“Phil has managed to get up a basket ball game for Thanksgiving afternoon between two picked teams, regardless of class. It’s to be held in the gym, beginning at three-thirty. She has had her hands full, making up the right sort of teams. Gussie Forbes is going to play center on one team. Miss Walker is to play center on the other team. What do you think of that?” Robin cast an inquiring look at Marjorie. She added, without waiting for answer. “Phil had to arrange matters so in fairness to Miss Walker. She is as fine a player as Gus.”
“Phil is the goddess of fair play.” Warm admiration for invincible Phil lighted Marjorie’s features. “It will do Gussie and Miss Walker good to be pitted against each other. Each may discover something to admire in the other before the game ends. It was a bold stroke; but exactly like Phil to do it.”
“She says it will turn out for the best. Here we are stopping to talk again. Hm-m-m!” Robin importantly cleared her throat and went on. “The dormitory girls are going to be hostesses at a dance in the gym on Thanksgiving night. You know all about that, so I won’t have to stop to explain. The rest of this list is made up of the stunts we’ve already planned. As soon as we’ve seen Baretti I’m going to hurry to Silverton Hall and letter a large card of announcement to put in the main bulletin board.”
Marjorie and Robin had been planning for two weeks a series of amusements to be given during the holiday for the benefit of the students left on the campus. There were to be paper chases and outdoor gypsyings on Friday and Saturday if the weather was fine. The Travelers, nineteen, new, and two, original, were to divide themselves into seven groups, three in a group, and head the various picnickings to be held at different points of the country surrounding Hamilton College. Campfires were to be built for the purpose of roasting eggs, potatoes and chestnuts. Bacon and marshmallows were to be toasted over the flames on sticks, and coffee was to be made, the favorite campfire elixir the world over.
In case of a storm-bound Friday and Saturday a variety of campus-house amusements would take the place of the outdoor jaunts. Each campus house contingent had pledged itself to get up an impromptu entertainment on short notice, if needed, for the amusement of its own household and that of the off-campus students. Robin and Phil had arranged a concert for Friday evening in the gymnasium at which to introduce a number of talented girls who had been shyly lingering in the background.
Saturday evening there was to be an old-fashioned costume party in the gymnasium to which the whole college was invited. While the weather had been moderately cold with brisk winds and no snow the Travelers had plans made for coasting and skating fun should a swift freezing change accompanied by enough snow visit the campus.
It has taken diplomatic work to enlist the campus houses in the entertainment campaign. There was a certain amount of ill-feeling in all of them toward the post graduates. This was the result largely of the two sophomore factions whose idols were respectively Doris Monroe and Augusta Forbes. Only the double fact that they could not go home for Thanksgiving and the inborn love of girlhood to get up shows and “be in things” made Marjorie’s and Robin’s plans possible. Even haughty Doris Monroe was looking complacently forward to playing the leading part in a sketch which no less person than gloomy-visaged Miss Peyton had written.
Ronny had quietly taken upon herself the furnishing of the orchestra and a buffet collation of sweets, fruit punch and ices for the dormitory girls’ dance. The old-fashioned hop on Saturday evening was a half-dollar donation party, for the benefit of the Hamilton poor families. Phil’s own orchestra would furnish the music. There would be fruit lemonade only by way of refreshment. The admission fee was to be dropped into a box with a slitted cover as the guests entered the ball room. The box was to be in charge of a maid of long ago.
Thus it befell that Marjorie discovered the very opportunity for which she had been waiting. Doris Monroe, attired in a sleeveless, high-waisted gown of baby blue, her golden hair massed high on her lovely head would constitute a perfect custodian of the precious box. After due consultation Page and Dean decided that Lillian Wenderblatt should be chosen to tackle the delicate task of asking the haughty sophomore to deign to make herself useful at the hop.
“We’ve certainly done good work on that Thanksgiving program,” Robin congratulated as the two girls presently left Wayland Hall to make their call upon Baretti. “The best part of it is we’ve provided entertainment for either good weather or bad. We’re becoming invincible. Nothing can stop Page and Dean from ‘carrying on.’” She laughed at her own jesting conceit.