Chapter 3: The First “Idler”

“Who’s going to the Idler?” cried Clarissa one morning to a group around the bulletin board.

Then a little Freshman spoke up timidly, “Why, can any of us go? I thought that it was a club meeting.”

“Oh, the Idler is the only unexclusive institution that I’ve struck in this part of the world. Just sign the constitution and you’re in it for life. Come, you must join; we must make our class felt.”

Pressing nearer the board, one of the group read aloud that all Radcliffe students, regular or special, were invited to a meeting of the Idler Club on Friday afternoon at half-past four in the Auditorium.

Accordingly, they were all in their places before the appointed hour. The Auditorium was overflowing, and some girls even had chairs in the aisles. Ruth and Julia leaned on the ledge of the window opening from the conversation room.

“Why don’t they begin?” asked Ruth impatiently, at quarter of five. But even as she spoke there was a lull in the conversation, and a rather commanding figure rose on the platform.

“That is the President of the Idler,” whispered Ruth, “Mary Witherspoon. I had her pointed out to me the other day.”

Miss Witherspoon made an address that was clear and to the point. She congratulated the old students on the prospect of a successful year for the Idler; she welcomed the new students very heartily, and expressed the hope that all present would at the close of the meeting enroll themselves on the Idler’s membership list. She alluded to the fact that nothing was imposed on them beyond signing the club’s very simple constitution and paying the small annual dues.

“I hope, however, that all Radcliffe girls who can do anything to entertain us, who are willing to act or sing, or even write plays, will speak with me or with some of the Idler officers on the subject. We cannot afford to let any talent lie hidden; and if a girl is too modest to let us know what she can do, some one else will be sure to tell us, and then we shall be obliged to issue some kind of a mandamus to compel her to be amusing.”

All laughed at this, and when quiet was restored Miss Witherspoon announced as the entertainment of the afternoon a farce written by two Idler members, who for the present preferred to be anonymous. Thereupon the curtain rose on a pretty stage set for a drawing-room scene. In the background were two tall plants and a bookcase and a fine water-color on an easel; in the foreground a tea-table, daintily spread, and beside it two young girls drinking tea, and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of a college education.