Hester's Counterpart: A Story of Boarding School Life

by Jean K. Baird

May came and was quickly passing. The girls were talking caps and gowns and diplomas. The seniors went about with a superior air; the juniors were little better for they had a classday at least. The freshmen and sophomores, in the plans for commencement week, were but the fifth wheel to a wagon. They were ignored. If they offered suggestions they were snubbed, and informed, not too gently, that they could not be expected to know anything about such matters—being new to the ways of commencement.

Though they had neither commencement, class day, nor play, the freshmen and sophomores did not lose spirit. What was not theirs by rights, they meant to make theirs by foul means and strategy.

It had long been the custom of the seniors to follow the commencement proper with a banquet. This included only members of the senior class. The Alumnæ banquet took place later and was in the hands of old students who had long since left the seminary. Among these were the wives of judges, physicians, bankers—people with whom the freshmen and sophomores dare not interfere, though it would have been an easy matter to have taken this Alumnæ Banquet, for there was no one on hand to guard it. The menu and serving were wholly in the hands of a caterer from the city.

Knowing that the affairs of the Alumnæ must not be tampered with, the freshmen turned all their energies toward the seniors and juniors.

The juniors were to give a play. The costumes were to be rented for the occasion. The play itself was zealously guarded lest it be stolen. Erma, whose talent lay in a histrionic direction, had charge of the copies of the drama. Erma had talent but no forethought. She put the pamphlets in the place most suited to them. Hester, who had been sent out by her class as a scout to find what she could of the plans of the juniors, discovered the books the first day; and not only the books but the names of the juniors and the parts which each was to take. Hester reported immediately the results of her investigation. The following day, while Erma was engaged elsewhere the play disappeared, was hurriedly copied by the freshmen and replaced. Not a member of the junior class, so the freshmen believed, was aware of what took place and was not the wiser that the freshmen had begun the preparation of the same play.

"We can outdo them," said Louise at the class-meeting. "The play is booked for Tuesday evening. Monday evening is the band concert and promenade from seven o'clock until eight-thirty. After that, the freshmen class will have the floor and we'll give the play before the juniors. Their efforts will fall flat on Tuesday evening."

"But the costumes!" exclaimed Hester. "What will we do for them?"

"Borrow them from the juniors when they are from their rooms. We will need them but one evening. We'll return them as fresh as ever the following morning."

"Will they lend them?" It was a little first term girl who asked the question.

"No, you dear little freshie, they will not lend them if they can help themselves. We will ask them Tuesday morning and use them Monday. It is the safest way," said Emma, who was exceedingly enthusiastic over this part of school life. While at home, she had read volumes on the subject of life at a boarding school. From the impression left by those books, life at school was one succession of receptions, public meetings, and practical jokes. Discipline and lessons were in the undercurrent of life. Life at Dickinson had been wholly different from what Emma had anticipated. This stealing of the junior play and presenting it before the juniors had the opportunity, appealed to Emma. This was more in the order of the books she had read.