by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER VIII
CLASSES IN MANNERS
Gertrude's brother paid another visit to his sister at Class Day. Atleast, he was supposed to be visiting his sister, but it was really Beawho took charge of him during all that radiant June morning whileGertrude, as chairman of the Daisy Chain committee, was busy with herscore of workers among the tubs of long-stemmed daisies in a coolbasement room. Bea had immediately enrolled the young man as her firstassistant in the arduous task of gathering armfuls of the starry flowersin the field beyond the dormitories.
After that labor was finished, and even Lila had deserted her for thesake of an insensate trunk that demanded to be packed, Bea conducted hercompanion to the lake. There through the golden hour of midday theydrifted in the shadow of the overhanging trees along the shore. Once theypaddled softly around the little island at the end, and a colony of babymud-turtles went scrambling madly from a log into the water. When thebrother began to fish for one with an oar, Bea protested in a grievedtone.
"But you don't seem to realize that I am worrying about freckles everyminute that we stay out here in the broad sunlight. What are trees for ifnot to provide shade for girls without hats? And anyhow it is unkind toseek to tear a turtle from his happy home. If you do that, I shall never,never consent to admit you to our highest class in manners."
"Highest class in manners," he echoed, "that sounds promising. Is itanother story?"
"It certainly is," replied Bea, "and if you are very good indeed and willkeep the boat close to the bank from the first word to the last, I willtell you all about it."
Berta called it our classes in manners, but Miss Anglin, our sophomoreEnglish teacher, said that it was every bit as bad as gossip. When Bertatold her that she was the one who had started us on it by advising us toread character in the street-cars, she looked absolutely appalled, andgroaned, "What next?"
This was the beginning of it. When Miss Anglin took charge of our essaywork the second semester, she explained that we should be required towrite a one-page theme every day except Saturday and Sunday. Lila almostfainted away, because she hates writing anything, even letters home.Robbie Belle looked scared, and I opened my mouth so wide that my jawached for several minutes afterward. But Berta kept her wits about her.She said, "Miss Anglin, we are all living here together, and we see thesame things every day. I'm afraid you'll be bored when you read aboutthem over and over. Why can't some of us choose intellectual topics?"
By intellectual topics she meant subjects that you can read up in theencyclopaedia. Miss Anglin sort of smiled. "Do you truly think that youall see the same things day after day? How curious! Have you ever playeda game called Slander?"
"Yes, Miss Anglin," said Berta, and went on to tell how the players sitin a circle, and the first one whispers a story to the second; and thesecond repeats it as accurately as she can remember to the third; and thethird tells it to the fourth, and so on till the last one hears it andthen relates it aloud. After that the first one gives the story exactlyas he started it. It is awfully interesting to notice the differencebetween the first report and the last one, because somehow each personcannot help adding a little or leaving out a little in passing it on tothe next. That is the way slander grows, you know. The gossip may be trueat first, or almost true, but it keeps changing and getting worse andworse and more thrilling as it spreads till finally it isn't hardly trueat all. That is how our classes in manners turned out.
Well, to go back to that day in the rhetoric section. Miss Anglin sawthat we were discouraged before we had commenced and we didn't know howto start; and so she began to suggest subjects. For instance, she said,one girl might wake up in the morning----Oh, but I am forgetting herapplication of the illustration from the game of Slander. She said thatif no two persons receive the same impression from a whispered storyspoken in definite words, it is probable that no two pairs of eyes seethe same thing in the same way, to say nothing of the ideas aroused inthe different brains behind the eyes. One girl might wake up in themorning, as I was saying, and when she looks from the window she seessnow everywhere--provided it did snow during the night, you understand.Then she writes her daily theme about the beautiful whiteness, theshadows of bare trees, diamond sparkles everywhere and so forth. Anothergirl looks out of that very same window at the same time, and she doesn'tthink of the beautiful snow merely as snow; she thinks of coasting orgoing for a sleigh-ride or something like that. And so her theme verylikely will prove to be a description of a coasting carnival ortobogganing which she once enjoyed. Another girl looks out and thinksfirst thing, "Oh, now the skating is spoiled!" Her theme maybe will tellhow she learned to skate by pushing a chair ahead of her on the ice.
Berta raised her hand again. "Well, but, Miss Anglin," she said, "supposeit doesn't snow?"
