Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus Part 11

"Will you tell Patience all the news while I run upstairs to see Miss Reynolds?"

"I will," nodded Emma, "and tell it truthfully and without embellishments. I am not a yellow journal. I am a reliable purveyor of facts and nothing but facts." She pounded on the library table with her clenched fist to emphasize her words.

"I believe you," a.s.sured Patience with mock solemnity, "and salute you as a disciple of truth."

Leaving her friends to exchange confidences, Grace ran lightly up the stairs and knocked on Mary Reynolds' door. Receiving no answer, she knocked again.

"She must be asleep," thought Grace. Then she turned the k.n.o.b and entered the room. Surely enough the tired stranger lay on her couch bed, tranquil and slumber-wrapped. Sleep had smoothed away the lines of care and, in repose, her face looked soft and childish.

"Miss Reynolds."

The girl sat up with a little, startled cry. "Oh," she breathed, in relief. "I was so frightened. I forgot where I was."

"Miss Dean, a friend of ours and I are going to the station to meet another friend. We wish you to go with us," invited Grace. "That is, unless you prefer to stay here. You will be all alone in the house."

An expression of alarm showed itself in the girl's eyes. "I'd rather go with you, if you are sure I won't be in the way."

"Not in the least. We shall start in a few moments." With a cheerful smile that elicited a faint, answering one from the other girl, Grace left the room. She was back in an instant with something blue thrown over her arm. "Here is a little coat I took out of my trunk especially for you. It is cool enough for a coat to-night. This won't be too long for you. It's only three-quarter length on me."

"I--I--" stammered Mary, but Grace was gone.

Mary could not help thrilling a little with pure pleasure at sight of herself in the pretty blue serge coat. "I look just like them," she murmured. "I'm so glad I came. I won't go back either, and no one shall make me." She smoothed and patted her curly hair, then putting on her shabby hat went slowly down stairs.

Her momentary awe of Patience vanished when she discovered that, in spite of her dignified bearing, this tall, fair young woman was as full of fun as the droll Emma Dean.

The quartette started for the station with Patience and Emma in the lead. Grace walked with Mary, talking brightly of Overton to her absorbed listener. She had just begun to tell Mary of Kathleen West, her clever work as a newspaper woman and of how her play had won the honor pin, when they arrived at the station.

"Wait here while I see if the train is on time," directed Grace.

The three young women strolled slowly along the platform, pausing at one end of it.

"The train's on time," called Grace as she came out of the station and approached them. "It's due in four minutes. Listen! Didn't you hear it whistle?"

A minute later it was visible around the bend and bearing down on the station with a great puffing and whistling.

"I see her," announced Emma. "She's getting off at the upper end of the train."

An alert little figure in a gray coat suit came swinging down the platform, a suit case in each hand, her keen, dark eyes scanning every face. Suddenly she caught sight of her friends. Dropping her luggage she ran forward, both hands extended. Grace caught them in hers. The two embraced, then Grace pa.s.sed Kathleen on to Patience.

"And to think that Emma Dean is to be one of us!" exclaimed Kathleen.

"Emma, the one sure and certain cure for the blues. I didn't half appreciate you last year." A swift flush rose to her cheeks. "I didn't appreciate any one. I missed knowing Overton's best, but I'm so thankful that part of that best has come back again, so that I can really show how much I care," she finished, her eyes very bright.

The little company lingered on the platform, for there was so much to be said that they were loath to move on. So absorbed were they in their own affairs they did not observe that a tall, raw-boned, roughly dressed man, with a gaunt, disagreeable face had been stealthily edging nearer the group until within a few feet of them. All at once a long bony hand was thrust into their midst. The hand landed on the shoulder of Mary Reynolds, swinging her almost off her feet. She did not scream, but her face grew white and her eyes horror-stricken. Then she wrenched desperately to free herself from the cruel clutch, gasping, "Let--me--alone. I--won't--go back--with--you."

"Oh, ye won't, won't ye," growled the hateful intruder. "We'll see if ye won't. Get a move on." He half dragged, half shoved the now sobbing Mary along the platform.

