Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

Now, a "roar" at Ardmore was much nicer than it sounds. It was merely an open-air singing festival, and this one was for the purpose of making the freshmen familiar with the popular songs of the college.

Professor Leidenburg, the musical director, himself led the outdoor concert. The sophomores stood in a compact body before the main entrance to the college hall. Massed in the background, and in a half circle, were the freshmen.

The weather had become cool and all the girls wore their tam-o'-shanters. For the first time it was noticeable how pretty the pale blue caps on the freshmen's heads looked. And the new girls likewise noted that most of the tam-o'-shanters worn-by their sophomore hostesses were pale yellow.

It was whispered then (and strange none of the freshmen had discovered it before) that the class preceding theirs at Ardmore – the present sophomores – had been forced to wear caps of a distinctive color, too. These pale yellow ones were their old caps, left over from the previous winter.

The open-air assemblages of the college were made more attractive by this scheme of a particular class color in head-wear.

There was a blot in the assembly of the freshmen on this occasion. It was not discovered in the beginning. Soon, however, there was much whispering, and looking about and pointing.

"Do you see that?" gasped Jennie, who had been straining her neck and hopping up and down on her toes to see what the other girls were looking at.

"What are you rubbering at, Heavy?" demanded Helen, inelegantly.

"Yes; what's all the disturbance?" asked Ruth.

"That girl!" ejaculated the fleshy one.

"What girl now? Any particular girl?"

"She's not very particular, I guess," returned Jennie, "or she wouldn't do it."

"Jennie!" demanded Helen. "Who do what?"

"That Frayne girl," explained her plump friend.

Rebecca Frayne stood well back in the lines of freshmen. It could not be said that she thrust herself forward, or sought to gain the attention of the crowd. Nevertheless, among the mass of pale blue tam-o'-shanters, her parti-colored one was very prominent.

"Goodness!" gasped Ruth. "Doesn't she know better?"

"Do you suppose she is one of those stubborn girls who just 'won't be driv'?" giggled Helen.

It was no laughing matter. The three days of grace written upon the seniors' order regarding the caps had now passed. There seemed no good reason for one member of the freshman class to refuse to obey the command. Indeed, they had all tacitly agreed to do as they were told – upon this single point, at least.

"There certainly are enough of them left in town so that she can buy one," Jennie Stone said.

"Goodness!" snapped Helen. "If my complexion can stand such a silly color, hers certainly can."

Before the out-of-doors concert was over, news of this rebellion on the part of a single freshman had run through the crowd like a breath of wind over ripe wheat. It almost broke up the "roar."

As the last verse of the last song was ended and the company began to disperse, the freshmen themselves, and the sophomores as well, stared at Rebecca Frayne in open wonder. She started for her room, which was in Dare Hall on the same corridor as that of the three girls from Briarwood, and Ruth and Helen and Jennie were right behind her.

"That certainly is an awful tam," groaned Jennie. "What do you suppose makes her wear it, anyway? Let alone the trouble – "

She broke off. Miss Dexter, the first senior who had spoken to Ruth and Helen coming over from the railway station on the auto-bus, stopped the strange girl whose initials were the same as those of the girl of the Red Mill.

"Will you tell me, please, why you are wearing that tam-o'-shanter?" asked Miss Dexter.

Rebecca Frayne's head came up and a spot of vivid red appeared in either of her sallow cheeks.

"Is that your business?" she demanded, slowly.

"Do you know that I am a senior?" asked Miss Dexter, levelly.

"I don't care if you are two seniors," returned Rebecca Frayne, saucily.

Miss Dexter turned her back upon the freshman and walked promptly away. The listeners were appalled. None of them cared to go forward and speak to Rebecca Frayne.

"Cracky!" gasped Helen. "She's an awful spitfire."

"She's an awful chump!" groaned Jennie. "The seniors won't do a thing to her!"

But nothing came at once of Rebecca's refusal to obey the seniors' command regarding tam-o'-shanters. It was known, however, that the executive committees of both the senior and junior classes met that next night and supposedly took the matter up.

"Oh, no! They don't haze any more at Ardmore," said Jennie, shaking her head. "But just wait!"

CHAPTER XII

RUTH IS NOT SATISFIED

Ruth Fielding was not at all satisfied. Not that her experiences in these first few weeks of college were not wholly "up to sample," as the slangy Jennie Stone remarked. Ruth was getting personally all out of college life that she could expect.

The mere fact that a little handful of the girls looked at her somewhat askance because of her success as a motion picture writer, did not greatly trouble the girl of the Red Mill. She could wait for them to forget her small "fame" or for them to learn that she was quite as simple and unaffected as any other girl of her age. It was about Rebecca Frayne that Ruth was disturbed in her mind. Here was the case of a student who, Ruth believed, was much misunderstood.

She could not imagine a girl deliberately making trouble for herself. Rebecca Frayne by the expenditure of a couple of dollars in the purchase of a new tam-o'-shanter might have easily overcome this dislike that had been bred not alone in the minds of the girls of the two upper classes, but among the sophomores and her own classmates as well. The sophomores thought her ridiculous; the freshmen themselves felt that she was bringing upon the whole class unmerited criticism.

Ruth looked deeper. She saw the strange girl walk past her mates unnoticed, scarcely spoken to, indeed, by the freshmen and ignored completely by members of the other classes. And yet, to Ruth's mind, there seemed to be an air about Rebecca Frayne – a look in her eyes, perhaps – that seemed to beg for sympathy.

It was no hardship for Ruth to speak to the girl and try to be friendly with her. But opportunities for this were not frequent.

In the first place Ruth's own time was much occupied with her studies, her own personal friends, Helen and Jennie, and the new scenario on which she worked during every odd hour.

Several times Ruth went to the door of Rebecca's room and knocked. She positively knew the girl was at home, but there had been no answer to her summons and the door was locked.

The situation troubled Ruth. When she was among her classmates, Rebecca seemed nervously anxious to please and eager to be spoken to, although she had little to say. Here, on the other hand, once alone in her room, she deliberately shut herself away from all society.

Soon after the outdoor song festival that had been so successful, and immediately following the organization of the freshman class and its election of officers, Ruth and Helen went over to the library one evening to consult some reference books.

The reference room was well filled with busy girls of all classes, who came bustling in, got down the books they required, dipped into them for a minute and then departed to their own studies, or else settled down to work on their topics for a more extended period.

It was a cold evening, and whenever a girl entered from the hall a breath of frosty air came with her, and most of those gathered in the room were likely to look up and shiver. Few of those assembled failed to notice Rebecca Frayne when she came in.

"Goodness! See who has came," whispered Helen.

"Oh, Rebecca!" murmured Ruth, looking up as the girl in question crossed the room.

"Hasn't she the cheek of all cheeks to breeze in here this way?" Helen went on to say with more force than elegance. "That awful tam again."