“They’s co’tin’ a-goin’ on in yander, boss. The fiah is low an’ the lights ain’t lit, but Miss Molly she guard that do’ like a cat do a mouse hole. Cose Miss Nance ain’t got no maw to futher things up for her but Miss Molly is all ready to fly off an’ git the preacher, seems like.”
“I can’t remember that things were made easy for me this way when I was addressing my wife,” complained Edwin as he stirred his tea with his arm around his wife, a combination that couldnot have been made had his arm not been long and Molly still slender.
“Ungrateful man! Why, Judy and Kent took the bus from Fontainebleau to Barbizon when they were simply dying to walk, just to give you a chance. Have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten the walk—I never will—and if they really rode on my account, I’ll pass on the favor to other lovers and stay out of my library until the cows come home; that is, if you will stay with me.”
Molly told him then of the whole affair and how Mildred had righted matters, telling Andy just exactly the right thing to bring him to his senses.
“I am almost sure they have made up and are engaged again,” sighed Molly ecstatically. A romance was dear to her soul and being happily married herself, she felt like furthering the love affairs of all her friends.
“They are either engaged or dead,” laughed Edwin. “Such silence emanating from the library must bode extreme calamity or extremebliss. If it continues much longer I think it is my duty as a householder to break in the door and offer congratulations or call the coroner, as the case demands.”
“It is getting late. Maybe I had better go in and ask Andy to stay to dinner.”
Molly, who had a deep-rooted objection to noise and usually talked in a low tone, now spoke in a loud voice as she bumped her way along the hall, pushing chairs and rattling the hat rack and calling out shrilly to the amused husband following her. Strange to say, she could not remember on which side of the door the knob was, although she had lived several years in that house. She fumblingly hunted it and finally opened the door with a great rattle.
Nance was seated sedately knitting and Andy was holding his coat close to the dying flames. The room was almost dark.
“Kizzie should have lighted the lamp and attended to the fire,” Molly said briskly. Oh, Molly, how could you be so untruthful, blaming things on poor Kizzie, too? (Molly’s consciencedid hurt her for dragging Kizzie in and she gave the girl a long coveted blue hat that she had meant to keep for second best, feeling that it might act as a salve on her own tender, truth-loving soul. Kizzie, quite ignorant of the cause for this generosity, gratefully accepted the hat and asked no questions.)
“Yes, it gets dark before one realizes,” said Nance demurely.
“Ahem!” from the professor.
“Oh, Andy, your coat is still wet! Mildred told me you wrapped it around her. I’ll get you Edwin’s smoking jacket and have your coat dried. You must stay to dinner with us. I can ’phone your mother not to expect you at home.”
Andy did not need much persuading, but accepted the invitation with alacrity. Molly called up Mrs. McLean to ask for the loan of her son for dinner.
“Yes!” exclaimed that wise lady at the other end of the wire. “I have been expecting a telephone call for the last half hour. You may keep him but I shall wait up to see him when he getshome. I am sur-r-e he’ll have something to tell me. From my back window I saw Nance with the perambulator full of babies on her way to the lake and I sent Andy off for a walk, first putting a flea in his ear by suggesting that the lake was getting shallower and shallower. He has always been that inquisitive that I was sur-r-e he would make for that spot to find out why. I knew that all those poor-r young folks had to do was to meet. Keep him, Molly—and God bless you!”
There was a little choking sound at the other end that Molly understood very well. She hung up the receiver “with a smile on her lip but a tear in her eye.” It is all very well for a mother to be unselfish and want her son to marry and to be happy, but there is a tug of war going on in her heart all the time.
“I know how I will feel when Dodo gets engaged,” Molly said to Edwin when she told him of what Mrs. McLean had said; but that young father went off into such shouts of laughter, Molly had a feeling that mere man could never understand a mother’s heart.
“I have no idea of going through dinner without letting you and old Ed know all about us!” said Andy as he took his place at Molly’s hospitable board.
“What about you?” asked Molly, who was growing deceitful, her husband feared.
“About Nance and me! I can’t keep it any longer,” declared the happy young doctor. Nance kept her eyes on her plate but her mouth was twitching with amusement.
“What about you and Nance?” solemnly asked the professor.
“Why, we’re engaged!”
“No! Not really?” and Edwin grinned.
“Oh, Andy! I’m so glad!” and Molly reached a hand out to her two friends, who were perforceplaced across the table from each other since there were only four for dinner.
