Betty Lee, Sophomore

by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER XIII: LIGHT ON THE SORORITY QUESTION

  Betty had to decide what she would do about "sororities." She haddiscussed them frankly with a few of the girls, those she knew well,perfectly sincere girls and her good friends. Outside of that littlecircle she had been careful what she said. She had been included withLucia, Mathilde, Carolyn and Peggy in attentions from the juniors of theKappa Upsilons. That there was a small addition to that "chapter" inprocess of being made among the sophomores she knew. If the other girlsjoined, especially Carolyn, would it make a difference in theirfriendship? Yet Kathryn, while she had been invited to Marcella's party,that glorious Hallowe'en party, had received no further attention.Perhaps it was a matter of numbers.

  Now Marcella had come right out and asked her what she thought of KappaUpsilon and whether she had any objection to a high school sorority that"really complied with the rules you know."

  Fortunately the question came at the close of school when Betty wasrushing home to let her mother go somewhere without Amy Louise. Bettywas going to get the dinner that night. "Why, Marcella, I think anythingthat you belong to would have to be all right," she answered. "I've gotto _rush_, Marcella, to catch that car!" and Betty scampered as fast asshe could, noting from Marcella's smile and nod that she understood.More than one important conversation was sometimes interrupted becauseone of the participants had to hurry to orchestra practice or a DramaticClub meeting or a meeting of the _Lions' Roar_ reporters or editors, ormerely to catch a car home, as in the present instance.

  All the way home, the people in the car were as shadows to Betty as shesat squeezed in between a fat lady and one of the senior girls until thecar reached her stop. She vaguely recalled answering a few remarks fromthe senior girl, whom she did not know, but her mind was chieflyconcerned about what she should do.

  She nearly put sugar instead of salt into the potatoes when she mashedthem, and when she finally took up the supper and was sitting in hermother's place, fixing Amy Lou's milk, she answered a question from herfather, with such a blank, "What, sir?" that Dick looked up from hisplate to say rudely, "What's eating you Betty?" and Doris said "Are youmad at anybody?"

  Betty waked up immediately and came back to the present scene. "Oh, no,Doris! I've just been thinking about something."

  "Betty has great powers of concentration," said Mr. Lee, with a twinklein his eyes, "but look out; it's dangerously near absent-mindedness."

  "So it is, Daddy. I've got a funny little problem to solve, that's all.I'm sorry I was so absorbed. But the twins were telling you all abouttheir affairs anyhow----"

  "When last you heard anything," laughed Dick. "We hadn't said a word forat least a full minute and a half!"

  "It was Amy Lou, then," suggested Betty.

  "I didn't do anything," said Amy Lou, getting ready to put up an injuredlip.

  "Mercy no, darling. You're all right. It's old Betty that isn't muchgood as a mother substitute. Isn't that so?"

  But Amy Lou was drinking her milk now and when she put down her tumblershe said, rather gaspingly, "I love Mother and I love Betty, too. Shemade the dessert just like Grandma."

  After dinner Doris and Dick did the dishes, by previous arrangement, andBetty went to her lessons, while Mr. Lee had his customary little visitwith his youngest daughter before her bedtime. That was to be a littlelater than usual this time. But Betty could not study very well. It washard to settle to anything someway and when Amy Lou's father was puttingher to bed, the telephone rang. Dick answered it and called Betty, whohad been alone back in her bedroom.

  It was Carolyn Gwynne. "'Lo, Betty. Betty I've got a problem I can'tanswer."

  "Have you, what is it?"

  "I had an invitation this afternoon and I sort of suspect you had, too.Did you?"

  "Why--I don't know. I'm not sure just what you mean. Perhaps I wouldhave had one if I hadn't had to rush for a car and get home. Mother wasinvited out for dinner and I cooked ours."

  "Oh, did you? I wish I knew how! Well, I just have to see you some way.Could you leave for just a little while if I drove over for you!"

  "I'll ask. I've lessons well enough up, I suppose. I got most of them atschool, and if you're thinking of the same thing I am, I'd surely liketo talk it over with you. Hold the wire a moment."

