“What about our benefactors’ opinion of the affair?”
“Under the circumstances, he or she ought to take a sane view of the matter. We have done nothing of which we should be ashamed. Don’t worry about it.”
With these words Patricia ran up the steps, and Jack strolled to the Frat House thinking what a sensible girl Patricia was, and what a good pal.
A most amusing account of their escapade came out in the morning’s paper, and the college world rocked with merriment. Patricia and Jack were bombarded with jokes, questions, congratulations, and cartoons.
The next day Jack and Patricia met on the stairs leading to their Shakespeare classroom.
“I got a queer note,” began Patricia.
“So did I.”
“What did yours say?” asked Patricia eagerly.
“‘Keep out of police stations in the future.’”
“So did mine; but, some way, it didn’t seem cross.”
“How could you tell that?”
“I don’t know; but I just felt that whoever sent the note was smiling as he wrote it.”
“You have a wonderful imagination, Pat,” said Jack, grinning down at her. “I only hope it’s a reliable one.”
CHAPTER XVI
A PICNIC
“Could I hire any of you ladies to swim for me next Tuesday?” inquired Clarice, popping out of the back door and perching on the porch railing.
It was Saturday morning. Patricia, Anne, Frances, Katharine, and Betty had washed their hair, and were strung along the sunny top steps drying it, preparatory to going to town for a wave.
“None of us were keen enough about that swimming exam to be looking for chances to try it twice,” replied Katharine decidedly.
“You ought not to mind it,” drawled Anne sleepily; “you’re a regular mer—maid,” her last word cut short by a huge yawn.
“Look out, Anne,” cried Frances, grabbing her by the shoulders, “you’ll be sound asleep in a minute and roll down the steps.”
“It’s this strong sunlight,” said Anne, leaning comfortably back against Frances’ knees, and closing her eyes.
“What’s the matter with you doing your own swimming?” asked Betty, glancing up at Clarice through a tangle of brown hair.
“Can’t. Don’t know enough about it,” replied the girl nonchalantly, swinging one foot. “I hate it.”
“Do you mean to say that you’ve been in gym class all this year, and don’t know yet how to swim?” inquired Katharine bluntly.
“Guilty!”
“I should think Professor Wilson would have killed you off long ago,” remarked Frances. “He’s such an irritable creature.”
“Yes,” agreed Clarice, “and also so near-sighted that he doesn’t know half the time who’s in the pool and who’s out of it. Haven’t you noticed how dependent he is on his class books?”
“Then can’t you take a chance on his being too near-sighted to see that you can’t swim?” asked Betty.
“No such luck! All women may look alike to him, but not all strokes in swimming.”
“How did you manage all term?” inquired Patricia, shaking her yellow mop of hair vigorously.
“Oh, he was always hollering at me.”
There were two divisions of the Sophomore Gymnasium class. Clarice was in the second, while all the rest of the Alley Gang were in the first. To be able to swim was absolutely necessary for promotion to the Junior class at the end of the year, and the second week in May had been assigned for the final tests. Professor Wilson, a critical, quick-tempered little man, was an excellent teacher, but he did not like women and never bothered to get acquainted with the individual members of his classes, which did not at all add to his popularity.
“When I can swim out of doors by myself, I think I shall like it,” commented Anne, “but not while Professor Wilson dances around the rim of the pool snapping like a turtle.”
“That’s the way I feel about it,” agreed Patricia. “Why don’t we go out to Green Lake some Saturday and try our skill?”
“Let’s go next Saturday,” proposed Katharine enthusiastically. “We’ll go in the morning, and have a roast.”
“Who?” asked Betty.
“Us and the rest of the Gang. Everybody willing, hold up the left foot,” directed Katharine.
A laughing scramble ensued during which Clarice nearly fell off the railing. When they had settled back into their former positions, Patricia suggested hesitatingly, “Let’s take Rhoda. She’s so very nice to all of us.”
“Good idea,” agreed Katharine promptly.
“But who’d take her place?” questioned Betty doubtfully. “Could she get off for the whole day?”
“I think so. That day she was ill, Sue Mason subbed for her; and she probably would again. Sue doesn’t have many dates,” said Frances.
“I wish we could invite her, too, then,” said Patricia slowly. “It must be pretty lonely to be among so many girls, and not be in on their good times.”
“I know, but you can’t start asking people from upstairs,” protested Anne. “If you do, there’ll be no stopping place.”
“What’s the matter with Sue, anyhow?” asked Patricia.
“Mostly her queer ways,” replied Clarice quickly. “Last year she was always rapping on people’s doors and asking them to keep quiet so she could study. Then she complained to the Dean every so often about how long some of the girls kept her out of the bathroom. She also felt it her duty to report the maid several times for being late in distributing the clean linen. In short, Sue just disapproved of the way everything was run, and got herself in most awfully wrong. She belongs in some boarding house, not in a dorm.”
“How did she happen to come back here, since she found so much fault with the place?” inquired Patricia.
“Don’t know. Maybe she found out that she liked it after all. Hasn’t opened her mouth this year, so the girls upstairs say; but she queered herself for good and all last year,” replied Clarice carelessly. “But to return to my original question, can’t I interest any of you in helping me out?”
“I don’t know what we could do,” began Anne.
“Go into the pool for me when my name is called,” answered Clarice boldly. “There’s a ten in it for anybody who will.”
“You’re surely not in earnest,” said Patricia, pushing back her hair to look directly at the girl on the railing above her. Patricia was so easily embarrassed for others, frequently an embarrassment in which the “others” took no part.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” retorted Clarice.
“Why, Clarice!” cried Frances reprovingly.
“I can’t help it if you are shocked. If it were as necessary for any of you to be graduated from this institution as it is for me, you’d go the limit, too!” Clarice’s tone was defiant, but as she slid off of the railing and hurried into the house, Patricia who was still watching her saw sudden tears fill the girl’s hard, black eyes.
Anne shrugged her shoulders as the back door banged. Frances raised her eyebrows and looked troubled. Betty and Katharine nonchalantly continued the business of hair drying.