Nance got up and kissed her hostess. “Oh, Molly, you are too lovely! Don’t you know that I know that Andy and I have not fooled you one moment? Don’t I see brandy peaches on the side table all ready for dessert, and don’t you know that I know that those precious articles are only brought out on highdays and holidays? Isn’t that fruit cake I smell, that you know perfectly well you made and put away for next Christmas so it would be ripe and get better and better?”
“Well, I had to express my feelings somehow, and how did I know that you and Andy were going to tell your secret this very evening? I knew I mustn’t say a thing until you two said something, and if I could not say anything, I could at least feed you.”
“All I can say, Andy, is that if your experience in choosing a girl from that class of 19— is as fortunate as mine, you will be a pretty happy man, and by Jove, I believe you are running me a mighty close second,” and to the astonishmentof his wife, as Edwin Green was certainly a far from demonstrative man, he actually jumped from his seat and embraced Nance. Then Andy felt that he must kiss Molly, and Kizzie coming in at this juncture almost dropped the dish she was carrying.
“Sich a-carryin’s on I never seed. I’m a-thinking you folks had better sort yo’selves,” and the girl went off chortling.
“Now tell me your plans!” demanded Molly when they settled down to dinner. Strange to say, they had got rather mixed up in the promiscuous embracing that had been going on, and Edwin and Andy had changed places. Edwin found himself seated at Molly’s side while Andy had greatly disarranged the table by plumping himself down by his Nance.
“We are to be married immediately,” announced Andy stoutly.
Nance gasped. The fact was they had been so busy explaining the past and living in the present while the fire had died so low in the library, that the future had not been touched upon.
“Of course I may start for France at any time now, but before I go I mean to get me a war bride. It will be pretty bad leaving her, but then the war can’t last forever, and I have decided it is my duty to go help, and I fancy it still is. When Uncle Sam steps in, maybe he can finish up things in a hurry. Then I can get back to Nance.”
“Get back to me, indeed! If you think you are going without me, Andy McLean, you are vastly mistaken. If it is your duty to go help, it is my duty, too. Oh, I know I am no trained nurse, but I can do lots of other things. Dr. Flint says I am better than most trained nurses——”
Nance stopped short. She should not have mentioned Dr. Flint. Only suppose it had hurt Andy’s feelings! Not a bit of it!
“Bully for Flint!” cried the accepted lover. “Oh, Nance, would you go with me?”
“I can scrub and cook and take care of babies.”
“I don’t know about that,” teased Andy.
“But you will always be near and pull them out of the water when I let them fall in,” suggested Nance. “Won’t you?”
“That I will! Just as near as I can get!” and Andy hitched his chair a little closer, thereby disarranging the table even more than he had done before. But although Molly was a very careful housekeeper and most particular about the looks of her table, she cared not one whit, but beamed on Andy as though he were the pink of propriety instead of a naughty boy.
What a change a little lovering had made in the appearance of both Nance and Andy! The girl’s clear skin was flushed and her eyes sparkling. The corners of her mouth had no trace of downward tendency now. The years of sadness and confinement spent in nursing her father and mother were forgotten. Nance had come into her own—her woman’s heritage: to be beloved, to be guarded and cherished; at the same time to know that she was to be the companion, the helpmeet. As for Andy,—he beamed with joy. His face had lost the stern lines that had so distressedhis mother. He looked again like the boy he was, not like the tired, disappointed man she had known of late.
Nance had no romantic notions of what life in France meant in that early spring of 1917. She knew that there was no room for drones and unproductive consumers in that war-worn country. She knew that in marrying Andy and going with his unit she was to face work, privations, danger, even death; but with her eyes open she was determined to see it through.
“I would enlist in the United States army,” Andy said to his host after dinner, as they lounged in the den and puffed away at their comforting pipes, “but I feel that I can be of more good right now in France where they are crying out for surgeons.”
“It can’t be many days now before war is declared,” sighed Edwin. “By jiminy! I hate myself for not being able to get in the game.”
“Too bad, old man! A fellow with a wife and two children has to think of them.”
“Of course! I wouldn’t let Molly know howI feel about it for any thing. I am not so young as I was, but I am stronger now than I was as a youth. As for my eyes—they are good enough eyes in glasses and my bald head would be no drawback.” Edwin always would call his sparsely covered top “bald,” but Molly, by diligent care, had made two blades of grass grow where only one had grown before, and with a microscope one could see the beginnings of a fuzzy crop of hair, at least so the fond wife insisted.
“I bet she would say go, if it were put to her,” said Andy.
“I’ll not do it, though! It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Well, if it is put up to her, I bet on Molly Brown!”
