“I do not. I’ll be pleased to hear your remarks, whatever they may be,” encouraged Jerry with one of her wide smiles.
“You know what a lot of vacancies there will be here in June,” Marjorie began. “Those vacancies ought to be filled by off-the-campus girls. Take Anna, for instance. She earns about one-third enough money summers to keep her at Wayland Hall. I shall furnish the other two-thirds for her. I shall begin now and save something from my allowance toward it. I shall ask Captain not to buy me a lot of new clothes for next year, but to give me the money instead. I am going to do a little sacrificing. I shall cut out dinners and luncheons off the campus. I’ll go only to Baretti’s and not so very often.”
“We are an extravagant set,” Jerry confessed. “Our board is paid at the Hall; the very best board, too. Yet away we go every two or three days for a feed at our favorite tea-rooms. That’s a good idea, Marvelous Manager. I shall presently adopt an off-the-campusite myself. Ronny will adopt a dozen.”
“Ronny would finance them all, but I sha’n’t let her. General would give me the money to see Anna through college, but I don’t wish it to be that way. I want it to be self-denial money. I’d like to find a way to help the off-the-campus girls this year.”
“Give shows. Make money. Turn it over to ’em,” suggested Jerry, with an airy wave of the hand. “Nothing easier.”
“Nothing harder, you mean,” corrected Marjorie. “They wouldn’t like to accept it as a private gift, I’m afraid. Besides, some of them board; others do light housekeeping. Those who keep house could use the money we offered to make things easier. Still they’d have the strain of housework on their minds. Those who board wouldn’t be benefited much unless they changed boarding places. There is only that one collection of boarding houses near the campus. One is about the same as another. Hamilton has been a rich girls’ college for a long time. The fine equipment and super-excellent faculty have filled it up with well-to-do and moneyed students.”
“I’d like to see every Hamilton student on the campus,” declared Jerry heartily. “It would take three campus houses to do it. There must be close to seventy-five girls in that bunch of off-campus houses.”
“We could start our fund for that purpose,” was the hopeful response.
“Who’d take care of the plan after we were graduated? It would take a lot of money to build campus houses. Besides, how would we get the site? Maybe the Board wouldn’t hear to the project”
“Too true, too true, Jeremiah,” Marjorie conceded gayly. “That plan is a little far-fetched just yet. Later it may seem feasible. The fact remains that Robin and I yearn to get up a show; object to give away the proceeds.”