Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager

“Ancient history that is trying to repeat itself,” Leila returned with dry sarcasm. “I have been muttering in Jeremiah’s ear that we are not favorites at the Hall.”

“It’s a case of top-lofty sophs and freshie-fresh freshmen.” Vera gave a wise nod. “The traditional meek and lowly freshie is rapidly becoming an almost extinct species.”

“So it would appear this year,” Jerry agreed with an appraising survey of the long dining-room. Her glance rested for a moment on Doris Monroe, then traveled on to the students who sat at table with her.

“There are the members of the trouble bureau,” she told Leila. “Look in the direction I’m looking and you’ll know who I mean.”

“I heard something about a trouble bureau.” Marjorie, next to Jerry on Jerry’s right, bent a laughing face forward to her room-mate. “What?”

“First time I ever head you commit a Cairns-ism. For further information about the trouble bureau, find the Ice Queen,” Jerry directed not without humor.

“Oh; I understand. But I won’t look down at her. If she happened to see us looking at her she would probably be offended, just as Gussie Forbes was when she noticed us eyeing her the first time we saw her at Baretti’s. I learned a lesson then. I don’t intend to make the same mistake again.” Marjorie spoke with the utmost good humor. She was not preaching to her chums, and they knew it.

“Merely because you’re such an old friend of mine, Bean, to confide in you doesn’t mean that I’m gossiping, I’ll say a word or two about the trouble bureau. That tall soph with the straight black hair, black moon eyes and pasty-white face is the chief disturber. She seems to be directing the Ice Queen’s campaign. Muriel says she comes to see Miss Monroe about every half hour until the ten-thirty bell puts the kibosh on her visits.”

Unlike Marjorie, Jerry could not refrain from voicing her disapproval of Doris Monroe and her group of sophomore satellites living at Wayland Hall. “The next agitator to Moon Eyes is the pudgy, red-haired soph with the mechanical voice. Their real names happen to be Miss Peyton and Miss Carter, but Muriel and I have made a few changes,” Jerry declared with a whole-hearted grin. “Ahem! We call the pair the Prime Minister and the Phonograph. So true to life! What?”

Marjorie, Leila and Vera could not help laughing at the names Jerry and Muriel had waggishly applied to the two sophs. Miss Carter’s speech had a habit of clicking itself from her lips with the mechanical precision of a phonograph. She had a wooden manner of carriage and walk which further added to the impression she gave of something mechanical. As for the name Muriel had picked for moon-eyed Miss Peyton, Muriel herself probably best understood thus far its fitness as applied to the tall, austere looking young woman.

“The traditions of Hamilton say nothing about the naming habit.” Leila shot a playful glance at Jerry.

“Er-r – well, it’s remembering the stranger within our gate in a kind of way,” Jerry defended. “Now that Muriel and I have named ’em specially we can remember ’em so much the better.”

“Such ignoble sentiments from a Hamilton P. G.! I am shocked!” Vera’s small hands went up in simulated displeasure.

“You’ll get over the shock if you don’t stop to think about it,” Jerry assured her. “You may even learn to admire the Harding-Macy classification.”

“It’s certainly time the Travelers got together,” Leila said, now more than half serious in her observation. “We must protect the Hall.”

“I am with you in that, Leila,” Marjorie observed, the light of sudden, unalterable purpose flaring strongly in her eyes. “We have Miss Remson as well as the girls here to think of. We’ve been through a siege of a house divided against itself once here. We must somehow not let that calamity overtake the Hall again.”

“How are we going to stop it, Marvelous Manager, with Gentleman Gus and the Ice Queen all ready to challenge each other to a duel?” quizzed Jerry. “I don’t say it can’t be done. I have great faith in you and your works, Bean.” She beamed patronizingly. “I merely ask you: How is it going to be done?”

“I wish I knew,” Marjorie laughingly confessed. “The Travelers will have to find a way to teach our freshies and sophs here to live up to the Hymn of Hamilton. That means we’ll have to teach them without letting them know they are being taught.”

Jerry looked impishly impressed. “What a simple pleasant task!” she exclaimed with pretended enthusiasm. “I should say we’d better cut out dessert, go right upstairs and plan for it. What’s dessert? Nothing but fresh cocoanut layer-cake and coffee gelatine slathered with whipped cream. Who cares for any such trifles?” Jerry waved an airy hand. She made no move to leave her chair, however.

“Only you. The rest of us have no longing for sweet stuff. But we are so kind as to keep you company while you eat,” Leila made bland assurance.

When the dessert was served the Irish girl deftly abstracted Jerry’s portion of cake and gelatine from under Jerry’s eyes and before the waitress had more than placed the dishes on the table. Up the line went the cake and gelatine until they reached Phil, who sat at the head of the table. Phil welcomed them with effusion and grew tantalizing. She gave a dozen flimsy reasons supposed to justify her claim to it. The table rang with laughter so spontaneous and good-natured more than one of the freshmen at the Hall felt a secret sympathy spring up within for the girls whom they had heard characterized by Doris Monroe’s most ardent supporters as “meddlers and hypocrites” and of having shown marked favoritism.

“If we were to make half the noise they are making Miss Remson would call us to account for it,” sourly observed Julia Peyton to Clara Carter. “I’ve spoken to her several times about the racket that goes on every evening in Miss Forbes’ room and in that Miss Dean’s room, too. It’s been worse since Miss Harding came to the Hall.”

“I know it,” Miss Carter nodded an eager red head. “Doris says she simply won’t allow Miss Harding to carry on in her room the way she does when she’s with her own crowd. She’s generally to be found on the campus with some of them, screaming and laughing. Doris met her and Miss Dean when she was with that awfully rich Miss Cairns this very afternoon. She said she felt so mortified at being obliged to speak to Miss Harding. She doesn’t speak to Miss Dean at all. She told me she had good reasons for ignoring her, but she preferred not to give them.”