“I’ve got a wonderful scheme, Edwin,” said Molly when she had finally engineered her husband out of the den and Nance in.
“I’ll be bound you have. I never saw such a Mrs. Machiavelli!—First I mustn’t go in the library but stick to the den, and now that I had just made myself at home in the den I must flee to the library.”
Molly laughed at her husband’s pretended discomfiture as he settled himself to find out what was going on at the front.
“Now read the news to me while I knit. There is no knowing how soon our own boys will be needing sweaters. I feel that every stitch I put in is important. Mercy, what a mess my knitting is in! I do believe that little monkey of a Mildred has been working on it. But she can’tpurl at all! Someone else has done it. No one has been here but Andy.”
“Well, I can’t think Andy McLean would attempt a sweater,” laughed Edwin. “Maybe Nance is responsible.”
“But Nance is a past master!”
“She might have been trying a one-handed stunt and failed. I don’t believe even Prussian efficiency could knit and get proposed to and accept all at the same time. Under the circumstances I think she should be forgiven for purling where she should have knitted and knitting where she should have purled.”
“You sound like the prayer book,” said Molly, patiently pulling out stitches and deftly picking up where Andy asked to hold Nance’s hand. “I almost feel as though I were committing a sacrilege. This sweater is like a piece of tapestry where the lady has recorded her emotions, using the medium she knew best. I just know dear old Nance tried to go on with her work all the time Andy was making love,” and Molly wiped a wee tear off on the ball of yarn.
“I tell you that sweater could tell tales if it could speak,” teased Edwin. “Why don’t you sew in one of your golden hairs so that the happy soldier who finally gets it will have some inkling of how the beautiful girl looks who made it?”
“Silly! But don’t you want to hear what my scheme is?”
“Dying to!”
“I am going to try to get the old Queen’s girls, that is our ’special crowd, to come to Nance’s wedding. Katherine and Edith Williams are both in New York; Judy is there; Otoyo Sen is in Boston; Margaret Wakefield is in Washington; Jessie Lynch is in Philadelphia——”
“Are there no husbands?”
“Oh, yes, plenty of them, but I’m not going to invite husbands! The babies can come if the mothers can’t leave them, but the husbands are not invited. Katherine Williams and Jessie Lynch are the only ones who are still in single blessedness.”
“Are you going to have them all stay here?”asked Edwin in amazement, never having quite accustomed himself to Molly’s wholesale hospitality.
“Of course! I can manage it finely. That will be only six extra ones. Why, at Chatsworth we had that much company any time. This house is really almost as big as Chatsworth and there we had our huge family to put away besides.”
“All I can say is that you are a wonder, but please don’t break yourself down over this wedding. What does Nance say to it?”
“I haven’t asked her, but I know she is dying to see all the girls together. We have often talked about it, and wedding or no wedding I was going to try to get them here this next month. Otoyo has already promised to come, you remember, and now she can just hurry up and get here for the wedding. She will have to bring Cho-Cho-San, who is just a bit older than Mildred. They can have great times together. You don’t mind, do you, honey?”
“Mind! Of course not! You know I likecompany. I was just afraid you were giving yourself too large an order.”
Nance, on being consulted, thought it would be wonderful to see all the old girls again before embarking on her great adventure, so letters were forthwith written and sent to the six friends, who one and all joyfully accepted. Business, husbands, babies, society were to be left behind for this grand reunion of the old Queen’s crowd.
Otoyo Sen, now Mrs. Matsuki, whose exceedingly regretfully but honorable husband was gone on short journey and baby Cho-Cho-San must stay with humble mother for the wedding. As Molly had expected to have the child, this was as it should be.
Katherine had demanded leave from the lectures she was delivering, and Edith had an excellent nurse for her baby and could leave her family easily. Margaret Wakefield had no children and was able to cancel the many engagements that such an important person was sure to have, and her house was in such good running order that her husband, the rising young congressman,would want for nothing in her absence. Jessie Lynch had declined two luncheons, a dinner dance, and a theatre party, besides breaking as many more engagements in order to come to this wedding of the old college friend. Jessie was still unmarried although she had been the one that the prophecy had married off first. Pretty little Jessie had so many lovers it was hard to choose among them.
The very first reply was from Judy and she, Judy-like, answered in person.She blew in at nightfall with a huge suitcase, many parcels and her gay chintz knitting bag stuffed full of various things besides knitting.
