we can't help thinking about it when the election of sophomore officers comes in less than two weeks."
"The question is, whom are we going to put in?" said Ethel Conrad.
"There are girls enough," Barbara remarked. "But nobody wants Eunice and the rest of you to stop."
"I have it!" cried Fuzz Herron. "Put us in. I speak for being sergeant at arms."
"No, no! Wally! We'll make Wally sergeant at arms."
"If you should," said Wally, placidly, "my first official act would be to marshal you all down to the lake and dump you in."
"Corporal chastisement doesn't fall under the duties of a sergeant at arms, Wally."
"If a class can make customs, its sergeant at arms can make duties, Nina."
"There!" said Tiny. "Your sun has only just touched the top of the hill, Bab."
"Look!" cried Eunice, suddenly. "Oh, look! Down there - beyond the trees."
On a steep bank above a winding footpath the May queen and Robin Hood were watching the sunset. Janet Bland, the May queen, sat on the grass; her white gown and her flower-crowned head stood out clear against the green background. Beside her lay Captain Dick, dressed as Robin Hood.
For a moment the freshmen gazed silently.
"Quick! A camera!" whispered Migs.
"No good now. Look at the sun."
"Don't anyone pinch me, please," Doris murmured. "This isn't to-day. This isn't New England."
"It's old England," said Frances, softly. "Merrie England, under the greenwood trees."
But Barbara had no sentiment of that sort in her nature. "Let's fuss them a little."
"How?" Migs asked.
"That's easy. Follow me." She scrambled to her feet, moved two or three steps away from the trees against which the freshmen were sitting, and gazed down intently. Then she beckoned to Migs. Migs ran to Barbara's side, and looked down.
"Aren't they romantic!" Barbara said.
Her voice carried to Syna Martyn, who was strolling by with a young man. The two stopped, and followed the direction of Barbara's gaze.
"By Jove, that's pretty!" said the man.
His voice reached a white-haired gentleman with a coffee cup, and a couple of girls who were carrying ice-cream saucers. All three turned to see what Barbara and Migs and Syna Martyn and the young man and the group of girls on the grass were looking at so intently. Other people also drew near and gazed. Then they beckoned to their friends.
When Robin Hood turned his head, a moment later, he saw the crowd of smiling faces. The color rose in his cheeks. At a word from him, the May queen lifted a startled face.
"Don't move!" called the the [sic] white-haired old gentleman, lifting his hat. "We are only the hoi polloi. A cat may look at a queen."
The two on the bank smiled back at him. The old gentleman bowed, and the crowd began to drift apart. Barbara returned to her friends. "We did fuss them," she said.
The May queen beckoned imperatively. "Naughty children! You look guilty. Bab, Migs, Eunice, come down and be punished."
Robin Hood swept them a flashing glance. "Her majesty speaks."
"Let's go!" cried Barbara.
Laughing, she ran down across the grass.
"There goes the girl," remarked Eunice Berg, with admiration and regret in her voice, "who ought to be our sophomore president."
"She'd get the vote, if she were eligible," said Sally King.
"Which she isn't, worse luck!" said Ethel Conrad.
"Leighton's a fine girl," said Nina, "but I shouldn't want to see her president."
"Oh, I didn't mean that we'd put her in, even if there were not a ruling on conditions to prevent it," Sally hastened to explain. "I suppose, as things are, none of us would feel quite satisfied to see her in the chair."
"We want an all-round girl there," said Frances.
"Bab's brains are all right," Migs declared.
"That's the point," Sally said. "As I read the class, they will sooner stand for a girl who finds it hard to get along than for a girl who can do good work and won't. But you know I like Leighton immensely."
"We are all Bab's friends here," Eunice said, quietly.
"Maybe she will pass off her conditions in September," said Nina. "She means to try."
"If she did, couldn't we put her in?" Migs asked. "I mean, couldn't we vote for her now, if we explained that she wouldn't take office unless she got off her conditions?"
"What about that repeated English course?"
"O dear, I didn't think of that!" said Migs.
"I don't think," Wally remarked, "that we can tell what Bab will or won't do next year. She hasn't found herself yet."
Tiny-for-Short spoke abruptly: "There's nobody more loyal to Nineteen Blank. Don't forget all she's done for us, beginning with that pickle about a class tree."
"The class doesn't forget," said Eunice.
"It's not a question of forgetting or remembering, Tiny," Sally King declared. "A president represents the class. Would you want to point out Bab Leighton to the college and say, 'That's the kind of girl we are?'"
