Betty Wales, Freshman

CHAPTER V

UP HILL–AND DOWN

The next day was just the sort that everybody had been hoping for on Mountain Day,–crisp and clear and cool, with the inspiriting tang in the air, the delicious warmth in the sunshine, and the soft haze over the hills, that belong to nothing but a New England October at its best. The Chapin house breakfast-table was unusually lively, for each girl wanted to tell what she thought about the reception and how she was going to spend Mountain Day; and nobody seemed anxious to listen to anybody’s else story.

“Sh–sh,” demanded Mary Brooks at last. “Now children, you’ve talked long enough. Run and get your lunch boxes and begin making your sandwiches. Mrs. Chapin wants us to finish by ten o’clock.”

“Ten o’clock!” repeated Katherine. “Well, I should hope so. Our horse is ordered for nine.”

“Going to be gone all day?” inquired Mary sweetly.

“Of course,” answered Katherine with dignity.

“Well, don’t kill the poor beast,” called Mary as she ran up-stairs for her box.

Mary was going off in a barge with the sophomore decorating committee, who wanted a good chance to congratulate and condole with one another over their Herculean labors and ultimate triumph of the day before. The Rich sisters had decided to spend the holiday with an aunt who lived twenty miles down the river; Eleanor had promised early in the fall to go out with a party of horseback riders; and Helen, whose pocketbook had been prematurely flattened to buy her teakettle, had decided to accept the invitation of a girl in her geometry division to join an economical walking party. This left Rachel, Katherine, Roberta and Betty, who had hired a horse and two-seated trap for the day, invited Alice Waite, Betty’s little friend from the Hilton House, to join them, and were going to drive “over the notch.”

“I haven’t the least idea what a notch is like,” said Katherine. “We don’t have such things where I come from. But it sounds interesting.”

“Doesn’t it?” assented Rachel absently, counting the ham sandwiches. “Do you suppose the hills are very steep, Betty?”

“Oh, I guess not. Anyhow Katherine and I told the man we were going there and wanted a sure-footed horse.”

“Who’s going to drive?” asked Roberta.

“Why, you, of course,” said Katherine quickly. “You said you were used to driving.”

“Oh, yes, I am,” conceded Roberta hastily and wondered if she would better tell them any more. It was true that she was used to horses, but she had never conquered her fear of them, and they always found her out. It was a standing joke in the Lewis family that the steadiest horse put on airs and pranced for Roberta. Even old Tom, that her little cousins drove out alone–Roberta blushed as she remembered her experience with old Tom. But if the girls were depending on her–“Betty drives too,” she said aloud. “She and I can take turns. Are you sure we have enough gingersnaps?”

Everybody laughed, for Roberta’s fondness for gingersnaps had become proverbial. “Half a box apiece,” said Rachel, “and it is understood that you are to have all you want even if the rest of us don’t get any.”

When the horse arrived Roberta’s last fear vanished. He was meekness personified. His head drooped sadly and his eyes were half shut. His fuzzy nose and large feet bespoke docile endurance, while the heavy trap to which he was harnessed would certainly discourage all latent tendencies to undue speed. Alice Waite, Rachel and Katherine climbed in behind, Betty and Roberta took the front seat, and they started at a jog trot down Meriden Place.

“Shall we go through Main Street?” asked Roberta. “He might be afraid of the electric cars.”

“Afraid of nothing,” said Betty decidedly. “Besides, Alice wants to stop at the grocery.”

The “beastie,” as Katherine called him, stood like a statue before Mr. Phelps’s grocery and never so much as moved an eyelash when three trolley cars dashed by him in quick succession.

“What did you get?” asked Katherine, when Alice came out laden with bundles.

“Olives – ”

“Good! We forgot those.”

“And bananas – ”

“The very thing! We have grapes.”

“And wafers and gingersnaps – ”

Everybody laughed riotously. “What’s the matter now?” inquired Alice, looking a little offended. Rachel explained.

“Well, if you have enough for the lunch,” said Alice, “let’s keep these out to eat when we feel hungry.” And the box was accordingly stuffed between Betty and Roberta for safe keeping.

Down on the meadow road it was very warm. By the time they reached the ferry, the “beastie’s” thick coat was dripping wet and he breathed hard.

