Betty Wales, Senior Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  HELEN ADAMS'S MISSION

  The particular mission that Madeline had discovered for the moderncollege girl was one that Helen Chase Adams would never probably do muchto fulfil. But Helen had a mission of her own--the mission of beingqueer. Sometimes she hated it, sometimes she laughed at it, always itseemed to her a very humble one, but she honestly tried to live up toits responsibilities and to make the most of the opportunities itoffered.

  The loneliness of Helen's freshman year had made an indelible impressionon her. Even now that she was a prominent senior, an "Argus" editor, anda valued member of Dramatic Club, she never seemed to herself to"belong" to things as the other girls did. She was still an outsider. Anunexplainable something held her aloof from the easy familiarities ofthe life around her, and made it inevitable that she should be, as shehad been from the first, an observer rather than an actor in the dramaof college life. And from her vantage point of observation she saw manystrange things, and made her own little queer deductions and commentsupon them.

  On a certain gray and gloomy afternoon in November Helen sat alone inthe "Argus" sanctum. She loved that sanctum--the big oak table strewnwith books and magazines, the soft-toned oriental rugs, and theshimmering green curtains between which one could catch enchantingglimpses of Paradise River and the sunsets. She liked it as much as shehated her own bare little room, where the few pretty things that she hadserved only to call attention to the many that she hadn't. But to-dayshe was not thinking about the room or the view. It was "make-up" dayfor the sketch department--Helen's department of the "Argus." In half anhour she must submit her copy to Miss Raymond for approval--not that theexact hour of the day was specified, but if she waited until nearerdinner-time or until evening Miss Raymond was very likely to be at home,and Helen dreaded, while she enjoyed a personal interview with herdivinity. Curiously enough she was more than ever afraid of MissRaymond since she had been chosen editor of the "Argus." She was surethat Miss Raymond was responsible for her appointment, but she had nevergotten up courage to thank her, and she was possessed by the fear thatshe was disappointing Miss Raymond in the performance of her officialduties. So she preferred to find Miss Raymond's fascinating sitting-roomvacant when she brought her copy, to drop it swiftly on the tablenearest the door, and stopping only for one look at the enticingprospect of new books heaped on old mahogany, to flee precipitately likea thief in the night.

  The copy for this month was all ready. There was Ruth Howard'smonologue, almost as funny to read as it had been in the telling, next,by way of contrast, a sad little story of neglected childhood by ajunior who had never written anything good before, and a humorous essayon kittens by another junior that nobody had suspected of beingliterary. There was also a verse, or rather two verses; and it was thesethat caused the usually prompt and decisive Helen to hesitate and evento dawdle, wasting a precious afternoon in a futile attempt to squareher conscience and still do as she pleased about those verses. One ofthem was Helen's own. It was good; Miss Raymond had said so withemphasis, and Helen wanted it to go into the "Argus." She had ratherexpected that Jane Drew would ask for it for the main department of themagazine; but she hadn't, and her copy had gone to Miss Raymond the daybefore. The other verses were also stamped with Miss Raymond's heartiestapproval, and like the rest of the articles that Helen had collected,they were the work of a "nobody." Helen's vigorous unearthing ofundiscovered talent was a joke with the "Argus" staff, and her own greatpride. But to-day she was not in a benevolent mood. She had refused allthrough the fall to have anything of her own in the "Argus"; she did notbelieve in the editors printing their own work. But these verses weredifferent; she loved them, she wanted people to see them and to knowthat they were hers.

  She had thought of consulting Jane or Marion Lustig, who waseditor-in-chief, but she knew beforehand what either of them would say."Put in your own verse, silly child! Why didn't you say you'd like itused in the other department? We've got to blow our own horns if we wantthem blown. Use the others next time--or give them back."

  But by next month there might be an embarrassment of good material, andas for giving them back, Jane could do it easily enough, but Helen,being queer, couldn't. For who knew how much getting into the "Argus"might mean to that unknown other girl? Helen had never so much as heardher name before, though she was a sophomore. She had a premonition thatshe was queer too, and lonely and unhappy. The verses were very sad, andsomehow they sounded true.

  "Perhaps she'll be an editor some day," Helen sighed. "Anyway I'll giveher a chance."

  She put on her coat and gathered up her manuscripts, first folding herown verses and pushing them vindictively into the depths of her ownparticular drawer in the sanctum table.

