But Eunice and Cricket were not altogether satisfied yet. They were very silent during luncheon, which was rather an uncomfortable meal, in spite of the older people’s efforts to make it as usual.
Whatever face he put on it, to be rusticated under any circumstances was a hard thing for a proud fellow like Donald, to say nothing of his athletic aspirations.
After luncheon, Donald stepped into his father’s office for another word or two, while the others went up-stairs. A few minutes after, Mrs. Ward sent Cricket back to the kitchen with a message to the cook. The office door was still open, and Donald’s voice was plainly audible.
“Yes, this is terribly hard on Chester, for he has had the reputation of being a regular daredevil, and the Faculty immediately put him down for one of the ringleaders, whereas, you see, he wasn’t in it at all. A great chum of his was concerned, and the Faculty have pretty well got hold of that, and there’s still a chance that three or four of them may be expelled. Of course he won’t peach, for the only thing that will save anybody is for us all to hold our tongues.”
“And Chester was with you, you said?”
“Yes. We were especially lamb-like that night,—calling on Miss Vassar. It was so pleasant that we started to walk home, and met another fellow who rooms in town, and turned in for a smoke. We left him about twelve. We fell in with some others on the way out, who had likewise been in town, and then we suddenly got into the crowd of the others, and were all pounced upon together. Of course, sir, I can’t give the names of those who were really guilty.”
“By no means. And old Chester takes it hard, you say?”
“He will, when he knows of it. I’m sorry for Chester. He’s a good fellow,—first-rate stuff,—but he’s chuck-full of mere mischief. You see, after that other row in the winter, his father swore that if he got into any rumpus again, he’d take him out of college, and put him in the office; and Chester hates that like poison. And old Chester isn’t like you, dad. He never was a college man, and he doesn’t understand.”
“I suppose not. H’m! I’m sorry for Chester. I like the lad. It would be rough on him to spoil his career.”
Here Cricket suddenly awoke to the fact that she was hanging on to the banisters, listening with all her might. Much mortified, she flew on to the kitchen and delivered her message, and then darted up-stairs to share her story with Eunice.
“Eunice, something must be done about it. Sidney Chester is awfully in it, and Don says he didn’t do a thing, either. They were both calling on Miss Gwendoline Vassar, the pretty one with red hair,—what Donald calls Tissue hair,—he’s awfully struck on her, you know,—and the boys were both there that very night.”
“Then they have only to tell the President so,” said Eunice, much relieved.
“That’s just it. They won’t say so, and some others who were caught, and didn’t really do anything, won’t say so either, because then the President would know just who did it, and expel those very ones.”
“It’s all dreadfully muddled, seems to me,” sighed Eunice. “College things are always so funny.”
“I think they’re very unsensible, myself,” said Cricket, decidedly. “I think they ought to tell. If the other fellows did it, let them say so, and be expelled. It’s like Zaidie, the other day. I was in the nursery, and mamma told her not to run the sewing-machine, and Zaidie did, and mamma tied a handkerchief around her hands. And yesterday, Zaidie got at the machine again, when ’Liza wasn’t there, and then she went and twisted a handkerchief around her own hands, and sat down in the corner, and wouldn’t play with Helen and Kenneth for a long time. ‘I just wanted to run that machine again,’ she said, ‘and now I’ve got to tie my hands up, ’cause I was naughty; but it was fun, anyway.’”
“That’s the way those boys ought to do,” said Eunice. “If they want to go and do bad things, they ought to speak up like a man and say so. Think of Don and Sidney Chester and the others being expelled, and they just calling on Miss Vassar!”
“And Don’s just crazy to get in the team!” added Eunice, almost in tears again. “Oh, Cricket, I wish the President could know about it. I’m sure he’d do something.”
Cricket sprang up with sparkling eyes.
“Eunice, let’s go and tell him! Come on, straight off, and don’t let’s tell anybody till we get back, ’cause they wouldn’t let us, I suppose. Grown people are so funny. And somebody ought to tell.”
