124 THE BOOK OF THE CLASS OF NINETEEN-ELEVEN

 

 

pleased that outsiders should join us in the recognition of our merits. 1913 rose daily
at six in order to render Pallas several weeks early with unity, clearness and force, and
the undergraduate body as a whole concentrated on the Star Spangled Banner and
Manus Bryn Mawrensium.

Then one of those aggressively executive members of our community asked where all
these renowned visitors were to stay. In West we heard that they were to be lodged on the
other side of the Arch, and we felt sorrier than ever for dwellers in East. Mindful of my
springy window seat, I rushed across to invite an East friend to stay with me during the
Jubilee, but she, through some absurd mistake, had heard that the delegates were to honour
West. In little drops the truth trickled out. Both Pembrokes were to be temporarily
evacuated by the students at an early hour Friday, October twenty-first, to be re-entered
when the delegates should see fit to depart.

After all, it is not an unspeakable calamity to leave one’s room for thirty-six hours.
Some of us do it occasionally of a week-end, and Schmitty even of a week-middle, and
as for Dotty—the whole corridor stays up to celebrate when she spends a night in her
own room. It was being driven out that depressed us, and the necessity of leaving order
behind, and the desperate feeling that we could not return at any moment for things
forgotten. Our friends in other halls were sympathetic and hospitable. I was invited to
stay with Scottie and Virginia, and in great elation went to register that fact on the list
on West: bulletin-board. Opposite the names above mine I noticed ditto marks instead
of room numbers, and idly ran my eye to the head of the column. There, heading seven
pairs of ditto marks, I read “M. Scott 5-9 Denbigh.” I dejectedly affixed the eighth.

Well, we all moved out during Chapel Friday, with our hockey skirts and our toy pigs
and pelicans, and the pessimists brought their Sunday hats, convinced that the delegates
would be too charmed to leave promptly. We stole back guiltily to a stand-up supper,
and greeted Alumnz, and watched Lantern Night, hoping that the delegates would be
capable of feeling its beauty as we did. Other people afterwards did a great many other
things, but every drop of my energy was spent in getting the varsity hockey team to bed
—which was a bit difficult, as they had no beds. They accomplished the feat however—
a vain sacrifice on their part, since the next morning we awoke to a downpour unequaled
since the Flood. The opposing hockey team had the insight to telephone from
West Philadelphia that it would stay where it was until the cloud-burst had ceased and
then go home.

That excitement over, we assembled in large numbers beneath Pembroke Arch, which