“Kent was dying to come but I told him no children and dogs were allowed,” announced that glowing young matron as she dropped her belongings, scattering them all over the library floor, and rushed around kissing and hugging everybody in the room. “I have come to help. I know you, Molly! You always act like triplets when there is any work on hand, and I know you, too, Nance! Your New England conscience willmake you neglect Andy rather than seem to shirk work. I am here to sweep and dust and cook, take care of babies, or even to flirt with Andy if Nance does not look after him. I am going to dress the bride; find Edwin’s collar buttons and studs for his dress shirt; see that the best man has the ring safe in his pocket; pay the preacher; put in the supply of rice and old shoes—in fact,” she sang:
“‘Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
“‘Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
“‘Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
The Greens had been sitting quite sedately around the lamp engaged in their various occupations when Judy burst in on them. The professor was getting up a lecture for the morrow, Mildred was cutting out paper dolls, and Molly and Nance had for the moment put down their eternal knitting and were giving their attention to whipping on lace for the modest trousseau. But the whirlwind that came in swept aside all sane business. Needles were hastily thrust incloth; thimbles were mislaid; paper dolls dropped for something livelier; and lecture preparation abandoned. When Judy, after the breathless announcement of having come and her reasons for coming, began on the Nancy Bell, Edwin sprang to his feet and, joining in the dance that Judy was improvising, sang in a rollicking mixture of tenor and baritone:
“‘And he shook his fist and tore his hair,Till I really felt afraid,For I couldn’t help thinking the man had been drinking,And so I simply said:“‘Oh, elderly man, it’s little I knowOf the duties of men of the sea,And I’ll eat my hand if I understandHowever you can be“‘At once a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
“‘And he shook his fist and tore his hair,Till I really felt afraid,For I couldn’t help thinking the man had been drinking,And so I simply said:“‘Oh, elderly man, it’s little I knowOf the duties of men of the sea,And I’ll eat my hand if I understandHowever you can be“‘At once a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
“‘And he shook his fist and tore his hair,Till I really felt afraid,For I couldn’t help thinking the man had been drinking,And so I simply said:
“‘Oh, elderly man, it’s little I knowOf the duties of men of the sea,And I’ll eat my hand if I understandHowever you can be
“‘At once a cook and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
Little Mildred clapped her hands to see her dignified father cutting pigeon wings. She hadyet to learn that dignity and Mrs. Kent Brown could not stay in the same room.
“Oh, Judy! It is good to see you,” gasped Molly when the chorus, in which all of them joined, had been sung over twice. “What a Judy you are, anyhow!”
“Let me take your suitcase up-stairs,” suggested Edwin.
“And I will carry your parcels,” insisted Nance, who was happy indeed over seeing her old college friend again.
“There is not a bit of use in taking a thing up-stairs. All of my clothes are in the knitting bag. Those parcels are wedding presents and the suitcase is full of all kinds of plunder. This big bundle is a tea basket from Kent and me. You and Andy can go to housekeeping in it. We thought you would rather have it than silver or cut glass, since you are going where there are no side boards to speak of.”
“Oh, Judy, how splendid! It is exactly what I have been longing for,” cried Nance, opening the charming Japanese basket. “Only look,plates, cups and saucers, tea pot, coffee pot, sugar bowl, cream pitcher, spoons, knives, forks, cannisters for coffee, tea, sugar, crackers, hard alcohol stove, chafing dish and tea kettle! All packed in two square feet of basket!”
“A regular kitchen cabinet!” declared Molly. “Nobody but Nance could ever get them packed again in the right place, I am sure, Nance and Otoyo, perhaps.”
“I just know Otoyo is going to bring her one like mine! I never thought of that when I got it. I saw it at Vantine’s and simply fell in love with it. I wanted it so bad myself I got it for Nance. If Otoyo does bring one, I will exchange mine,” said Judy generously.
“Indeed no! I wouldn’t mind having two one bit and I am certainly not going to give up my very first wedding present,” blushed Nance.
“Here is a steamer rug from dear old Mary Stuart. See how warm and soft it is! This is a pocket set of Shakespeare from Jimmy Lufton! He brought it to the train!”
“But how lovely! I didn’t dream of getting any presents,” said Nance.
“How did they know about Nance?” asked Molly.
“I ’phoned them! I got your letter while Kent was at the armory so I just called up everybody I knew and told them the news. There is no telling what the excess calls will amount to, but I had either to do that or burst! ’Phoning is cheaper than bursting.
“Now I bet you can’t guess what is in this great round box,” said the effervescent Judy.
“Your wedding hat!” solemnly suggested Edwin.
