As our medical books accumulated, we had need of book-shelves, but to buy a book-case, even the cheapest, was not to be thought of. There were so many expenses to be met, so many fees at College for the different courses, books to get, bones to rent, chemicals and breakages to pay for, board and laundry bills and the like, that we cut down on all else as rigorously as possible. I remember how my heart would sink at some new item of expense coming up at the College, and how I dreaded to write home about it, knowing well what a sacrifice it meant there. But to occasional expressed misgivings of mine, that I had undertaken anything requiring such an outlay, Father would always write reassuringly: “We shall manage somehow; don’t worry. One of these days you will be where you can earn money, and then we shall be glad you undertook it.” How often these cheery messages came to me during those years!
One evening we sallied forth to a shoe store and bought a long, narrow pine box for ten or fifteen cents. “Where will you have it sent?” the man asked.
“We will take it ourselves,” we replied, much to the man’s amazement and amusement. And Belle and I merrily carried the long box two or three blocks to our boarding-place. People turned and looked at us; street urchins guyed us, asking if it was our coffin; but to their jibes we answered good-humouredly—it was sport for us as well as for them. Standing the thing up on end, and making shelves of the lid, we covered it with blue paper-cambric, and when our medical books were in it, we were as proud as any girls in Boston; and it cost us about thirty cents!
We had the diversion of gymnasium practice one evening a week, after which we would come down to our room for quizzes, sitting around in our “gym” suits, which rather embarrassed Miss Wilkins, and correspondingly tickled us. Miss Thorndike did it, too, so she couldn’t very well criticize it openly.
Some evenings, sitting in our rooms studying, we would hear the street cry, “Swee-et cidah, five cents a glahss!” We feared it would be frowned upon by the staid matron if we succumbed to this enticing call, but as the cries came nearer our mouths watered. One night, deciding to risk it, seizing the hot-water pitcher and some change, down the stairs I stole, and sliding out the side door, lurked in the shadow of the building till the man and his cart came close to the curb, when, guiltily making the purchase, I stole upstairs. Safe in the room, we had our spree, becoming as exhilarated as though it had been champagne. Such simple pleasures—how they come back as I recall those student days!
One evening Belle and I closed our transom tight and lit a cigar which one of the men students had given me at college, daring me to smoke it. (And for a girl to smoke in those days was—well, most unusual.) How it smarted the lips! I didn’t like it a bit, but smoked it to the bitter end. And then we were scared, fearing the odour would penetrate the hall. Quickly airing the room, we sat down with our books and our bones; and none too soon; for down the hall came the matron, sniffing and declaring she smelled cigar smoke. We heard her high-pitched voice, heard her tapping on the doors and making the inquiry; but when she came to ours we were bending over our big books, one with a skull in her hand, the other with a long bone which was receiving close scrutiny as, in answer to her knock, we said “Come,” and looked up with feigned annoyance at the interruption. Startled at what she saw, she made a hasty retreat, or would surely have noticed that the smell of smoke was stronger there than elsewhere.
Another escapade promised to be more serious: One Sunday afternoon while reading in our room a light flashed in our window; it came again and again. We soon discovered, in a building about two blocks away, a young man with a hand-mirror and another with opera glasses. We dodged back whenever they tried to use the glasses, but as the flash kept coming, we drew our shades for an instant, piled our skull and cross-bones on the window-sill, then lifted the shade. Such antics as they went through! They were certainly taken aback. Feeling that we had checked them, we resumed our reading. Soon again came the flash and, looking out, to our amazement we saw on their window-sill also a skull and cross-bones! They were doubtless Harvard “medics.” But just as we were elated over the discovery and the curious coincidence, we heard the matron and housekeeper’s voice as they came down the hall on an investigation tour.
“It must be in one of these rooms, right along here, either on this floor or on the next,” we heard the matron say, and her fussy little tap was heard on door after door. When she came to ours no bones were in sight; one girl sat quietly writing a letter, the other was apparently taking a nap. A low “Come” from the one writing, and a hand held up in warning as the head peeped in, lest the sleeping room-mate be disturbed, satisfied the guileless matron that we were innocent. Explaining that some young ladies on that floor, or the floor above, had evidently been answering signals of some young men across the way, and that she was anxious to find out who it was, and put a stop to it, else it would bring disrepute upon our building, she left us, apologizing for the interruption. Thus ended the flirtation between the Boston University skull and the skull from Harvard!