Jane Allen: Junior | Page 6

smothering some mystery and I must have stepped on the
spring," guessed the inquisitive caller. "Was it the tack hammer or the
spindle chair or the fat girl? Not she, you have had no chance to do
uplift work yet. Land knows that farmer will need your greatest skill,
but dear, don't waste it on her. She's incurable."
"Bad as all that?" asked Jane colorlessly. "But what happened? You did
not try to hit her with the hammer I hope?"
"I didn't try to hit her, I did hit her. It fell accidentally on her fat head
and she tossed it through the mirror. Now what can a girl do in a case
like that?"
The haunted look, so foreign to the face of Jane, shaped itself again.
"Is she--did you hurt her?"
"I hope so," dared Dozia. "It would be a charity to send her home. Her
name is Shirley Duncan and she's from some country town. But Jane, if
she gets really horrid, I mean more horrid than she is now, I want you
to stand by me. That's what I came for."
"All right Dozia," said Jane, "but I hope it won't have to go as far as
that."
"Me too," responded the carefree Dozia. "But there's no telling what
Shirley may do."
For some moments after Dozia glided out Jane stood there, her gray
eyes almost misty.

"Of all the tragedies!" she was thinking. Then with a jerk she pulled
herself up. "But I guess I can handle it," she declared finally, and when
she succeeded in rousing Judith no one would have suspected anything
new amiss.
Jane Allen might have worries but they could not dominate her. Sunny
Jane, with sunny hair and gray eyes, was no mope. It would take fight
to conquer this new condition, she realized, but Jane could fight, and
her dreams on this first night back in college were strangely confused
with school-day battles.
More than once she awoke with a start, as if some danger were
impending, and a sense of uneasiness possessed her. Each time it
seemed more difficult to fall back into slumber, and all this was new,
indeed, to happy Jane.
"Daddy!" she murmured. "It's because of daddy's----"
She was finally sound asleep.
CHAPTER III
THE MISFIT FRESHMAN
Yes, they were back in college and work was waiting. This thought
invaded confused brains and stood out like a corporal of the guard,
shouting orders into lazy ears on Wellington campus next morning.
Jane Allen threw first one slipper and then another at Judith Stearns'
bed across the room from her own. But still Judith's hand ignored the
hair brush on the chair at her elbow.
"Judy," called Jane, "the warning bell has warned. Turn down the
corner on that dream and wake up." Each word of this climbed a note in
tone until the last was almost a shout. Then Judith's hand moved to
Jane's slipper on her own (Judith's) forget-me-nots, the little floral
pieces that adorned a very dainty garment with the embroidery on
Judith's chest--arms and neck ignored in the pattern.

"What say?" she muttered sleepily.
"Up," answered Jane. "Ever hear that little word before?"
"Yep, pony riding," drawled Judith. "Up, up, one, two, three, go!" and
at this Judith sprang up with such vigor and volume (in point of scope)
that she sprang over the neighboring bed and swooped down on Jane's
hat box! Her black hair now fell fearlessly over the embroidered
forget-me-nots, and her bare feet shot in their usual skating strike.
"Good thing that hat box is the new kind," commented Jane, "but even
at that it will hardly serve as a divan. Still, I am glad you are up. Do
you know where you are, Judy Stearns? And what you are expected to
do today?"
"All of those things and additional horrors are seething through my
poor brain," moaned Judith, "but a moment ago I was having a fast set
of tennis with adorable Jack St. John--Sanzie they call him. Have I told
you about him, Jane darling?" Judith gathered herself and her feet up
from the black enameled box and glided over to her own corner.
"No, Judy, I do not recall Sanzie," replied Jane, who was already armed
with soap and towel for the lavatory. "But keep the story. I shouldn't
like to get interested in boy tennis just now. We must forget--"
proclaimed Jane in tones so dramatic a poet calendar on the wall
trembled in the vocal waves. "Forget! forget----" and Jane was outside
the door with a sweeping wave of her big fuzzy towel and a rather
alarming thrust of her fist full of soap.
"Ye-eah," groaned Judith, "forget is the word, Sanzie and tennis." She
glanced at the tiny clock on a shelf of the