CHAPTER II
THE CLUB OF MERRY HEARTS
They were all in number 27 Belden, which, in spite of its small size, or perhaps because its small size made it seem particularly cozy, was their favorite rendezvous during junior year. “They” means the “clan,” which had been developed from the “old guard” of freshman year by a few subtractions and several important additions. The three B’s belonged, of course, and Madeline Ayres and Nita Reese. Mary Brooks was the privileged senior member. Rachel met with the clan when she could, but her conditioned freshmen took up most of her spare time, and in her few leisure moments what she liked best was a quiet talk with Betty, or a brisk tramp through the woods with Katherine or Roberta. Eleanor Watson had never really fitted in with the rest of Betty’s friends, and now she was more of an outsider than ever. The story of her sophomore year had been circulated widely among the influential girls at Harding. Only the bare facts had leaked out, and there was no proof of them; but Eleanor’s previous career at Harding made it much easier to believe than to discredit such a story. Very few of the girls felt, as Mary Brooks did, that the resignation from Dramatic Club entitled Eleanor to any special consideration; and since young people are almost invariably cruel when they mean only to be just, Eleanor had had to brave both open scorn and veiled hostility. But she did not flinch. She was almost pathetically grateful to Mary and Marion Lawrence, to Miss Ferris, and to Rachel and Katherine, but she would not let Betty force her upon the rest of the clan.
“I’ll come to see you when you’re alone,” she said, “but you must wait till I’ve proved to the others that I’m different. Of course they don’t trust me or like me now. How could they?”
So Betty waited, sure that in the end Eleanor would win back the confidence that she had forfeited, and gain besides respect and love for the stronger, sweeter nature that she was developing.
It is odd how positions shift. Eleanor Watson had spoiled all the chances that had seemed so brilliant at the beginning of her college course, and Helen Adams, shy, awkward, unfriended little freshman, had become that envied and enviable personage, a “prominent girl.” Betty had helped, and Madeline and Miss Mills, but Lucile, without trying to, had done more than any of them. She regarded her roommate in the light of a strange phenomenon, both amazing and amusing and absolutely unique in her experience of girls; and she spread this view of Helen widely among her freshman friends. And Helen blossomed out. She saw that at last the girls really liked her for herself, and enjoyed her quaint little fancies and original ideas about persons and places. And so, as Mary Brooks put it, she let herself go; she forgot to be sensitive and frightened and ill at ease, and before she knew it all her dreams were coming true. She was somebody “at last”; the class of 19— and the clan both wanted her and were proud of her.
So she was in “twenty-seven” that night, and Katherine, of course, and Roberta, who was hardly sociable enough to be on the footing of regular membership in the clan, but who followed Mary to its gatherings as she would have followed her through fire and water if Mary had been bound that way.
Madeline Ayres was doing a French song, in a costume that she had improvised for the occasion out of a black silk scarf, a bunch of pink roses, and a peacock-feather fan. The song was so very slangy that no one but Madeline had much idea what it meant; but the rhythm and Madeline’s pantomime were delicious, and though she sang all the verses and composed several new impromptu ones, her audience still clamored for more. When she finally declared that she had “positively finished” and they might as well stop teasing first as last, Babbie arose gravely and gave an imitation of a nervous little girl speaking “Mary had a little lamb.” Babbie had never done a “stunt” before, and the delight of her friends in this new accomplishment was unbounded.
“And now let’s have the rabbit,” said Mary Brooks, when the applause had died away. “It’s getting late and we don’t want to be too hurried. We can have more stunts later if there’s any time.”
“The rabbit!” repeated Betty in mystified tones. “Whoever said anything about a rabbit?”