“MISS ROSE”

SHE was always called that, and there were very few of the seven hundred students who really knew or cared whether it was her little name or her family name. The uncertainty about it seemed particularly appropriate someway—her whole personality was vague. That is at the beginning; later——

For the first month she passed comparatively unnoticed. In the wild confusion of setting up household gods and arranging schedules, hopeless as Chinese puzzles, of finding out where the Greek instructors can see you professionally, and when the art school is open, and why you cannot take books from the library, and when the elevator runs, anyone less remarkable-looking than an American Indian or the Queen of the Sandwich Islands is apt to be overlooked. But after the preliminary scuffle is over and there is a lull in the storm, and one begins to remember vaguely having seen that dress or face before somewhere, and when one no longer turns up at the history or art rooms instead of the chemical laboratories, and when one ceases to take the assistant professor of physics for the girl who sat next to you in the trigonometry recitation—then the individual comes in for her share of attention.

“Miss Rose” possibly got more than her share. Curious young women soon began to nudge each other, and ask in whispers who she was. And just at first there were covert smiles and a little cruelly good-natured joking, and the inevitable feeble punning on her name and withered looks. There were some who said she could not be more than forty-five, but they were in the minority, and even the more generously inclined could not deny that her face was very old and wrinkled and tired-looking, and that her hair was fast getting gray around the temples, though her eyes still retained a brilliancy quite feverish, and an eager, unsatisfied sort of look that struck some of the more imaginative as pathetic. As a freshman she seemed indeed to be hopelessly out of place—though not so much so, perhaps, as the little Chicago beauty who was so much more interested in her gowns and looks than in her work, that at the beginning of her second semestre she went home with an attack of pneumonia, brought on by having been left out in the cold after an examination in conic sections.

That type, however, is not uncommon, while “Miss Rose” was especially puzzling. They could not quite understand her, and there were even some among the august body of ridiculous freshmen who somewhat resented her entrance into their ranks, and wondered rather discontentedly why she did not join the great body of “T-specs” to which she so evidently belonged.

But it was characteristic of this woman that she preferred to begin at the beginning and work her way up—to take the regular systematic grind and discipline of the freshman’s lot—to matriculating in an elective course where she could get through easily enough if she were so inclined. She saw no incongruity in her position; she rarely seemed to notice the difference between herself and the younger, quicker intellects around her, and she worked with an enthusiasm and persistence that put most of the young women to shame. That she had taught was evident—in what little out-of-the-way Western town, or sleepy Southern one, no one knew; but sometimes there were amusing little scenes between herself and the professor, when the old habit of school-room tyranny which she had once exercised herself was strong upon her, and she lapsed unconsciously into the didactic manner of her former life. And sometimes she became discouraged when the long lack of strict mental discipline irked her, and when she saw in a glimpse how far she was behind the girl of nineteen beside her, and how hopeless was the struggle she was making against youth and training. There were moments when she realized that she had begun too late, that the time she had lost was lost irretrievably. But the reaction would quickly come and she would work away with renewed energy, and they were very patient with her and would lend her a helping hand where a younger student would have been let most severely alone, to sink or swim after the approved method.

But if her mathematics and chemistry and Tacitus left much to be desired, there was one field in which she shone resplendently. “No one could touch her”—as one young woman slangly but enthusiastically remarked—“when it came to the Bible.” There she was in her glory, and her vast knowledge of the wars of Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and her appalling familiarity with Shamgar and the prophets, and the meaning of the Urim and Thummim, and other such things, was the envy and despair of the younger and less biblically inclined. And if at times she was a trifle too prolix and had to be stopped in her flow of information, there was very genuine regret on the part of the less well informed.

