Adele and I poked our faces through the crack. Jo wickedly flung the door wide open. "Walk right out, ladies and gentlemen. See the conquering heroine comes," she sang in a voice outrageously shrill. During the trill on the hero, she bowed almost double right in the path of the approaching freshman. Maria Mitch.e.l.l Kiewit stopped short, her eyes as round as the b.u.t.tons on her waist.

Jo fell on her knees, lifting her outspread hands in ridiculous admiration. "O Maria Mitch.e.l.l Kiewit," she declaimed, "hearken! I have the honor--me, myself--I s.n.a.t.c.h it, seize it--the honor to announce that thou--thee--you--your own self hast won the ten dollar prize for the best short story written for the Monthly by an undergraduate. Vale!" She scrambled upright by means of clutching my skirt and put out a cordial hand. "Nice girl! Shake!"

"Josephine!" gasped Adele in horrified rebuke. My breath was beginning to come fast over this insult to our editorial dignity when I caught sight of the freshman's face. Her cheeks were as red as ever, but she had turned white about the lips, and her eyes were really terrified.

"Oh, I don't want it!" she cried involuntarily, shrinking away from us, "I don't want it."

Jo's mouth fell open. "Then why in the world----"

The little freshman fairly ran to the alleyway leading to her room.

Jo turned blankly to us. "Then why in the world did she write the story and send it in?"

Adele--I told you she was conscientious, didn't I? and inclined to be mathematical herself--stared at the spot where Maria had disappeared.

"Such an att.i.tude might be explained either by the supposition that she is diffident--sort of stunned by the surprise, you understand--she never expected to win. Or maybe she is shy and dreads the notoriety of fame.

Everybody will be looking at her, pointing her out. Or--or possibly----"

Adele hesitated, glanced around uneasily, caught my eye; and we both dropped our lids quickly. It was horrid of us. I think it is the meanest thing to be suspicious and ready to believe evil of anybody. But truly we had just been reading a volume of college stories, and one was about a girl who plagiarized some poems and pa.s.sed them off as her own. And this Maria Mitch.e.l.l Kiewit had behaved almost exactly like her.

"Or possibly what?" demanded Jo.

Adele stammered. "Or p-p-possibly--oh, nothing! Maybe she is ashamed of the story or something like that. She lacks self-esteem probably. She didn't expect it to be published, you know, and--and she is surprised.

That's all. She--I guess she's surprised."

"Come along, Adele," I slipped my arm through hers and dragged her away from Jo's neighborhood, "you must help me reject these fourteen others.

That's the part I hate worst about this editorial business."

"Don't you want to reconsider the decision?" called Jo, "since she doesn't wish the prize herself, you'd better choose my girl. This is your last chance. The committee for the Annual will surely gobble number fifteen up quick. Berta Abbott knows good literature when she sees it.

Going, going----"

"Let her go. Now, Adele," I said, closing the sanctum door with inquisitive stubborn Jo safely on the outside, "here are the rest of the names. You doubtless know some of their owners by sight, and I hope I know others. This is how we shall manage. Whenever you see one of them securely away from her room--maybe in the library or recitation or out on the campus or down town or anywhere--you tell me or else run yourself and take her ma.n.u.script and poke it under her door. I'll write a nice polite little regretful admiring note to go with each story, and that ought to take the edge off the blow. But be sure she is not at home. It would be simply awful to hand anybody a rejected article right to her real face and see how disappointed she is. I think it is more courteous to give her a chance to recover alone and un.o.bserved."

"But suppose she has a roommate?" said Adele.

"Oh, dear! Well, in that case we'll have to watch and loiter around till they are both out of reach. It may take us all the week."

And it actually did. It took a lot of time but it was exciting too in a way. We felt like detectives or criminals--it doesn't matter which--to haunt the corridors and grounds till we spied one of those girls headed away from her room (of course we had to find out first where each one lived), and then we scurried up-stairs and down and hung around in the neighborhood and walked past the door, if anybody happened to be near, and finally shoved the ma.n.u.script to its goal. Certainly I understand that we were not obliged to take all this trouble but I simply could not bear to send those long envelopes back through the post. Every student who distributes the mail would have recognized such a parcel as a rejected ma.n.u.script. And of course that would have hurt the author's feelings.