  Betty tiptoed back, hoping that Amy Lou hadn't gotten to the stage whenit was best not to rouse her from her sleepiness. But she heard herchildish conversation with her father and went near the door. "Father,excuse me, but Carolyn wants to know if I can drive over with her if shecomes for me. We have--something to decide and it's--important."

  "Is she driving, this late?"

  "Oh, no. She wouldn't be allowed. She will be driven."

  "Very well, then, but do not stay late."

  "No. I have my lessons pretty well, Father."

  Betty reported the favorable answer and it was not long before she andCarolyn were in secret conference in Carolyn's pretty room. Carolyn putBetty in the gay _chaise lounge_ that was her own, drew up a big chairfor herself and established a little "end table" between them. On thisreposed a box of taffies and a plate of apples.

  "My, such preparations!" laughed Betty.

  "Don't you like 'em?" twinkled Carolyn.

  "Indeed I do! I'm so thankful to be invited over, for I couldn't studyor do anything else," and Betty gave Carolyn a history of herpreoccupation while she tried to cook dinner and serve it.

  "Tell me why you were preoccupied, Betty," urged Carolyn.

  "Oh, _you_ tell what your problem is."

  "_Please_," said Carolyn, and Betty "weakly yielded," as she announcedbefore she told.

  "It's just because you're nicer than I am," said Carolyn, "but I have areason."

  "You may not think what I have to tell you is much, but it wasMarcella's manner and I saw that she wanted to talk to me," said Betty,who went on to give an account of what Marcella had said.

  Carolyn listened with interest. "Yes, that was it. It was one of theother girls that talked to me, though. But she told me that some of myspecial friends were being asked, or would be asked to join the KappaUpsilons. It _would_ be fun, Betty!"

  "Yes, it would; but there's a lot of things to be considered. In thefirst place it _is_, really, a high school sorority. The girls don'teven pretend that it isn't, or practically the same thing. How do theyget around it, Carolyn?"

  "By having people outside of high school belong to it and claiming thatit is just a society and not a high school affair."

  "I see. I've been trying out Mother and Father on high school sororitiesand all I can get out of them is surprise that I should mention it atall. 'How can they have sororities if they are forbidden?' asks my dearmother!"

  "Yes--my father the same--but Mother knows. She just laughs. I didn'ttell her I'd been bid today. Well, now, listen, Betty. We agree that itwould be fun. So it would. That's that. It sounds well to be a KappaUpsilon and we can go around if we like and be as snooty as any of them.But they've dropped Kathryn since the party, for one thing. She did notmention it, though of course she has noticed it, but when I asked herabout something that I was in on she didn't know a thing about it andlooked at me as _funny_--I don't think it was nice of them, to payattention and then drop a person like a hot cake."

  "No. That isn't like Marcella Waite, though."

  "Marcella is a fine girl, but there are two or three that are different.Oh, they're nice enough. A body could have them for friends, but theytake up little things. Kathryn may have said something that wasn'taccording to their notion. Kathryn is pretty independent, you know."

  "So am I," said Betty.

  "Yes, but with a little difference, and then you are prominent now inathletics. They all expect you to win something in the girls' swimmingmeet and you are going to make the basketball team."

  "Am I?" laughed Betty, "how nice!"

  Carolyn laughed too, but went on. "So you are as good as asked, Betty.Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? I want to and Idon't
want to--and oh, I must tell you what Louise Madison says. She isover here once in a while, you know, and I was talking to her aboutsororities.

  "She said, 'Why don't you wait till you go to the University and joinsome sororities that amount to something and are real sororities,national and all that?'

  "Then my sister said that the girls were afraid that they might not getbid to one in the University, that a bird in the hand was worth two inthe bush and that some of them thought a girl was more likely to beasked into a sonority in the University if she had belonged to a highschool sorority."

  "Does Louise belong to a sorority over there?"

  "Yes, and my sister, too, but they were talking about some of theirfriends that didn't get in and how unhappy they were. That's the worstof it. Louise was asked by my sister's sorority."

  "Was Louise in a high school sorority?"

  "No--she said that she wouldn't be. There wasn't any one started thatshe wanted to join when she was a freshman or sophomore and then she gotinto so much responsibility in the G. A. A. and cared for athletics somuch more, I guess. But Louise didn't say a word about herself. I gotall about her through Letty. Letitia didn't go to high school much. Shewas sick some and it was better for her to go to private school. MyDad's the one that insisted on _my_ going to Lyon High."