Berta is not really stupid, you know, quite the reverse indeed, but sheis used to having the girls laugh at what she says. They laughed thistime, and Miss Anglin did too, because she knew Berta was just drawingher out, so to speak. She went on to give other examples about the thingswe see while out walking or shopping or at a concert, and finally shedrifted around to character-reading. She said a street-car was a splendidfield for that. The next time one of us rode into town, she might tryobserving her fellow travelers. There might be a working-man in a corner,with a tin-bucket beside him. Maybe he would be wearing an old coatpinned with a safety-pin. By noting his eyes and the expression of hismouth the girl could judge whether he was just shiftless or untidy merelybecause his wife was too busy with the children to sew on buttons. Shetold a lot of interesting things about the difference between the man whoholds his newspaper in one hand and the man who holds his in both. Sometemperaments always lean their heads on their hands when they are weary,and others support their chins. A determined character sets her feet downfirmly and decidedly at every step--though of course it needn't bethumping--while a dependent chameleon kind of a woman minces alonguncertainly. Why, sometimes just from the angle at which a person liftshis head to listen, you can tell if he has executive ability or not.
Before the bell rang at the end of the hour, we were awfully enthusiasticabout reading character. The first thing Robbie Belle did was to stumbleover the threshold.
"Oho!" jeered Berta, "you're careless. That's as easy as alpha, beta,gamma."
She meant a, b, c, you understand, but she prefers to say it in Greek,being a sophomore.
"But she isn't careless," protested Lila, "she's the most careful personI ever met. The sole of her shoe is split, and that is the reason shestumbled."
"Why is it split?" demanded Berta in her most argumentative tone; "woulda nobly careful and painstakingly fastidious person insist upon wearing ashoe with a split sole? No, no! Far from it. If she had stumbled becausethe threshold wasn't there, or because she had forgotten it was there,the inference would be at fault. I should impute the defect to hermentality instead of to her character, alas! A stumble plus a split sole!Ah, Robbie Belle, I must put you in a daily theme."
Robbie Belle looked alarmed. "Indeed, Berta, I'd rather not. I was goingto trim it off neatly this morning, but I have lent my knife to MaryWinchester."
"Ha! lent her your knife!" declaimed Berta sternly, "another clue! Thismust be investigated. Why did she borrow your knife?"
"To sharpen her pencil," answered Robbie. "I made her take it."
"Her pencil! Her pencil!" muttered Berta darkly, "why her pencil? Arethere not pens? Mayhap, 'tis not her pencil. Alas, alas! Her also Ithrust into a daily theme."
"She's snippy about returning things," said Lila, "she acts as if shedidn't care whether you do her a favor or not. I don't like her."
"She's queer," I said.
Now I had a perfect right to say that because it was true. MaryWinchester was just about the queerest girl in college. Everybody thoughtso. But I shall say no more at present, as her queerness is the subjectof the rest of this story. If I told you immediately just how she wasqueer and all the rest of it, there wouldn't be any story left, wou
ldthere?
Well, as the weeks whirled past, we studied character and wrote dailythemes till we were desperate. Robbie Belle grew sadder and sadder untilBerta suggested that she might describe the gymnasium, the chapel, thelibrary, the drawing rooms, the kitchen, and so forth, one by one,telling the exact size and position of everything. That filled up quite anumber of days. When Miss Anglin put a little note of expostulation, soto speak, on the theme about the corridor--it was, "This is a course inEnglish, not mathematics, if you please,"--Berta started her in on thepicture gallery. There were enough paintings there to last till the endof the semester. Of course, such work did not require her to readcharacter. Robbie Belle didn't want to do that somehow; she said itseemed too much like gossip.
However, at first, it wasn't gossip. For instance one day Lila and Icollected smiles. We scurried around the garden and dived in and out ofthe hedge in order to meet as many people as possible face to face. Thenwe took notes on the varieties of greeting and made up themes about them.Miss Anglin marked an excellent on mine that time. For another topic wepaid one-minute calls on everybody we knew. When they looked surprisedand inquired why we did not sit down, we frankly explained that we weregathering material for an essay on Reading Character from the Way aPerson says "Come in!"
After we had been grinding out daily themes for three weeks we began tolong for something to break the monotony. My brain was just about wrungdry, and Lila said she simply loathed the sight of a sheet of blankpaper. One afternoon while I was struggling over my theme, Berta threw asnowball against my window, flew up the dormitory steps, sped down thecorridor, gave a double rat-tat-too on my door, and burst in withoutwaiting for an answer.
"Listen! Quick! I have an idea. It struck me out by the hedge. Why notstudy manners as well as character? Why not divide----"
"Go away. That snowball plop against the pane spoiled my best sentence.This is due in forty minutes. I've written up my family and friends andbooks and pictures, my summer vacations--a sunset at a time, mylittle----"
"Why not divide everybody, I say----"
"----dog at home," I continued placidly. "I've composed themes about theorchard, the woods, the table-fare, the climate, the kitten I neverowned, the thoughts I never had. To-day I was in despair for a subjecttill I happened to borrow one of your cookies and----"
"You did! My precious cookies! Burglar!"
