There were about nine in that second class, and fourteen in the third and twenty in the fourth, when we started in on Mary Winchester.
Lila and I were rushing to get ready for the last skating carnival of the season. Some one knocked at the door. It was Mary, but she didn’t turn the knob when I called, “Come.” She just waited outside and gave me the trouble of opening it myself. Then in her offish way she asked if we were through with her lexicon. After I had hunted it up for her, she happened to notice that Lila was wailing over the disappearance of her skates.
“I saw a pair of strange skates in my room,” she said and walked away as indifferent as you please.
Now wouldn’t any one think that was queer?
It made Lila cross, especially when she found that the skates had three new spots of rust on them. March is an irritable month, anyhow, you know. Everybody is tired, and breakfast doesn’t taste very good. She sputtered about the rust till we reached the lake where we found two big bonfires and three musicians to play dance music while we skated. Imagine how lovely with the flames leaping against the background of snowy banks and bare black trees! Berta and Lila and I crossed hands and skated around and around the lake with the crowd. When we stopped in the firelight, Lila looked unusually pretty with her rosy cheeks and her curls frosted by her breath. Berta’s eyes were like stars. Of course Robbie Belle was beautiful, but she did not associate much with us that evening. After one turn up and back again while we discussed Mary Winchester, she said she thought she would invite our little freshman roommate for the next number.
We kept on talking about Mary. Lila was insisting that she ought to be put in the tenth class or worse, while Berta maintained that she wasn’t quite so bad as that. I kept thinking up arguments for both sides.
Lila counted off her crimes, and she didn’t speak so very low either. “Mary Winchester doesn’t deserve a place even in the tenth class. Why, listen now. You admit that she borrows disgracefully and never returns things. At least, she helped herself to my skates. It is almost the same as stealing. She has no friends. She always goes off walking alone, and sits in the gallery by herself at lectures and concerts. Everybody says she is queer.”
“Miss Anglin thinks girls in the mass are funny,” I volunteered, “though maybe they are not any more so than human kind in the bulk. She says that we all imagine we admire originality, but when we see any one who is noticeably different from the rest, we avoid her. We call her queer and are afraid to be seen with her.”
“Mary Winchester’s independence is commendable,” protested Berta. “I envy her strength of character. She ignores foolish conventions——”
“As for instance, the distinction between mine and thine,” interrupted Lila, “you don’t live next to her, and you don’t know. Her disregard for the property rights of others indicates a fatal flaw——”