“You would!” sniffed Straight. “You’re a nice one to sympathize with frightened freshies. You never got warned in your life!”
“Well, just the same I’ve been scared times enough,” demurred Fluffy. “Being scared hasn’t anything to do with a good reason for being scared, specially not for freshmen.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Straight reflectively. “I’ve seen several prods act speechless with fright, but I always thought it indicated that they weren’t genuine prods at all,—only clever bluffers.”
“You mean me for one, I suppose,” said Fluffy cheerfully. “Now just to show you that I’m a really-truly prod and no bluffer, I’ll take you home and tell you about a priori argument. And then maybe you’ll have a little more respect for the high quality of my brains.”
Montana Marie O’Toole shared keenly in the prevalent mood of depression. Her radiant smile was dimmed; her cheerful interest in each and every aspect of college life waned. She concentrated her mind on her work so violently that she grew pale and thin under the strain. Betty and the Concentrating Influence united in protests against the wanton sacrifice of so much youth and beauty; but Montana Marie stood firm.
“It’s now or never for little me. I’m bright enough to see that far in front of me,” she told them with forced gaiety. “I guess I can better afford to lose a little sleep and exercise than I can to risk failing in these awful mid-years.”
A little tremor of fright and nervous dread shook Miss O’Toole’s fine shoulders, and Betty, feeling that she had been pushing her protégée much too hard, took her out for a walk and a merry dinner at the Tally-ho, at which kind-hearted Fluffy poohed at mid-year terrors, Madeline Ayres led Marie on to reminisce of dear old Paree, Babbie Hildreth won her heart by asking advice about bridesmaids’ dresses, and the mirth of the company in general left her utterly forgetful of math., Latin prose, and English One, of concentration, mid-years, and the strenuous life of a conditioned freshman.
“I’ve had a perfectly grand time,” she told Betty, as they parted in the corridor at Morton Hall. “Gracious, but I do love a good time. I’d like to do nothing but enjoy myself for one solid week. I shan’t work so hard after mid-years are over—if I’m not over then too.” Marie’s laugh at her own joke was rather spiritless, and her expression grew suddenly serious. For mid-years would not be over for another two weeks, and Mrs. Hinsdale’s long round of visits had resulted disastrously to progress in Latin prose. Connie could not help with that, but she was splendid about the originals in solid geometry.
“If I owned a school,” Marie told her gratefully, “I’d hire you and Mrs. Hinsdale and Miss Mason, and I guess Miss Adams, to teach there. Only of course Miss Adams wouldn’t leave Harding, and Mrs. Hinsdale couldn’t leave her husband, and Miss Mason is going to Germany next year to study. But you’d come, wouldn’t you? Only of course I don’t own a school, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.”
“I’m just as much obliged for your offer,” Connie told her brightly. “Now you’d better go right to bed and get well rested. It’s less than a week before you’ll have to begin to cram.”