ELFREDA REALIZES HER AMBITION
Midyears, a season of terror to freshmen, a still alarming period to sophomores, but no very great bugbear to the two upper classes, came and went. During that strenuous week the usual amount of midnight oil was burnt, the usual amount of feverish reviewing done, and the usual amount of celebrating indulged in when the ordeal was passed.
"Don't forget the game to-morrow," said J. Elfreda Briggs to the girls at her end of the breakfast table one morning in early March. "The only one this year in which the celebrated center, Miss Josephine Elfreda Briggs, will take part. Sounds like a grand opera announcement, doesn't it? Maybe it hasn't taken endless energy to keep that team together and up to the mark. But our captain is a hustler and we are marvels," she added modestly.
"I need no bard to sing my praises," began Miriam mischievously.
"I didn't say 'I,'" retorted Elfreda. "I said 'we.'"
"Meaning 'I'," interposed Emma Dean wickedly.
"As you like," flung back Elfreda sweetly. "You needn't come to the game, you know, if you think it is to be a one-player affair."
"Oh, I'll be there, never fear," Emma assured her. "I have a special banner of junior blue to wear."
Only one color had been chosen by 19— for their junior year, one of the new shades of blue which Gertrude Wells had at once renamed "junior" blue. It was greatly affected by the juniors for ties, belts, hat trimmings and girdles.
"Doesn't it seem strange not to be on the team this year, Miriam?" asked Grace. "That is, when one stops to think about it. It never occurred to me until this moment how much I have missed basketball. Mabel Ashe said that we'd just simply drift away from it this year, and so we have. Now we are going to cheer Elfreda on to victory."
"Elfreda is an artist in making baskets," commended Miriam.
"Much obliged," rejoined Elfreda, "but your praise doesn't turn my head in the least. You can judge better of my artistic qualities after the game."
"We hope to secure seats in the gallery," said Anne. "The front ones, of course, are reserved for the faculty, but if we go to the gym very early we may get good seats."
"I am not going to wait for you, if you don't mind, Miriam," remarked Elfreda, rising. "I must see our captain before going to chapel this morning."
"Run along," said Miriam. "I am not going to chapel this morning. I must have that extra time for my biology. I can use it to good advantage, too. There won't be any noise or disturbance in the room," she added slyly.
Elfreda gave Miriam a reproachful glance over her shoulder as she left the dining room. "You'll be sorry for 'them cruel words' some day," she declared. "For instance, the next time my services as a chef are desired," and was gone.
Miriam left the dining room a little later, going directly upstairs. Grace and Anne lingered to talk with the girls still at breakfast, half expecting to hear the news of Ruth's father brought up. Nothing was said on the subject, however, and Grace wondered if Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton could possibly have come to their senses and refused to take part in whatever mischief Kathleen had planned. How glad she would be, she reflected, if the two seniors, who had caused her so many unpleasant thoughts and moments turned out well after all.
After the service that morning she waited for Ruth, who was one of the last of the long procession of girls who filed out of the chapel. Arline was with her and made a rush for Grace the moment she caught sight of her. "I have been watching for you," she said eagerly. "I haven't heard a word, and neither has Ruth. Perhaps they were more honorable than we believed them to be."
"I thought that, too," rejoined Grace. "It has been almost a week since I told Ruth. We may never hear a word concerning it."
"It wouldn't make much difference now," said Arline. "Ruth knows, and there isn't really anything to be said except that after many years' separation she may find her father. She need not care who knows that."
"It was the cruel shock to her that I thought of, and so did Kathleen West," explained Grace. "She seems determined to hurt some one's feelings by 'notoriety' methods. Her newspaper work has made her hard and unfeeling. She is always trying to dig up some one's private affairs and make them public property. I imagine our two seniors have placed a restraining hand on this last affair. I hope Mabel Ashe will never grow cruel and unfeeling—and dishonorable."
"She won't," predicted Arline. "Father knows many delightful newspaper women who are above reproach. Besides, Mabel will never remain on a newspaper long enough to change. There is a certain young lawyer in New York City who adores her, and I think she cares for him. There is no engagement yet, but there will be inside of a year or my name is not Arline Thayer."
"Really?" asked Grace, her eyes widening with interest. "She has never so much as intimated it to me."
"I know a little about it, for we have mutual friends in New York. Besides, Father knows the man. I've met him. He's a dear, and awfully handsome."
Having lingered to talk until the last moment the two girls were obliged to part abruptly and scurry off to their recitation rooms, which lay in different directions. They met late in the afternoon in the gymnasium to watch Elfreda's last practice playing before the game, but in their momentary basketball enthusiasm the topic of the morning's conversation was not touched upon.