  When she reached the Davidson she noticed with relief that MissRaymond's windows were dark. She was in time then. But when she knockedon the half-opened door she was taken aback to hear Miss Raymond's voicesaying, "Come in," out of the shadows.

  "Oh, excuse me!" began Helen in a frightened voice. "I've brought youthe material for the sketch department. Please don't bother about alight. I mustn't stay."

  But Miss Raymond went on lighting the lamp on her big table. As shestood for a moment full in the glare of it, Helen noticed that shelooked worn and tired.

  "I'm very sorry that I disturbed you," she said sadly. "You wereresting."

  Miss Raymond shook her head. "Not resting. Thinking. Do you like tothink, Miss Adams?"

  "Why--yes, I suppose so," answered Helen doubtfully. "Isn't that whatcollege is supposed to teach us to do?"

  "I shouldn't like to guarantee that it would in all cases," said MissRaymond smilingly. "Has it taught you that?"

  "Yes," said Helen. "I don't mean to be conceited, Miss Raymond, but Ithink it has."

  "And you find it, as I do, rather a deadly delight," went on MissRaymond, more to herself than to Helen. "And sometimes you wish you hadnever learned. When people tell you sad things, you wish you needn't goover and over them, trying to better them, trying to reason out the whysand wherefores of them, trying to live yourself into the places of thepeople who have to endure them. And when they don't tell you, you haveto piece them out for yourself just the same." Miss Raymond came sharplyback to the present and held out her hand for Helen's bundle ofmanuscript.

  Helen gave it to her in puzzled silence, and watched her as she lookedrapidly through it.

  "Ruth Howard?" she questioned, when she reached the signature of themonologue. "Do I know her? Oh, a freshman, is she? She sounds verypromising. Ellen Lacey--yes, I remember that story. Cora Wentworth--oh,I'm very glad you've got something of hers. She needs encouragement.Anne Carter--oh, Miss Adams, how did you know?"

  "How did I know?" repeated Helen in bewilderment.

  Miss Raymond looked at her keenly. "So you didn't know," she said. "Itis a mere coincidence that you are going to print her verses."

  "I don't know anything about her," Helen explained. "I heard you readthe verses in your theme class last week. And at the close of the hour Iasked you to let me have them and several other things. I used thesefirst because I had all the prose I needed for this time."

  "I see," said Miss Raymond. "Have you told her yet that you want them?"

  "No," said Helen, guiltily. "I was going to write her a note as soon asI got home. I didn't suppose she would care."

  "I presume you noticed that they are very remarkable."

  Helen blushed, thinking how she had hesitated between these and her ownproduction, which she was sure could not be considered at all"remarkable." "I--well, I went mostly by what you said. I don't believeI am a good judge of poetry--of verses, I mean."

  "You needn't be afraid to call these verses poetry. But I don't blameyou for not fully appreciating them. No girl ought to understand thetragedy of utter defeat, which is their theme."

  Miss Raymond paused, and Helen wondered if she ought to go or stay.

  "Miss Adams," Miss Raymond went on again presently, "the author of those
verses was in my room just before you came. She wanted to return a bookthat I lent her early in the term, by way of answering some questionthat she had brought up in my sophomore English class. She says that thebook and the word of appreciation that went with it are the onlykindness for which she has to thank Harding college, and that I am theonly person to whom she cares to say good-bye. I don't know why sheshould except me. I had quite forgotten her. I associated nothingwhatever with the name on those verses until I looked at it again justnow. I considered the tragic note in them merely as a literary triumph.I never thought of the girl behind the tragedy." She waited a moment."She's going to leave college," she went on abruptly. "She says that ayear and a half of it is a fair trial. I couldn't deny that. She saysthat she has made no friends, leaves without one regret or one happymemory. Miss Adams, would you be willing, instead of writing her a note,to tell her personally about this?"

  "Why, certainly," said Helen, "if you think she'd like it better."

  "Yes, I am sure she would. You won't find her at all hard to get onwith. She has a dreadful scar on one cheek, from a cut or a burn, thatgives her face a queer one-sided look. I suspect that may be at thebottom of her unhappiness."

  On the way across the campus Helen had an inspiration, which led her alittle out of her way, to the house where Jane Drew, the literary editorof the "Argus" lived.

  "I'm so relieved that my department is all made up," she told Janeartfully, "that I feel like celebrating. Won't you meet me at Cuyler'sfor supper?"

