Ruth Fielding At College; or, The Missing Examination Papers

by Alice B. Emerson

  CHAPTER XVI

  WHAT WAS IN REBECCA'S TRUNK

  The two chums did not speak a word to each other until they hadrecovered their snowshoes and set out down the rough side of BlissIsland for the ice. Then Helen sputtered:

  "People like _that_! Did you ever see such a person? I never was soinsulted----"

  "Pshaw! She was right--in a way," Ruth said coolly. "We had no realbusiness to pry into her affairs."

  "Well!"

  "I got you into it. I'm sorry," the girl of the Red Mill said. "Ithought it really was Maggie, or I wouldn't have come over here."

  "She's something like that Maggie girl," proclaimed Helen. "_She_ wasnice, I thought."

  "Maybe this girl is nice, taken under other circumstances," laughedRuth. "I really would like to know what she is over here for."

  "No good, I'll be bound," said the pessimistic Helen.

  "And another thing," Ruth went on to say, as she and her chum reachedthe level of the frozen lake, "did you notice that pick handle?"

  "That what?" demanded Helen, in amazement.

  "Pickaxe handle--I believe it was," Ruth said thoughtfully. "It wasthrust out of the snow pile she had scraped away from the boulder. And,moreover, the ground looked as though it had been dug into."

  "Why, the ground is as hard as the rock itself," Helen cried. "There aresix or eight inches of frost right now."

  "I guess that's so," agreed Ruth. "Perhaps that's why she built such abig fire."

  "What _do_ you mean, Ruth Fielding?" cried her chum.

  "I think she wanted to dig there for something," Ruth repliedreflectively. "I wonder what for?"

  When they had returned to Dare Hall and had got their things off andwere warm again, they looked out of the window. The campfire on theisland had died out.

  "She's gone away, of course," sighed Ruth. "But I would like to knowwhat she was there for."

  "One of the mysteries of life," said Helen, as she made ready for bed."Dear me, but I'm tired!"

  She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. Not soRuth. The latter lay awake some time wondering about the odd girl on theisland and her errand there.

  Ruth Fielding had another girl's troubles on her mind, however--and agirl much closer to her. The girl on the island merely teased herimagination. Rebecca Frayne's difficulties seemed much more important toRuth.

  Of course, there was no real reason for Ruth to take up cudgels for herodd classmate. Indeed, she did not feel that she could do that, for shewas quite convinced that Rebecca Frayne was wrong. Nevertheless, she wasvery sorry for the girl. The trouble over the tam-o'-shanter had becomethe most talked-of incident of the school term. For the severalfollowing days Rebecca was scarcely seen outside her room, save in goingto and from her classes.

  She did not again appear in the dining hall. How she arranged aboutmeals Ruth and her friends could not imagine. Then the housekeeperadmitted to Ruth that she had allowed the lonely girl to get her ownlittle meals in her room, as she had cooking utensils and an alcohollamp.

  "It is not usually allowed, I know. But Miss Frayne seems to have cometo college prepared to live in just that way. She is a small eater,anyway. And--well, anything to avoid friction."

  "Of course," Ruth said to Helen and Jennie Stone, "lots of girls live infurnished rooms and get their own meals--working girls and students. Butit is not a system generally allowed at college, and at Ardmoreespecially. We shall hear from the faculty about it before the matter isdone with."

  "Well, we're not doing it," scoffed Jennie. "And that Rebecca Frayne isbehaving like a chump."

  "But how she does stick to that awful tam!" groaned Helen.

  "Stubborn as a mule," agreed Jennie.

  "I saw her with another hat on to-day," said Ruth, reflectively.

  "That's so! It was the one she wore the day she arrived," Helen saidquickly. "A summer hat. I wonder what she did bring in that trunk,anyway? She has displayed no such charming array of finery as Iexpected."

  Ruth did not discuss this point. She was more interested in the state ofRebecca's mind, though, of course, there was not much time for her togive to anything but her studies and regular duties now, for as the termadvanced the freshmen found their hours pretty well filled.

  Scrub teams for certain indoor sports had been made up, and even JennieStone took up the playing of basketball with vigor. She was reallylosing flesh. She kept a card tacked upon her door on which she set downthe fluctuations of her bodily changes daily. When she lost a wholepound in weight she wrote it down in red ink.

  Their activities kept the three friends well occupied, both physicallyand mentally. Yet Ruth Fielding could not feel wholly satisfied orcontent when she knew that one of her mates was in trouble. She hadtaken an interest in Rebecca Frayne at the beginning of the semester;yet of all the freshmen Rebecca was the one whom she knew the least.

  "And that poor girl needs somebody for a friend--I feel it!" Ruth toldherself. "Of course, she is to blame for the situation in which she nowis. But for that very reason she ought to have somebody with whom totalk it over."

  Ruth determined to be that confidant of the girl who seemed to wish noassociate and no confidant. She began to loiter in the corridors betweenrecitation hours and at odd times. Whenever she knocked on Rebecca'sdoor there was no reply. Other girls who had tried it quickly gave uptheir sympathetic attentions. If the foolish girl wished for no friends,let her go her own way. That became the attitude of the freshman class.Of course, the sophomores followed the lead of the seniors and thejuniors, having as little to do with the unfortunate girl as possible.

