Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman Part 23

Breathlessly then they read the alluringly artistic letters, and made out with difficulty:

Auction!

Big auction.

Everybody come.

Beautiful clothes, evening dresses, lingerie, furs, everything for the wardrobe of the college girl to be auctioned off positively second-hand. Money must be paid on the spot.

---- _The Weldon House Girls._

"That's Gloria's house," said Peggy.

"Yes," said Katherine, "and all of those girls have so many clothes they don't know what to do with them. I think it is an awfully good idea to sell some of them this way."

"I've never been to one of those auctions before. Usually it's just kept in the house. Each girl sells what she doesn't want, and any other girl in the same house who has seen and envied that particular garment can buy it. Donna Anderson got some lovely evening slippers that way in her house for fifteen cents, and when they were cleaned they were just as good as new."

"I can think of lots of Gloria's things I'd like."

"Yes, especially that Belgian blue velvet suit the girls were talking about."

Both girls laughed at the idea of Gloria selling her new things.

"Don't you worry about those girls," said Katherine finally, "they'll just auction rags and tatters and get good prices for them, too."

"Have you got some spare money to go with?"

"A little-about seven dollars. At the rate some of those sales are made, I ought to be able to get quite a complete outfit for that."

"And I've a little. I haven't counted just how much. But of course we can get some more from the bank."

When they trailed into Ambler House for luncheon they found the greatest interest and excitement reigning.

The auction was in the air, and n.o.body could think of anything else.

"Just little tiny no-account auctions,-why, some house is having one every day, but who ever heard of a wholesale kind like this?" cried Doris. "I certainly will be there."

Since the sign, for all its artistic printing, had neglected to say what day the auction would be held, Ambler House sent a deputation over to Weldon to find out.

Weldon House sent back word, "Sat.u.r.day afternoon, of _course_," so that part of it was settled, and approved by everybody.

Peggy and Katherine went in no small state of excitement. It was a new kind of amus.e.m.e.nt so far as they were concerned.

The freshmen from Ambler House were almost the only members of the first cla.s.s to attend.

The freshmen in other campus houses were not so precocious as this singularly self-confident crowd, and did not feel like rus.h.i.+ng in where something was going on that was beyond their experience.

As soon as the Amblerites stepped inside of Weldon House, they noticed a conspicuous poster with a hand inked on it pointing, and the single word, "Upstairs."

The matron of Weldon House was standing before the sign with a curious expression puckering her lips, when the gay little group swept by.

Once upstairs, there was another poster, a more helpful one, this time, "Go to Room 27."

The upper hall was full of other anxious buyers plodding their way in the direction indicated by the guide-post. Room 27 belonged to a most gracious Junior, Zelda Darmeer.

It was characteristic of Zelda that her walls were decorated with the mottoes, "No studying aloud," and "Never let your studies interfere with your regular college course."

The auction was already in progress when Peggy, Katherine and their companions stepped inside.

It was being conducted on the most informal lines. Whenever a girl had anything to auction, she acted as her own auctioneer, and when the others thought she had taken enough time, one of them serenely set up in compet.i.tion.

The chairs were piled with soft blue chiffons, dainty white under-garments, and plumed hats and mangey furs.

"Put this up, somebody. Who belongs to this? Put this up. I want to bid on it!" One of the guests was rudely waving a silver-spangled scarf that had slipped from a chair nearby and fallen at her feet.

"Yes, in a minute," came a business-like voice, "that's mine. Only been worn three years, and has got over two hundred perfectly good spangles left on it. Only eight hundred came off."

Peggy and the others joined the guests already there, sitting quietly down on the floor in their midst. For floors are vastly more used at college than anywhere else except, perhaps, in the nurseries. Few people realize the solid comfort there is in floors. They are not simply objects lying flatly and dispiritedly beneath our feet to be trodden upon, but they make the most delightful divans and seats in the world, and possess a superior seating capacity.

At least that was the way the Hampton girls found it, and during vacation time they often outraged a parent or relative by proceeding to sit down and be comfortable, if it chanced that every real chair was taken.

That the goods to be sold should repose in the chairs, and the customers should sit on the floor, seemed highly natural to Peggy and Katherine, and a very satisfactory economy of s.p.a.ce all round.

"Now this," Zelda was standing on the wabbly heap of cus.h.i.+ons that const.i.tuted the platform, "_this_ is my well-known blue chiffon dress.

Everybody knows and can testify to its wearing qualities. This dress has appeared at every dance and reception since the opening of the term. It has shown up regularly about four times a week, and has been universally admired.

"Now this dress"-she held it up conscientiously so that the light shone through it and it was seen to be more or less in shreds in certain places, but still presenting a pleasing ensemble, nevertheless.

"There are the marks of honorable service about this dress. It has lots of good times to remember. I was never unhappy in it once, and that's a boast that any gown might be proud of. Now, girls, I got this in Boston just before I came to college at the beginning of this year, and I went to Hollander's for it and I paid eighty dollars. I'm tired of the dress now, but there are at least five good more wears out of it. It always _looks_ dear and _sweet_ once it gets on. The price of this dress is four dollars," she wound up.

There were two ways of auctioning. According to them, you either set your own price and the bidders' contest simply went on to see which would be the first, or you offered the object after the approved auction custom and the bidders ran up the price as high as it would go.

Zelda had a conscience. Had she not held the gown before the light in that frank fas.h.i.+on, the beauty of the frayed garment might have turned some freshman's head to the extent of fifteen dollars or more, and it had served its purpose for Zelda-she wanted a few dollars spending money, and getting rid of her old things was a quick method of obtaining it.

When the price of the blue chiffon was named, Lilian Moore nearly fell over on the floor. She had been straining forward across Katherine Foster's knee, her eyes covetous and hungry.

She had not come expecting to buy anything. She had merely "been dragged along," as the girls said, and she had hoped to find enough pleasure in watching the others purchase the wonderful second-hands.

But that pleasure was gone now. Suddenly, as she realized that this wonderful, s.h.i.+mmering blue b.u.t.terfly of a dress was within her reach, she burned with a sudden fire to have it.

For Lilian, who, under the Ambler girls' teaching, had come to get together a fairly good school-day wardrobe at small cost, had never yet possessed a real evening dress.

She had gone to party after party, reception after reception and dance after dance, always meekly and shamefacedly arrayed in the white simplicity that had been her graduation dress at high school the spring before. Now, staring her in the face with soft blue intensity, was Opportunity, and she meant to seize upon it.

"Me," she cried out, like a child in her eagerness. "I want it, Miss Darmeer. _Here's_ the four dollars!"

Her spending money for weeks was poured extravagantly into Zelda's hand, and the wonderful gown was thrown lightly over her trembling arm.