“Hat your grandmother! Guess again!”
“A German bomb!”
“No! Cold, cold! You’ll never get it! It is a wedding cake sent by Madeline Petit and Judith Blount. Now what do you think of that?”
“Wonderful!” cried Molly, as she lifted the cake from its careful packing. “Fruit cake withwhite icing! How on earth did they happen to do it?”
“You see I ’phoned them, too, because I always did like little Madeline in spite of the fact that she talks a fellow’s ear off. I am not so fond of Judith, but I do admire her. She has spunked up so splendidly and taken her medicine like a man. She and Madeline are doing a thriving business in a swell part of town with tea rooms and all kinds of fancy cakes. Judith was the one who suggested sending the cake, Madeline told me. She said Judith said she knew Molly Brown would work herself to death over the wedding and she, for one, was going to send something to help out Molly. She said you were just goose enough to make the cake at home.”
“I had planned to do it,” laughed Molly. “I was going to start to-morrow.”
“This huge box is candy to eat right now—that is Kent! I am almost afraid to eat it. He wanted to come so bad that he might have poisoned it for spite.”
“Why didn’t you let him come? Dear old Kent!” exclaimed Molly.
“Well, I knew perfectly well that it is some job to sleep seven persons outside of one’s own household, and it is doubly difficult when there are two sexes. Kent is as busy as can be anyhow: drilling day and night.”
Kent Brown had taken the training at Plattsburg and was then engaged in passing on this training to a company of militia in New York. He and Judy were eagerly awaiting the declaration of war by the United States. There was no such thing as neutrality for them. Having been in France in that August of 1914, Judy considered herself already at war and Kent enthusiastically shared the sentiments of his wife. He was prepared to leave his profession of architecture, in which he was proving himself very successful, and join any regiment that was likely to see service.
Judy had done exactly what the Marquis d’Ochtè had asked her to do: she had come back to New York and plunged into war relief work.Because of her enthusiasm and untiring energy she had been of great assistance in recruiting workers. Her admiring husband said that she was what one might call a real booster. Any campaign Judy plunged in was sure to be a whirlwind campaign. She had her father’s capacity for infinite work. Up to a certain period it had evinced itself in the form of infinite play, but now that the serious side of life had presented itself to her, the girl was working quite as hard as she had ever played. There was never anything half-way about our Judy. In New York she was canvassing for suffrage, keeping up her painting, and with her own hands cutting and folding enough surgical dressings to fill the peace ship, besides rounding up many workers for the cause. With it all she managed to be a very satisfactory wife and housekeeper. She and Kent were blissfully happy. There were red letter days in their calendar when both of them stopped working and went on some mad frolic. They had made many friends in New York, friends with whom they both worked and played.They had a hospitable apartment where the redoubtable Ca’line reigned in the tiny kitchen, Ca’line, trained by Mrs. Brown at Chatsworth and chastened by dear old Aunt Mary until she “knowed her place an’ kep’ it.”
Isn’t it fun to see Judy again? I hope my readers feel as glad for her to come bounding into these pages as the Greens and Nance Oldham did when she opened the door of the library at the Square Deal and, upsetting everything, scattered papers and parcels hither and yon, her vivid personality permeating every corner of the room.
Just before Judy said good-night, she paused and exclaimed, “I must tell you, Molly, how much I enjoy the dear little Virginia girls you have passed on to me. The Tucker twins and Page Allison are just about the nicest girls I know, and Mary Flannagan is a duck. I used to be an awful snob about college girls,—somehow, I thought girls who did not go to college were not worth knowing, but I have changed my mind since I have met these girls. They are an interestinglot and as far as I can see know as much as we do.”
“I knew you would like them. I simply fell in love with them last spring in Charleston. Have you met their father?”
“No, but he must be some father! The girls call him Zebedee, which appeals to me, having always called mine Bobby.”
“Zebedee? What a strange name!” said Nance.
“They say it is because nobody ever believes he is their father and so they want to know: ‘Who is the father of Zebedee’s children?’ It seems he is only about twenty years older than they are and is one of those persons who never gets on in years. They declare they are really more mature than he is and not nearly so agile,” laughed Judy.
“I have been meaning to ask them to Wellington and must certainly do it before they go back to Richmond,” declared Molly, on hospitality bent as usual.
“All right, honey, but let’s get Nance safelymarried and the wedding feast disposed of,” insisted Judy, who thought her brother-in-law looked a little alarmed, fearing that Molly might decide that this was as good a time as any to have the Tuckers and Page Allison visit them.
