Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe (17 page)

“Oh, no, Miss Clarke!” she cried. “Not this year, when the subject is Deep Valley! I love Deep Valley! I could write about it! I could win!”

She stopped and rubbed the tears savagely out of her eyes.

“What am I saying?” she asked. “You must excuse me, Miss Clarke. Of course, you and Miss Fowler are quite right to try someone else. I've lost two years running.”

“Betsy,” said Miss Clarke, taking off her glasses and wiping her eyes, “Miss Fowler and I think you could write a better essay than any Zetamathian in the school. Maybe I shouldn't tell you that. But it's true.”

“Then why…?” Betsy asked.

“There's a lot of feeling around school,” Miss Clarke answered, “that your crowd has everything. You are pretty outstanding, you know. Until recently there wasn't much jealousy. You were all democratic and popular. But this year…people don't like the sorority-fraternity business! They just don't like it.

“Zetamathian and Philomathian are school societies. They shouldn't be monopolized by any one crowd. If we gave you a third chance to compete in the Essay Contest, after you lost the first two years, it might add to the hard feeling which has already been built up against your group. You wouldn't like that, would you?” Betsy shook her head, unable to speak.

“If it was anything but Deep Valley history I wouldn't feel so bad,” she said at last in a choked voice, and Miss Clarke, who had just replaced her glasses took them off and started rubbing them again.

“Never mind!” said Betsy, rising. “Stan will write a good essay. Good-by, Miss Clarke”—and she darted out.

She went to the cloak room where Tacy was waiting and buried her face in her coat.

Tacy put her arms around her. “You didn't get it?”

Betsy shook her head.

“But how could you help but get it?”

Betsy shook her head even more frantically.

“I don't know what Clarke and Fowler can be
thinking of,” said Tacy, hugging her harder. “They must be crazy. It's just throwing the Essay cup away.”

Betsy took her face out of the coat. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes and put some face powder on her nose. Hooking on to Tacy's arm, she started talking about something else and they went down the stairs and out of the school.

When she saw Joe Willard next day she was lightly regretful.

“They've given you real competition this year. No one less than the president of the junior class.”

His face was swept with amazement and, Betsy realized with doleful satisfaction, disappointment.

“Stan Moore? Why, they must be crazy. Stan's a swell guy but you can write circles around him.”

“You shouldn't have written circles around me last year and the year before,” she said.

Joe scowled. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his thick light brows drawn together.

“I'll be thinking of you,” Betsy said, “slaving down there in the library when the snow melts and the violets come out and the picnicking season begins.”

Joe didn't answer. He strode off in the direction of Miss Clarke's room. But Philomathians were allowed no voice in Zetamathian affairs. After a moment Joe came out of Miss Clarke's room still scowling, and Stan Moore began work on the Essay Contest.

O
NE
A
PRIL EVENING
the Rays sat at supper talking about Julia. Beyond the windows, winter still lingered in a sad, opalescent sky. But the day had been spring-like. Melted snow had been rushing down the gutters in foaming rivers on which Margaret had sailed boats. Betsy had walked to the slough for marigolds. Mr. Ray wore a pansy in his buttonhole, and there
was rhubarb short-cake for dessert.

The Rays were talking about Julia because the week ahead was the supreme one to which she had been looking forward. It was nothing less than Rush Week. Luncheons, teas, and masquerades would lead in gay procession up to that formal dinner at the Epsilon Iota house for which she had bought the yellow satin dress.

“How do the freshmen get their bids?” asked Betsy, eating with good appetite.

“Through the mail on Pledge Day morning. Special delivery,” Mrs. Ray replied. “In the afternoon they go to the house of their choice to be welcomed and cried over and given a pledge pin. It's very thrilling, the girls say.”

“It's tough on the ones who don't get those special delivery letters,” Mr. Ray remarked.

“Yes, it is.” Mrs. Ray looked distressed. “I'm certainly thankful that Julia is one of the lucky ones.”

“Week after next she'll be home for Easter and tell us all about it,” Betsy said.

Anna, who was clearing the table, looked out the window. “Why, there's Mr. Thumbler's hack!”

Everyone jumped up and Mr. Ray observed, “It must be Aunt Lucinda.”

Aunt Lucinda sometimes came to make a visit uninvited.

“Are there any creamed potatoes left?” Mrs. Ray asked anxiously. “And if you haven't cut the shortcake, Anna, cut it to serve one more.”

