Beatrice Leigh at College: A Story for Girls

by Julia Augusta Schwartz

The hand of the clock kept moving around—oh, lots faster than it had done before Celia appeared. When it was nearly time for the train to be ready, I began to mutter and mumble and finally managed to remark that I thought I had better see about engaging my berth. What do you suppose? She gave a sort of astonished jump and exclaimed, “Why, I must too.” So we both marched over to the agent’s window and handed over five dollars apiece. I was dying to ask her to go shares with me, because one berth is plenty—or, I mean almost plenty—large enough for two. But though I opened my mouth a few times and coughed once, I absolutely did not dare to propose such a penurious plan. She might have thought me close-fisted, and perhaps she would not have slept very well either.

No sooner had we settled ourselves in the sleeper, than I began to worry about the meals. Naturally she would assume that I intended to go into the dining-car every time. Most of the girls do as a matter of course. In fact I remember feeling condescending whenever I saw anybody eating from a box while the other passengers were filing down the aisle, or up, whichever it happened to be. This year I was to be one of the brave unfortunates left behind in their seats.

Well, very likely you understand that people while traveling really ought not to eat so heartily as usual. Much food in a dining-car clogs the system and ventilates the pocketbook, so to speak. I appreciated myself hard for being right and noble and abstemious and foresighted—with respect to the semester’s expenses, you perceive, and also self-denying and self-reliant. There are a number of selfs in that sentence, likewise in the idea and in my mind at the time. I don’t believe honestly that poverty is good for the character, though Berta says that she knows it isn’t good for anything else.

Celia and I went out to sit on the rear platform of the observation-car. The scenery was not particularly interesting in comparison with Colorado; and consequently I had spare energy for meditating on Emerson’s essays and his observation that “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” I wish I were strong-minded. To reflect sincerely, however, I don’t believe it is so much a question of a strong mind as of a weak imagination. If I had been unable to imagine what Celia might think, doubtless I wouldn’t have bothered about it.

But I was bothered. The sensation of botheration deepened and swelled and widened as supper time drew nearer and nearer, and every moment I expected to hear the waiter’s voice intoning behind me, “Supper is now ready in the dining-car.” What made this state of affairs all the sadder was the memory of springing gladness inspired by the same sound on previous journeys. I sat there dreading and dreading and dreading. And then, what do you think? Celia was asking me about Lila and Berta and Robbie Belle and the fun we have and incidentally something about the work. I was talking so fast that I forgot all about being poor. When the waiter’s voice suddenly rang out at the end of the car, I jumped up instantly just as I had always done on former occasions of the same nature. And I exclaimed, “I am simply starved to death.”

Then I remembered and sat down so quickly that my camp-chair tipped against Celia and knocked her over so that she might have fallen off the platform if there had not been a railing around it. That catastrophe created such a flurry of anxieties, apologies, and so forth, that I succeeded in letting the crisis slip past unmolested. At least, that first crisis did. The second crisis arrived a little later when the voice behind us rang out again with, “Second call to supper in the dining-car.” I glanced sidewise at Celia just in time to catch her glancing sidewise at me. That made me spring lightly to my feet, I can tell you. Was she getting suspicious? Was she too courteous to suggest an extravagance the refusal of which might hurt my pride? Was she wondering why I seemed to have forgotten that I was starving to death, if not already starved?

So I said in a tone of patient consideration, “Shall we wait any longer, Miss Lane?” She jumped up like a flash, and her face was quite red.

“No, indeed! Not on my account certainly.” She emphasized the my so distinctly that I was sure she suspected. That dreadful thought caused me to stiffen my manner, and as hers had been strangely stiff all the afternoon, we were awfully polite to each other during supper. Each of us insisted upon paying the bill and feeing the waiter. It was terrible. I couldn’t afford to pay it all, and yet I was too silly to give in gracefully, especially as some other passengers were listening, and the waiter hovered near. Finally it resulted in his receiving twice the sum, half for the bill, and half for a fee. I hope he appreciated it.

Then we talked politely to each other for an hour or two before going to bed. And in the morning, there was the problem of breakfast confronting me.

The problem woke me early. Being poor is bad for the health as well as bad for the character, I think. Probably it is bad for the soul also. Or maybe it is not the poverty so much as being ashamed of it that perverts a person’s life. Well, actually I almost cherished the deceitful plot of getting up so early that I should be already dressed before Celia would appear, and then I could tell her that I had been so hungry that I had eaten my breakfast alone. It would have been true too, because I intended to nibble my malted milk tablets behind a magazine. But this plan came to naught; for when I poked my head out between the curtains I saw Celia herself staggering toward the dressing-room with her satchel. Thereupon I lay down again and nibbled the tablets in the berth. That would enable me to assert truthfully that I was not hungry and did not care for breakfast in the diner.