Chapter VI: In the Gym

MOST of the sophomore class had gathered in the gymnasium one afternoon not long after Janet had returned to college. Nearly all of the former students had come back, the only ones who had dropped out being Addie Cox and Kathie Steele.

Janet was squirming through a series of square openings, Edna was exercising upon the horizontal bar, while Lee Penrose was lightly vaulting over the "horse." The enthusiasm of the girls was always noticeable when the year was new, for not only did they enjoy revisiting their old haunts, but most of them found it not unpleasant, in their early pride of being sophomores, to display to the freshmen their familiarity with the various institutions of the college.

Janet had squirmed through her fourth hole when looking below she saw two girls in street attire enter. They stood near the door for a moment looking at the feats of the girls who were exercising. Presently Cordelia caught sight of them.

"What are those freshmen doing here?" she said. "Why have they the audacity to come without their gym suits? Come down, Janet; we've got to discipline those young women."

Janet, who was swinging her feet from the square frame in which she sat, climbed down and ran to where Cordelia, Edna, and Lee were whispering together. "Who are they?" she asked.

"Blest if I know," returned Cordelia. "Some audacious freshes, of course, who must be taught their place. Come, let us go show them their duty."

The four girls advanced to where the two visitors stood. "Young ladies," said Cordelia, addressing them in mild but firm tones, "it is against our rules for you to appear here in your street costumes. We can't have it. Get yourselves undressed as quickly as possible, and put on your gym suits."

The taller of the two girls laughed, and responded: "We haven't any suits with us."

"Very well, that need not worry you," said Cordelia. "Ted, get a couple of suits from somewhere. Lil Forsyth isn't here to-day, neither is Mary Alston; get theirs."

Teddy sought out the suits and brought them over, while Janet, Cordelia, and Lee stood over the girls and saw that they laid aside their clothing, the rest of the class crowding around and enjoying the situation.

"Get into these quick," said Cordelia; "we can't have any loitering." The girls struggled into the suits in a half amused, half embarrassed way.

"Now," said Cordelia, "you must exercise till we think you have done the amount that is good for you. First lie down flat on your backs, then sit up without bending your knees. Keep your arms flat to your sides, or fold them across your chests. Here, I'll show you how. Try again."

The two girls made the effort with no very good success.

"You'd better be taken separately," said Cordelia. "Here, Janet, you see that the little one goes through her stunts, and we will see to the other."

Nothing loath, Janet took her victim in hand, but passed her along to whoever chose to suggest a special form of exercise. One made her jump about the floor like a frog; another ordered her to swing from the horizontal bar; while a third set her to climbing up a rope hand over hand. Cordelia, meanwhile, with a posse of assistants, directed the movements of the taller of the two girls.

Half an hour passed when Janet's charge began to show signs of rebellion. "I can't squirm through these holes," she declared, "and I'm not going to try."

"Oh, yes, you are; you'll have to," said Janet pleasantly. "You don't suppose, my little dear, that freshmen can do exactly as they choose in this college. Don't you know that we are the sophomore class?"

"I don't know anything about it," returned the girl sulkily. "I'm not a freshman, so why should I care what you are."

"Tell that to the marines," said Janet. "We are up to all your tricks, my young lady, and that doesn't go at all. What would you be but a freshman? Don't you suppose we know the members of our own class? And I know you are not a junior. Perhaps you will insist that you are a senior. That would be what one might expect, I suppose."

"No, I don't insist upon that," said the girl.

"You don't really? May I ask your name?"

The girl was silent.

"Oh well, any name will do to call you by," Janet went on. "Suppose we say that you are Miss Mute, Miss Silence Mute. Now, Miss Mute, you'll have to go through this exercise. Up with you."

The girl struggled as Janet charged upon her, but was forced to the side of the room to which she objected to go.

"Boost her up, Ted," cried Janet. "What will become of you, Miss Mute, if you defy authority in this way at the very beginning of your college career? There you go. Hand over hand is the way. Now then, into the first square."