  Jane promised, a good deal surprised, for Helen was not in the habit ofasking her to supper at Cuyler's; and Helen, after arranging to meet herguest down-town, hurried on to the address that Miss Raymond had givenher, one of the most desirable of the off-campus houses.

  Miss Carter was in, the maid said, and a moment later she appeared tospeak for herself. She flushed with embarrassment when she saw Helen,and her dreadful, disfiguring scar showed all the more plainly on herreddened cheek.

  "Oh, I supposed it was the woman with my washing," she said. "I don'thave many calls. You must excuse this messy shirt waist. Please sitdown."

  "Won't you take me up to your room?" asked Helen, trying to think howBetty Wales would have put the other girl at her ease. "We can talk somuch better there."

  Miss Carter hesitated. "Why, certainly, if you prefer. It's in greatconfusion. I'm packing, or getting ready to pack, rather," and she ledthe way up-stairs to a big room that, even in its half-dismantledcondition, looked singularly attractive and quite different somehow fromthe regulation college room.

  "I have a dreadful confession to make," said Helen gaily, when they wereseated.

  "I've taken your verses for the 'Argus.' I've already sent them in toMiss Raymond, and now I've come to ask if you are willing. I do hope youare."

  "Why certainly," said Miss Carter quietly. "You are perfectly welcome tothem of course. You needn't have taken the trouble to come away up hereto ask."

  Then she relapsed into silence. Helen could not tell whether she waspleased or not. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she was beingdismissed; but she did not go. Never in her life had she worked so hardto make conversation as she did in the next ten minutes. The "Argus,"the new chapel rules, Miss Raymond and her theme classes, the sophomoreelections,--none of them evoked a responsive chord in the strange girlwho sat impassive, with no thought apparently of her social duties andresponsibilities.

  "She must think I don't know how to take a hint," reflected Helen, "butI don't care. I'm going to keep on trying."

  Presently she noticed that from Miss Carter's window could be seen Mrs.Chapin's house and the windows of her and Betty's old room.

  "That was where I lived when I first came to Harding," she beganawkwardly, pointing them out. Then she looked at the girl opposite, readthe misery in her big gray eyes, and opened her heart. Betty Wales, whohad worked so hard to get at a little of the story of Helen's freshmanyear would have been amazed at the confidences she poured out so freelyto this stranger. Indeed Helen was surprised herself at the ease withwhich she spoke and the dramatic quality that she managed to put intoher brief account of the awkward, misfit, unhappy freshman.

  Miss Carter listened at first apathetically, then with growing interest.

  "Thank you," she said gravely, when Helen had finished. "I thought I wasthe only one who felt so."

  "Oh, no, you aren't," said Helen brightly. "There are lots of others, Iguess."

  "No one with a thing like this," said the girl, with a swift, passionategesture toward her scar.

  "Don't," said Helen gently. "Please don't think about it. No one elsedoes, I'm sure."

  "I got it just before I came here," went on the girl, speaking almostfiercely. "It came in a horrible way, but it's horrible just of itself.I entered Harding because I thought the college life--the girls and thegood times and the work--would help me to forget it--or to get used tobeing so ugly."

  Helen considered a moment in silence. "I guess we're even more alikethan I thought," she said at last. "We both expected college to do itall for us, while we--just sat. But I can tell you--do you playbasket-ball? Anyhow you've seen it played. Well, you've got to keep youreye on the ball, and then you've got to jump--hard. Have you noticedthat?"

  Miss Carter laughed happily at Helen's whimsical comparison. "No," shesaid, "I've never been much interested in basket-ball. I'm afraid I've'just sat' or jumped the wrong way."

  Helen considered again, her small face wrinkled with the intensity ofher thought. "You mean you've jumped away from the very things you weretrying to get hold of," she said. "You've expected things to come toyou. They won't. You've got to do your part. You've got to jump veryoften, and as if you meant it."

  The girl nodded. "I see."

  "You can do one thing right away," said Helen briskly, rising andbuttoning her coat. "Do you know Jane Drew? Well, she's an awfullyclever senior and an editor. She's going to have dinner with me atCuyler's, and I'd like you to come too. You see one of the things youhave jumped into already is being a star contributor to the 'Argus,' andwe always want to meet our star contributors."

  Miss Carter hesitated.