“Ben drivin’ pretty fast, hain’t you?” asked the ferryman, patting the horse’s hairy nose.

“I should think not,” said Katherine indignantly. “Why, he walked most of the way.”

“Wall, remember that there trap’s very heavy,” said the ferryman solemnly, as he shoved off.

Beyond the river the hills began. The “beastie” trailed slowly up them. Several times Roberta pulled him out to the side of the road to let more ambitious animals pass him.

“Do you suppose he’s really tired?” she whispered to Betty, as they approached a particularly steep pitch. “He might back down.”

“Girls,” said Betty hastily, “I’m sick of sitting still, so I’m going to walk up this next hill. Any of you want to come?”

Relieved of his four passengers the horse still hung his head and lifted each clumsy foot with an effort.

“Oh, Roberta, there’s a watering trough up here,” called Betty from the top of the hill. “I’m sure that’ll revive him.”

By their united efforts they got the “beastie” up to the trough, which was most inconveniently located on a steep bank beside the road; and while Betty and Alice kept the back wheels of the trap level, Katherine unfastened the check-rein. To her horror, as the check dropped the bits came out of the horse’s mouth.

“How funny,” said Alice, “just like everything up here. Did you ever see a harness like that, Betty?” Betty left her post at the hind wheel and came around to investigate.

“Why he has two bits,” she said. “Of course he couldn’t go, poor creature. And see how thirsty he is!”

“Well, he’s drunk enough now,” said Roberta, “and you’ll have to put the extra bits in again–that is, if you can. He’d trail his nose on the ground if he wasn’t checked.”

The “beastie” stood submissively while the bits were replaced and the check fastened. Then he chewed a handful of clover with avidity and went on again as dejectedly as ever. Presently they reached a long, level stretch of road and stopped in the shade of a big pine-tree for a consultation.

“Do you suppose this is the top?” asked Rachel.

Just then a merry tally-ho party of freshmen, tooting horns and singing, drew up beside them. “Is this the top of the notch?” asked Betty, waving her hand to some girls she knew.

“No, it’s three miles further on,” they called back. “Hurrah for 190-!”

“Well?” said Betty, who felt in no mood for cheering.

“Let’s go back to that pretty grove two hills down and tie this apology for a horse to the fence and spend the rest of the day there,” suggested Katherine.

Everybody agreed to this, and Roberta backed her steed round with a flourish.

“Now let’s each have a gingersnap before we start down,” she said. So the box was opened and passed. Roberta gathered the reins in one hand, clucked to the horse, and put her gingersnap into her mouth for the first bite. But she never got it, for without the slightest provocation the “beastie” gave a sudden spring forward, flopped his long tail over the reins, and started at a gallop down the road. Betty clung to the dashboard with one hand and tried to pluck off the obstructing tail with the other. Roberta, with the gingersnap still in her mouth, tugged desperately at the lines, and the back seat yelled “Whoa!” lustily, until Betty, having rearranged the tail and regained her seat, advised them to help pull instead. They had long since left the little grove behind, had dashed past half a dozen carriages, and were down on the level road near the ferry, when the “beastie” stopped as suddenly as he had started. Roberta deliberately removed the gingersnap from her mouth, handed the reins to Betty to avoid further interruption, and began to eat, while the rest of the party indulged in unseemly laughter at her expense.

“We’ve found out what that extra bit was for,” said Rachel when the mirth had subsided, “and we can advise the liveryman that it doesn’t work. But what are we going to do now?”

“Murder the liveryman,” suggested Katherine.

“But the horse is sure-footed; he didn’t lie,” objected Alice so seriously that everybody burst out laughing again.

“He told the truth, but not the whole truth,” said Rachel. “Next time we’ll ask how many bits the horse has to wear and how it takes to hills. Now what can we do?”

“We can’t go back to the woods, that’s sure,” said Katherine. “And it’s too hot to stay down here. Let’s go home and get rid of this sure-footed incubus, and then we can decide what to do next.”

The ferryman greeted them cheerfully. “Back so soon?” he said. “Had your dinner?”

“Of course not,” replied Katherine severely. “It’s only twelve o’clock. We’re just out for a morning drive. Do you remember saying that this horse was tired? Well, he brought us down the hills at about a mile a minute.”