“Humph.” Julia cast a jealous glance at her companion as the two sophomores rose to leave the table. Each girl was jealous of the condescending friendship which Doris Monroe had chosen to give her companion. She felt that she stood a trifle closer to Doris than the other.

Doris was fully aware of this state of affairs. When she had recovered from the sweetness of her first triumph at being “rushed” she made up her mind not to allow her soph and freshie admirers to fail in allegiance to her banner. She soon learned that her selfish air of indifference was one of her greatest assets. It added individuality to her beauty. It impressed her worshippers with a high idea of the value of her acquaintance.

She had inherited this trait of indifference from her mother, whose counterpart she was. She had, as Marjorie suspected, a strong inclination to honesty, one of her father’s finest traits. Thus she could not have pretended an indifference she did not feel. Since it was in her soul to be this she accepted the benefits she received from it with secret satisfaction. She was privately glad that she had no desire to be impulsive and readily responsive.

“I heard that the Miss Cairns you mentioned was expelled from Hamilton College,” Julia said disagreeably. She was desirous of over-topping Clara’s boastful reference to “Doris” and the intimacy it implied.

“Who told you?” Clara’s tone was challenging.

“I’ll not say who. I heard it, and it came to me directly from someone who knew,” Julia made mysterious response.

“I – I – haven’t heard any such story as that. I don’t believe it’s true. I’ll ask Doris. She’ll tell me,” Clara ended, tossing her flame-colored head.

“You’re very foolish to think of asking Doris,” disapproved Julia, her shaggy black brows drawing together. “She’ll set you down as impertinent. Even if she should know she wouldn’t tell you.” She gave a short, sarcastic laugh.

“I’m not afraid to ask her,” Clara doggedly persisted. “You may be, but I’m not.”

This was the beginning of an angry discussion between the two sophomores which lasted all the way upstairs and for several minutes after the door of their room was slammed behind them by Clara. So vigorously did she slam it that the sharp sound reached the bevy of Travelers as they came trooping gaily upstairs. Robin was singing softly for them an old plantation song: “Get you ready there’s a meetin’ here tonight,” and Phil was patting her hands in time to it.

“Bing, bang; who fired the first shot?” exclaimed Muriel.

“It did sound almost like a shot, didn’t it? I haven’t heard such a splendid imitation of banging a door since the Sans used to vent their outraged feelings on the doors,” chuckled Vera.

“That may have been the first shot fired in the Battle of Wayland Hall,” Jerry gigglingly surmised to Leila.

“Then it was wasted on us,” laughed Leila. “It will take more than the banging of a few doors to rouse our ire to the point of battle. Though make no mistake: ‘The air is full of knives,’ as we say in Ireland.”

In the room occupied by Clara Carter and Julia Peyton the air was indeed full of verbal knives. Both had voted for Doris Monroe for president of the sophomore class. Both had pledged themselves, with certain other girls at the Hall, to “boost” Doris and “down” Augusta Forbes. Now they were squabbling fiercely over the lovely, indifferent object of their girl devotion. In their jealous anger with each other they had blindly overlooked the old saying: “In union there is strength.”

CHAPTER IV

TESTING TWO TRAVELERS

“Remember, friends and fellow Travelers, this is a serious occasion.” Ronny, as president of the original Five Travelers, stood facing her companions who had disposed themselves four in a row on Jerry’s couch-bed and on chairs in alignment with the couch.

“It’s not very serious any of us are looking, nor our worthy president, either,” Leila declared, throwing Ronny a twinkling glance.

“Never judge by appearances – so very reckless, don’t you know,” Ronny rebuked, her charming face full of mischief.

“On with the meeting. No stops allowed for repartee. We’ve a lot to do, and a spread to eat up afterward,” Jerry announced in her most judicial tones.

“Thank you for your delicate reminder that time is flying, Jeremiah.” Ronny made Jerry a deep bow, meant to convey her humble gratitude. “As I was about to say when I was interrupted” – Ronny stared hard at Leila – “we are to pass upon the names written on slips in this box.” She held up a small square box of ornamental brass.

During their initial railway journey to Hamilton College more than four years previous the quintette of Sanford chums had helped while away the long hours on the train by banding themselves into a private, informal club which they named the Five Travelers’ Club. They had found interest in looking upon themselves as five travelers about to explore the unknown country of College.

The little association had flourished and been a comfort to them during their freshman year. Every now and then, as the journey through the country of college continued they had added a member to the group. When Commencement and the end of their proscribed course came the still informal club had become the Nineteen Travelers.

It had become the earnest desire of the Nineteen Travelers to perpetuate the club as a sorority. After much discussion it had been decided to leave it as a parting gift to nineteen seniors. Due to the multiplicity of duties which the original Nineteen Travelers had pledged themselves to perform, the organization of the new sorority was left, unfortunately, until the last minute. By that time several new-fledged seniors, eligible to membership, had departed for their homes.

It was Ronny who had then proposed that each Traveler should write on a slip of paper her choice of senior to succeed her. The slips were to be placed in a box, without having been examined, and the box placed in Miss Remson’s care until the return the next fall of the post graduate Travelers to Hamilton College. To them would be intrusted the forming of the new sorority.

“I feel confident,” Ronny continued, “that the seniors whose names are in this box are the very girls we most wish to carry on our club. Still, in the event that any one of you may have an objection to a name as read out by me, I will count ten slowly after the reading of each name. Anyone who may make objection must say ‘no’ within the count, and afterward frankly state her reason for so doing.”