“Just the same,” she told a crowd of committee chairmen later, “we’ve got to begin refusing things. We’ve got all we can make room for now, and every one is just splendid.”
“‘Ten Numbers. All Top-Liners and One Above the Line. A Play by the Celebrated Miss Ayres. Entertainment Stimulating, Refreshing, Satisfying. Cuisine the Same.’ How’s that for a scare-head poster?” inquired Susanna Hart blandly.
“Great!” Georgia told her. “But Madeline’s play won’t be the only real sensation. Wait till you see Eugenia Ford in our Rag Doll Dance. She’s a wonder.”
“Wait till you see the willowy Mariana Ellison shivering around in the light and airy costume of a Fresh-Air Child.”
“Wait till you see Fluffy starring as the Hungriest Daughter in Straight’s tragic drama, entitled ‘Before Breakfast, Never After.’”
“Wait till you see the whole extra-special show.” Thus Binks tactfully suppressed too-ardent rivalries. “Isn’t it just too glorious for anything the way everybody takes hold?”
“It would be too glorious for anywhere but Harding College,” Georgia told her eager little cousin. “You’re getting on to Harding ways pretty fast these days, Binks Ames.”
Binks smiled absently. “Am I?” she asked. “I’m having a lovely time, and not studying any too much, and Miss Ellison thinks I’m neglecting her and her poems. But I think the freshman Jones is worth it. It’s too bad that she can’t have the fun of the show too; but I thought it would make her feel queer afterward, when we tell her about the money’s being for her, if she’d taken part in her own show.” Binks smiled again, her sweet, inquiring smile. “Another queer thing about Harding is that nobody thinks what a show is for.”
“If they like it,” added Georgia promptly. “Remember that, Binks, after you’re out in the wide, wide world, and you can be a wonderful help to Aunt Caroline. Aunt Caroline can supply the Worthy Causes, and you can match them with Likable Shows.”
“Likable” was a mild word for Binks’s first effort, whose “Top-Liner” features filled the big gym. to overflowing all through the afternoon and evening appointed for it by the faculty committee. It would easily have filled the gym. for another afternoon and evening; nobody who went had time to see everything properly, and those who were crowded out of Madeline’s farce or Georgia’s Rag Doll and Ploshkin Dance fairly wept with rage and disappointment. But the faculty set their faces sternly against repetition.