“Is that so!” declared the ferryman with a chuckle. “Scairt, were you? Why didn’t you git them young Winsted fellers, that jest started up, to rescue yer? Might a ben quite a story.”

“We didn’t need rescuing, thank you,” said Katherine. “Did you see any men?” she whispered to Betty.

Betty nodded. “Four, driving a span. They were awfully amused. Miss King was in another of the carriages,” she added sadly. Then she caught sight of Roberta and began to laugh again. “You were so funny with that cookie in your mouth,” she said. “Were you dreadfully frightened?”

“No,” said Roberta, with a guilty blush. “I always expect something to happen. Horses are such uncertain creatures.”

They drove back through the meadows at a moderate pace, deposited the horse and a certified opinion of him with an apologetic liveryman, and carried their lunch down to Paradise. “For it’s as pretty as any place and near, and we’re all hungry,” Alice said.

Paradise was deserted, for the girls had preferred to range further afield on Mountain Day. So the five freshmen chose two boats, rowed up stream without misadventure, spread out their luncheon on a grassy knoll, and ate, talked, and read till dinner time. As they crossed the campus, they met parties of dusty, disheveled pedestrians, laden with purple asters and autumn branches. A barge stopped at the gateway to deposit the campus contingent of the sophomore decorating committee, and in front of the various dwelling-houses empty buckboards, surreys and express wagons, waiting to be called for, showed that the holiday was over.

“I don’t think our first Mountain Day has been so bad after all, in spite of that dreadful horse,” said Rachel.

“So much pleasant variety about it,” added Katherine.

“Let’s not tell about the runaway,” said Alice who hated to be teased.

“But Miss King saw us,” expostulated Betty, “and you can trust Mary Brooks to know all about it.”

When Mary, who was late in dressing, entered the dining-room, she gave a theatrical cry of joy. “I’m so glad you’re all safe,” she said. “And how about that cookie, Roberta?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s gone. They’re all gone,” said Roberta coolly. “Now you might as well tell us how you knew.”

“Knew!” repeated Mary scornfully. “The whole college knows by this time. We were lunching on the notch road, near the top, when four Winsted men came up, and asked if they might join us. They knew most of us. So we said yes, if they’d brought any candy, and they told us a strange story about five girls–very young girls, they said,” interpolated Mary emphatically, “that they’d seen dashing down the notch. One was trying to eat a cookie, and another was pulling the horse’s tail, and the rest were screaming at the top of their lungs, so naturally the horse was frightened to death. Pretty soon three carriage loads of juniors came along and they confirmed the awful news and gave us the names of the victims, and you can imagine how I felt. The men want to meet you, but I told them they couldn’t because of course you’d be drowned in the river.”

“I hope you’ll relieve their minds the next time they come to see you,” said Katherine. “Are they the youths who monopolize our piazza every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon?”

“Two of them help occasionally.”

Katherine winked meaningly at the rest of the Mountain Day party. “We’ll be there,” she said, “though it goes against my conscience to receive calls from such untruthful young gentlemen.”

The next Saturday afternoon Betty and Katherine established themselves ostentatiously on the front piazza to await the arrival of Mary’s callers, Rachel had gone to play basket-ball, and Roberta had refused to conspire against Mary’s peace of mind, particularly since the plot might involve having to talk to a man. Promptly at three o’clock two gentlemen arrived.

“Miss Brooks is that sorry, but she had to go out,” announced the maid in tones plainly audible to the two eavesdroppers. “Would you please to come back at four?”

Katherine and Betty exchanged disappointed glances. “Checked again. She’s too much for us,” murmured Katherine. “Shall we wait?”

“And is Miss Wales in–Miss Betty Wales?” pursued the spokesman, after a slight pause.

The maid looked severely at the occupants of the piazza. “Yes, sor, you can see that yoursilf,” she said and abruptly withdrew.

The man laughed and came quickly toward Betty, who had risen to meet him. “I’m John Parsons,” he said. “I roomed with your brother at Andover. He told me you were here and asked me to call. Didn’t he write to you too? Miss Brooks promised to present me, but as she isn’t in – ”

“Oh, yes, Will wrote, and I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Parsons,” Betty broke in. “Only I didn’t know you were–I mean I didn’t know that Miss Brooks’s caller was you. Miss Kittredge, Mr. Parsons. Wasn’t your friend going to wait?”

