Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

CHAPTER VII
FAME IS NOT ALWAYS AN ASSET

Just why the teacher of mathematics had taken Ruth Fielding into her confidence upon this rather curious event, it would be hard to say. Teachers are human like other people, and perhaps sometimes prone to gossip.

However, Ruth felt that it was a confidence, and she did not mention the matter of the missing examination papers to her chum or to Jennie Stone. The other Briarwood girls were the only members of the freshman class Ruth was likely to be intimate with for some days.

Friendships are not made so quickly at college as at smaller schools. There were so many girls that it took some time for the trio to adjust themselves and to become acquainted with their mates.

In the morning they went again to the registrar's office, and there they met Miss Dexter, who was appointed to escort them about, show them the college offices, the bookstore, and introduce them to such of the instructors as came in the path of the new girls.

Of course, their tuition fees – one hundred and seventy-five dollars each – for the year had been already paid. Their board would be nine dollars weekly, and all books, stationery, gymnastic suits and supplies, as well as medical and hospital fees (if they chanced to be ill) would be extra.

There were only a few simple rules of behavior to note. If a girl is not well trained in ladylike demeanor before arriving at the college age she is, of course, hopeless. The faculty have other things to do besides watching the manners as well as the mental attributes, of the students.

Ruth and her friends learned that they were not to leave the college grounds before six in the morning.

"And who'd want to?" demanded Heavy. "That's the best time to sleep."

However, the fleshy girl soon learned that if she was to have a reasonable time for breakfast she must be up betimes. The meal was served from seven to a quarter to eight. Chapel was at eight-thirty, but not compulsory. Recitations began at nine and lunch was at twelve.

Recitations and lectures (these latter did not interest our freshmen, for they had no lectures the first year) ended at three-thirty, when, all the girls were supposed to take gymnastics of some kind. Otherwise, their time was their own until dinner at six o'clock.

The girls had the time free from seven till seven-thirty. The following two hours were those devoted to quiet study (or should be) in their own rooms, or in the reference department of the library. At ten all were supposed to retire.

The students might leave the grounds at any time during the day, but never in the evening without a chaperon. These rules and requirements seemed easy enough to the trio from Briarwood Hall, used as they were to the far stricter oversight of the teachers in the preparatory institution.

More girls appeared at Ardmore that day, and the one following would see the opening of the semester and, as Jennie Stone said, "the buckling down to real work." A notice was posted on the bulletin boards already commanding all freshmen to meet at Hoskin Hall after dinner that evening, signed by the president of the sophomore class.

"What's she got to do with us?" Helen demanded, with a sniff.

"Aren't we allowed to run our own class affairs here?" Heavy asked.

"I fancy not," Ruth rejoined. "Miss Dexter told me that the sophs and freshies were usually lined up against the two older classes. The sophs need us, and we need them."

"I have an idea," said Heavy, with a warning shake of her head, "that some of the sophs don't care so much for us."

The trio were returning from the college hall as they chatted. Helen suddenly exclaimed:

"Girls! did you ever see so many tam-o'-shanters in your little lives? And such a wealth of colors?"

It was true that every girl in sight (and there were "just hundreds!" to quote Heavy again), unless she were bareheaded, wore a tam-o'-shanter.

"The most popular thing in head covering at Ardmore this year, that is sure," said Ruth.

"Oh! will you look at the one that Frayne girl is wearing?" Helen gasped.

"Goodness!" said Heavy. "Looks like an Italian sunset."

"Or a badly scrambled egg," put in Helen. "There! I believe that girl would look a fright whatever she put on."

"She can't help her taste, poor girl," Ruth said.

"My!" sighed Heavy. "I like to hear you talk, Ruth. You're as full of excuses for everybody criticised as a chestnut is of meat," and she nibbled one of the nuts in question as she spoke. Then:

"Wow! Oh, the nasty thing!"

Helen laughed uproariously. "Something besides meat in that chestnut, Heavy. Did it squirm much?"

"Don't ask me," said the fleshy girl, gloomily. "Of such is life! 'I never owned a gay gazelle – '"

"Cut it out. You never owned a gazelle of any kind," said Helen. "You know you never did."

It was just here that the trio came upon a group of girls of whom Edith Phelps was evidently the leader. It was opposite the gymnasium, under the wide-spreading oaks that gave shade to that quarter of the campus. The Briarwood girls had been about to enter the gymnasium building to look around.

Edith and her friends were mostly in gymnasium costumes. They had been tossing the medicine ball; but it was plain that they had gathered here near the path the three freshmen friends followed, for a purpose.

"Oh, here comes the leading lady!" cried Edith Phelps, in a high and affected voice. "Get set! Camera!"

