Part 4 (1/2)
”Oh, you know--hazing, the men would call it; only of course we'll have nice little amusing stunts that couldn't frighten a fly. Is anything doing to-night?”
”In the house, you mean?” asked Lucile. ”Not a thing. But if you want our room----”
”Of course we do,” interposed Madeline calmly. ”It's the only decent-sized one in the house. Go and straighten it up, and let this be a lesson to you to keep it in order hereafter. Polly, you invite the freshmen for nine o'clock. I'll get some more soph.o.m.ores and seniors, and some costumes. Come back here to dress in half an hour.”
”Goodness,” said the stately Lucile, slipping out of her nest of pillows. ”How you do rush things through, Madeline.”
Madeline smiled reminiscently. ”I suppose I do,” she admitted. ”Ever since I can remember, I've looked upon life as a big impromptu stunt. I got ready for a year abroad once in half an hour, and I gave the American amba.s.sador to Italy what he said was the nicest party he'd ever been to on three hours' notice, one night when mother was ill and father went off sketching and forgot to come in until it was time to dress. Oh, it's just practice,” said Madeline easily,--”practice and being of a naturally hopeful disposition. Run along now.”
”I thought I'd better not tell them,” Madeline confided to the genius of her room, when the soph.o.m.ores were safely out of earshot, ”that I haven't the faintest notion what to do with those freshmen after we get them there. Being experienced, I know that something will turn up; but they, being only soph.o.m.ores, might worry. Now what the mischief”--Madeline pulled out drawer after drawer of her chiffonier--”can I have done with those masks?”
The masks turned up, after the Belden House ”Merry Hearts” had searched wildly through all their possessions for them, over at the Westcott in Babbie Hildreth's chafing dish, where she had piled them neatly for safe-keeping the June before.
”Madeline said for you each to bring a sheet,” explained Helen Adams, who had been deputed to summon the B's and Katherine. ”They're to dress up in, I guess. She said we couldn't lend you the other ones of ours, because they might get dirty trailing around the floors, and we must have at least one apiece left for our beds.”
The B's joined rapturously in the preparations for Madeline's mysterious party. Katherine could not be found, and Rachel and Eleanor were both engaged for the evening; but that was no matter, Madeline said. It ought to be mostly a Belden House affair, but a few outsiders would help mystify the freshmen.
Promptly at quarter to nine Polly, Lucile, and the rest of the Belden House contingent arrived, each bringing her sheet with her, and presently Madeline's room swarmed with hooded, ghostly figures.
”Is that you, Polly?” whispered Lucile to somebody standing near her.
”No, it's not,” squeaked the figure, from behind its little black mask.
”Why, we shan't even know each other, after we get mixed up a little,”
giggled somebody else, as the procession lined up for a hasty dash through the halls.
”Now, don't forget that you've all got to help think up things for them to do,” warned Madeline, ”especially you soph.o.m.ores.”
”And don't forget to remember the things for grinds,” added Polly Eastman lucidly. ”That's what the party is for.”
”If the freshmen find out that you had to get us to help you, you'll never hear the last of it,” jeered Babe.
”Now Babe, we're their natural allies,” protested Babbie. ”Of course we always help them.”
”s.h.!.+” called a scout, sticking her head into the room. ”Coast's clear.
Make a rush for it.”
The last ghost had just gotten safely into the room, when two freshmen, timid but much flattered by Polly's cordial invitation, knocked on the door.
”Come in,” called Polly in her natural voice, and once unsuspectingly inside, they were pounced upon by the army of ghosts, and escorted to seats as far as possible from the door. The other guests luckily arrived in a body headed by Georgia Ames, who, having come into the house only the day before, was already an important personage in the eyes of her cla.s.smates. What girl wouldn't be who called Betty Wales by her first name, and wasn't one bit afraid to ”talk back” to the clever Miss Ayres?
Georgia's att.i.tude of amused tolerance therefore set the tone for the freshmen's behavior. ”Don't you see that it's some soph.o.m.ore joke?” she demanded. ”Might as well let the poor creatures get as much fun out of us as they can, and then perhaps they'll give us something good to eat by and by.”
”We'll give you something right away,” squeaked a ghost. ”Georgia Ames and Miss Ashton, stand forth. Now kneel down, shut your eyes and open your mouths.”
”Don't do it. It will be some horrid, peppery mess,” advised a sour-tempered freshman named b.u.t.ts.
But Georgia and her companion stood bravely forth, to be rewarded by two delicious mouthfuls of Madeline's French chocolate. After this pleasant surprise, the freshmen, all but Miss b.u.t.ts and one or two more, grew more cheerful and began to enter into the spirit of the occasion.
”Josephine Boyd, you are elected to scramble like an egg,” announced a tall ghost.