“Of course! I didn’t mean now but later on, although it is a pity to put it off too long,” teased Molly, seeing the worried look on Edwin’s face. “I might make up two bunks on the pantry shelves and let one of them sleep in the bath tub.”
“I came from New York with a very interesting couple,” said Judy the next day as she vigorously stitched away at some of the wedding finery. “Of course I talked to them—I always talk to the interesting persons I meet traveling.”
“So do I,” said Molly as she finished a garment and put it aside for Kizzie to press.
“I never do,” sighed Nance. “I do wish I had some of your and Judy’s warm-heartedness.”
“Nonsense! Your heart is just as warm as any that beats,” objected Molly. “Ask Andy!”
“You see, honey, Vermont is Vermont and Kentucky is Kentucky! Persons from Kentucky haven’t quite as hard shells as the ones from Vermont, but when once you get below the shell the kernel is about the same. You andMolly couldn’t be any more alike than Kentucky beeches and Vermont pines,” said Judy, pausing long enough in her labors to give Nance an encouraging pat.
“Yes, and pines stay green all the year around,” said Molly. “It is much better to be a pine than a beech.”
“Well, tell us about the interesting couple,” laughed Nance, much comforted.
“They were from Alsace but were very French in their sympathies. They looked a little German but they spoke beautiful French except that they did have a tendency to call Paris ‘Baree.’ They love Paris as much as I do. The man, Misel is his name, Monsieur Jean Misel,—is the best informed person I have seen for many a day. He knows the war situation as few persons do, I am sure. He seems to have been everywhere and known everybody. He even knew my father,—at least, knew all about him and was greatly interested in the fact that Bobby is soon to sail for France to help rebuild the roads. Madame Misel is much quieter than her husbandbut is very intelligent, I am sure. With all her reserve, she never misses a trick.”
“Where was this interesting couple going?” asked Molly.
“Coming right here to Wellington! They have taken a cottage in the village and mean to live here. He is writing and she wants to do war work.”
“How splendid!” cried Molly. “We need workers more than I can tell you. The students give what time they can, but a full college course is about all a normal girl can take care of in the way of work.”
“You must call on them right off, Molly. I will go with you and Edwin must go, too. I know he will like Monsieur Misel.”
“I’ll ask him, but Edwin is sure to want to know why this lover of Paris is not fighting for France.”
“Ah, the poor fellow! He is quite lame—walks with a cane and a crutch. He hinted rather darkly that his lameness is in some way due to the Germans, but I do not know in justwhat way. He was sensitive about his affliction, so his wife told me when he left us and went in the smoker, so naturally I did not ask him how the Germans were responsible for it. He is a young man, too, that is under forty, and very handsome.”
Professor Green was quite interested in what Judy had to tell him of the Misels. He promised to call with Molly and do all he could to make Wellington pleasant for them. He looked forward with pleasure to the conversations Judy assured him he would enjoy with that highly educated gentleman. Holding the chair of English in a woman’s college is not bad, but there were times when Edwin Green longed for more man talk. He and Dr. McLean were sworn friends and saw much of each other, but they both of them welcomed with enthusiasm any masculine newcomer.
“I wonder if your friend could teach French, Judy,” asked her brother-in-law. “Miss Walker is quite put to it for the end of the term. The French professor took French leave last week.He seemed too old to hold anything more weighty than a pen, but he has gone to fight.”
“That is the terrible part of it,” sighed Judy. “They say all the superannuated dancing masters and French teachers are leaving to take up arms. It means that France is having a hard time. Why, oh why, don’t we hurry up and get in the game?”
The call was made and Molly and her husband were quite as enthusiastic as Judy had been over the charms of the new neighbors. Monsieur Misel seemed the very person to take up the labors of the flown French professor, and Miss Walker accordingly engaged him. Molly felt she must have them to dinner in spite of the fact that she was deep in the preparations for the wedding.
“I’ll have a very simple dinner and not make company of them, just make them feel at home,” she declared, and her husband and Nance and Judy smiled knowingly. Molly always would have company and there was no use in trying to stop her.
“I know when I die she will feel called upon to give me a good wake,” laughed Edwin.
“Certainly, if people come hungry to your funeral, I’ll feed them,” answered Molly.
“Are our new friends, the Misels, hungry?”
“Not hungry for food, but they must be lonely so far away from their country and friends. Anyhow, they are invited now and have accepted, so there is no use in teasing me. You just see that there are cigars here for Monsieur Misel to smoke after dinner, and I’ll attend to the rest.”