The girls, or most of them, struck most ridiculous attitudes at Edie's word, while an oblong, black box suddenly appeared, affixed upon a tripod, and May MacGreggor, who was out for fun as much as any of the sophomores, began to turn a tiny crank on one side of the box.

"Hi! what are you trying to do – you fat person there?" demanded Edie, excitedly, imitating a movie director, and waving back the amazed and somewhat angry Jennie Stone. "Want to crab the film?"

"Oh, the mean things!" gasped Helen, growing as red as though the joke were aimed directly at herself.

"Cracky!" murmured the fleshy girl, who couldn't help seeing the ridiculous side of it. "Isn't that funny?"

At the moment, too, a thin little tune began to wander from the black box, none other than "The Wearing of the Green." Inside the box was one of those little, old-fashioned Swiss music boxes, and May was industriously turning the crank.

"Register fear, Miss Fielding!" shouted Edith, energetically. "Fear, I say! Don't you realize that you are about to be flung over a cliff and that a mad bull is waiting bel-o-o-w to catch you on his horns? Close up of the bull, please!"

Ruth had been first surprised, then not a little displeased; but she knew instinctively if she showed that this buffoonry offended and troubled her it would only be repeated again and again.

Much better able than her chum, Helen Cameron, to control her features, she began now to smile broadly.

"Girls!" she said aloud to her two friends, "it must be that that girl knows Mr. Grimes personally or has seen him at work. You remember Mr. Grimes, the Alectrion director who filmed our play at Briarwood?"

"And was so nasty to Hazel Gray? I should say!" exclaimed Jennie, instantly falling in with Ruth's attempt to pass the incident off as a joke.

"I think she's nasty-mean," muttered Helen, her black eyes snapping.

"If you played that tune while making a film for me, Miss MacGreggor, I should want to jig," Heavy cried, and started to do a few ridiculous steps in front of the black box.

Ruth continued to smile, too, saying to Edith Phelps: "You might have warned us of this. I'd have liked to primp a little before posing for the camera."

The other girls laughed. It did not take much to make them laugh, and it is possible that they laughed as much at Edie as with her. But as the trio of freshmen went on toward Dare Hall, Ruth shook her head doubtfully.

"What's the matter, Ruthie?" asked Helen, squeezing her arm. "The mean things!"

"I wonder," murmured Ruth.

"You wonder what?" demanded Helen.

Ruth sighed. "I guess fame isn't always an asset," she said.

CHAPTER VIII
THE STONE FACE

Ruth knew better than to show anger over any such silly joke. If she was to be made the laughing stock of her class by the sophomores, she might as well face it and bear the cross good-naturedly.

Ruth was as sensitive as any refined girl. It hurt her to be ridiculed. But she had not spent years at boarding school without learning that the best way – indeed, the only way – to bear successfully such indignity is to ignore it. That is, to ignore the fun poked at one as far as possible. To bear the jokes with a smile. So she would not allow her friends to comment much upon this scene before the gymnasium building.

She had never given herself airs because of her success in writing scenarios. Another girl might have done so. But Ruth was naturally modest, and had never really ceased to be surprised at her own success.

The new scenario she was at work upon, the scenes of which were laid at the Red Mill, was born of an idea she had evolved when her attention had first been turned to motion-picture writing.

Mr. Hammond, her kind friend and the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation, had advised her to postpone the use of this idea until she had tried her apprentice hand on other and simpler scenarios. The time seemed ripe now, however, for the writing of "Crossed Wires," and he had encouraged her to go ahead.

All the visible effect Edith Phelps' joke had upon Ruth was to send her to the unfinished scenario. After returning from the college offices on this occasion she worked on her play until lunch time.

"There's too much new to see and to do for you to pore over letter writing, Ruth," Helen declared, misunderstanding her friend's occupation. "We want to see Ardmore. We want to go out on the lake if we can get a boat. We've got to see the gym and the library. And to-night we must turn up at this meeting, it seems, and see what Miss Dunstan, the soph president, has to say to us freshies."

"Oh, I want to go out on the lake!" cried Ruth, agreeing. "And I want to explore that island."

"What island?" demanded Jennie, coming into the chums' study.

"Bliss Island."

"'Tisn't part of the college grounds," said the fleshy girl.

"Don't care. Want to see it," declared Ruth. "I hope we can get a boat. I didn't see many in use this morning."

"Some of the girls own their own. Especially canoes," said Jennie Stone. "But it's the thing to make the 'eight.' Let me tell you, us Ardmores are supposed to be some rowists! Our first eight beat the Gillings College first eight last June."

"We'll all try for the eight then," Helen said.

"And you, Jennie?" asked Ruth, mildly.

"Oh, me!"

"String beans for yours, Heavy," Helen cried, clapping her hands. "You'll have to diet on them until you have reduced to little more than a string yourself if you expect to make the eight."

