“Being fat isn’t all it’s——­”

“Cracked up to be,” assisted Judith Stearns.  “I quote freely.  That’s one of Tim Jackson’s.”

“Where have I heard the line before?” mimicked Theodosia Dalton, otherwise Dozia the Fearless.  “It has a chummy tone.  All of which is as naught to the question.  Where is Jane?  Never knew her to miss the line up here.  And I even tapped at her door.  Judy, where is Jane?” demanded Dozia.

“Am I my chum’s keeper?  Can’t Jane attend to her own mortal baggage without incurring the wrath of the multitude?” and Judith sprang up from her spot on the leaf laden lawn.  Also she cast a glance of apprehension along the path where Jane Allen should at least now be seen on her way.  “Perhaps Jane feels we should forswear this moment of mirth; being juniors and stepping aside from all the others.  They call it the Whisper you know; ’count of the whispering poplar above,” with a grandiose wave at the innocent tree.  “But I would much prefer a chuckle, wouldn’t you Ted?”

“There you go again, or rather also,” flung back the stout girl.  “I must take all the cracks and the chuckles and presently some naive little freshie will amble along and ask me if I happen to be one of the soap bubbles she just blew off her penny pipe,” and the pneumatic cheeks puffed out in bubble mockery.

“Now Teddy dear.  Don’t fret.  Everyone is just jealous because you’re so lovely and comfy looking,” appeased Nettie Brocton, the dimple girl.  “But I really do think this ‘whisper’ is awfully childish.  Rather makes the strangers feel we are whispering about them.”

“If they only knew!” sighed Ted.  “I am the usual back-stop for all frivolity.  But if it comes to giving up this lovely loafing hour under our own grandmother poplar, I say girls, go ahead and knock, but spare the whisper.  I’d die if I had to go tramping around seeing things and saying hello to that mob,” with a sweeping wave of her one free arm, the other was around Janet Clarke’s waist.

“You are right, little girl, it is lovely to gather here and let the others do the traipsing.  And as for the whisper, anyone within sight may also hear, for this is a shout rather than a whisper.  The real point is, we are gathered together while others are scattered apart.  But where is Jane Allen?  I always look to her to start things, and we can’t stay here all day, alluring as is the grandmother poplar.  We have ‘juties’; girls, ‘juties’.  “Dozia Dalton had risen to her full height, which measured more feet and inches than her latest kitchen door records verified, and her hair now wound around her head like a big brown braided coffee cake, added a few more inches, in spite of all the flat pinning Dozia took refuge in.  It may be attractive to be tall and slender, but somehow old Dame Nature has a way of keeping her pets humble.  She loves to exaggerate.

The girls were grouped around the gnarled roots of the big tree.  As had been their custom this contingent managed to escape the hum and confusion of the “first day” just long enough to whisper hello and buzz a few unclassified other words.  Rooms and corridors were in commotion; the campus was like a bee farm, and it was only over in a remote corner, where a poplar and three hemlock trees formed a protective fortress, that the girls were safe from the first day’s excitement.