Beatrice Leigh at College Part 15

"Yes'm," I answered meekly.

"Then drop that pen and pay attention. Even the girls who are to belong to the second cla.s.s in manners know how to do that. Well, I thought that she hardly ever accepts an invitation, and she looks as she didn't expect anybody to like her, and she minds her own business and does exactly as she pleases generally. My next important thought was that sometimes she cuts me in the hall, and sometimes she doesn't, just as she happens to feel. That led to the philosophic reflection that politeness is a question of law."

"Ah, pardon me, Miss Abbott, but I remember from a story which was read by my teacher about forty years ago when I was in the fourth reader that

"'Politeness is to do or say The kindest thing in the kindest way.'"

"That's what I meant. The law of kindness--that's what politeness is.

Listen to the logic. Mary Winchester is lawless, hence she breaks the law of kindness, hence she has no manners, hence it will be fun to divide everybody here into various cla.s.ses according to their manners."

So that is the way our cla.s.ses began.

It was awfully, awfully interesting. Robbie Belle said she didn't want to; but Berta and Lila and I talked and talked and talked. We sat in the windows and talked instead of dancing between dinner and chapel. We talked after chapel, and on our way to cla.s.ses or to meals. And of course we talked while we were skating or walking or doing anything similar that did not demand intellectual application. Lila even talked about the cla.s.ses in her sleep. We discussed everybody who happened to attract our attention.

Finally we had sifted out all the candidates for the highest cla.s.s except three. One was the senior president, pink and white and slender and gentle and she never thumped when she walked or laughed with her mouth open or was careless about spots on her clothes or forgot the faces of new girls who had been introduced to her. The second was a professor who was shy and sweet and went off lecturing every week. The third was a teacher who looked like a piece of porcelain and always wore silk-lined skirts and never changed the shape of her sleeves year after year. Not one of the three ever hurt anybody's feelings.

Miss Anglin was obliged to go into the second cla.s.s because she had moods. No, I don't mean because she had them,--for sometimes you cannot help having moods, you know--but because she showed them. She let the moods influence her manner. Some mornings she would come down to breakfast as blue as my dyed brilliantine--(how I hated that frock!)--and would sit through the meal without opening her mouth except to put something into it; though on such occasions we noticed that she rarely put into it very much besides toast and hot water. On other days she made jokes and sparkled and laughed with her head bent down, and was so absolutely and utterly charming that the girls at the other tables wished they sat at ours, I can tell you. We three were exceedingly fond of her, but we agreed at last after arguing for seven days that true courtesy makes a person act cheerfully and considerately, no matter how she may feel inside.

There were about nine in that second cla.s.s, and fourteen in the third and twenty in the fourth, when we started in on Mary Winchester.

Lila and I were rus.h.i.+ng to get ready for the last skating carnival of the season. Some one knocked at the door. It was Mary, but she didn't turn the k.n.o.b when I called, "Come." She just waited outside and gave me the trouble of opening it myself. Then in her offish way she asked if we were through with her lexicon. After I had hunted it up for her, she happened to notice that Lila was wailing over the disappearance of her skates.

"I saw a pair of strange skates in my room," she said and walked away as indifferent as you please.

Now wouldn't any one think that was queer?

It made Lila cross, especially when she found that the skates had three new spots of rust on them. March is an irritable month, anyhow, you know.

Everybody is tired, and breakfast doesn't taste very good. She sputtered about the rust till we reached the lake where we found two big bonfires and three musicians to play dance music while we skated. Imagine how lovely with the flames leaping against the background of snowy banks and bare black trees! Berta and Lila and I crossed hands and skated around and around the lake with the crowd. When we stopped in the firelight, Lila looked unusually pretty with her rosy cheeks and her curls frosted by her breath. Berta's eyes were like stars. Of course Robbie Belle was beautiful, but she did not a.s.sociate much with us that evening. After one turn up and back again while we discussed Mary Winchester, she said she thought she would invite our little freshman roommate for the next number.

We kept on talking about Mary. Lila was insisting that she ought to be put in the tenth cla.s.s or worse, while Berta maintained that she wasn't quite so bad as that. I kept thinking up arguments for both sides.

Lila counted off her crimes, and she didn't speak so very low either.

"Mary Winchester doesn't deserve a place even in the tenth cla.s.s. Why, listen now. You admit that she borrows disgracefully and never returns things. At least, she helped herself to my skates. It is almost the same as stealing. She has no friends. She always goes off walking alone, and sits in the gallery by herself at lectures and concerts. Everybody says she is queer."

"Miss Anglin thinks girls in the ma.s.s are funny," I volunteered, "though maybe they are not any more so than human kind in the bulk. She says that we all imagine we admire originality, but when we see any one who is noticeably different from the rest, we avoid her. We call her queer and are afraid to be seen with her."

"Mary Winchester's independence is commendable," protested Berta. "I envy her strength of character. She ignores foolish conventions----"

"As for instance, the distinction between mine and thine," interrupted Lila, "you don't live next to her, and you don't know. Her disregard for the property rights of others indicates a fatal flaw----"

"Fatal flaw, fatal flaw!" chanted Berta mischievously, "isn't that a musical phrase! Say it fast now, and see if it tangles your tongue."

I was afraid Lila would feel wounded, so I remarked hastily that we agreed that Mary was not polite; the question was as to the degree of impoliteness.

"Even Robbie Belle acknowledges that she is not a lady," chimed in Berta; "she said it when Mary wanted to take that stray kitten to the biological laboratory. She declared it would be happier if dead."