“The McCloskeys,” remarked Anna, “didn't have relatives who came just at mealtime.”

Betsy and Margaret couldn't understand her grumpiness. They ran to the window to see Aunt Lucinda getting out of the hack. But to everyone's amazement it was Julia who alighted.

She was wearing her winter hat and coat and the effect was bleak. She looked very small, standing beside the hack in the twilight. Mr. Ray rushed out to pay Mr. Thumbler and Mrs. Ray, Betsy and Margaret followed. With their arms about Julia they ascended the steps, exclaiming joyfully.

Julia smiled and returned their kisses but her face was pale.

“You look sick, darling,” Mrs. Ray cried. “Is that why you came home?”

“I'm not sick,” answered Julia.

“We thought you were Aunt Lucinda,” Margaret said.

“We were awfully surprised to see you, on account of next week being Rush Week.”

“And the week after that, your vacation…”

“Never mind about all that until she's had some supper,” Mr. Ray put in.

“I don't want any supper. I couldn't eat anything, really. I…I ate on the train.” Julia took off her hat and coat and Margaret ran to hang them up. Julia sat down in the parlor and the Rays gathered about her, anxious now to know what lay behind her white strained face.

She told them at once. “The Epsilon Iotas have dropped me!”

“What?”

“How could they ‘drop' you?” Margaret asked, bewildered.

“They're not rushing me any more. I'm not invited to any of the Epsilon Iota parties.”

“Why…why…that's impossible!” Mrs. Ray gasped. “Not even to the formal dinner?”

“Especially not to that.”

Everyone thought of the yellow satin dress, but no one mentioned it.

“I've been dropped,” Julia repeated, her lips trembling. “I've been tried and found wanting.”

“What perfect nonsense!” Mr. Ray interjected, but he, too, looked pale.

“Are the others still rushing you?” Mrs. Ray demanded.

“Yes,” said Julia. “But that doesn't interest me. I'm going to be an Epsilon Iota or I won't be anything. I'll be a barb.” She shut her lips tight.

The Rays were silent for a moment, stunned. It was incomprehensible. Julia, the beautiful, the talented, their darling…dropped! A barb!

“But why? Why? What do they think you've done?” Mrs. Ray cried at last.

“I don't know.”

“Can't you ask them?”

“Certainly not! I have to act as though I didn't even notice they had dropped me. Of course, I can't help but notice it. All year the girls have been so lovely to me, and now they treat me almost like a stranger. They speak when we meet, of course. But that's all.

“One of them told me—she wasn't supposed to but she did—that they haven't stopped liking me. They act this way because they know they can't bid me, and it would hurt me more if they rushed me to the very end.”

“But why can't they bid you?”

“The vote has to be unanimous, and someone doesn't want me.”

“Well, the very idea!” Mrs. Ray cried. “I'd like to burn the University down!”

“I'd like to murder the whole bunch,” Betsy exclaimed.

Mr. Ray put his arm around Margaret. “Julia isn't the only little girl whose feelings have been hurt, I
imagine,” he said. “It's a mighty funny thing that the State University, supported by the public, can have private clubs which are so important.”

But Mrs. Ray couldn't think now about the ethics of Greek letter organizations. She was astounded and dismayed.

Julia was treated as though she were sick. She was put to bed and Anna brought up a hot lemonade. Mrs. Ray, Betsy and Margaret sat in her room talking in hushed voices while Mr. Ray tramped the house looking sober and distracted.

“Are you sure, are you sure, you don't want to join one of the others?” Mrs. Ray asked. “The Alpha Betas were very nice, I thought, and so were the Pi Pi Gammas.”

“I'm positive,” Julia said.

Mrs. Ray kept naming the Epsilon Iotas she had met on her visit. Ann, the dark queenly one; Patty and Joan, the twins; blonde Norma.

“I can't imagine them not being friendly.”

“They barely speak to me. But don't you see? That's the kind thing to do. If I've been dropped there's no sense being nice and giving me false hopes.”

“Have you any idea which one doesn't want you?”

“None in the world.”

Mr. Ray paused in the doorway. “Are you staying home a while?”

“Oh, no!” said Julia. “I'm going back tomorrow night.”

“Darling!” cried Mrs. Ray. “I don't think you'd better go back! Why don't you have a sore throat and stay home a little while?” But Julia shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I'm going back. But just for today I'll have a sore throat. Oh, it's so good to be home!” She put her arms around Margaret who was sitting on the bed beside her, and buried her face in Margaret's lap.