"----bite it into scallops. Ha! an idea! I arranged myself on the rugwith much care in order that I might stretch out the process to a wholepage of narration. Thereupon I nibbled off the corners of the scallopstill the cookie was round and smooth again. Next I bit it into scallopsand then I nibbled off the corners; and next I bit and then I nibbled;and next I bit and then I nibbled; and next I bit----"
"You did! Oh, I wish I----"
"----and then I nibbled; and next I bit and then I nibbled, till therewas nothing left but the hole. Now I am writing a scintillating andcorruscating theme about it. Go away."
Berta turned toward the door. "Some day you'll wish you had listened,"she declared in accents heavy with gloom, "some day when you can't thinkof a single thing to write about, and the hand keeps moving around theclock, and the paper lies there blank and horrible before your vacanteyes, and your pen is nibbled so short that your fingers----"
"I didn't mean go away," I said, "I meant, go on. Tell me about it."
"Nay, nay! To lacerate my feelings, spurn my proffered aid, insult myyouthful pristine zeal, and then to call me back--in short, to throw adog a bone! Nay, nay!"
"Oh, Berta, be sweet. Tell me. You know that I think you have the mostoriginal ideas in college." After I had coaxed her quite a lot, she toldme her new scheme. It was something like advanced character reading andbiology combined. Just as scientists classify trees and plants in botany,Berta proposed that we should divide the students into different classesaccording to their manners.
"It will be so improving and instructive too," she pleaded, "we'll beparagons of politeness before we finish them all. We'll be so particularabout our highest class that we will notice every little thing and thustake warning." She paused a moment; then, "Did you hear me say thus?" sheinquired. When I nodded, she gazed at me sadly. "People who belong to thehighest class never gesticulate; they use spoken language exclusively.Furthermore, as to the thus. I wondered if an up-springing sense ofcourtesy persuaded you to refrain from hooting at such elegant verbiage.That would be a sign of benefit already derived from the classes. By theway, it was Mary Winchester who inspired the idea."
"Oh, but she has no manners at all!" I exclaimed before I thought.
"That is precisely the point. I met her flying along like a wild creatureon her bicycle, eyes staring, hair streaming in the wind. At least, somelocks were streaming. She gave the impression of a being utterly lawless.Then I thought----See here, Miss Leigh, are you interested in mythoughts?"
"Yes'm," I answered meekly.
"Then drop that pen and pay attention. Even the girls who are to belongto the second class in manners know how to do that. Well, I thought thatshe hardly ever accepts an invitation, and she looks as she didn't expectanybody to like her, and she minds her own business and does exactly asshe pleases generally. My next important thought was that sometimes shecuts me in the hall, and sometimes she doesn't, just as she happens tofeel. That led to the philosophic reflection that politeness is aquestion of law."
"Ah, pardon me, Miss Abbott, but I remember from a story which was readby my teacher about forty years ago when I was in the fourth reader that
"'Politeness is to do or say The kindest thing in the kindest way.'"
"That's what I meant. The law of kindness--that's what politeness is.Listen to the logic. Mary Winchester is lawless, hence she breaks the lawof kindness, hence she has no manners, hence it will be fun to divideeverybody here into various classes according to their manners."
So that is the way our classes began.
It was awfully, awfully interesting. Robbie Belle said she didn't wantto; but Berta and Lila and I talked and talked and talked. We sat in thewindows and talked instead of dancing between dinner and chapel. Wetalked after chapel, and on our way to classes or to meals. And of coursewe talked while we were skating or walking or doing anything similar thatdid not demand intellectual application. Lila even talked about theclasses in her sleep. We discussed everybody who happened to attract ourattention.
Finally we had sifted out all the candidates for the highest class exceptthree. One was the senior president, pink and white and slender andgentle and she never thumped when she walked or laughed with her mouthopen or was careless about spots on her clothes or forgot the faces ofnew girls who had been introduced to her. The second was a professor whowas shy and sweet and went off lecturing every week. The third was ateacher who looked like a piece of porcelain and always wore silk-linedskirts and never changed the shape of her sleeves year after year. Notone of the three ever hurt anybody's feelings.
