CHAPTER XIV
THE MOONSHINERS’ BACON-ROAST
Jean’s sudden retirement from the cast of “The Merchant of Venice” was the subject of a good deal of excited conjecture during the few days that remained of the winter term. Betty explained it briefly to Barbara, who in turn confided Jean’s story to the rest of her committee. All of them but Clara Ellis thought better of Jean than they ever had before for the courage she had shown in owning herself in the wrong. Teddie Wilson, being in Jean’s French division, remembered her letter from the last year’s girl and made a shrewd guess at the true state of affairs; but realizing just how sorely Jean had been tempted she was generous enough not to ask any questions or tell anybody what she thought. So the Harding world was divided in its opinions, one party asserting that Jean’s acting had proved a disappointment, the other declaring that she had wanted to manage the whole play, and finding that she couldn’t had resigned her part in it. Jean herself absolutely refused to discuss the subject, beyond saying that she was tired and had found it necessary to drop something, and she was so sarcastic and ill-tempered that even her best friends began to let her severely alone. Toward Eleanor her manner was as contemptuous as ever, and she kept haughtily aloof from Betty. But one day when two of the Hill girls, gossiping in her room, made some slighting remarks about Betty’s prominence in class affairs, Jean flashed out an indignant protest.
“She’s one of the finest girls in 19—, and if either of you amounted to a third as much, you could be proud of it. No, I don’t like her at all, but I admire her immensely, so please choose somebody else to criticise while you’re in here.”
Meanwhile the winter term had ended, the spring vacation come and gone, and the lovely spring term was at full tide in Harding. If you were a freshman, it made you feel sleepy and happy and utterly regardless of the future terrors of the conditioned state in comparison with the present joys of tennis and canoeing or the languorous fascination of a hammock on the back campus,—where one goes to study and remains to dream. If you were a senior it made a lump come in your throat,—the fleeting loveliness of this last spring term, when all the trials of being a Harding girl are forgotten and all the joys grow dearer than ever, now that they are so nearly past.
“But it’s not going to be any daisy-picking spring-term for 19—,” Bob Parker announced gaily to a group of her friends gathered for an after-luncheon conference on the Westcott piazza. “Isn’t that a nice expression? Miss Raymond used it in class this morning. She wanted to remind us, she said, that the Harding course is four full years long. Then she gave out a written lesson on Jane Austen for Friday.”
“What a bother!” lamented Babbie, who hadn’t elected English novelists. “Now I suppose we can’t have either the Moonshiners’ doings or the ‘Merry Hearts’ meeting on Thursday.”
“Who on earth are the Moonshiners?” asked Katherine Kittredge curiously.
“Learn to ride horseback and you can be one,” explained Babbie. “They’re just a crowd of girls, mostly seniors, who like to ride together in the cool of the evening and make a specialty of moonlight. We’re going to have a bacon-roast the first moonlight night that everybody can come.”