The girl managed to get this far, and sat mutinously swinging her feet, but refusing to go through any further performance. "I am no college girl," she declared, looking down from her perch. "I live in town, and just came here for fun."

"Don't believe a word of it," said Janet. "We will not have any hashed up excuse like that. You've got to go through all those holes before you come down."

With a row of determined girls below her, the victim saw no means of escape. She must either do as she was commanded, or stay where she was in rather an uncomfortable position.

"It's a shame to treat us so," she cried. "I think it is barbarous."

"Now don't get excited, my child," said Janet suavely. "It isn't becoming."

In vain, did Miss Mute protest that they had no right to detain her; the row of girls below simply jeered at her. In vain, she appealed to their humanity; they charged her with obstinacy, and at last, in desperation, she awkwardly and angrily obeyed their order, all the time insisting that it was an outrage.

Cordelia's pupil did a little better, and was willing to keep up the spirit of the thing longer; expressed herself as entirely ready to swing from a bar, to vault over a rope, and to do most of the things insisted upon, but even she at last pleaded fatigue. She had come only to see what it looked like anyhow, and it was not right to keep her there against her will. She wanted to go home.

"She wants to go home," said Edna in a mocking voice. "And where is home, little girl? Did you get lost, and do the naughty sophomores tease you so you want to run tell mamma? Poor little fresh, I am afraid you can't go to mamma just yet. She is too far-away, baby. Now, be a good child, and do as you are bidden. It's not pretty to stand there and look sullen. By the way, you haven't told us your name. Your little playmate appears to rejoice under the name of Miss Mute, though her name ill fits her after her tirade from her lofty perch. We will try to give you a more fitting cognomen, if you do not care to divulge your identity."

"I'm not afraid to tell my name," said the girl with a little fling of her head. "I am Marian Austin, and if you want to know any more about me you can ask my uncle, Mr. Courtney Austin, 136 East River Street."

"Gracious!" Edna looked around at Janet. "Come here, Janet," she said. "Listen to what this young person says. She tells me that she is a niece of Mr. Courtney Austin, of River Street. What do you think of that?"

Janet looked dumbfounded. "Is she guying us, do you suppose?" she asked.

"No, I am not," replied the girl. "This has gone far enough. It was funny at first, and we were perfectly willing to carry on the joke, but it has ceased to be funny, and we'll thank you to let us go. I am a stranger in the city—"

"As a matter of fact," murmured Janet, "we are all strangers. I am afraid that isn't any argument."

The girl paid no attention to the interruption. "I am visiting at my uncle's," she said, "and this afternoon one of my friends and I went out for a walk, and we thought it would be fun to look in here and see what was going on; then when you proposed that we should do some of those things we thought it would be a good joke, but we are tired out now, and you've no right to keep us here any longer."

"The question of whether we have the right is still an open one," said Cordelia.

"You know you haven't the slightest right. It's all very well for you sophomores to haze your freshmen, and make them do as you choose, but you have no claim on us. It is an outrage, and if you don't let us go this minute, I shall tell my uncle, and he will be furious. He will report you to the faculty, and we shall see if something can't be done to put a stop to such doings."

"Whew!" cried Cordelia. "Little girl's getting mad. Shall we let them go, girls? We'll put it to vote. All in favor say, Aye." There was a chorus of ayes.

"All not in favor, No."

There followed an equally decided chorus of noes.

"We can never tell that way," said Cordelia; "we'll have to have you hold up your hands. Hands up, ayes. One, two, three," she counted the uplifted hands of those voting aye; then by making her count of the noes found that there was a tie. "Somebody will have to reconsider," she said. "How about you, Janet Ferguson?"

"They are tired, and I think they ought to be allowed to go," said Janet. "I can't take back my aye."

"And you, Teddy Waite?"

"I agree with Janet."

"So loyal? What have you to say, Lee Penrose? Will you change your vote?"

"Not I. I'm not to be corrupted. 'No,' I said, and 'no' I shall continue to say."