Miss Anglin was obliged to go into the second class because she hadmoods. No, I don't mean because she had them,--for sometimes you cannothelp having moods, you know--but because she showed them. She let themoods influence her manner. Some mornings she would come down tobreakfast as blue as my dyed brilliantine--(how I hated that frock!)--andwould sit through the meal without opening her mouth except to putsomething into it; though on such occasions we noticed that she rarelyput into it very much besides toast and hot water. On other days she madejokes and sparkled and laughed with her head bent down, and was soabsolutely and utterly charming that the girls at the other tables wishedthey sat at ours, I can tell you. We three were exceedingly fond of her,but we agreed at last after arguing for seven days that true courtesymakes a person act cheerfully and considerately, no matter how she mayfeel inside.
There were about nine in that second class, and fourteen in the third andtwenty in the fourth, when we started in on Mary Winchester.
Lila and I were rushing to get ready for the last s
kating carnival of theseason. Some one knocked at the door. It was Mary, but she didn't turnthe knob when I called, "Come." She just waited outside and gave me thetrouble of opening it myself. Then in her offish way she asked if we werethrough with her lexicon. After I had hunted it up for her, she happenedto notice that Lila was wailing over the disappearance of her skates.
"I saw a pair of strange skates in my room," she said and walked away asindifferent as you please.
Now wouldn't any one think that was queer?
It made Lila cross, especially when she found that the skates had threenew spots of rust on them. March is an irritable month, anyhow, you know.Everybody is tired, and breakfast doesn't taste very good. She sputteredabout the rust till we reached the lake where we found two big bonfiresand three musicians to play dance music while we skated. Imagine howlovely with the flames leaping against the background of snowy banks andbare black trees! Berta and Lila and I crossed hands and skated aroundand around the lake with the crowd. When we stopped in the firelight,Lila looked unusually pretty with her rosy cheeks and her curls frostedby her breath. Berta's eyes were like stars. Of course Robbie Belle wasbeautiful, but she did not associate much with us that evening. After oneturn up and back again while we discussed Mary Winchester, she said shethought she would invite our little freshman roommate for the nextnumber.
We kept on talking about Mary. Lila was insisting that she ought to beput in the tenth class or worse, while Berta maintained that she wasn'tquite so bad as that. I kept thinking up arguments for both sides.
Lila counted off her crimes, and she didn't speak so very low either."Mary Winchester doesn't deserve a place even in the tenth class. Why,listen now. You admit that she borrows disgracefully and never returnsthings. At least, she helped herself to my skates. It is almost the sameas stealing. She has no friends. She always goes off walking alone, andsits in the gallery by herself at lectures and concerts. Everybody saysshe is queer."
"Miss Anglin thinks girls in the mass are funny," I volunteered, "thoughmaybe they are not any more so than human kind in the bulk. She says thatwe all imagine we admire originality, but when we see any one who isnoticeably different from the rest, we avoid her. We call her queer andare afraid to be seen with her."
"Mary Winchester's independence is commendable," protested Berta. "I envyher strength of character. She ignores foolish conventions----"
"As for instance, the distinction between mine and thine," interruptedLila, "you don't live next to her, and you don't know. Her disregard forthe property rights of others indicates a fatal flaw----"
"Fatal flaw, fatal flaw!" chanted Berta mischievously, "isn't that amusical phrase! Say it fast now, and see if it tangles your tongue."
I was afraid Lila would feel wounded, so I remarked hastily that weagreed that Mary was not polite; the question was as to the degree ofimpoliteness.
"Even Robbie Belle acknowledges that she is not a lady," chimed in Berta;"she said it when Mary wanted to take that stray kitten to the biologicallaboratory. She declared it would be happier if dead."
"And it wasn't her kitten either," I contributed. "Robbie found it up atree. It is necessary to weigh every little point in a scientific studylike this."
"Don't you see, girls, that Mary Winchester does not come from goodstock," began Lila, "of course she isn't a lady. Her attitude toward therights of others is certain proof that her family has a defective moralsense. Perhaps her brother----"
"Oh, let's follow out the logical deductions," cried Berta. "That coursein logic is the most fascinating in the whole curriculum. See--if a girllacks moral judgment, she either inherits or acquires the defect. If sheinherits it, her father doubtless was dishonest. Maybe he speculated andembezzled or gambled or something. If she acquired it throughenvironment, her brother must have suffered likewise as they werepresumably brought up together. So perhaps Mary Winchester's brother wasexpelled from college for kleptomania."
"Then," said Lila triumphantly, "how can we possibly put her into eventhe lowest of our classes in manners?"
