Part 1 (1/2)
Happy House.
by Jane D. Abbott.
CHAPTER I
THE LETTER
Through the stillness of a drowsy June day broke the intoning of the library bell, chiming the hour.
Three heads lifted quickly to listen. Three pairs of eyes met, the same thought flashed through three minds.
”Won't we miss that bell, though? I've seen grads when they've come back stand perfectly still and listen to it with their eyes all weepy looking. That's the way we'll feel by and by,” one of them said slowly.
”And the chimes used to make me dreadfully homesick! Don't those frosh days seem ages ago?”
The third girl slammed the lid of the trunk that occupied the centre of the disordered room. She crossed to the window.
Over the stretch of green between the dormitory and the campus many people were slowly walking. Their fluffy dresses, their gay parasols, the aimlessness of their wandering steps marked them as visitors. The girl in the window frowned as she watched them.
”I always hate it when the campus fills up with gawking, staring people! It ought to be kept--sacred--just for us!”
One of the three laughed merrily in answer.
”How selfish that sounds, Claire! Haven't all those people come to see one of us graduate? This is their day--ours is past.” She stopped short. ”Did you see Thelma King's sister at the cla.s.s-day exercises?
She's a _peach_! She's going to enter next fall. She's a leader in everything at the High where she goes. She'll make a good college girl; you could see the right spirit in her face. How I envy her!
It's dreadful when you think of new ones--coming--taking our places! I wish I was just beginning my Freshman year--I'd even be willing to endure Freshman math.”
The third of the group who had been sitting on, the floor staring out over the tree tops with the dreamy gravity of one who--as long ago as yesterday--graduated from the great University, suddenly interrupted.
”Dear girls, cease your whining! What do those pieces of sheepskin reposing somewhere in the mess on yonder bureau stand for? Remember what that man said yesterday--how we mustn't think this Commencement is the end of anything--it's just the beginning. Why, this new world that's been born out of the frightful war is full of work for our trained minds and hands! We mustn't look back for a minute--we must look ahead!” Thrilled by her own words she leveled a reproachful glance upon her two companions.
Claire sighed. ”I never could get the inspiration from things that you always seem to, Anne. I guess I'm not built right! I couldn't make myself listen to _half_ that man said. I can't think of anything right now but what a job it's going to be getting everything into that trunk.
Mother was heartless not to stay over and do it for me!”
”Never mind, Claire, we'll help you. Of course you and I can't see things in the big, grand way that Anne can because she's found herself and we haven't. But when our work _does_ come we'll do it! It may not be off in Siberia or China or Africa--like Anne's--but, wherever it is, I guess our Alma Mater won't be ashamed of us!” The girl's eyes softened with the pa.s.sionate tenderness of the new graduate for her University.
Back in the freshman days a curious chance had drawn these three together. Then, for four years, years of hopeful effort, aspirations and youthful problems, the currents of their young lives had intermingled closely; now each must go its way. The moment brought the pang that comes to youth at such a parting. Their bonds were something closer than friends.h.i.+p. Behind them were months of the sweetest intimacy that youth can know--ahead were the lives they must live apart out in a world that cared nothing for college ideals and inspirations, where each must find her ”work” and do it, so that ”her Alma Mater might be proud!”
Statistics, even in a university, would be dull if, now and then, Fate did not play a trick with them. Upon the roster of the cla.s.s of Nineteen-nineteen had been entered two names: ”Anne Leavitt, Los Angeles, California; Anne Leavitt, New York City.”
When one thinks that in the great world war there was an army of, approximately, seventy-five thousand Smiths alone, and a whole division of John Smiths, one need not marvel that two Anne Leavitts came that October day to the old University. Doubtless, in those first trying days, they pa.s.sed one another often and did not know, but a week later, when Professor Nevin in First Year French, read slowly from his little leather book: ”Miss Anne Leavitt,” two girls jumped to their feet and in astonishment, faced one another.
”_I_ am Anne Leavitt!” spoke the larger of the two.
”And _I_ am Anne Leavitt, too!” laughed the smaller.
A snicker ran around the room. Professor Nevin frowned and stared--first at his little worn book and then at the two offending young women. Of course he was powerless to undo what had been done years before! And as he scowled, across the cla.s.sroom one Anne Leavitt smiled at the other. When the hour ended the recitation they walked away arm in arm, laughing over the ridiculous situation.
At the Library steps they were joined by another girl from the French cla.s.s. She had run in her eagerness to overtake them.
”Are you _really_ both Anne Leavitts?” she asked breathlessly.