  "I'm certainly glad that you did," said Betty, with emphasis. "I'm gladto hear all this, Carolyn, and Louise's idea. There's another thing. Ican't see that it makes much difference on our 'social position,'outside of just a few girls that we like, like Marcella, because there'ssuch a _mob_ of folks in this big high school. The sororities _can't_have so much influence, outside of their own little group, and we couldjust as easily have our own friends. There are such _loads_ of nicegirls in the Girl Reserves, for instance, and in the swimming and gameswho cares what sorority a girl belongs to, or knows, for that matter!"

  "Oh, they work for their own, Betty. You'd be surprised at the things_some_ of the girls will do to be represented in prominent affairs."

  "Does it get them anywhere?"

  "Sometimes."

  Betty thoughtfully tapped her fingers on the arms of the _chaise lounge_and Carolyn offered the box of taffies.

  "Do you know who are going in with the Kappa Upsilons?" asked Betty,talking off the oiled paper from her candy. "Carolyn," she said, by wayof parenthesis, "if I eat this, I'll not be able to talk!"

  "That's all right," said Carolyn, removing the paper from her piece."Perhaps we need to do some _thinking_!"

  "Yes--but I've thought and thought. What I need to do is deciding."

  "Help me decide, too."

  "I wouldn't dare take the responsibility."

  "It makes a lot of difference what _you_ do, Betty. I'll not care somuch to be in it unless you are."

  "Oh, Carolyn!"

  "It's so, Betty Lee! But you asked me who were being asked or who weregoing in, which isn't quite the same thing. I think Peggy Pollard will,and Lucia has said she would. They are crazy to get her into it--thedaughter of a count and countess!"

  "Yes, but Lucia is good enough to be asked on her own account, and shecan be pardoned, perhaps, for being 'snooty' in social matters."

  "I don't see why!"

  "I mean because of the way she has been brought up. Don't you suppose ifyou'd had family and wealth drilled into you and all that way of livingit would make you different?"

  "Yes--I imagine it would. Lucia's been everywhere."

  It was, indeed, difficult to talk now, since the taffies were being morethan sampled. But by degrees a few more thoughts on sororities wereexchanged.

  "Suppose we sleep over it," suggested Betty. "I've got to make a list, Ithink, of arguments for and against. The biggest argument _for_ isMarcella and how good it is of them to want us. A person hates to refuseand seem not to appreciate being asked. And then you run the chance oftheir unfriendliness, too."

  "Yes," said Carolyn, with a frown; "but I don't believe Marcella Waitewould be that way. Do you think so?"

  "I hope not. I had the best time at her party!"

  "So did I. Oh, by the way, Mathilde is invited and there isn't anychance of her not accepting. Julia--I may as well tell you who askedme--Julia Hickok said that Mathilde is so fond of Lucia Coletti and thatthey think she, Mathilde, will make a very loyal sorority sister."

  Betty gave Carolyn a sober glance. "Lucia could handle Mathilde, ifnecessary," she replied. "Lucia is a girl of some force, Father says.But on which side of the arguments for and against shall we putMathilde's being in the sorority?"

  Carolyn smiled. "It wouldn't make so much difference to me. I could getalong with 'Finney'--I'm not like Dotty."

  "I think you could get along with anybody, Carolyn, you are such a dear.But there it is. I think 'getting along' with sorority sisters that onedid not choose for intimate friends would hinder me in my 'greatambitions' in other lines. But I've simply got to sleep on it, Carolyn."

  "Probably I'd better, too, but we haven't much time, Betty. I told JuliaI'd tell her in the morning. I had to ask what Mother and Fatherthought. She laughed at me for a goose, then told me that I mustn't makethat an excuse. I told her that I thought they would let me do what Iwanted to do, but that I ought to tell them at least. I hope that shedidn't take that as a promise. Away from Julia and talking it over withyou makes me not so enthusiastic. Call me up in the morning, Betty, ifyou've decided before you go to school."

  "I will have decided all right," said Betty. "It's a thing you can't putoff. I'll decide, if I have to draw cuts!"