The entertainment designed to bring Miss Minerva Higgins to a true understanding of her position as a freshman took place one Friday evening in the rooms of Margaret and Jessie. It was called on the invitation "A Literary Evening," and was to be in the nature of a spread and fudge affair. There had been two rehearsals beforehand, and the girls were now prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

Molly was loath to take part in the literary evening.

"I can't bear to see anybody humiliated even when she ought to be," she said, but she consented to come and to give a recitation.

Several study tables had been united for the supper, the cracks concealed by j.a.panese towelling contributed by Otoyo. There was no Mrs.

Murphy in the Quadrangle from whom to borrow tablecloths. All the chairs from the other rooms were brought in to seat the company, who appeared grave and subdued. Most of the girls were dressed to resemble famous poets and authors. Judy was Byron; Margaret Wakefield, George Eliot; Nance, Charlotte Bronte; Edith Williams, Edgar Allan Poe; and Molly was Sh.e.l.ley. Shakespeare, Voltaire and Charles d.i.c.kens were in the company, and "The d.u.c.h.ess," impersonated by Jessie Lynch.

The unfortunate Minerva was a little disconcerted at first when she found herself the only girl at the feast in her own character.

"Why didn't you tell me, so that I could have come in costume, too?" she asked Margaret.

"But you had your medals," was Margaret's enigmatic answer.

Minerva looked puzzled. Then her gaze fell to the shining breastplate of silver and gold trophies. She had worn them all this evening. The temptation had been too great. The medals gleamed like so many solemn eyes. She wondered if the others could read what was inscribed on them, or if it would be necessary to call attention to the most choice ones: "THE HIGHEST GENERAL AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS"; "REGULAR ATTENDANCE"; "MATHEMATICS"; "THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAY"; "ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION."

Edith opened the evening by delivering a speech in Latin which was really one of Virgil's eclogues mixed up with whatever she could recall of Livy and Horace, and filled out occasionally with Latin prose composition. It was so excruciatingly funny that Judy sputtered in her tea and was well kicked on her shins under the table.

Minerva, however, appeared to be profoundly impressed, and the company murmured subdued approvals when, at last, the speaker took breath and sat down, gazing solemnly around her with dark, melancholy eyes very much blacked around the lids.

Margaret then delivered a learned discourse on "Poise of Body and Poise of Mind," which was skillfully expressed in such deep and intricate language that n.o.body could understand what she was talking about.

"Very, very interesting, indeed," observed Edith.

"Remarkable; wonderful; so clearly put," came from the others.

Minerva rubbed her eyes and frowned.

Nance recited "The Raven," translated into very bad French. This was almost more than their gravity could endure, and when she ended each verse with "_Dit le corbeau: jamais plus,_" many of the girls stooped under the table for lost handkerchiefs and j.a.panese napkins.

But it was not until Judy had sung a lullaby in Sanskrit--so called--that Minerva became at all suspicious. Even then it was the wrong kind of suspicion. She thought that perhaps she should have laughed, and the others had politely refrained because she hadn't.

After a great deal of learned talk, Molly stood on a soap box and recited "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night."

This was the crowning joy of that famous evening, but still Minerva appeared seriously impressed.

"I recited that once at Mill Town High School," she remarked.

"Can't you give us something to-night?" asked Molly kindly, feeling that in some way the unfortunate Minerva ought to be allowed to join in.

"I don't know that I ought to give another poem by the same man," she replied, "except that Miss Oldham gave 'The Raven' in French."

"Don't tell us you know 'The Bells'?" demanded Edith Williams, in a trembling whisper.

"Oh, yes. I've given it at lots of school entertainments."

"We had better turn down the lights," said Margaret. "The room should be in darkness except the side light where Miss Higgins will stand. That will be the spot light."

This was a fortunate arrangement because, while Minerva recited "The Bells," with all proper gestures, intonations and echoes, according to Cleveland's recitation book, the girls silently collapsed. When she had finished, they were reduced to that exhausted state that arrives after a supreme effort not to laugh.

At last the entertainment came to an end. Minerva departed with some of the others, while those who lived close by remained to chat for a few minutes.

"I give up," exclaimed Margaret Wakefield. "Minerva is beyond teaching.

She must remain forever the smartest girl in Mill Town High School."

"The only pity of it is that it was all wasted on one humorless person.

We really furnished her with a most delightful entertainment and she never even guessed it," declared Nance.

"I'm glad she didn't," remarked Molly. "It was cruel, I think. Suppose she had caught on? Do you think it would have helped her? And we would have been uncomfortable."

"Suppose she did understand and pretended not to. The joke would have been decidedly on us," put in Katherine.

Later events of that evening would seem to bear out this suggestion, although just how deeply, if at all, Minerva was implicated in what followed no one could possibly tell. It was a question long afterwards in dispute whether one person had managed the sequel to the Literary Evening, or whether there had been a confederate. Certainly it seemed that every imp in Bedlam had been set free to do mischief, and if Minerva, as arch-imp, was looking for revenge, she found it.

"I don't like to appear inhospitable, girls, but it's five minutes of ten and I think you'd better chase along," said Margaret Wakefield.

But when Judy laid hold of the k.n.o.b and tried to open the door, it would not budge.

"It won't open," she exclaimed. "What's to be done?"

What was to be done? They pulled and jerked and endeavored to pry it open with a silver shoe horn and a pair of scissors, and at last Jessie, as the smallest, was chosen to climb over the transom and go for help.

It was five minutes past ten, and they prudently turned out the lights.

"Let me get at that k.n.o.b just once before we work the transom scheme,"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Margaret, who was very strong and athletic.

"People always think they can open tin cans and doors and pull stoppers when other people can't," observed Judy sarcastically.

Margaret treated this remark with contemptuous indifference. Seizing the k.n.o.b with both hands, she turned it and, putting her knee to the jamb, pulled with all her force. The arch fiend on the other side must have turned the key at this critical moment, for the door flew open and the president tumbled back as if she had been shot from a catapult, knocking a number of surprised poets and authors into a tumbled heap. They were all considerably bruised and battered, and Margaret bit her tongue; a severe punishment for one whose oratory was the pride of the cla.s.s.

"Hush," whispered Jessie, who alone had escaped the tumble, "here comes the house matron."

Softly she closed the door, and the girls waited until the danger was over. Then Margaret hastened to examine the keyhole.

"There's no key in it," she whispered, speaking with difficulty, because her tongue was bleeding from the marks of two teeth.

Whoever played the trick must have unlocked the door, jerked the key out and fled the instant the matron appeared at the end of the corridor.

There was no time to discuss the mystery, however. She would be coming back in two minutes. Again they waited in silence until they heard the swish of her dress as she went past the door, now left open a crack in order that Judy, lying flat on her stomach on the floor, and enjoying herself immensely, might be on the lookout.

"Come on," she hissed, as the large, rotund figure of Mrs. Pelham was lost in the darkness, and out they scuttled like a lot of mice loosed from the trap.

But the evening's adventures were not over.

As Judy, in advance of Molly and Nance, pushed open their door, already ajar, a small pail of water, placed on the top of the door by the arch-imp, whoever she was, fell on Judy's head and deluged her. It contained hardly a quart of water, but it might have been a gallon for the wreck it made of Judy's clothes and the room.

"Oh, but I'll get even with somebody," exclaimed that enraged young woman.