"And it wasn't her kitten either," I contributed. "Robbie found it up a tree. It is necessary to weigh every little point in a scientific study like this."

"Don't you see, girls, that Mary Winchester does not come from good stock," began Lila, "of course she isn't a lady. Her att.i.tude toward the rights of others is certain proof that her family has a defective moral sense. Perhaps her brother----"

"Oh, let's follow out the logical deductions," cried Berta. "That course in logic is the most fascinating in the whole curriculum. See--if a girl lacks moral judgment, she either inherits or acquires the defect. If she inherits it, her father doubtless was dishonest. Maybe he speculated and embezzled or gambled or something. If she acquired it through environment, her brother must have suffered likewise as they were presumably brought up together. So perhaps Mary Winchester's brother was expelled from college for kleptomania."

"Then," said Lila triumphantly, "how can we possibly put her into even the lowest of our cla.s.ses in manners?"

"Hi, there!" I started to scream before the breath was knocked out of me by colliding with some girls who had been skating in front of us. One of them had caught her skate in a crack, and we were so intent on our conversation that we b.u.mped into them, and all tumbled in a heap. n.o.body was hurt. That is, n.o.body was hurt physically. We picked ourselves up and went on skating as before. It was not until days later that we discovered what had been hurt then. It was Mary Winchester's reputation. Those girls in front had overheard part of our remarks. And they thought that we were talking about real facts instead of just a.n.a.lyzing character.

It was exactly like a game of slander, only worse. The rumor that Mary Winchester's father was a gambler and that her brother had been expelled from college for stealing spread and grew like fire. You know, as I said before, she was a queer girl--so queer in countless small ways that she was conspicuous. Even freshmen who did not know her name had wondered about the tall, wild-looking girl who had a habit of tearing alone over the country roads as if trying to get away from herself. Naturally when such a report as this one of ours reached them, they adopted it as a satisfactory explanation. They also, so to speak, promulgated it.

The first we knew of the rumor was from Robbie Belle. It was the afternoon before the Easter vacation, and Lila and I were in Berta's room to help her pack her trunk. At least Lila held the nails while Berta mended the top tray and I did the heavy looking on. When Berta stopped hammering and put her thumb in her mouth, I remarked that n.o.body who squealed ouch! in company could belong to our highest cla.s.s in manners.

Lila's expression changed from the pained sympathy of friends.h.i.+p to the scientific zeal of character study. "Girls, have you noticed Mary Winchester lately? It is the strangest thing! She seems more alone and alien than ever. The girls avoid her as if she had the plague. In the library and the corridor to-day it was as plain as could be. They stop talking when she comes around. They watch her all the time though they try not to let her know it. Of course, she couldn't help feeling it. They point her out to each other, and raise their brows and whisper after she has pa.s.sed. She moves on with her head up and her mouth set tight. Her manners are worse than ever."

"When I met her this morning, she looked right through me and didn't see anything there, I reckon," said I, "and, oh, Lila, you were mistaken about her borrowing your skates without leave. It was Martha who had them that morning. In rus.h.i.+ng to cla.s.s she got mixed up and threw them in at the wrong door, that's all. Our example is corrupting the infant."

Berta forgot her aching thumb. "Something is wrong. Mary's eyes are those of a hunted creature. Driven into a corner. Everybody against her. I wonder----"

Robbie Belle walked slowly into the room, her clothes dripping with water.

"Mary Winchester fell into the lake," she said, "you did it."

In the silence I heard Berta draw a long sigh. Then she dropped her hammer.

"She broke through the ice," added Robbie Belle.

"But the ice is rotten. How did she get on it?" asked my voice.

"She walked," answered Robbie Belle, "I saw her." Then she crossed over to Berta, put both arms around her neck, hid her face against her shoulder, and began to shake all over. "I helped pull her out, and she fought me--she fought----"

At that moment little Martha, our freshman roommate, came running in.

"That queer girl jumped into the lake. I saw them carrying her to the infirmary. She did it because everybody knows her father is in the penitentiary. They heard about it at the skating carnival. Her brother is an outlaw too----"

Robbie Belle lifted her head. "She hasn't any brother, but it is true about her father. The doctor knows. She wonders how the story got out. It was a secret. Mary changed her name. She--she fought me."

I heard Berta sigh again. It sounded loud. Lila sat staring straight in front of her with such a horrified expression on her white face that I shut my eyes quick.

When I opened them again, Miss Anglin stood in the doorway. I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life. But we did not tell her then about our cla.s.ses in manners. We waited till one day in June when she asked us how we had managed to win Mary out of her sh.e.l.l.

As I look back now I cannot possibly understand how we succeeded. It was the most discouraging, hopeless, hardest work I ever stuck to. Over and over again Berta and I would have given up if it had not been for Lila.

She said that she dared not fail. Of course Robbie Belle helped a lot in her steady, beautiful way. Martha did her best too, partly because she was so sorry about her share in the affair of the skates. In fact all the girls were perfectly lovely to Mary after the doctor had persuaded her not to throw everything up and run away to hide. By and by she realized that it was no use to refuse to be friends.

Indeed she is a dear girl when you get to know her real self. Her unfortunate manner--it was unfortunate, you know--had been a sort of armor to s.h.i.+eld her sore pride. She had been afraid of letting anybody have a chance to snub her. That was the reason why she had seemed so offish and suspicious and indifferent and lawless and queer.

Do you know, I never heard Robbie Belle say a sharp thing except once.

She said it that day when we were telling Miss Anglin about the cla.s.ses.

It was: "Whenever I want to say something mean about anybody, I think I shall call it a scientific a.n.a.lysis of character."