“Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along. Merrily we roll along over the deep blue sea.”
“Not that way.” Mimi interrupted Betsy’s rollicking song. “This way—Notice I did not say this A-way. I’ve learned one thing at Sheridan. ‘Merrily we ride along, ride along, ride along, Merrily we ride along over the broad highway.’”
 
“But highway doesn’t rhyme with anything,” Betsy protested.
 
“Who cares! Hurrah—We’re off—It could rhyme with gay; if you insist, ’cause that’s how I feel. This whole back seat to ourselves and we’re going places. Whoopee! I’m afraid to open my eyes too wide for fear I’ll find out I’m sitting in study hall instead of zipping along this grand new road. I’ve held my breath for days, I’ve been so scared something would happen and we wouldn’t get off.”
 
Waiting was the hardest thing Mimi ever did. When she wanted anything she wanted it badly and wanted it RIGHT THEN. The two days she waited before Dr. Barnes finally gave her permission to go on this wonderful spree were a month long to Mimi. From that happy minute when Dr. Barnes, through Mrs. Cole, had said “yes” Mimi had trod lightly lest she burst the bubble of their precious plans. Now it was all coming true. The weekend bags were packed and stacked at their feet. Dit was on the front seat with evidently having a good time. Mimi could see how she kept turning her head toward Jack and smiling up at him and talking. Strangely Jack was even better looking than his picture. The photographer hadn’t caught his friendly twinkle. When he took both Mimi’s cold little hands and said, “So you’re the kid Betsy keeps writing about. I need another little Sis.” Without saying so, he was showing more than how nice he was. He was telling Mimi that Betsy liked her; liked her enough to write Jack about her, to invite her on this thrilling trip. She unfolded a fringed plaid blanket and spread it across Betsy’s knees and tucked the other end over her own. She’d make Betsy glad she asked her instead of an older friend.
 
“Isn’t it all too precious?” she sighed as she nestled down. She stared down the rolling road which cut a straight black strip through the hills. Without opening her lips she said to herself, “Hojoni, Hojoni.” No need to say it aloud. Betsy was probably feeling the same thing—beauty and happiness, but let her say it to herself her own way. Mimi liked to keep her magic word private unless some one was in real trouble and needed to find the way.
 
“How long will it take us to get there, Jack?” Betsy had to ask twice before Jack heard or . He was finding the trail happy, too.
 
“In time for supper, I hope. I had the dickens of a time getting a reservation for you all. I finally got one room. I’m staying at the House.”
 
Mimi knew that he referred to his fraternity house. Betsy had told her how popular Jack had been at school. She had two of his old annuals and a picture of his chapter.
 
“We can manage fine,” Dit was saying, “can’t we, girls? Sleeping is one of the best things we do at Sheridan—sometimes in classes. We aren’t coming to Nashville to sleep.”
 
Mimi didn’t care if she never slept again. She was so full of and she couldn’t sleep if she had her own ivory bed from home. Forever when she recounted her good times at Sheridan, one of the first things she remembered was this trip.
 
The sun had sunk behind the hills and the bare trees made black outlines against the graying sky before they reached the suburbs. Traffic had increased surprisingly in the last five miles. Once Jack so quickly to avoid a collision that the car had the fraction of a second on two wheels before he straightened it. Mimi and Betsy rolled from one side of the back seat and back to the other. Cars, cars, cars, two , often three abreast going to the city. The pigstands were surrounded with carefree travelers making loud boasts about tomorrow’s score.
 
“Might be a good idea for us to eat supper out here, somewhere,” Dit suggested. “I imagine every place in town is packed and jammed. What do you think, Jack?”
 
“Depends on how hungry we are and what you want.”
 
Mimi wouldn’t dare tell how she was. It wouldn’t be polite.
 
“I had thought we’d go on in, if you all can last another half hour, and eat at a waffle place I know. It is off of the main ‘drag’ and while it will likely be swamped too, they can take care of us and I believe you all would like it.”
 
“Shall we check in at the hotel and freshen up first?” Dit asked.
 
“I think you look as you are. This is what I’d planned. Speak now, all three of you, or forever after hold your peace, if it doesn’t suit.”
 
“O. K.,” the three agreed.
 
“I thought we’d go to the waffle house and eat just as we are. Then I’ll get you all settled in your room. While I go out to the House to change, you all can rest, dress, do what you please. Then we’ll put the kids in a good movie and we’ll do the town.” This last was to Dit.
 
“Couldn’t be better,” was the verdict.
 
That’s how Mimi and Betsy found themselves jammed in the lobby of a movie waiting for the feature to be over so they could find a seat.
 
“If Mrs. Cole could see us now,” Betsy exclaimed, “no brother, no chaperon, no ball-and-chain of any description, she’d faint.” Mimi felt like a bird out of a cage too, as they watched.
 
The crowd came out.
 
“Get set,” Mimi kidded shoving her head between Betsy’s shoulders. “Give me some interference and I’ll the ball through.” Mimi knew a lot about football. She had watched the kids at home play on the corner lot; had even played a time or two herself when there weren’t enough without her. Honky had told her a lot about it, too. He played on B. G. Hi.
 
“Signals,” Betsy answered.
 
“Seven-Eleven-Hike,” Mimi answered shoving hard.
 
By pushing and scrouging and holding to each other, they managed to down the to two seats. The newsreel was on flashing pictures of a suspected across the screen.
 
“I’d like to spit on him,” Mimi to Betsy as she popped the folding seat down. All the she felt for Fritzie with the tattoed arms, Freida, and the short man, who had cast a on Chloe’s life, was in that sentence.
 
“I’d like to scratch him and kick him,” Betsy hissed back. She was thinking of Chloe too.
 
“Wonder what Sue and Chloe are doing?” Mimi said.
 
“Study hall,” replied Betsy scornfully.
 
Then realizing how rude it was to even whisper at a talkie they gradually became interested in the comedy. It was Popeye and he made Mimi with delight but the tattoed anchors on his forearms were an ugly . They the back of her mind and she was not quite happy. Before the feature was well begun and, as she was beginning to lose herself in it, a sudden her attention to the back of the theatre. There was a regular stampede. Mimi and Betsy turned to each other inquiringly. Each hated to admit she did not know what was going on. They were not in the dark long. Soon every one in the theatre knew what was up and, at least in spirit, joined in the celebration. The supporters and pep of the visiting team had crashed the show. They overran the lobby, the , and the cheer leaders the orchestra pit to the stage. After five minutes of yelling and in general they left as suddenly as they had come. The heroine’s voice sounded small indeed in the void they left behind them.
 
What next, Mimi wondered, but nothing else happened until the girls were out of the show. They were only a block and a half from the hotel and Jack had given them directions. He had even spoken to the clerk at the desk. In case they made the wrong turn en route they had only to look up and around to see the big neon sign of the hotel flashing welcome.
 
“Let’s window shop,” Betsy suggested before they covered the half block.
 
“Suits,” Mimi replied.
 
Up and down Church Street, up and down Fifth Avenue, hand in hand, the girls strolled exclaiming in front of this window and that. The jolly crowd jostled them but the girls elbowed along and laughed back.
 
“I always imagined New Orleans was like this at Mardi Gras time,” Betsy commented. “Wouldn’t you love to go?”
 
“If it were any more fun than this, I couldn’t li............