Marjorie Dean, High School Senior

“I saw her for a moment in the locker room,” replied Constance. “She seemed to be in quite a hurry. She smiled at me but didn’t say anything. Then she put on her hat and left the locker room without stopping to talk to any of us.”

“I suppose she has to go straight home from school and help Miss Archer’s sister,” surmised Jerry. “I’d hate to have to study all day and then go home and shell peas or scrub floors or answer the doorbell or do whatever had to be done. I guess we ought to be thankful that we don’t have to earn our board and keep.”

“I ought to be doubly thankful,” agreed Constance seriously. “Not so very far back in my life I had no time to play, either. Every once in a while when I feel specially self-satisfied, I take a walk past the little gray house where I used to live before my aunt played fairy god-mother to all of us. It makes me remember that my good fortune was just a lucky accident and takes all the conceit out of me.”

“Now that we are seniors I believe we ought to make it our business to do all we can for the girls in school who aren’t able to have the good times we do,” stated Marjorie soberly. “It seems to me that we might band ourselves together into some sort of welfare club. If we do well with it we can pass it on to the next senior class when we have been graduated from Sanford High.”

“Hurrah!” Jerry waved a plump hand on high. “That’s the talk. Every since last year I’ve had that club idea on my mind. Let’s hurry up and organize it at once. For that matter we can do it this afternoon; the minute we meet the girls at Sargent’s. There will be seven of us to start with. Then we can decide on how many more girls we’d like to have in it.”

“Oh, splendid!” exclaimed Marjorie, the sober expression vanishing from her pretty face. “Once we organize a club and get it well started, who knows what distinguished members we may become.”

As the three girls swung blithely along toward Sargent’s the incessant flow of conversation that went on among them betokened their signal interest and enthusiasm in the new project.

“Here we are,” proclaimed Jerry noisily to the quartette of girls seated at a rear table in the smart little shop. “Strictly on time, too, or rather five minutes ahead of it. How long have you been here?”

“Oh, we just came.” It was Muriel Harding who answered. “Maybe we didn’t hustle our errands through, though. Sit down and we’ll order our ice cream. Then we can talk.”

“The time has come, the walrus said,

To talk of many things,”

quoted Jerry mysteriously as she seated herself.

“Well, Walrus, what’s on your mind?” giggled Susan Atwell, promptly applying Jerry’s quotation to the stout girl herself.

“I’m no walrus. I don’t consider that I resemble one in the least,” retorted Jerry good-humoredly. “I’m sorry you don’t recognize a quotation when you hear one. But I forgive you, giggling Susan.”

The approach of a white-clad youth to take their order interrupted Jerry’s discourse. The instant the order had been given she continued: “Girls, as I just said, the time has come.”

“For what?” demanded Harriet, smiling.

“Marjorie will answer that. She’s the real promoter of the enterprise. I am merely the press agent. Go ahead, little Faithful.”

Marjorie’s cheeks grew rosy at the broadly-implied compliment. “You’re a goose, Jerry,” she affectionately chided. “You tell the girls about it.”

“I’d rather be a goose than a walrus,” grinned Jerry. “As for telling; let Marjorie do it. No; I mean, I’d rather you’d spring it on them. Oh, what’s the use? Slang and I are one.” Jerry sighed an exaggerated sorrow over her vain effort at eliminating inelegant English from her vocabulary.

“It must be something very important,” put in Susan, with a derisive chuckle, “or Jeremiah would never resort to slang.”

Jerry’s grin merely widened. “Go ahead and tell them, Marjorie. Hurry up.”

“It’s just this way, children.” Marjorie leaned forward a trifle, her brown eyes roving over the little group of eager-faced listeners. “For a long time Jerry and I have had the idea of forming a club. We talked of it last year, after Christmas, and again after we gave the operetta. But you know what a hard year we had over basketball, and then so many of us became sick that somehow the club idea was put away and forgotten. But now, as Jerry says, ‘the time has come.’ What we’d like to do is to form a club from a certain number of girls in the senior class. It mustn’t be just a social affair but one devoted to the purpose of looking out for anyone that needs our help. Of course when first we start we won’t be able to do much. Later we may find it in our power to do a good deal.”

“And if the club’s a success,” interposed Jerry, “Marjorie thinks it would be nice to pass it along, name and all, to the next senior class. Then they could will it to the next and so on. It would be a sorority, only I hope you won’t go and burden it with a Greek letter name. We ought to give it a name that would mean a lot to anyone who happens to hear of it.” Despite her insistence that Marjorie should put forward the project, Jerry could not resist having her say, too.

“That’s a fine idea,” glowed Harriet Delaney. “How many girls ought we to have in it?”

“I should think ten or twelve would be enough to start with,” returned Marjorie meditatively. “If we decide later that we need more we can have the pleasure of initiating them. Has anyone of you a pencil and paper?”

Muriel immediately brought forth a notebook from her leather school bag. Susan Atwell promptly produced the required pencil.

“Write on the back page of it, Marjorie,” directed Muriel. “If you put down our illustrious names anywhere else in the book, I am likely to mix them with my zoology notes.”