"Hi, there!" I started to scream before the breath was knocked out of meby colliding with some girls who had been skating in front of us. One ofthem had caught her skate in a crack, and we were so intent on ourconversation that we bumped into them, and all tumbled in a heap. Nobodywas hurt. That is, nobody was hurt physically. We picked ourselves up andwent on skating as before. It was not until days later that we discoveredwhat had been hurt then. It was Mary Winchester's reputation. Those girlsin front had overheard part of our remarks. And they thought that we weretalking about real facts instead of just analyzing character.
It was exactly like a game of slander, only worse. The rumor that MaryWinchester's father was a gambler and that her brother had been expelledfrom college for stealing spread and grew like fire. You know, as I saidbefore, she was a queer girl--so queer in countless small ways that shewas conspicuous. Even freshmen who did not know her name had wonderedabout the tall, wild-looking girl who had a habit of tearing alone overthe country roads as if trying to get away from herself. Naturally whensuch a report as this one of ours reached them, they adopted it as asatisfactory explanation. They also, so to speak, promulgated it.
The first we knew of the rumor was from Robbie Belle. It was theafternoon before the Easter vacation, and Lila and I were in Berta's roomto help her pack her trunk. At least Lila held the nails while Bertamended the top tray and I did the heavy looking on. When Berta stoppedhammering and put her thumb in her mouth, I remarked that nobody whosquealed ouch! in company could belong to our highest class in manners.
Lila's expression changed from the pained sympathy of friendship to thescientific zeal of character study. "Girls, have you noticed MaryWinchester lately? It is the strangest thing! She seems more alone andalien than ever. The girls avoid her as if she had the plague. In thelibrary and the corridor to-day it was as plain as could be. They stoptalking when she comes around. They watch her all the time though theytry not to let her know it. Of course, she couldn't help feeling it. Theypoint her out to each other, and raise their brows and whisper after shehas passed. She moves on with her head up and her mouth set tight. Hermanners are worse than ever."
"When I met her this morning, she looked right through me and didn't seeanything there, I reckon," said I, "and, oh, Lila, you were mistakenabout her borrowing your skates without leave. It was Martha who had themthat morning. In rushing to class she got mixed up and threw them in atthe wrong door, that's all. Our example is corrupting the infant."
Berta forgot her aching thumb. "Something is wrong. Mary's eyes are thoseof a hunted creature. Driven into a corner. Everybody against her. Iwonder----"
Robbie Belle walked slowly into the room, her clothes dripping withwater.
"Mary Winchester fell into the lake," she said, "you did it."
In the silence I heard Berta draw a long sigh. Then she dropped herhammer.
"She broke through the ice," added Robbie Belle.
"But the ice is rotten. How did she get on it?" asked my voice.
"She walked," answered Robbie Belle, "I saw her." Then she crossed overto Berta, put both arms around her neck, hid her face against hershoulder, and began to shake all over. "I helped pull her out, and shefought me--she fought----"
At that moment little Martha, our freshman roommate, came running in."That queer girl jumped into the lake. I saw them carrying her to theinfirmary. She did it because everybody knows her father is in thepenitentiary. They heard about it at the skating carnival. Her brother isan outlaw too----"
Robbie Belle lifted her head. "She hasn't any brother, but it is trueabout her father. The doctor knows. She wonders how the story got out. Itwas a secret. Mary changed her name. She--she fought me."
I heard Berta sigh again. It sounded loud. Lila sat staring straight infront of her with such a horrified expression on her white face that Ishut my eyes quick.
When I opened them again, Miss Anglin stood in the doorway. I never wasso glad to see a
nybody in all my life. But we did not tell her then aboutour classes in manners. We waited till one day in June when she asked ushow we had managed to win Mary out of her shell.
As I look back now I cannot possibly understand how we succeeded. It wasthe most discouraging, hopeless, hardest work I ever stuck to. Over andover again Berta and I would have given up if it had not been for Lila.She said that she dared not fail. Of course Robbie Belle helped a lot inher steady, beautiful way. Martha did her best too, partly because shewas so sorry about her share in the affair of the skates. In fact all thegirls were perfectly lovely to Mary after the doctor had persuaded hernot to throw everything up and run away to hide. By and by she realizedthat it was no use to refuse to be friends.
Indeed she is a dear girl when you get to know her real self. Herunfortunate manner--it was unfortunate, you know--had been a sort ofarmor to shield her sore pride. She had been afraid of letting anybodyhave a chance to snub her. That was the reason why she had seemed sooffish and suspicious and indifferent and lawless and queer.
Do you know, I never heard Robbie Belle say a sharp thing except once.She said it that day when we were telling Miss Anglin about the classes.It was: "Whenever I want to say something mean about anybody, I think Ishall call it a scientific analysis of character."