Why, they even made us cut chapel to go walking with them
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All this time Miss Hicks wouldn't accept any invitation at all. She just flocked by herself as usual, and watched us taking her votes away from her without any concern apparently. I always felt that she had something saved up for us, but I couldn't tell what it was; and anyway, we had those votes. By the time the Athletic election came around there wasn't a doubt of it.
I must say the women did pretty well during the year. They'd cleaned up the Oratorical debt, and somehow there was about three times as much money in the Athletic treasury after the football season as there had ever been before. But they'd raised a lot of trouble too. No passes. Dues had to be paid up. Nobody got any fun out of the class affairs. They got up lectures and teas and made the class pay for them. And, anyway, we wanted to run things again. We'd felt all year like a bunch of last year's sunflowers. Besides, we'd earned it. We'd earned a starry crown as a matter of fact, but all we asked was that they give our little old Athletic Association back and let us run it once more.
Miss Hicks announced herself as a candidate, and we felt sorry for her. Not one of her gang was with her. They were enthusiastically for us. We'd planned the biggest party of the year right after the election in celebration, and had invited them already. Election day came and we hardly worried a bit. The result was 189 to 197 in favor of Miss Hicks. Every independent man and every bang-up-to-date girl in college voted for her.
Of course it looks simple enough now, but why couldn't we see it then? We supposed the real girls knew that it was a case of college patriotism. And, of course, it was a low-lived trick for Miss Hicks to float around the last day and spread the impression that we'd never loved them except for their votes. She simply traded constituencies with us, that's all. Take it coming or going, year in or year out, you couldn't beat that girl. I'll bet she goes out to Washington state and gets elected governor some day.
I went over to Browning Hall the night after the election, ready to tell Miss Hicks just what everybody thought of her. I was prepared to tell her that every athletic team in college was going to disband and that anarchy would be declared in the morning. She came down as pleasant as ever and held out her hand.
"Don't say it, please," she said, "because I'm going to tell you something. I'm not coming back next year."
"Not coming back!" said I, gulping down a piece of relief as big as an apple.
"No," she said, "I'm—I'm going to be married this summer. I've—I've been engaged all this year to a man back home, but I wanted to come back and learn something about politics. He's a lawyer."