The game between the sophomore and junior teams was looked upon as an event of extreme importance. Elfreda's love for the game and the story of her persistent effort to reduce her weight in order to glitter as a prominent basketball star had become familiar to not only her upper class friends, but throughout the college as well. She had several freshmen adorers, who sent her violets and vied with one another in entertaining her whenever she had an hour or two to spare them. In fact, J. Elfreda Briggs was becoming an important factor in the social life of Overton, with the satisfaction of knowing that she had won a place in the hearts of her admirers through her own merit.
Considerable preparation in the way of decorations had been made. About the balcony railing green and yellow bunting mingled with that of junior blue. The two front rows were well filled with members of the faculty, who wore ribbon rosettes with long ends and carried banners of blue, or green and yellow, as the case might be. The Semper Fidelis Club, resplendent in cocked hats of junior blue and wide blue crepe paper sashes fastened in the back with immense butterfly bows, occupied places directly behind the faculty. They had gone to the gymnasium an hour and a half before the game in order to secure these seats, and were now ranged in an eager, exultant row, impatiently awaiting the entrance of the two teams.
With the shrill notes of the whistle began one of the most stubborn conflicts ever waged between two Overton teams. From the instant the ball was put in play and the players leaped into action the interest of the spectators never wavered. During the first half of the game the sophomores valiantly contested every foot of the ground, and it was only at the very end of the half that the juniors succeeded in making the score six to four in their favor.
In the last half the doughty sophomores rose to the occasion and tied the score with their first play. Then Elfreda, with unerring aim, made a long overhand throw to basket that brought forth deafening applause from the spectators. The sophomores managed to gain two more points, but the juniors again managed not only to gain two points, but to pile up their score until a particularly brilliant play to basket on the part of Elfreda closed the last half with the glorious reckoning of seventeen to twelve in favor of the juniors.
Immediately a hubbub arose from the gallery. The Semper Fidelis Club burst forth into a victorious song they had been practising for the occasion, while another delegation of juniors also rent the air with their chant of triumph over their sophomore sisters.
After Elfreda had experienced the satisfaction of being escorted round the room by her classmates, who continued to sing spiritedly at least three different songs at the top of their lungs, she was hurried into the dressing room by the Semper Fidelis Club. The moment she was dressed she was seized by friendly hands and marched off to Vinton's to a dinner given by the club in honor of her. For the present, at least, she was the most important girl in college, and feeling the weight of her new-born fame, she was unusually silent, almost shy.
"Elfreda can't accustom herself to being a celebrity," laughed Miriam. "She is terribly embarrassed."
"That is really the truth," confessed Elfreda. "I've always wanted to be a basketball star, but it seems funny to have the girls make such a fuss over me."
"You deserve it!" exclaimed Gertrude Wells. "You were the pride of the team. I never want to see a better game. That last play of yours was a record breaker."
The other members of the club joined in Gertrude's praise of Elfreda's playing. The stout girl's face shone with happiness. To her it was one of the great moments of her college life.
It was after seven o'clock when the diners left Vinton's. The club gallantly escorted Elfreda to the very door of Wayne Hall and left her after singing to her and giving three cheers. Grace, Anne, Miriam, Arline, Ruth, Mildred Taylor and Laura Atkins were her body guard up the stairs. At the landing Laura Atkins called a halt and invited every one present to a jollification in her room that night in honor of Elfreda.
While Elfreda was explaining that she didn't wish the girls to go to any trouble for her, although her eyes shone with delight at being thus honored, the door bell rang repeatedly, and the maid, grumbling under her breath, admitted Emma Dean, who skipped up the stairs two at a time.
"I'm always late," she announced cheerfully, "but hardly ever too late. I stopped at the big bulletin board. I noticed a letter there addressed to you, Grace. It was marked 'Important' in one corner. I had half a mind to bring it with me, then—well—you know how one feels about meddling with some one else's mail."
"I'm sorry you didn't bring it with you. Don't hesitate to do so next time," returned Grace regretfully. "However, it won't take long to run across the campus for it. I'll go now before I take off my hat and coat. Thank you for telling me about it, Emma."
"You are welcome," called Emma after her as Grace ran to her room for her wraps. Always on the alert for home letters, under no circumstances could she have been content to wait quietly until the next day for the coveted mail. If it were from her mother or father she could read it over and over before bedtime and go to sleep happy in the possession of it, and if it were from one of her numerous friends it would be joyfully received.
The handwriting on the envelope Grace took from the bulletin board looked strangely familiar. Tearing it open, she glanced hastily over the few lines of the letter, an expression of incredulity in her eyes, for the note said:—
"My Dear Miss Harlowe:—
"May I come to Wayne Hall to see you to-morrow evening at half-past seven o'clock? Please leave note in the bulletin board stating whether this will be convenient for you.
"Yours sincerely,
"Alberta Wicks."
Grace read the note again, then mechanically folding it, returned it to its envelope, and walked slowly back to Wayne Hall divided between her disappointment in the letter, and speculation as to the purport of Alberta Wicks's proposed call.