Eunice stared helplessly at Cricket, aghast at this daring proposal. Her younger sister’s rapidity of thought and action often took her breath away.
“Go to the President’s house? Oh, Cricket, would you dare?”
“Of course I would,” answered Cricket, boldly. “He’s only a man. He couldn’t eat us, could he? We’ll just tell him we’re Doctor Ward’s daughters, ’cause he knows papa. Don’t you remember that papa dined with him last week? And we’ll just tell him that Don and Sidney Chester were calling on Miss Vassar, and that some of the others weren’t in it, too, and ask him please to give them all another chance.”
Cricket was flying out of one dress and into another all the time she talked. Eunice still stared.
“Would papa like it?” she hesitated.
“It won’t make any difference after it’s done; and if he doesn’t like it, why,—I’ll never do it again. I’ll have the satisfaction of doing it once, though. Come on, you old slowpoke. I’m nearly ready.”
“We don’t know where he lives,” objected Eunice, feebly, but getting up and going to the closet.
“I do. Or rather, I know the house when I see it, and anybody will tell us the way. I know what cars to take from here, and the conductors can tell us where to change. We’ll be all right,” finished Cricket, confidently. “Do hurry, Eunice,” and Eunice hurried, feeling as if she were pursued by a small cyclone.
A little later, the two girls went quietly down-stairs, and slipped out of the front door.
“Will mamma be anxious, do you think?” asked Eunice, suddenly, feeling very guilty, for the girls never thought of going out for a whole afternoon without asking permission.
“Guess not. She’ll think we’ve gone to Emily Drayton’s. She said this morning we might go, you know. There’s our car.”
The two girls, with fluttering hearts and excited faces, got on the car, feeling as if they were bound for Japan or the North Pole. Cricket’s buoyant, hopeful nature was serenely confident of gaining her end, while Eunice’s more apprehensive temperament made her quake at the process.
“What shall we say, Cricket?” said Eunice, doubtfully.
“Just tell the President all about it,” answered Cricket, easily. “I hope we can get him to let the other boys off, too. Perhaps he could just rusty-coat them for just a week or two. They ought to be willing to stand that; for, after all, what could you expect of Freshmen?” with a tolerant air and accent that amused some ladies sitting by them immensely.
“We change here. Come on,” and Cricket jumped up briskly. Eunice followed more slowly. Generally, she was the leader in their joint doings, even if Cricket was, as usually happened, the originator. To-day both felt that Cricket was in command of the expedition.
They reached the house at last. Eunice quaked more and more, but Cricket, though in a quiver of excitement, was as bold as a lion. The feeling that she was going to rescue her beloved brother from the clutches of that hawklike Faculty, who always hovered about, lying in wait to tear unsuspecting Freshmen to bits, gave her unbounded courage. Donald was in difficulty, and some curious code of honour kept him from saving himself. Somebody else must do it, then. That was very simple; and she was the person to do it. With this small maiden, as we know, to think and to act were always in close connection,—so close that often there was some apparent confusion of precedent. But now she was sure she was right, and she valiantly went ahead.
Eunice was white with excitement. She, forming the rank and file of the attacking army, had less to sustain her courage than General Cricket had. Definite action is always easier than to await an issue. Then, also, Cricket’s sublime unconsciousness that any one was particularly interested or concerned in what she did, saved her from the wonder, “What will people think?” which so often nips one’s finest projects in the bud.
“What shall we do if the President is out?” it suddenly occurred to Eunice to wonder, as they rang the bell.
“Wait till he comes in,” answered Cricket, instantly. Having made her plans, she proposed to fight it out on that line, if it took all summer.
“Suppose he doesn’t get home till evening? We would be afraid to go home alone then.”
“He could get a carriage, and send us home,” said Cricket, magnificently.
Eunice gasped. The children seemed to have changed places. Eunice was generally the one who had the practical resources.
The maid opened the door. “Yes, he was in,” was the welcome answer to the eager question. “But it’s afraid I am that he can’t see any one this afternoon. He’s particular engaged.”