"Charity Shepherd? Oh, I know your Puritan conscience would not let you commit yourself. You didn't vote at all. Then I suppose I shall have to be umpire. I say we make them do one more stunt and then let them go."

"Yes, yes," went up a shout.

"Then, Miss Marian Austin—a pretty name by the way; I don't wonder that you selected it—we'll let you two off when you hang by your toes from that bar."

"Oh no, that's too hard," objected Janet. "They might fall and hurt themselves badly, Cordelia. I don't see why you want to insist upon their staying."

"Thank you," said Miss Austin. "I am glad we have one friend at court in our extremity, Miss Ferguson. Oh you needn't look surprised. I remember your names, and if I should have to complain to my uncle—"

"Dear me," interrupted Teddy hastily, "don't make them stay, Cordelia."

"I have said." Cordelia made the statement grandly. "We are not going to retreat from the stand we have taken; whatever 1904 is, she is not cowardly."

"Hear, hear," arose accompanied by a soft clapping of hands from the class.

"But," continued Cordelia, "I am willing to compromise by giving them something dead easy. Don't you believe you could skin the cat, Miss Austin?"

"No, that is too hard," protested Janet. "I don't call that dead easy."

After some parley, it was agreed that if each of the two girls would turn a somersault she might be excused. They did it with not very good grace, and then donned their street clothes.

"I don't like you college girls one bit," said Marian Austin just as she reached the door, "and I hope I'll never see one of you again. There are only two of you who have any sort of claim to being anything but wild hoodlums, and they are Janet Ferguson and Teddy What's-her-name. Come, Trix."

And they whirled out with magnificent disdain.

"My!" cried Cordelia. "Wasn't she in a temper? I wonder if they really were telling the truth when they said they were city girls. If they are, we made great big geese of ourselves, and I don't wonder they are mad, even if they did come in where they had no business. But I still hae me doots as to their not being freshmen. We'll have to find out."

"If that girl was pretending, when she said her name was Marian Austin, she's a very good actress, that's all I've got to say," remarked Janet.

"I don't see how we'll ever find out if she did give a wrong name," said Lee. "We can't make it a business of personally interviewing every girl in the freshman class, and of finding out what each of them looks like."

Janet and Teddy looked at each other. They thought they knew a way of discovering if Marian Austin were really a myth or not.

To the next frat meeting, Janet went early. It happened to be at Becky Burdett's, and Janet saw her chance.

"Have you seen anything of your friends, the Austins?" she asked almost immediately.

Becky began to laugh. "I saw Van a few evenings ago. What have you girls been up to?"

"Then there is a Marian Austin," said Janet eagerly.

"There certainly is, and a pretty dance you led her. Van told me the whole story, and wanted to know if I thought the two blind girls, as he always calls you and Ted, were in the crowd. I didn't give him any satisfaction, for I couldn't, though I suspected that you were among the leaders. He said his cousin and Trix Venable were furious, and that they told his father, who was for starting right off to lay the matter before the dean, whom he knows very well; but Van interfered and told him it wouldn't be worth while, that you girls were only in fun and didn't really hurt anybody, and that Marian and Trix were to blame for going where they had no business to go. So the old gentleman calmed down, and Van talked his cousin over into persuading Mr. Austin to let the matter drop. Marian said there were two girls she'd hate to see suffer for it, and Van told her if any suffered all would have to, so that won her consent to keep it quiet."

"Did she say who the two girls were?" asked Janet thoughtfully.

"I don't know," said Becky. "He didn't remember the names, if she did. Do you know who they were, Janet?"

"The two blind girls, I am disposed to think." Becky laughed.

"What wouldn't Van give to know that."

"You won't tell him," said Janet in alarm.

"Not I." She began smiling, however, till her smile grew into a laugh.

"You're going to do some sly trick, Becky Burdett," exclaimed Janet.

"No, really, I am not," she replied. "I shall simply let matters take their course. There come some of the girls: I will talk to you later."

