Betty Wales, Senior Part 4

"Oh, you know--hazing, the men would call it; only of course we'll have nice little amusing stunts that couldn't frighten a fly. Is anything doing to-night?"

"In the house, you mean?" asked Lucile. "Not a thing. But if you want our room----"

"Of course we do," interposed Madeline calmly. "It's the only decent-sized one in the house. Go and straighten it up, and let this be a lesson to you to keep it in order hereafter. Polly, you invite the freshmen for nine o'clock. I'll get some more soph.o.m.ores and seniors, and some costumes. Come back here to dress in half an hour."

"Goodness," said the stately Lucile, slipping out of her nest of pillows. "How you do rush things through, Madeline."

Madeline smiled reminiscently. "I suppose I do," she admitted. "Ever since I can remember, I've looked upon life as a big impromptu stunt. I got ready for a year abroad once in half an hour, and I gave the American amba.s.sador to Italy what he said was the nicest party he'd ever been to on three hours' notice, one night when mother was ill and father went off sketching and forgot to come in until it was time to dress. Oh, it's just practice," said Madeline easily,--"practice and being of a naturally hopeful disposition. Run along now."

"I thought I'd better not tell them," Madeline confided to the genius of her room, when the soph.o.m.ores were safely out of earshot, "that I haven't the faintest notion what to do with those freshmen after we get them there. Being experienced, I know that something will turn up; but they, being only soph.o.m.ores, might worry. Now what the mischief"--Madeline pulled out drawer after drawer of her chiffonier--"can I have done with those masks?"

The masks turned up, after the Belden House "Merry Hearts" had searched wildly through all their possessions for them, over at the Westcott in Babbie Hildreth's chafing dish, where she had piled them neatly for safe-keeping the June before.

"Madeline said for you each to bring a sheet," explained Helen Adams, who had been deputed to summon the B's and Katherine. "They're to dress up in, I guess. She said we couldn't lend you the other ones of ours, because they might get dirty trailing around the floors, and we must have at least one apiece left for our beds."

The B's joined rapturously in the preparations for Madeline's mysterious party. Katherine could not be found, and Rachel and Eleanor were both engaged for the evening; but that was no matter, Madeline said. It ought to be mostly a Belden House affair, but a few outsiders would help mystify the freshmen.

Promptly at quarter to nine Polly, Lucile, and the rest of the Belden House contingent arrived, each bringing her sheet with her, and presently Madeline's room swarmed with hooded, ghostly figures.

"Is that you, Polly?" whispered Lucile to somebody standing near her.

"No, it's not," squeaked the figure, from behind its little black mask.

"Why, we shan't even know each other, after we get mixed up a little,"

giggled somebody else, as the procession lined up for a hasty dash through the halls.

"Now, don't forget that you've all got to help think up things for them to do," warned Madeline, "especially you soph.o.m.ores."

"And don't forget to remember the things for grinds," added Polly Eastman lucidly. "That's what the party is for."

"If the freshmen find out that you had to get us to help you, you'll never hear the last of it," jeered Babe.

"Now Babe, we're their natural allies," protested Babbie. "Of course we always help them."

"s.h.!.+" called a scout, sticking her head into the room. "Coast's clear.

Make a rush for it."

The last ghost had just gotten safely into the room, when two freshmen, timid but much flattered by Polly's cordial invitation, knocked on the door.

"Come in," called Polly in her natural voice, and once unsuspectingly inside, they were pounced upon by the army of ghosts, and escorted to seats as far as possible from the door. The other guests luckily arrived in a body headed by Georgia Ames, who, having come into the house only the day before, was already an important personage in the eyes of her cla.s.smates. What girl wouldn't be who called Betty Wales by her first name, and wasn't one bit afraid to "talk back" to the clever Miss Ayres?

Georgia's att.i.tude of amused tolerance therefore set the tone for the freshmen's behavior. "Don't you see that it's some soph.o.m.ore joke?" she demanded. "Might as well let the poor creatures get as much fun out of us as they can, and then perhaps they'll give us something good to eat by and by."

"We'll give you something right away," squeaked a ghost. "Georgia Ames and Miss Ashton, stand forth. Now kneel down, shut your eyes and open your mouths."

"Don't do it. It will be some horrid, peppery mess," advised a sour-tempered freshman named b.u.t.ts.

But Georgia and her companion stood bravely forth, to be rewarded by two delicious mouthfuls of Madeline's French chocolate. After this pleasant surprise, the freshmen, all but Miss b.u.t.ts and one or two more, grew more cheerful and began to enter into the spirit of the occasion.