How sad it was to see a man of Misel’s beauty a hopeless cripple! He was a tall, stalwart fellow with a military bearing which the use of a crutch and cane could not take from him. His lameness had not affected the comeliness of his limbs or his erect carriage. He had very courteous manners and it seemed to be very hard on him not to spring from his seat when a lady entered the room.
On the evening of Molly’s informal dinner when Nance, who was the only member of thehousehold who had not met the strangers, came into the library, Misel stood up to be introduced, but his wife gave a low cry of alarm and sprang to his assistance, eagerly placing his crutch in one hand, his cane in the other. He sank to his seat with a smothered groan.
“Jean, Jean! What am I to do with you?” said Madame Misel irritably. “He is so imprudent,” apologetically to Molly, who had tears in her eyes at this exhibition of courage and weakness. She could well understand how Monsieur Misel’s courteous desires could get the better of his strength.
Andy McLean was present and the doctor in him immediately became interested in the pitiable case. He had none of the hesitation Judy had shown in regard to questioning the Misels concerning the cause of the lameness.
“What is your trouble?” he asked bluntly. “If you can stand without support as you did a moment ago, I see no reason why you cannot be cured.”
“In time! In time!” said Misel with patient resignation.
“He has had the best medical attention,” put in his wife.
Madame Misel usually spoke with a kind of slow hesitation, but now her words came rapidly. She had the air of trying to shield her husband from farther questioning on the part of Andy. Andy, however, was totally oblivious of this fact and went on.
“Who is his surgeon?”
“The great F——, in Baree!”
“What did he say?” asked Andy, impressed by the name.
“He—he—said—nerve centres—disturbed,” answered Madame, returning to her hesitating speech. She did not stammer at all but seemed to pause to choose her words.
“If I can be of any assistance to you, I hope you will call on me,” said Andy kindly.
In the meantime Misel sat with his hands over his eyes as though in great pain and his wife hovered over him solicitously.
Dinner was soon announced and this time the lame man arose very cautiously and made his way slowly to the dining-room.
“Kindly—go—in—front—of—us,” faltered Madame, and Molly marshalled her family and guests so that the Misels might bring up the rear. She fully appreciated how the wife felt about wanting to be the one to assist her poor lame husband. If her Edwin had been so crippled no one should have helped him but his own wife.
Molly turned to smile on the poor woman for whom her heart was sore. She could well understand the misery it must bring to see one most dear having to suffer so acutely. There was a dark place in the hall leading to the dining-room and the hostess feared the poor lame man might stumble there, so she stopped to warn him of a rug. She distinctly heard Madame say to her husband in no gentle tones but with an asperity almost malevolent:
“Narr! Narr!”
Molly began assiduously to hunt in thearchives of her brain for the small German vocabulary which she could call her own.
“Narr!What cannarrmean?” the question kept recurring to her as dinner progressed. She visualized lists of words in a worn old blank book used at school. “Narr,Nase,Nesse,Nest!”She tried to remember the English on the opposite page. How well she remembered the little old book wherein was written the despised German exercises. The script in itself had been almost impossible to learn and as for mastering the language,—she had been so half-hearted about it that she had not been compelled to keep it up.
“Narr,nase,nesse,nest!”ran through and through and over and over in her mind. Suddenly just as Professor Green asked her what she would say to adjourning to the library, the list of English words flashed on her brain.
“‘Fool, nose, nephew, nest’!” she cried audibly.
“What?” Edwin feared his Molly had gone crazy.
“Oh—I—I—mean, yes—coffee in the library!” and she arose from her seat in confusion.
Why should that calm-looking, slow-speaking woman call her poor lame husband a fool?Narr! Narr!It was certainly strange.
The first one of the old girls to arrive was Otoyo, Mrs. Matsuki, with the little Cho-Cho-San. Otoyo had changed not at all in the years that had elapsed since college days. Perhaps an added matronly dignity was hers, but this was not much in evidence when she was with her dear old friends. She was beautifully and elegantly dressed. All her clothes were made of the most exquisite fabrics. Her blouses were of the finest and sheerest, if of linen; and the heaviest and richest, if of silk. Her furs were the furriest and her suits of the most approved cut and material. Her little boots were a marvel of fit and style.
“Perfect, like a Japanese puzzle!” Judy declared. “Every little part made to fit every other little part!”
“Yes, and the whole a wonderful creation like some rare print or bit of pottery!” agreed Molly.