  But the day and hour came at last when Ruth chanced to be right at handwhen Rebecca Frayne came in and unlocked her room door. Her arms werefull of small packages. Ruth knew that she had walked all the way to thegrocery store on the edge of Greenburg, which the college girls oftenpatronized.

  It had been a long, cold walk, and Rebecca's fingers were numb. Shedropped a paper bag--and it contained eggs!

  Now, it is quite impossible to hide the fact of a dropped egg. Atanother time Ruth might have laughed; but now she soberly retrieved thepaper bag before the broken eggs could do much damage, and stepped intothe room after the nervous Rebecca.

  "Oh, thank you!" gasped the girl. "Put--put them down anywhere. Thankyou!"

  "My goodness!" said Ruth, laughing, "you can't put broken eggs down_anywhere_. Don't you see they are runny?"

  "Never mind, Miss Fielding----"

  "Oh! you've a regular kitchenette here, haven't you?" said Ruth,emboldened to look behind a curtain. "How cunning. I'll put these eggsin this clean dish. Mercy, but they are scrambled!"

  "Don't trouble, Miss Fielding. You are very kind."

  "But scrambled eggs are pretty good, at that," Ruth went on, unheedingthe other girl's nervousness. "If you can only get the broken shells outof them," and she began coolly to do this with a fork. "I should thinkyou would not like eating alone, Rebecca."

  The other girl stared at her. "How can I help it?" she asked harshly.

  "Just by getting a proper tam and stop being stubborn," Ruth told her.

  "Miss Fielding!" cried Rebecca, her face flushing. "Do you think I dothis for--for fun?"

  "You must. It isn't a disease, is it?" and Ruth laughed aloud,determined to refuse to take the other's tragic words seriously.

  "You--you are unbearable!" gasped Rebecca.

  "No, I'm not. I want to be your friend," Ruth declared boldly. "I wantyou to have other friends, too. No use flocking by one's self atcollege. Why, my dear girl! you are missing all that is best in collegelife."

  "I'd like to know what _is_ best in college life!" burst out RebeccaFrayne, sullenly.

  "Friendship. Companionship. The rubbing of one mind against another,"Ruth said promptly.

  "Pooh!" returned the startled Rebecca. "I wouldn't want to rub my mindagainst some of these girls' minds. All I ever hear them talk about isdress or amusements."

  "I don't think you kn
ow many of the other girls well enough to judge thecalibre of their minds," said Ruth, gently.

  "And why don't I?" demanded Rebecca, still with a sort of suppressedfury.

  "We all judge more or less by appearances," Ruth admitted slowly. "Ipresume _you_, too, were judged that way."

  "What do you mean, Miss Fielding?" asked Rebecca, more mildly.

  "When you came here to Ardmore you made a first impression. We all do,"Ruth said.

  "Yes," Rebecca admitted, with a slight curl of her lip. She wasnaturally a proud-looking girl, and she seemed actually haughty now. "Iwas mistaken for _you_, I believe."

  Ruth laughed heartily at that.

  "I should be a good friend of yours," she said. "It was a great sell onthose sophomores. They had determined to make poor little me suffer forsome small notoriety I had gained at boarding school."

  "I never went to boarding school," snapped Rebecca. "I never was_anywhere_ till I came to college. Just to our local schools. I workedhard, let me tell you, to pass the examinations to get in here."

  "And why don't you let your mind broaden and get the best there is to behad at Ardmore?" Ruth demanded, quickly. "The girls misunderstand you. Ican see that. We freshmen have got to bow our heads to the will of theupper classes. It doesn't hurt--much," and she laughed again.

  "Do you think I am wearing this old tam because I am stubborn?" demandedthe other girl, again with that fierceness that seemed so strange in oneso young.

  "Why--aren't you?"

  "No."

  "Why do you wear it, then?" asked Ruth, wonderingly.

  "_Because I cannot afford to buy another!_"

  Rebecca Frayne said this in so tense a voice that Ruth was fairlystaggered. The girl of the Red Mill gazed upon the other's flaming facefor a full minute without making any reply. Then, faintly, she said:

  "I--I didn't understand, Rebecca. We none of us do, I guess. You camehere in such style! That heavy trunk and those bags----"

  "All out of our attic," said the other, sharply. "Did you think themfilled with frocks and furbelows? See here!"

  Ruth had already noticed the packages of papers piled along one wall ofthe room. Rebecca pointed to them.

  "Out of our attic, too," she said, with a scornful laugh that was reallyno laugh at all. "Old papers that have lain there since the Civil War."

  "But, Rebecca----"

  "Why did I do it?" put in the other, in the same hard voice. "Because Iwas a little fool. Because I did not understand.

  "I didn't know just what college was like. I never talked with a girlfrom college in my life. I thought this was a place where only richgirls were welcome."

  "Oh, Rebecca!" cried Ruth. "That isn't so."

  "I see it now," agreed the other girl, shortly. "But we always have hadto make a bluff at our house. Since _I_ can remember, at least.Grandfather was wealthy; but our generation is as poor as Job's turkey.

  "I didn't want to appear poor when I arrived here; so I got out the oldbags and the big trunk, filled them with papers, and brought them along.A friend lent me that car I arrived in. I--I thought I'd make a splurgeright at first, and then my social standing would not be questioned."

  "Oh, Rebecca! How foolish," murmured Ruth.

  "Don't say that!" stormed the girl. "I see that I started all wrong. ButI can't help it now," and suddenly she burst into a passion of weeping.