“Bob,” called Mr. Parsons after the retreating figure of his companion, “come back and hear about the runaway. You’re wanted.”

It was fully half-past four when Messrs. Parsons and Hughes, remembering that they had another engagement, left their escorts by request at the gymnasium and returned from a pleasant walk through Paradise and the campus to Meriden Place, where a rather frigid reception awaited them. Betty and Katherine, having watched the finish of the basket-ball game, followed them, and spent the time before dinner in painting a poster which they hung conspicuously on Mary’s door. On it a green dragon, recently adopted as freshman class animal, charged the sophomores’ purple cow and waved a long and very curly tail in triumph. Underneath was written in large letters, “Quits. Who is going to the ΚΦ dance at Winsted?”

“I’m dreadfully afraid mother won’t let me go though,” said Betty as they hammered in the pins with Helen’s paper-weight. “And anyhow it’s not for three whole weeks.”

When the drawing was securely fastened, Betty surveyed it doubtfully. “I wonder if we’d better take it down,” she said at last. “I don’t believe it’s very dignified. I’m afraid I oughtn’t to have asked Mr. Parsons to call his friend back, but I did so want to meet both of them and crow over Mary. And it was they who suggested the walk. Katherine, do you mind if we take this down?”

“Why, no, if you don’t want to leave it,” said Katherine looking puzzled. “I’m afraid Mr. Hughes didn’t have a very good time. Men aren’t my long suit. But otherwise I think we did this up brown.”

Just then Eleanor came up, and Katherine gave her an enthusiastic account of the afternoon’s adventure. Betty was silent. Presently she asked, “Girls, what is a back row reputation?”

“I don’t know. Why?” asked Eleanor.

“Well, you know I stopped at the college, Katherine, to get my history paper back. Miss Ellis looked hard at me when I went in and stammered out what I wanted. She hunted up the paper and gave it to me and then she said, ‘With which division do you recite, Miss Wales?’ I told her at ten, and she looked at me hard again and said, ‘You have been present in class twelve times and I’ve never noticed you. Don’t acquire a back row reputation, Miss Wales. Good-day,’ and I can tell you I backed out in a hurry.”

“I suppose she means that we sit on the back rows when we don’t know the lesson,” said Helen who had joined the group.

“I see,” said Betty. “And do you suppose the faculty notice such things as that and comment on them to one another?”

“Of course,” said Eleanor wisely. “They size us up right off. So does our class, and the upper class girls.”

“Gracious!” said Betty. “I wish I hadn’t promised to go to a spread on the campus to-night. I wish – What a nuisance so many reputations are!” And she crumpled the purple cow and the green dragon into a shapeless wad and threw it at Rachel, who was coming up-stairs swinging her gym shoes by their strings.

CHAPTER VI

LETTERS HOME

Betty was cross and “just a tiny speck homesick,” so she confided to the green lizard. Nothing interesting had happened since she could remember, and it had rained steadily for four days. Mr. Parsons, who played right tackle on the Winsted team, had written that he was laid up with a lame shoulder, which, greatly to his regret, would prevent his taking Betty to his fraternity dance. Helen was toiling on a “lit.” paper with a zealous industry which got her up at distressingly early hours in the morning, and was “enough to mad a saint,” according to her exasperated roommate, whose own brief effusion on the same subject had been hastily composed in one evening and lay neatly copied in her desk, ready to be handed in at the proper time. Moreover, “gym” had begun and Betty had had the misfortune to be assigned to a class that came right in the middle of the afternoon.

“It’s a shame,” she grumbled, fishing out her fountain pen which had fallen off her desk and rolled under the bureau. “I shall change my lit. to afternoon–that’s only two afternoons spoiled instead of four–and then tell Miss Andrews that I have a conflict. Haven’t you finished that everlasting paper?”

“No,” said Helen meekly. “I’m sorry that I’m so slow. I’ll go out if you want to have the girls in here.”

“Oh no,” called Betty savagely, dashing out into the hall. Eleanor’s door was ornamented with a large sign which read, “Busy. Don’t disturb.” But the door was half-way open, and in the dusky room, lighted, as Eleanor liked to have it, by candles in old-fashioned brass sticks, Eleanor sat on a pile of cushions in the corner, strumming softly on her guitar.