Dismay filled the children’s hearts. So near to their goal and not to be able to reach it!
“Oh, please tell him we must see him!” cried Cricket, imploringly. “It’s dreadfully, awfully important, and we’ve come a long way; but we’ll wait as long as he likes, till he’s quite through, but we can’t go away without seeing him.”
The maid hesitated. Her orders were strict, but this was plainly something out of the ordinary course. “I don’t know if I can tell him,” she hesitated.
“We won’t take but just a few minutes. We’ll be very quick, and something must be done, and there’s nobody else to do it. Please ask him to let us come in, and we’ll talk very fast, and tell him all about Donald and the others, and—and I can’t go away without seeing him!”
Cricket’s earnest voice grew almost to a wail as she ended, clasping her hands entreatingly.
A door in the distance opened, and a gentleman came out.
“What’s the matter, Mary?” he asked.
“I want to see the President so much,” pleaded Cricket, twisting her fingers in her eagerness. “I know he must be awfully busy, for I suppose presidenting is very hard, and takes lots of time, but won’t you tell him we’ll be very quick? And it’s terribly important.”
The gentleman looked first amused, then interested.
“Come in, my little friends. I am the President, and I will very willingly hear what you have to say, and help you if I can.”
At this announcement, Cricket, finding that she was really in the much desired presence, drew a quick breath, feeling, for the first time, the importance of what she was doing. The two girls, holding each other’s hands tightly, followed their kindly guide to the pleasant library.
“My legs wobble so, I can hardly walk,” whispered Cricket to Eunice, “and there’s such a hole in my stomach! It feels all gone.”
The gentleman placed chairs for his little guests, with the utmost courtesy of manner, and then seated himself.
“Now, what can I do for you?” he asked, pleasantly.
Cricket gripped her fast-retreating courage with both hands, drew a long breath and plunged head foremost in her subject, as one might jump from a burning steamer into the ice-cold ocean.
“It’s about Donald, and he can’t tell, because it wouldn’t be quite honourable to the others, and I found it out accidentally, and papa says he’ll stand by him, though really Donald wasn’t in it at all, for he and Sidney Chester were calling on Miss Gwendoline Vassar, that very night,—that pretty Miss Vassar that all the boys are so stuck on, you know,—and they stopped and smoked with another man coming home, and then they met some other men, who hadn’t being doing anything either, and then they all got mixed up with the ones who did do something, but I don’t know what, and they were all caught together, and none of them would say a word, ’cause perhaps the right ones would be expelled if they were known, and so they’re all going to be rusty-coated, or suspended, or something, and that’s dreadful; and poor Sidney Chester, who didn’t really do a thing this time, may have to leave college entirely and go into his father’s office, and he hates it so, and he really isn’t bad, only full of fun, and papa understands things better than old Mr. Chester does, because he was at college himself, you know, and he says he’ll stand by Don, for he must be loyal to the others, only now perhaps Don can’t get on the team, and he hasn’t done wonders, but he hasn’t done so badly in his work, and he’s such a dear fellow.”
Cricket drew a long breath here, and dashed on.
“And you see he didn’t really do anything himself, and nobody knows we’ve come to you, and I guess papa would take my head off if he knew it, but I knew somebody ought to do something, and you’d feel so badly to punish somebody who didn’t do anything, and Donald didn’t even mean to tell papa about it, but papa always understands, and, oh, dear, if he’s—rusty-coated—I—can’t—bear—it!”
And here Cricket, perfectly unstrung by the nervous tension and the long strain, suddenly surprised herself, and paralysed Eunice, by bursting into convulsive sobs.
In a moment she was on the presidential knees, and her head was on the august shoulder, where she wept a perfect flood of tears into a big collegiate handkerchief which speedily replaced her small, drenched one. Eunice was so overcome by the astonishing spectacle of Cricket in tears that she sat wide-eyed with amazement, staring at her with bated breath.