For an instant no one of the astonished girls moved or protested. Then a small, lithe figure flung itself in front of the brutal fellow, barring his progress. "Take your hands off that girl," commanded a tense, authoritative voice.

As if in recognition of its authority the man's cruel hold on Mary's slender shoulder relaxed. Kathleen West's black eyes were blazing. With a swift forward movement she threw her arm protectingly across Mary's shoulder and drew her close. "Now," she said, her whole body tense with suppressed anger, "touch her if you dare."

"Ye better git out and mind yer own business or ye'll wish ye had,"

threatened the man, his first feeling of fear vanis.h.i.+ng. "Yer nothin'

but a lot o' silly girls. You git along," he ordered, fixing his scowling eyes on Mary.

"This little girl is going to stay with us. It is you that had better move on. If you aren't out of sight within the next three minutes I'll have you arrested for annoying us, and it won't be wise for you to come back again either."

Kathleen's face, as she stood calmly eyeing her disagreeable adversary, was like a study in stone. She looked as inexorable and relentless as Fate itself, and the bully understood dimly that here was a force with which he could not reckon.

"I'm a goin'," he mumbled sullenly, "but I'm a goin' to git the law on _her_," he pointed to Mary, "and make her git back where she belongs."

By this time several persons had hurried to the scene of the encounter.

Kathleen's sole reply to the threat was a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders. "Come on, girls," she said so nonchalantly that the curious ones dropped disappointedly away. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time the uncouth stranger had appeared until he slunk off.

Emma, Grace and Patience found their voices almost simultaneously.

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Emma.

"I was literally amazed to dumbness," declared Patience.

"So was I for a minute, but Kathleen was so completely sure of herself that I knew it was better to be silent. She disposed of that obstreperous individual most summarily. Who is he, Miss Reynolds?" Grace turned grave eyes upon Mary. "We shall have to know all about him if we are to help you."

They were now walking slowly up the street.

"He's--my--uncle," faltered the girl. "Mother died last summer just after I finished high school, and I had no place to go. He wanted me to go out in the country and live on his farm. He said I could go to college, but after I went to the farm he and his wife made me do all the work, and laughed when I spoke of going to college. A nice girl I knew had told me about Overton and Harlowe House. She was in the town of Overton last commencement and heard about it. I told them I would go in spite of them, so they locked me in my room, but I climbed out the window and into a big tree, one of its branches was quite near the window, and then slid to the ground."

"How old are you, Miss Reynolds?" asked Kathleen West with apparent irrelevance.

"I was eighteen last week."

"Then you needn't worry about your uncle. You are of age and can do as you please."

"Do you mean that he can't make me leave here?" Mary Reynolds' eyes were wide with surprise and sudden hope.

"Of course he can't," rea.s.sured Kathleen. "Girls, I'm going to adopt Mary Reynolds as my especial charge and help her fight her battles in the Land of College. Mary, will you let me adopt you?"

Mary regarded Kathleen with shy admiration. She thought her the most wonderful person she had ever known. She was deeply grateful to Grace and her two friends for their kindness, but Kathleen's swift, efficient action on her behalf had completely won her heart. "I'd be the happiest girl in the world," she said solemnly.

The next morning Grace went frankly to Miss Wilder with the tragic story of Mary's struggle to obtain an education and the attempt her miserly uncle had made to force her to return to the farm.

"We shall be obliged to look into the matter," declared the dean. "Send Miss Reynolds to me as soon as possible. I must be very sure that she is all she represents herself to be. I should not care to have a repet.i.tion of the station scene later, on the campus, for instance. It would hardly add to the dignity of Overton."

"I'll bring her to your office to-morrow morning," said Grace, "then you can form your own opinion of her."

Mary Reynolds' wistful face was the last touch needed to completely enlist Miss Wilder's sympathy in her behalf. On the strength of the straightforward story which she repeated to the dean, she was allowed to proceed with her examinations. Meantime Miss Wilder wrote to the authorities of the little town near which Mary's uncle's farm was situated. They conducted a prompt investigation and by the time the hitherto friendless girl had pa.s.sed triumphantly through the ordeal of examinations the faintest trace of objection to her becoming a student at Overton had been removed.

CHAPTER X