Bea pounced upon her. “You’re a nice sweet girl, and I love you to distraction. Don’t you worry about that fellowship, but trot up-stairs with me this instant and help hammer the covers off those boxes. You’ll be surprised!”
“Shall I?” said Berta idly, as she followed in Bea’s eddying wake, “I don’t see how, since I read the proof and corrected the lists of names.”
“Hm!” Bea turned confidentially and shot an alarming sentence toward her companion. “Well, I’ll tell you; everything you wrote is signed. The other editors did it last thing—sometimes your initials, sometimes your name. It’s for the sake of your reputation.”
“My reputation!” exclaimed the victim. “Oh,” she groaned, “they did that? Oh, my land! My name on everything. I shall sink through the floor. Run, run quick!”
The corridors were almost deserted during that recitation period. There was no stray freshman in sight to gaze scandalized at the vision of two reverend seniors racing toward the lecture room door. Berta dashed in just as the chairman of the board, with hair flying and cheeks flushed from the exertion, was brandishing a hatchet in one hand and a splintered fragment of wood in the other. The business editor hammered away with characteristic energy at the ragged remnants. The rest stood around waiting as patiently as possible in their weaponless zeal. Several glanced up and grinned provokingly at the appearance of their head literary editor.
“So you’ve heard the news, have you?” began the artist, “you look wild. We knew you’d never consent to sign the things yourself, and it was rank injustice to let you do the work and receive no special credit. Even the ideas are yours, but we couldn’t tag a name to them. Wish we could. That one for the main feature—the pictures of distinguished alumnæ——”
“Hold on!” the chairman backed into a convenient corner before Berta’s frenzied reproaches, “it’s all right. We added a note of explanation. Nobody will blame you for writing so well. And the initials are very small anyhow. Here, look!” She made a dive for the box, ripped off a second board with quick blows, snatched away the wrapping paper underneath, and dislodged a handsome green volume from its snug nest. She thrust it into Berta’s hands. “It’s your book really more than anybody’s—your first published book.”
Berta took it, sat down in a desk-chair near by, and turned the leaves slowly with fingers that trembled from nervousness.
Bea bent over her shoulder. “It seems as if that name of yours is on every page,” she teased, “pretty name, don’t you think? And isn’t it a beautiful, beautiful book! Wide margins, heavy paper, clear print, fine reproductions. Won’t the girls be delighted with those pictures of the basket ball teams! See, ah, there is the page of photographs. You suggested that the editors should appear as the babies they used to be forty years or so ago. What a dear little curly-head you were at the age of two, Berta! I want to hug you.”
The embarrassment began to fade from Berta’s expression as she gazed at the baby faces before her. “That’s the great thing I miss at college, don’t you, Bea? There aren’t any babies here. We ought to borrow some once in a while to vary the monotony of books. I have three little nieces at home, you know. Such darlings! I wish I had one here now this minute.”