"Josephine Boyd, you are elected to scramble like an egg," announced a tall ghost.

Josephine's performance was so realistic that it evoked peals of laughter from ghosts and freshmen alike.

"We'll recommend you for a part in the next menagerie that the house or the college has," said the tall ghost, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies. "The Dutton twins are now commanded to push matches across the floor with their noses. You'll find the matches on the table by the window. Somebody tie their hands behind them. Now start at the door and go straight across to Georgia Ames's chair. The one that wins the race must send Polly some flowers," added the tall ghost maliciously as the twins, blus.h.i.+ng violently at this barefaced reference to their rivalry for Polly's affections, took their matches, and at Georgia's signaled "One, two, three, go!" began their race.

Pus.h.i.+ng a match across a slippery floor with one's nose looked so easy and proved so difficult that both ghosts and freshmen, as they cheered on the eager contestants, longed to take part in the enticing sport. The fluffy-haired twin kept well ahead of her straight-haired sister, until, when her match was barely a foot from Georgia's chair it caught in a crack and broke in two.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the fluffy-haired twin forlornly, trying to single out her divinity from among the sheeted ghosts.

Her despair was too much for soft-hearted Polly. "Never mind," she said kindly "The race is hereby called off."

"And we can both send you flowers, can't we?" demanded the straight-haired twin, jumping up, flushed and panting from her exertions.

Every one waited eagerly to hear what the next stunt would be.

"This is for you, Miss b.u.t.ts," announced the tall ghost, after a whispered colloquy with her companions, "and as you don't seem very happy to-night we've made it easy. Tell the name of your most particular crush. Now don't pretend you haven't any."

"I won't tell," muttered Miss b.u.t.ts sullenly.

"Then you'll have to make up Lucile Merrifield's bed for two weeks as a penalty for disobeying our decrees. Now all the rest of you may tell your crushes' names. I will explain, as some of you look a little dazed about it, that your crush is the person you most deeply adore."

Some of the freshmen meekly accepted the penalty rather than divulge their secret affections, one declared that she hadn't a crush, one, remembering the legend of Georgia Ames, made up a soph.o.m.ore's name and after she had been safely "pa.s.sed" exulted over the simplicity of her victims. A few, including Georgia, calmly confessed their divinities'

names and gloated over the effect their announcements had upon some of the ghosts.

When this entertainment was exhausted, the ghosts held another conference. "Carline Dodge, get under the bed and develop like a film,"

decreed the leader finally.

"Oh, not under mine," cried a tall, impressive-looking ghost plaintively. "My botany and zoology specimens are under it. She'd be sure to upset the jars."

"There!" said Georgia Ames complacently. "That makes six of you that we know. Polly Eastman and now Lucile have given themselves away. Babbie Hildreth crumpled all up when Carline Dodge called out her crush's name.

If she's here, the other two that they call the B's are, and Madeline Ayres is directing the job. It's easy enough to guess who the rest of you are, so why not take off those hot things and be sociable?"

"Go on, Carline Dodge," ordered the tall ghost imperturbably.

"But I don't get the idea of the action," objected the serious-faced freshman, and looked amazed that everybody should laugh so uproariously.

"That's so funny that we'll let you off," said Madeline, when the mirth had subsided. "I foresee that you've invented a very useful phrase."

And sure enough Carline's reply was speedily incorporated into Harding's special vocabulary, and its author found herself unwittingly famous.

"Now," said Madeline cheerfully, "you may all chase smiles around the room for a while, and when I say 'wipe,' you are to wipe them off on a crack in the floor. Then we'll have a speech from one of you and you will be dismissed."

Most of the freshmen entered gaily into the "action" of chasing smiles, and caught a great many on their own and each other's faces. That frolic ended, Madeline called upon a quiet little girl who had hardly been seen to open her mouth since she reached Harding, to make a speech. To every one's surprise she rose demurely, without a word of objection or the least appearance of embarra.s.sment, and delivered an original monologue supposed to be spoken by a freshman newly arrived and airing her impressions of the college. It hit everybody with its absurd humor, which no one enjoyed better, apparently, than the quiet little freshman herself.

"Encore! Encore! Give us another!" shouted the freshmen when she had finished; but their quiet little cla.s.smate only shook her head, and a.s.suming once more the mincing, confidential tone she had been using in the monologue, remarked: "Do you know, there are some girls in our cla.s.s that will forget their heads before long. Why, when they're being hazed, they forget it and think they're at a real party."

Everybody laughed again, and the tall ghost made the little freshman blush violently by saying, "You'll get a part in the house play, my child, and if you can write that monologue down I'll send an 'Argus'

editor around after it."