And in time she came to make a great many friends. Her peculiar ways no longer struck them as comical, and if anyone had dared make reference to the plainness of her gowns or the strict economies she practised to get through, that person would have very soon discovered her mistake; and they pretended not to know that she would not join any of the societies because of the dues, and that she did her own laundry on Monday afternoons. Indeed, she was so kindly disposed and so cheerful and helpful, and seemed so interested in all the class projects and even in the sports, at which of course she could only look on, that little by little she came to be a great favorite, and the one to whom the rest naturally turned when there was any hitch or especial need for advice. And then, of course, as she was not to be thought of in the light of a possible candidate for president or vice-president or captain of the crew, or any of the other desirable high-places, those misguided young women who did have such literary, social, or athletic aspirations would go to her and confide their hopes and fears, and in some strange way they would all feel very much more comfortable and happy in their minds after such confessions. And so she got to be a sort of class institution in a very short while, and the captains of different stylish but rather un-nautical freshman crews vied with each other in invitations to “come over the lake” with them, and the president of the Tennis Association sent her a special and entirely superfluous invitation to the spring tournament on the club’s finest paper, and the senior editor of the college magazine, whose sister was a freshman, was made to ask her for a short article on the “Study of the Bible,” and at the concerts and receptions many young women, kindly and socially disposed, would introduce her to their brothers and other male relations who had been enticed out, before taking them on to see the lake, or a certain famous walk, or the Art Building, or the Gymnasium.

It was about the middle of the winter semestre that it happened, and of course it was Clara Arnold who knew about it first. Miss Arnold had liked “Miss Rose” from the beginning. She had taken a fancy to the hard-working woman, who had returned it with wondering admiration for the handsome, clever girl. And so Miss Arnold got into the habit of stopping for her occasionally to walk or drive, and it was when she went for her to go on one of those expeditions, that she discovered the trouble. She found “Miss Rose” sitting before her desk with a crumpled newspaper in her hand, and a dazed, hopeless expression on her face which cut the girl to the heart. Her things were scattered about the room, on the bed and chairs, an open trunk half-filled stood in one corner. Miss Arnold stared around in amazement.

“The bank’s broken,” said “Miss Rose” simply, in answer to her questioning glance, and pointed dully to the paper. “I might have known that little bank couldn’t hold out when so many big ones have gone under this year,” she went on, half speaking to herself.

Miss Arnold picked up the paper and read an article on the first page marked around with a blue pencil. She did not understand the technicalities, but she made out that the “City Bank” of a small town in Idaho had been forced to close, and that depositors would not get more than five or ten cents on the dollar.

“Every cent I’ve saved up was in that bank!” The woman turned herself slowly in her chair and laid her face down on the desk with her arms above her head. She spoke in muffled tones into which a strange bitterness had crept.

“I’ve worked all my life—ever since I was twenty—to get enough money to come to college on. I had barely enough to stay here at all—and now—” she stopped suddenly, breathing hard. “I haven’t been here a year yet,” she broke out at last.

“Well, I’ll have to go back to teaching. Great heavens! I thought I’d finished with that!”

Miss Arnold seated herself on a clear corner of the bed.

“Look here, ‘Miss Rose,’” she said, excitedly, “of course you aren’t going to stop college now, when you’re doing so well and—and we all like you so much and—and you’re just beginning your course.” She stumbled on—“Has everything gone?—can’t you do something?”

“Miss Rose” looked up slowly—“Everything,” she said grimly, and then, with the pathetically resigned air of one who has been used to misfortunes and has learned to accept them quietly, “I’ve worked all my life, I suppose I can go at it again.” She looked around her. “I’ll be gone this time to-morrow, and then I won’t feel so badly;”—she put her head down on the desk again.

Miss Arnold looked thoughtfully at her for a few minutes and then, with a sudden movement, she got up and went out, closing the door softly behind her.

It was about nine o’clock that evening and “Miss Rose” had almost finished packing. She was feeling particularly disheartened and was taking the books from the cases one by one in a very mournful way, when she heard footsteps and a subdued but very excited whispering outside her door. She got up languidly and threaded her way among the books and cushions and odd articles of clothing heaped up on the floor. As she opened the door, the light from her student-lamp fell upon the very red face of a freshman propelled apparently into the room by the two or three others behind her, who seemed to have a wild desire to efface themselves entirely.

“Miss Rose,” gasped the blushing freshman in the van, “here—here is a letter for you. We’ve just had a class meeting—” she looked nervously at the others who were edging away.

There was an indistinct chorus from them which sounded like “hope you’ll accept,” and then they retreated with as much dignity as possible, but in great haste.

“Miss Rose” opened the letter and gave a little cry as a check for a good round sum drawn on the class treasurer fell to the floor. And then she sat weakly down on the bed and cried a little from pure happiness as she read it all over.

“The class of ’9—have just heard of ‘Miss Rose’s’ financial embarrassment occasioned by the failure of the —— City Bank, and being most unwilling to lose so valuable and appreciated a member, beg that she will accept the enclosed and continue with the class until the end of the year.”