“Then,” Mary announced with decision, “what she needs is three regular graduate tutors, who specialize in lit., math., and Latin prose, and who will come to her rescue at any hour or hours of the day or night, at about one-fifty per.”
Betty swallowed a mouthful hastily, to say, “They wouldn’t help her any, Mary. They’d give up in despair after about one lesson. She’s not stupid exactly, but she’s poorly prepared, and her mind is—well, queer. Besides, I promised President Wallace. I agreed to ‘undertake’ her, as Mrs. O’Toole calls it, before he agreed to let her enter with so many conditions. She’s going to be positively broken-hearted if she fails at mid-years, and I think”—Betty hesitated—“I don’t think President Wallace will ever have any use for me again if she does. And I am busy with other things, and I never did know Latin prose, and—I’m about in despair.” Betty paused abruptly and attacked the remains of the muffin as if the eating of it would work a magic cure of all her woes.
“Betty,” asked Rachel after a minute, “does this freshman try? Does she want to get through enough to work for it?”
“She doesn’t know how to really work, Rachel, but she tries as hard as she can. She is awfully sweet and awfully sorry about making extra trouble. And of course you all understand,” Betty blushed a little, “that I’m being paid—altogether too much, I thought when they offered it—for looking after her.” Betty laughed suddenly. “Did you hear about her Mountain Day exploit? I had to speak to her about that, of course, to tell her that she mustn’t wear a magenta handkerchief, and shout so loud on the public highway, and otherwise make herself too conspicuous. And instead of being huffy, she thanked me and sent me violets. Oh, she’s a dear! She’s worth a lot of trouble, only I’m not bright enough to tutor her, and the regular ones would be sure to get provoked or discouraged at her queer ways, and just consider her hopeless, and let her drift along, and finally be flunked out at mid-years.”
“She ought to be flunked out, oughtn’t she?” inquired Helen Adams acutely. “I mean, she probably can’t ever keep her work up to the required standard without a lot of help.”
Betty admitted sadly that she never could. “But she needs the life here, Helen, almost more than any girl who ever came to Harding. And if I can help her to have a year or two of it, I shall,—as long as she keeps on trying to do her part.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” agreed Helen uncertainly.
“Is she in your freshman division, Helen?” demanded Mary Brooks, after a whispered conference with Babbie. “I judged not. Very well then. You are hereby elected to coach her in lit. No rule against a faculty’s doing a little friendly tutoring, is there? My husband hasn’t condescended to bother with any since he got to be head of his department, but before that——” Mary finished the explanation with a wave of her hand. “In the theme-work that goes with lit., Madeline is hereby elected to come to the front. Madeline, I presume you forgot, when you were talking about solid geometry, that our clever little Christy here has given up her faculty job to take a Ph. D. in math. She is hereby elected to assist Miss O’Toole to the comprehension of sines and co-sines, and so forth—or do sines and co-sines belong to trig.? And for Latin prose,” Mary’s beamish smile broke out radiantly, “of course you don’t know it, because it happened before your day, but Latin prose happens to be the one useful thing I ever learned. I say useful, because after all these years, I can use my one small scholarly accomplishment. Oh, I’ve kept it up! George Garrison Hinsdale has seen to that. Whenever he seems to be getting a bit tired of my frivolous appearance and conversation, I read him a little out of Horace or Juvenal or Cicero’s letters, and he’s so proud of me that I wish I had more scholarly accomplishments. Only,”—Mary smiled serenely,—“he says he likes me just as I am. And so, being the Perfect Wife, I will now turn into the Perfect Tutor, and get Marie Montana O’Toole through her Latin prose.”
“The business of this meeting having been disposed of,” Madeline took up the tale, “I hereby demand that we begin to celebrate in honor of me and my forthcoming novel.”
“And to discuss wedding dates,” added Babbie, “in honor of me and my Young-Man-Over-the-Fence.”