"Bet I could do it," grumbled Heavy.

"A bet's a bet!" cried Helen. "I take you."

"Don't be rude, girls," advised Ruth. "You sound like regular, sure-enough gamblers. And, anyway, Heavy will never be able to make the eight. She might as well pay her wager now."

"Oh! oh! oh!" laughed Helen. "A palpable hit!"

"You just see!" said Heavy, firmly. "I'll show you."

"My dear," Ruth said, "if you show us a sylph-like form in time to make the freshman eight – "

"It will be the eighth wonder of the world," finished Helen.

Jennie tossed her head. "I don't know about the sylph-like form, but at least I mean to possess a slender figure when I have followed Miss Cullam's advice on diet. You'll see!"

"Poor Heavy!" groaned Helen. "She is letting herself in for a most awful time, and no mistake."

After luncheon the three girls set forth to explore the place.

"If I keep this up I'll need nothing else to get me thin. We have tramped miles," the fleshy girl announced at length. "Oh! my poor, poor feet!"

"Wear sensible shoes, then," said Helen, who was the very last person to follow her own advice on this point.

"Easy enough to say," groaned Jennie. "There ain't any such an animal! You know that in this day and generation shoe makers have ceased to make sensible shoes. I look at 'em in the shop windows," pursued the aching girl, "and I wonder what sort of foot the human pedal extremity will become in a generation or two. Those pointed toes!

"Why," declared the suddenly warmed up Jennie Stone, "they tell us about a two-toed sloth living in Central and South America. Believe me! the present-day shoemaker seems to have secured a last to fit a one-toed sloth."

"I don't know about the number of their toes," Ruth said, laughing; "but many of those who wear the fancy shoes are sloths, all right."

They had looked over the library before this, and walked down past Hoskin and Hemmingway Halls on the west side of the campus, and so reached the lake. There were some girls at the boathouse, and a few craft were out. It was possible for the three friends to get a boat and Ruth and Helen rowed, with Heavy lazily reclining in the stern.

"Beginning that strenuous life that is to reduce your weight, Heavy?" questioned Helen.

"I am practising deep breathing," Jennie said. "They say that helps a lot."

They headed the light skiff directly for Bliss Island. It was not more than a mile off shore, and was a beautiful place. At the landing they saw several girls whom they knew were sophomores, for among them was May MacGreggor.

"Here are some more of Cook's Trippers," said the Scotch girl, gaily. "Seeing the sights, mes infantes?"

"Trying to," Jennie announced. "But you're really not so bad looking, Miss MacGreggor. I wouldn't call you a 'sight.'"

"Now, that will be all of that, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the sophomore, but her brown eyes danced as the other girls laughed. "I believe you three girls are Briarwoods, are you not?"

"Yes," Helen said.

"I can believe it," said May. "I have felt the briers. Now, let us call a truce."

"With all my heart, Miss MacGreggor," Ruth said quickly.

"You're a good little thing!" returned the Scotch girl. "I know your heart is big enough. And we sophs really shouldn't nag you freshies, you know, for we must pull together against the seniors and juniors. But you'll hear about that to-night."

"Thank you, Miss MacGreggor," Ruth said. "And now that we are at this island, would you mind telling us where the Stone Face is situated?"

"Ah! one of the wonders of the place," said May. "And who told you about the Stone Face, Freshie?"

"I have heard it is well worth seeing," said Ruth, demurely.

"I will be your escort," said May.

They found the Scotch girl very companionable. She led them up a rugged path through the trees and around the rocks.

"And did that girl have to come up here —and in the dark?" murmured Ruth at last.

"What girl?" Helen asked.

"Who are you talking about, Miss Fielding?" asked the sophomore.

"That girl – Miss Rolff."

"Oh! don't mention her name!" groaned May MacGreggor. "If it hadn't been for her, you-uns and we-uns wouldn't be cut out of the sororities. A wicked shame!"

"Oh, I've heard about that," said Jennie, puffing because of the hard climb. "Did she really have to come here, and alone, when she was initiated?"

"She started for here," said May, gloomily. "With a flashlight, I believe. But she lost her nerve —

"There! there's the rock you're looking for."

It was a huge boulder in an open field. At the angle from which they viewed it, the face of the rock really bore some semblance to a human countenance – the features of an old, old woman.

"Ugly old hag!" was May MacGreggor's comment upon the odd boulder.

CHAPTER IX
GETTING ON

The three freshmen friends from Briarwood learned a good deal more that evening than the Year Book would ever have taught them. The girls began to crowd into the Hoskin Hall dining-room right after dinner. The seniors and the juniors disappeared, but there were a large number of sophomores present, besides the president of that class who addressed the freshmen.