  "Never mind your waist," Helen urged tactfully. "It looks perfectlyfresh to me, but you can keep your coat on if you'd rather."

  "All right, I'll come," said Miss Carter bravely.

  And having yielded, she kept to the spirit, as well as the letter, ofher promise. Jane, who was a very matter-of-fact young person, treatedher with the same off-hand cordiality that she would have bestowed onany other chance acquaintance with interesting possibilities. The girlswho stopped at the table to speak to Jane or Helen, smiled and noddedaffably when they were introduced. Some of them stared a little, at theunusual combination of two prominent seniors and an obscureunderclassman, but Miss Carter did not flinch. After dinner, when Janehad gone to speak to some friends at another table, she leaned forwardtoward her hostess. "I want to thank you," she said shyly, "for tellingme about yourself and for bringing me here. Do you know, I was going toleave college, but I'm not now. I'm going to stay on--and try jumping,"she ended quickly as Jane reappeared.

  So Helen felt that her dinner had been a success, even though she shouldhave to borrow largely from her next month's meagre allowance to pay forit.

  On her way through the campus she met Miss Raymond, hurrying to meet animportant engagement. But she stopped to inquire about Miss Carter.

  "I knew you'd manage it," she said, when she had heard Helen's briefstory of her adventures. "You're a person of resources. That's why wewanted you on the 'Argus' board."

  Helen fairly danced the rest of the way to the Belden. "Perhaps I shan'tbe afraid of her next time," she thought. "I'd rather she'd say thatthan have sixty verses in the 'Argus.' Oh, what a selfish pig I wastrying to be! I don't deserve to have it all come out so beautifully.And--oh, dear, I'm late for the meeting of the house play committee, andBetty said it was awfully important."

  She found the committee in riotous and j
ubilant session in Madeline'sroom.

  "Three cheers for Sara Crewe!" shrieked Polly Eastman, when Helenappeared.

  "Goodness, I'm not Sara," gasped Helen.

  "Oh, I mean the play, not the character," explained Polly impatiently."It's going to be simply great. What do you suppose we've got now,Helen?"

  "I don't know," said Helen, sitting down on the floor, since the bed andall the chairs were fully occupied.

  "Well guess," commanded Polly, tossing her a cushion.

  "A lot of Turkish-looking things for Mr. Carrisford's study."

  "Nonsense! We can get those all right when the time comes."

  "Josephine Boyd has learned her part."

  "Then she's done a tall lot of work on it since last rehearsal," saidPolly serenely. "I'm sure I hope she has, but this is something anyamount nicer."

  "Then I give up."

  "Well, it's a monkey," cried Polly triumphantly, "a real live monkeythat belongs to a hand-organ man in Boston. The Italian bootblack at thestation knows him, and--did he promise fair and square to get them uphere, Lucile?"

  "Fair and square," repeated Lucile promptly. "I said we'd give him fivedollars and his fare up from Boston. It's well worth it. A cat wouldhave been too absurd when everybody knows the story."

  "I hope Sara won't mind carrying a live monkey across the stage," saidBetty. "I should be dreadfully afraid it would bite."

  "She ought to have thought of that when she took the part," saidMadeline. "She can't flunk now."

  "Let's hurry it through and have the organ-man play for a danceafterward," suggested the ingenious Georgia Ames. "He'd surely throwthat in for the five dollars."

  "Better have him play between the acts too," put in somebody else."There's nothing like getting your money's worth."

  "And we'll pay him all in pennies," added Polly gleefully. "We can taketurns handing them out to the monkey. How many pennies will there be infive dollars and a fare from Boston, Lucile?"

  Helen listened to their gay banter, wondering, as many thoughtful peoplehave wondered before her, at the light-hearted abandon of these othergirls. "It must be fun to be like that," she reflected, "but I don'tbelieve I should want to change places with any of them. They only seetheir own little piece of things, and they don't even know it'slittle,--like the man who didn't know anything about the forest he waswalking through, because he got so interested in the trees. My tree isjust a scraggly, crooked little sapling that won't ever amount to much,but I can see the whole big forest, and hear it talk, and that makesup. I'm glad I'm one of the kind that college teaches to think," endedHelen happily.

  A moment later she made an addendum. "Betty Wales is a kind by herself,"she decided. "She doesn't exactly think, but she knows. And she's reallyresponsible for to-day. I wish I could tell her about it."