ESSAYS AND ESSAYS
The dining room was a large, square, light room, filled with tables, each holding twelve. Alison piloted her roommate to a seat next to herself, at her old table, where Evelyn, Katherine and Joan were already seated, the rest of the group being at the next table. The new English teacher, Miss Burnett, presided—a pretty girl, not many years older than her prospective pupils. Brown-haired and brown-eyed, with a deep, soft rose color in her cheeks, she was exactly the type that girls a few years younger would naturally fall in love with on sight.
Accordingly, the group of girls at her table, running true to form, promptly "fell for her" with schoolgirl unanimity; copied the way she did her hair, whether it was becoming to them or not, practiced her engaging smile, and even copied her clothes, as far as possible. Brown was her favorite color—a deep, rich brown that suited her eyes and hair and blended with the rose glow in her cheeks. This shade of brown promptly became popular.
Life at Briarwood soon settled into an accustomed routine of classes, sports and recreation, and the days were full and busy. Miss Burnett had an eager class, more interested in the study of their mother tongue than they had ever been before, simply because she taught it.
Toward Thanksgiving she gave them an essay contest, and Alison and her roommate became more congenial as they discussed subjects and titles. But their tastes and ideas were very different.
"I don't believe I could write anything worth reading, but I'll try, because Miss Burnett wants us to," said Alison, to whom the study of English was genuine enjoyment.
"And I'll try because I've got to," responded Marcia with a wry face.
"Just let her hear you saying got, that's all," laughed Alison, reaching for her book.
"I hate all lessons, but I believe I hate English worst of any," said Marcia crossly. "I don't see why we have to study it."
"Why did you come to college, if you hate it so?" asked Alison curiously.
"Oh, because one must do something, I suppose."
"But why do you take English?"
"Because the rest of you do, and I don't like to be left out. Besides, Miss Harland made me. Are you going to track meet this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"Then, will you lend me your English Literature? Rosalind borrowed mine and hasn't returned it."
"And welcome. There it is on the table."
"Thank you. I'll work while you play, like the ant and the grasshopper," said Marcia more graciously than usual.
It was a brilliant autumn afternoon, and most of the girls were tempted out. The hall was deserted, save for Marcia, scribbling hard in her room.
"Finished already?" asked Alison, coming in just in time for supper, flushed and breathless after a basketball game.
Marcia was just putting away her writing materials. She looked up nonchalantly. "Almost. I've only to correct and copy it."
"You've had a grand quiet time to work. I wish I had been as industrious; but it was so lovely out. We had a splendid practice."
Nothing was talked of in school for the next few days but the essays, which were to be handed in the week before Thanksgiving, and the prize winner would be announced on the day before—"to give us extra reason to be thankful," said Joan.
Katherine had written a scholarly essay, giving a sort of bird's-eye view of the entire field of English literature, concisely expressed. Privately, she believed herself sure of the prize, but no such self-laudatory opinion was hinted at in her dignified demeanor.
Joan had skipped airily over the earlier periods, coming rapidly down to present-day fiction in the space of four pages. "She'll like mine because it's short, anyway," she congratulated herself.
Most of the other girls had tried, because Miss Burnett wished it. Some of the efforts were better, some worse, than others, some impossible. Alison, coming from her history class one morning, suddenly realized that the time was almost up, and her essay was still unwritten. A few unfinished beginnings, rejected as unsatisfactory, were all she had to show.
She had a vacant period next, and she took a sudden resolve. "I'll write that essay in the next forty-five minutes, or know the reason," she told herself sternly, and going to her room she posted a "busy" sign on the door as a gentle hint that visitors were not desired, and fell to work.
As she opened her English Literature, several half-sheets of paper fell out, each scribbled over with her unsuccessful beginnings.... She laughed and dropped them into the wastebasket. Then she picked up a folded paper that she did not recognize. When had she written an exercise in blue ink? She opened it, puzzled. What did it mean? An essay, apparently, in Rosalind's unmistakable writing, which was like herself, pretty, but entirely characterless. It was entitled "The River of Time." Plainly, it was Rosalind's idea of an essay on English literature, which she described as a river flowing down the ages, on whose waters were found lovely pearls. These pearls were represented by the names of a few outstanding writers, but after a few inadequate sentences Rosalind's imagination had apparently failed her.
Realizing after a glance at the first page that it was not meant for her eyes, Alison resolutely folded the paper, smiling. Literature was not Rosalind's strong point, but she was so pretty and winning that one forgave and smiled, as at the efforts of a child.
"Poor little Rosalind," she thought, and put the paper aside, to be given back to the writer at the first opportunity. Then she fell to work on her own essay, and had finished her first copy by the time the period ended.