“Imagine Muriel standing up in class and innocently reading: ‘To the Crustacean family belong Jerry Macy, Marjorie Dean, Harriet Delaney, etc.,’” giggled Susan Atwell. Whereupon a ripple of giggles swept the zealous organizers.

“Let me see.” Turning obediently to the last leaf of the notebook Marjorie glanced about the circle and began to write. “We are seven,” she commented after a moment. “Now for the others. Esther Lind, Rita Talbot and Daisy Griggs, of course. That makes ten. I’d like to ask Lucy Warner. Have you any objections?” Marjorie had resolved to overlook Lucy’s recent cavalier treatment of herself.

No one objected and Lucy’s name went down on the list.

“We ought to ask Veronica,” reminded thoughtful Constance.

“Of course.” Marjorie jotted down their new friend’s name. Suddenly she raised her eyes, a faint frown touching her smooth forehead. “Girls,” she said slowly, “it’s our duty to ask Mignon La Salle to join the club.”

“I knew it!” exclaimed Jerry disgustedly. “I’ve been expecting to hear you say that. Must we always have her tied to our apron strings?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t ask her, Marjorie.” Muriel’s face registered plain disapproval. “If you do, we won’t have a peaceful minute. Besides, she would be the thirteenth member.”

“I’d hate to belong to a thirteen-member club,” declared Harriet superstitiously. “We’d never have a minute’s luck.”

“We’ll never have even that much luck if we drag Mignon into our club,” was Jerry’s gruff prediction.

Marjorie’s troubled gaze strayed from one to another of her schoolmates. Constance and Irma alone looked tranquil. She read strong opposition in the faces of the others.

“I am perfectly willing that Mignon shall become a member of the club.” Constance ranged herself boldly on Marjorie’s side.

“So am I,” reinforced Irma. “We all gave Marjorie our promise to help Mignon in any way that we could. I won’t go back on my part of it.”

“If you put it that way, neither ought the rest of us,” grumbled Muriel. “Still, we have the welfare of the club to consider. Mignon is, and always has been, a disturber. Just at present she is pretending to behave herself because her father has taken her in hand. The hateful way she has acted about Veronica shows very plainly that she hasn’t really reformed. If Rowena Farnham hadn’t left Sanford High, she and Mignon would be as chummy as ever by this time.”

“I said that same thing to Marjorie last year,” confessed Constance. “I am perfectly willing to admit it. Even so, that has nothing to do with our agreement to try to help Mignon. If Rowena were here, and she and Mignon began to go around together again, it would be our duty to look out for Mignon just the same, or else go frankly to Mr. La Salle and ask him to release us from our promise.”

“I’d rather do that than have Mignon in our club,” asserted Jerry stubbornly. “As long as you’ve mentioned Rowena I’ll tell you something that I’ve been keeping to myself. You know that the La Salles always go to Severn Beach for the summer, and so does our family. Last year the Farnhams were there, too. But this year they were at Tanglewood. It’s not more than ten miles from Severn Beach.

“Twice, while Hal and I were motoring through Tanglewood in his roadster, we saw Mignon and Rowena together. Once, in their bathing suits on the beach, and another time we saw them walking together in a little grove about a mile above Tanglewood. They didn’t see us either time. I know perfectly well that Mignon slipped away to visit Rowena without permission. It proves that they can’t be kept apart. I understand that Rowena went away to boarding school last week. That means the two will correspond. Rowena will do her best to bother Marjorie through Mignon. She will never forgive her for last year. All I have to say is that in order to protect Marjorie from her spite we ought to keep Mignon out of the club. We can try to help her in other ways.”

“That settles it!” exclaimed Muriel Harding. “I mean that I think Jerry’s reason for not asking Mignon to join the club is a good one. Every year of high school, so far, she has managed to make things hard for Marjorie. Now it’s time to put a stop to her mischief-making.”

“I agree with Muriel,” announced Harriet.

“So do I,” chimed in Susan.

Marjorie smiled a trifle wistfully. “The majority rules,” she said slowly. “It’s a case of four against three. I hardly know what to do. If I say that I won’t join the club, after being the one to propose it, it will appear that I am backing out just because I can’t have my own way. If I say, ‘very well, let us organize the club and leave Mignon out,’ then I shall be breaking my word to Mr. La Salle.

“I have never yet broken a promise I made. I should hate now to feel that I had failed to be true to myself. Please don’t think that I am asking you girls to accept my views. You must do whatever you feel to be best. For me it means one of two evils: refuse to join the club or break my promise. To do either would make me feel dreadfully.”

As Marjorie finished blank silence reigned. It was Jerry Macy who broke it. “You’ve set us a pretty stiff example to live up to, Marjorie,” she said bluntly. “You haven’t left us a foot to stand on. We all gave you our word to help Mignon. As long as you think that this is one of the ways we can help her then it must be so. We want you in the club and we want you to keep your promise to Mr. La Salle. But I’ve just one thing to say. I’ve said it before and I say it again. If after she joins the club she starts to make mischief for you or any of us, I’ll resign. If I do, you needn’t try to coax me back for I shan’t come. Remember that.”

“Thank you, Jerry, for being so splendid.” Marjorie’s slender hand reached out to Jerry in token of her gratitude. “I know that all of you would like me to be in the club. That is why it was so hard for me to say what I just said.”