Naturally I was rushed that week because Thanksgiving Day came on Thursday, and I had an invitation to go down to the city to hear grand opera that afternoon. It was necessary to take such an early train that I missed the dinner. That evening when I returned I found the whole editorial board and Berta too groaning in Lila's study while Laura acted as amanuensis for a composite letter to Robbie Belle. You see, they had eaten too much dinner--three hours at the table and everything too good to skip. Each one tried to put a different groan into the letter. They were so much interested in the phraseology and they felt so horrid that n.o.body offered to get me crackers or cocoa, though I was actually famishing.

After poking around in the family cupboard under the window seat, I routed out a bag of popcorn. I lighted the gas stove and popped about three quarts, and then boiled some sugar and water to crystallize it.

When you are starving, have you ever eaten popcorn b.u.t.tered for a first course and crystallized for a second? It is the most delicious thing! I had just settled myself in a steamer-chair with the heaped up pan of fluffy kernels within reach of my right hand, when there came a knock on the door.

"Enter!" called Janet.

The k.n.o.b turned diffidently and in marched Maria Mitch.e.l.l Kiewit.

Lila pushed another pillow behind Jo on the couch, Laura lifted her pen, Janet exerted herself to rise politely. I carelessly threw a newspaper over the corn, and then poked it off. After all, editors are only human, and freshmen might as well learn that first as last.

"I wish to see Miss Leigh," said the visitor in a high, very young voice that quavered in the middle.

I straightened up into a dignified right angle. "What can I do for you, Miss Kiewit?"

"I wish to withdraw my story," she announced still at the same strained pitch, "I have changed my mind. Here is the ten-dollar bill."

"But it went to press three days ago," I exclaimed.

"And the Annual has gobbled up second choice," said Jo triumphantly.

"We jumped at it," corroborated Berta.

"To take out the prize story now would spoil the magazine," cried Adele.

"Impossible!" declared Janet.

"Nonsense!" said Laura under her breath.

The little freshman stared from one to another. Then suddenly her round face quivered and crumpled. Throwing up one arm over her eyes she turned, s.n.a.t.c.hed at the door k.n.o.b and stumbled out into the corridor.

I looked at Adele.

"Yes," she replied to my expression, "you'd better go and find out now.

It's for the honor of the Monthly. It would be awful to print a--a--mistake," she concluded feebly.

Just as I emerged from the alleyway I caught sight of the small figure fluttering around the corner of a side staircase half way down the dimly lighted hall. I had to hurry in order to overtake her before she could reach her own room. She must have been sobbing to herself, for she did not notice the sound of my steps on the rubber matting till I was near enough to touch her elbow. Then how she jumped!

"Pardon me, Miss Kiewit. May I speak to you for one minute?"

She nodded. I am not observant generally but this time I could see that she said nothing because she dared not trust her voice to speak. She went in first to light the gas. The pillows on the couch were tossed about in disorder, and one of yellow silk had a round dent in it and two or three damp spots as if somebody had been crying with her face against it.

Now I hate to ask direct questions especially in a situation like this where I wished particularly to be tactful, and of course she would be thrust into an awkward position in case she should dislike to reply. So I sat down and looked around and said, "How prettily you have arranged your room!"

The freshman had seated herself on the edge of her straightest chair. At my speech she glanced about nervously. "My mother graduated here," she explained, "and she knew what I ought to bring. Ever since I can remember, she has been planning about college for me."

"What a fortunate girl you are!" This was my society manner, you understand, for I was truly embarra.s.sed. I always incline to small talk when I have nothing to say. She caught me up instantly.

"Fortunate! Oh, me! Fortunate! When I hate it--I hate the college except for math. My mother teaches in the high school--she works day after day, spending her life and strength and health, so that I may stay here. I--I hate it. She wants me to become a writer. And I can't, I can't, I can't!

I want to elect mathematics."

"Oh!" said I.

"When she was a girl, she longed to write, but circ.u.mstances prevented.

Then I was born and she thought I would carry out her ambition and grow to be an author myself. She's been trying years and years. But I can't write. I'm not like my mother. I have my own life to live. I--I hate it so. And--and----" The child stopped, swallowed hard, then leaned toward me, her eyes begging me.

"And if you keep my story for the prize, she will hear about it, and she won't let me elect mathematics for my soph.o.m.ore year."

"Oh!" I said, and I was surprised to such a degree that the oh sounded like a giggle at the end. That made me so ashamed that I sat up a little more erect and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed vivaciously, "You--you astonish me."

It was the funniest thing--she hung her head like a conscience-smitten child. "I--I haven't told her about it because it would encourage her and then later she would--would be all the more disappointed. I can't write, I tell you."