But later there was no opportunity, and Janet returned from the meeting with only the information that she had hoped to gain, and with no new facts about her now half-forgotten hero.

She hastened to Cordelia's room, which was the meeting place of half a dozen kindred spirits who gathered there under any pretext. Cordelia was deep in the mysteries of panuche, but looked up with a welcoming smile.

"Come right in," she said. "It's most done, and you shall have some. Doesn't it seem thick enough to you, Lee?"

Lee regarded the bubbling mass critically. "Just a wee, wee bit more cooking, I think," she pronounced her opinion. "What's the news, Janet? Where have you been?"

"To a fraternity meeting," returned Janet, tossing aside her hat and making herself comfortable in a big chair. "Girls, there is a Marian Austin."

"Ouch!" cried Cordelia. "Janet, you shouldn't make such startling announcements at critical moments. I nearly burnt myself."

"Have you seen her? How did you find out? What did she say?" came from different parts of the room.

"I didn't see her, but Becky Burdett knows the Austins well, and she told me. It was a narrow escape, I tell you, for she gave the whole thing away to her uncle just as she said she would, and he was furious."

"He hasn't reported us! Oh, Janet!"

"No, she persuaded him not to, though he was on the point of it."

"If ever I meet that girl, I shall be the meekest thing you ever saw," said Cordelia, putting the extinguisher over the wick of her alcohol lamp.

"I shall not," said Janet. "I shall be nice and polite, and shall act as if it were a mutual understanding that we considered it all a huge joke."

"Oh, yes, you, for she was quite decent about you, though you were as bad as any of us. It was just the saving clause of your not voting to have them stay when they wanted to go."

"I didn't see the need of carrying the war into Africa," replied Janet. "They had had enough, and really were tired out."

"Suppose they were, don't we get all tired out; and yet we have to go and go and go, and grind and grind and grind," said Lee in an aggrieved tone. "They are not worthy of any more consideration than we, and see how we are treated by the faculty."

Janet laughed. "The faculty indeed. You mean see how we treat ourselves. I am inclined to think that if we concentrated our minds upon our studies, we wouldn't have such a terrible amount of grinding to do. It is the frivolity of the outside world that tires us."

"Oh, me, what a virtuous remark from Janet Ferguson," cried Lee. "Do they make you have seasons of self-examination at fraternity meetings? A silent hour, for example, when you are supposed to be thinking of your sins and your frailties, and instead you spend the time in thinking how you will have your new hat made?"

Janet smiled. "What nonsense, Lee. I am not such an idiot as to begin posing for a saint. I was only defending the absent. My, but that smells good, Cordelia. Is it hard enough yet to eat?"

Cordelia tested her plate of candy by slipping a paper knife under the edge. "No, not quite," she replied. "I'll set it outside, and it will be cold in a minute. I've been thinking we might send a formal vote of thanks to Miss Austin for her consideration to the class of nineteen hundred and four."

"Do," exclaimed Lee. "I think that would be great. Come over here, Grace Breitner, and help us with the resolution. The president of the class proposes that we send a vote of thanks to Miss Marian Austin. Won't that be a lark? I'll bet she'll take it all right, all right. Don't you think so, Janet?"

"I believe she will," said Janet. "Let's draw up the resolution and get the class to approve it to-morrow."

They set themselves to work, and after a short time produced the following:

"Resolved, That the class of nineteen hundred and four extend a vote of thanks to Miss Marian Austin and to Miss Trix Venable for their consideration in accepting in a proper spirit the attentions of the above class upon a recent occasion which need not be mentioned, and furthermore for their kind offices in turning aside the wrath of an irate uncle."

[Signed.] "CORDELIA LODGE

"LEE PENROSE

"JANET FERGUSON

"EDNA WAITE

"GRACE BREITNER."

"We'll get the signatures of all those who were present," said Lee, "and we'll send it as sure as anything. I believe she is the kind of girl who will appreciate it."

The others agreed with her, and then they all dispersed to their different rooms.