The latter learned that in athletics especially the rivalry between the two lower and the two upper classes was intense. It was hardly possible, of course, for any of the freshmen, and for few of the sophomores to gain positions on any of the first college teams in basket ball, rowing, tennis, archery, or other important activities of a physical nature.

All athletic sports, which included, as well as those named above, running and jumping and other track work, were under the direct supervision of the college athletic association. All the girls could belong to that. Indeed, they were expected to, and the fees were small. But for a freshman to show sufficient athletic training to make any of the first teams, would almost seem impossible. They could get on the scrubs and possess their souls with patience, hoping to win places on the first teams perhaps in their sophomore year.

However, there had once been a girl in a freshman class at Ardmore who succeeded in throwing the hammer a record-making distance; and once a freshman had been bow oar in the first eight. These were targets to aim for, Miss Dunstan, the sophomore president, told the new girls.

She was, of course, a member of the athletic committee, and having told the new girls all about the sports she proceeded to advise them about organizing their class and electing officers. This should be done by the end of the first fortnight. Meanwhile, the freshman should get together, become acquainted, and electioneer for the election of officers.

Class politics at Ardmore meant something. There were already groups and cliques forming among the freshmen. It was an honor to hold office in the class, and those who were ambitious, or who wished to control the policy of the class, were already at work.

Ruth and her friends were so ambitious in quite another direction – in two, in fact – that they rather overlooked these class activities. The following day actually opened the work of the semester, and as they already had their books the trio settled immediately to their lessons.

They were taking the classical course, a four-years' course. During this first year their studies would be English, a language (their choice of French or German) besides the never-to-be-escaped Latin; mathematics, including geometry, trigonometry and higher algebra. They had not yet decided whether to take botany or chemistry as the additional study.

"We want to keep together as much as possible, in classes as well as out," Helen said. "Let's take the same specials, too."

"I vote for botany," Ruth suggested. "That will take us into the woods and fields more."

"You mean, it will give us an excuse for going into the woods and fields," Jennie said. "I'm with you. And if I have to walk much to cut down weight, it will help."

"My goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "Heavy really has come to college to get rid of her superabundance of fat."

"Surest thing you know," agreed the fleshy girl.

The freshmen learned that they would have from fifteen to eighteen recitation periods weekly, of forty-five minutes each. The recitation periods occurred between nine and twelve in the forenoon and one and three-thirty in the afternoon.

It took several days to get all these things arranged rightly; the three friends managed to get together in all classes. The classes numbered from twenty to forty students and the girls began to get acquainted with the teachers very quickly. Trust youth for judging middle-age almost immediately.

"I like Dr. McCurdy," Helen said, speaking of their English instructor, who was a man. "He knows what he's about and goes right at it. No fooling with him. None of this, 'Now young ladies, I hope you are pleasantly situated and that we are going to be good friends.' Pah!"

Ruth laughed. "The dear old things!" she said gaily. "They mean well – even that Miss Mara, whom you are imitating. And she does have a beautiful French accent, if she is Irish."

They liked Dr. Frances Milroth. Her talk in chapel was an inspiration, and that first morning some of the girls came out into the sunshine with wet eyelashes. They began to realize that they were here at college for something besides either play or ordinary study. They were at Ardmore to learn to get a grip on life.

Instrumental and vocal music could be taken at any time which did not interfere with the regular recitations, and of course Ruth took the latter as a special, while Helen did not neglect her violin.

"I guess I'll take up the study of the oboe," grumbled Jennie Stone. "I don't seem to know just what to do with myself while you girls are making sweet sounds."

"Why don't you roll, Heavy?" demanded Helen.

"Roll what? Roll a hoop?" asked the fleshy girl.

"No. Roll a barrel, I should say would be nearer to it," Helen responded, eyeing Jennie's plump waistline reflectively. "Get down and roll. Move back the furniture, give yourself plenty of room, and roll. They say that will reduce one's curves."

"Wow! And what would the girl say downstairs under me?" asked Jennie Stone. "I'd begin by being the most unpopular girl in this freshman class."

These first few days were busy ones; but the girls of the freshman class were fast learning just where they stood. Then happened something that awoke most of the class to the fact that they needed to get together, that they must, after all, take up cudgels for themselves.

"Just like a flock of silly sheep, running together when they see a dog," Helen at first said.

"I guess there is a good reason in nature for sheep to do that," Ruth said, on reflection. "Sheep fear wolves more than any other animal, and a dog is a wolf, after all, only domesticated."

"Huh!" grunted Jennie. "Then we are sheep and the seniors are wolves, are they? I could eat up most of these seniors I've seen, myself. I will be a savage sheep – woof! woof!"

The matter that had made the disturbance, however, was not to be ignored.