“It was awful this last week!” she sobbed. “You can't imagine! Those girls I've grown to like so much, hurrying past me, looking the other way. Everyone asking me what sorority I think I'll join and me not joining any unless I can have the one I want.”

“Whatever one you joined,” said Betsy, choking, “you'd make it the best on the campus just by joining it.”

But Julia, without speaking, shook her head.

The next morning early Betsy heard her stirring and went into her room. Julia was dressing.

“I'm going down to early church,” she said.

“Mind if I go along?”

“I never mind having you along, Bettina.”

They stole out of the house. Yesterday's puddles were frozen but robins were singing and flying about in a dim light. A Persian rug had been unrolled in
the sky above the German Catholic College.

Julia and Betsy did not talk much on their way. They went inside the church and dropped to their knees.

The Rev. Mr. Lewis did not seem to notice them. He was always like that at early church.

“Lift up your hearts,” he said.

“We lift them up unto the Lord.”

“Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.”

“It is meet and right so to do.”

The altar was snowy and fresh, with candles gleaming, and the service passed like a dream. The Rev. Mr. Lewis said, “The peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds…”

Julia stayed on her knees a long time and when she and Betsy emerged at last into the cold and the daylight, peace shone in her face.

She squeezed Betsy's arm. “I'm all right now,” she said. “Going to church is a wonderful help. It makes”—she laughed ruefully—“even sororities seem pretty small.”

She went on thoughtfully, “I was weak to come home. It's a temptation to come running back to the warmth and tenderness of home when the world is cruel. But I won't be a coward any more. I'll go back to the U and go through Rush Week with my head up, and then I'm going to get down to work. I only
wish Fraulein wasn't going away.”

“When is she going?” Betsy asked.

“Not till the end of the term. I'm thankful for that. I have so much to be thankful for, Bettina! My family, my music, my glorious plans for my life….”

Her face looked exalted, as it looked when she sang.

The rest were at breakfast when they came in, and Betsy had the feeling that the topic of conversation was abruptly changed. She saw her father look keenly at Julia's face, and later she heard him say to her mother, “We won't interfere. She has the thing licked.”

During the rest of the day Julia was quite like herself. She praised the Perfection Salad Anna had made especially for her; she bathed white woolly Abie because Margaret delighted to assist at this function; and she sang for all the friends and neighbors who dropped in.

At Sunday night lunch Katie asked innocently, “You'll be having fun next week, won't you? Isn't it Rush Week?”

Betsy's heart melted with pity, but Julia was serene. “Rush Week doesn't mean anything to me. The Epsilon Iotas have dropped me. And since they're the only crowd I care for, I don't think I'll join a sorority.”

“I wouldn't either in that case,” Katie said in her sensible way.

A little later Julia drew Betsy aside. “It's surprising how much better I feel since I've said out loud in public that the Epsilon Iotas have dropped me. I dreaded that so, and it wasn't half bad.”

She returned to Minneapolis that night, and when the family got back from the train Betsy started upstairs with her school books but her father asked her to wait.

“Your mother and I would like to let you in on something we've been discussing.”

Betsy went into the parlor and sat down. He told her the news and it was another bolt from the blue.

Pacing the floor yesterday, he had decided that Julia should go to Germany next year. He had been thinking for some time, he said, that Mrs. Ray was right, that Julia was never going to want anything but opera. Well, if that was the case, she didn't need to stay on at the U and be made unhappy by this sorority business.

He had informed Mrs. Ray who had promptly wept for joy and pleaded with him to tell Julia.

“I was tempted to myself,” Mr. Ray admitted, “although I knew it would be wrong. She has to learn to take hard knocks. We can't always take them for her, nor for you and Margaret either, Betsy. I was
wavering, and then she came back from church and I could see that she was going to be all right. So we're going to let her go through this darn fool week on her own steam.”

“It seems cruel,” Mrs. Ray said anxiously. “But Papa thinks it's right.”

“I think so, too,” said Betsy. “Julia had sort of a…triumph…today. She would feel cheated if it was all for nothing.”

“But, oh, what a week she has ahead of her!” Mrs. Ray cried pityingly. “Those parties! The gossip! Pledge Day morning and not being bid! How can she stand it?”

“She'll stand it like hundreds of other little girls are standing it,” said Mr. Ray.

But he looked unhappy, too.