Tiny-for-Short looked away. "No," she admitted, reluctantly. "I'm afraid - I shouldn't - quite like to see her represent the class."
"We all know Bab," Nina said. "She is the dearest thing in the class, but it's too much to expect to get everything in one package. Bab isn't a presidential possibility, that's all."
Doris had sat silent and unhappy through the talk, but she could not let it end like that. Why, even the girls nearest Barbara saw her as the others did! She could not blame them. She remembered bitter moments when she, too, had doubted.
"I don't think we do know Bab, Nina," she said, a little breathlessly. "It's only part of her we know, the easy-going part. She hasn't begun to fight yet. When she does -" Doris paused for inspiration. It came straight from those first days at college. "When she does, we'll make her our junior president."
"I wish she'd begin, then!" sighed Eunice.
"There was a time when every one thought she had begun," Sally remarked.
"I know this," said Ethel Conrad. "Leighton can put a thing through when she wants to. Look at the way she stood by basket-ball practice when there wasn't a chance of her playing in the games."
Some girls in pale pink draperies hurried across the open hilltop.
"There goes the third cloud in five minutes!" Frances cried. "Oughtn't we to be moving toward the cloud dance?" The freshmen scrambled to their feet and followed the girls in pink. Frances and Eunice walked on either side of Doris.
"I was glad you said what you did, Doris," Eunice said. "The girls have been a little disappointed in Bab. Every one loves her, but she hasn't turned out to be quite what we thought she was; we haven't always been able to count on her. As you say, perhaps after the summer vacation all that will come right."
Doris had not said exactly that, but she let it go. She was wondering just when Barbara would, in Wally's phrase, "Find herself." "If she didn't talk so much about it, I believe she would accomplish more," thought Doris. "Half her energy goes into planning the wonderful things she is going to do."
A junior, with her mother, stopped Eunice. The others strolled on.
"You're sure that you are going to room alone next year, Doris?" Frances asked.
Doris nodded. "And you?"
"Ditto. In your house."
"Fine! But I thought you and Wally -"
"What about Wally?" broke in the fat girl.
Doris explained.
"No, thank you," said Wally. "I hereby kindly but firmly refuse to room with anyone at any time, no matter what her qualifications. No offense intended, but I'm vowed to celibacy for the rest of my college life."
"What a hermitage we'll have next year!" said Frances, with a laugh.
"Meanwhile," said Wally, "I am interested in that dance. I haven't seen anything yet to-day. I always got to the place just when the crowd was going away."
Tiny thought over what the girls had said about Barbara. Irresponsible though Tiny was, she had her moments of seriousness, and she felt now as if she had come near to being disloyal to her friend. The next day she sought Barbara out.
"Bab," she said, "you and I have taken some pretty hard knocks together since we've been here. And now I'm going to tell you something - and I do hope it won't make any hard feeling between you and any of the girls."
"Fire away, Tiny!" said Barbara.
"Well, when you ran away from the crowd yesterday, one of the girls said, 'There goes the girl who ought to be our sophomore president.' And we all agreed that it was too bad - that you'd missed your chance. Only Doris stood up for you. And Doris said that you hadn't begun to fight yet, and that we'd be making you our junior president."
Tiny paused for a moment. Then, with effort, she went on:
"I suppose you know what that quiet-looking little roommate of yours really is?"
"Yes," said Barbara. "I know."
She was pale, hurt, quivering, but she smiled at Tiny. "You're a true friend, too, Tiny. Thank you."
Tiny-for-Short put out her hand, and Barbara grasped it silently.
After Tiny had gone, Barbara, too, passed out into the corridor, and went down the stairs and out of doors. She did not know where she was going. She felt no need for time in which to think. If she thought for a year, the situation could become no clearer to her than it was at that moment. Why had she never seen before? In this clear light her optimism, which had always shed unwelcome facts with careless ease, dropped from her. The facts were there; neither for her nor for any other girl would they turn aside.
She saw the denials, the stern restraints, that mark the way of the girl who succeeds at college. But she had expected to hold the confidence and respect of the girls by playing while they worked. She had failed even to hold the confidence and respect of those who played with her.
With cruel distinctness the year unrolled behind her, from the triumph under the class tree, along the black trail of mid-year's, past the headstone of a lost game.
What should she do? She must talk to somebody. She was ashamed to talk to Doris. It was always Barbara's instinct to act at once, but her feet had carried her far before she reached a decision; the shadows lay long on the brown roads. She turned and hurried back to Mead, where dinner was already over; she smoothed her hair, changed from a jumper into a dress, and went in search of Janet Bland.