Beatrice Leigh at College: A Story for Girls

by Julia Augusta Schwartz

“Lila, we’ve forgotten to get that money for her!”

Martha turned her face toward me and sat gazing like a little dog. We asked all the girls at the table for contributions, but they were nearly penniless. I said, “Are you in a hurry, Martha?” And she said she had to be there at two o’clock. So we told her to hurry on, and we would get the money somewhere and meet her on the corner of Main and Market Streets at quarter past four sharp. She said, “Honest?” And I answered, “Yes, trust me. We’ll be there, and I’ll stand treat for soda water, if I can scrape up any extra pennies. You run along and pick out your present.”

And then, do you know, in spite of all that and our promise to meet her, we forgot every bit about it till half-past four! You see, it was election day, and we were frightfully busy. After the fifth hour recitation we hurried into the ragged blue overalls that we had worn in one of the torchlight parades. Lila punched up the crown of an old felt alpine hat, and I battered my last summer’s sailor till it looked disreputable enough. Then we rushed over to the gymnasium to join our gang of wardheelers.

We found the judges sitting at bare tables with their lists before them and wooden booths along the walls. And then—oh, I can’t do justice to the fun we had! Some of us hung around outside and tried to scare away opposing voters by telling how the judges might make them sing scales or slide down ropes or wipe off their smiles on the carpets or chant the laundry list or write their names in ink with their noses, if they should be challenged. We actually succeeded in frightening away several timid freshmen. The rest of the gang pretended to stuff ballot-boxes and buy votes, just as we had read in the papers.

Berta, Lila and I voted while wearing our overalls. Then we dashed back to our rooms and dressed in our ordinary clothes and attempted to vote a second time. Such fun! The judges recognized us and refused to accept our ballots. Such an uproar as we raised! The other wardheelers stormed to the rescue; the lists were scattered, and the tables overturned. Of course it was only a joke, and most of us were too weak from laughing to clear away the disorder in time for the polls to close promptly.

And then we happened to remember Martha.

There it was half-past four and it would certainly be five before we could get ready and catch the car and reach the corner of Main and Market. So we let it go and decided that she would be tired of waiting by that time and start for home, and we might most likely miss her anyhow, even if we should collect the money and try to keep the engagement. And besides that we were having such a picnic telling about the turmoil at the polls that we hated to waste a minute away from the scene. Berta had a splendid idea about dressing up as policemen and borrowing the express wagon belonging to the janitor’s grandson, and then tearing over to the gym as if we had been summoned to arrest the hoodlums and take them to jail in the patrol. It was so late, however, that we had to give this plan up and get ready for dinner. It was a dreadful disappointment.

Martha hadn’t come yet. It was half-past five and dark, and then it was quarter of six, and then it was six, and we went down to dinner, but she hadn’t come yet. And then it was half-past six, and we went down the avenue to the Lodge to watch the car unload, but no Martha. We danced in parlor J for a while, and then we went to chapel at seven, but she hadn’t come yet. And then we walked down to the Lodge again and watched three cars stop and turn around the curve, one after another, but she wasn’t in any of them. And then we went back to tell Mrs. Howard, the lady principal, about it. And she was awfully anxious and asked all sorts of questions about Martha, and what kind of a girl she was, and if she had any money with her, or any friends in town, or any peculiar habits about running away from her friends, or any trouble lately or anything.

Then she began to telephone and went to see Prexie, and Lila and I wandered out to the stairs above the bulletin board where the students were waiting to hear the election returns. Between the successive telegrams the girls clapped and laughed and stamped and hissed at speeches by the seniors and juniors, or else they sang patriotic songs.

When Miss Benton, president of the Students’ Association, the greatest honor in the college course, and she is the finest senior in the class too—was urged upon a chair to make a speech, Lila almost pushed me through the banisters in her excitement. She has admired Miss Benton ever since the first day when it rained, and we were so terribly homesick, and she smiled at us in the corridor.