Otoyo had adapted herself to the manners and customs of her adopted country, wearing them with the same grace she did the garments. She had an English nurse for the little Cho-Cho-San and the child was being reared as much like American children as possible. A tiny little thing, she was, with coal black hair and slanting eyes. There was much mischief peeping from those eyes around the tip-tilted nose. The mouth was a crimson bow, ever ready to break into a tinkling laugh. She and Mildred rushed together as though their short lives had been spent waiting for this opportunity. Mildred was younger by several months but taller by several inches than the little Japanese. What a picture the two children made! Mildred, with her red gold hair curling in little ringlets all over her head, her round rosy face and wide hazel eyes, was exactly the opposite to Cho-Cho-San, with her straight, bobbed, ebony black hair, her oval, olive face and almond eyes.
“I b’lieve I can tote you,” said Mildred, who often used words current in Kizzie’s vernacular.
“Tote! Tote! What is tote?” and the tinkling laugh rang out like glass chimes assailed by a sudden gust of wind.
“Why I tote my dolly—an’ Mr. Murphy totes the coal—an’—an’ Daddy totes his books to lexures—an’—an’—”
“May I tote something, also?”
“Oh, yes, you can tote Dodo. He’s my baby brother.”
“Oh, I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee!” and the little thing danced in glee. “My honorable mother told me when I came for a visit to her friends that it would be all ’appiness.” The English nurse had left her stamp upon her charge just as Kizzie had upon Mildred. The occasional dropping of an h was the result. Cho-Cho-San’s lingo was most amusing with its mixture of Cockney and Japanese.
“You’d look ’zactly like my Jap dolly if you only had a bald spot on top,” said Mildred as she led her new friend to the sunny nursery where sheand Dodo reigned supreme with the Irish Katy to do their bidding.
“And phwat Haythen is this?” cried Katy when she saw the little Japanese girl. “And ain’t she the cutey?”
“She’s my bes’ beloved,” announced Mildred. “Me’n’ Cho-Cho-San is gonter be each other’s doll babies. I’m a-gonter be her kick-up dolly an’ she’s gonter be my Jap dolly.”
“Oh, I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee!” was all the tiny Haythen could say as she danced around the nursery.
“Aunt Nance done said we could be her flower girls, too,” went on the loquacious Mildred. “We’s all gonter get married day after another day.”
“All the doll babies going to be married!” sang the guest. “Kick-up dolls and Japanese dolls!”
The Williams girls arrived next and close on their heels Margaret and Jessie. I cannot bring myself to designate the girls by their married names any more than they could one another.Husbands were not much in evidence at that gathering. The talk was all of the past. Of course Andy, the soon-to-be husband, was allowed some consideration, although the first night after the arrival of the guests even he was debarred and the old chums had a kimono party in the library. The host fortunately had an engagement that took him from home, otherwise he would have had to spend his evening shut up in his den.
The revellers opened the ball by singing “Drink her down,” to each one in the crowd. Molly’s old guitar was brought out and Otoyo produced a tiny ukelele which added much to the harmony. After the singing was finished and every one drunk down, the words that were used most often were: “Do you remember?” All of the scrapes were recalled and talked over. Bits of gossip were recounted that had never come to light before, the noblesse oblige of the college spirit having kept matters dark, but now that the years had rolled by there seemed to be no longer reason for silence.
“I’d like to get into some mischief this verynight!” cried Judy. “I’ve been good and pious so long I feel like whooping life up a bit.”
“I’m game,” drawled Katherine Williams.
“Did I hear an aye from the eminent educator?” questioned Judy.
“That’s me!”
“I’ll do whatever it is if I don’t have to walk too far,” said lazy Jessie.
“But what are you to do?” from Margaret, in whom the spirit of adventure was not so rampant.
“Listen to the Gentleman from Missouri!” cried Judy. “Come on and we’ll show you.”
“I like very muchly to be in the vehicle of musicians but I also like muchly to know what is the ultimately destination,” said Otoyo softly.
“She means the band wagon! She means the band wagon!” cried Judy. “Oh, my dear little Otoyo, if you were changed I could not bear this sad grey world.”
“Others, too, have notly changed,” said Otoyo slyly.
“What are you planning, Judy honey?” asked Molly, laughing.
“I haven’t any plan—nothing but something crazy and adventurous. I am dead tired of being so good and proper. I have rolled bandages and drawn threads and cut gauze until I feel like a machine. I want to have a romantic adventure. I’d like to put a tick-tack on Miss Walker’s window—I’d like to burn asafetida on the teacher’s stove, or put red pepper in the Bible so when she opens it to read she would sneeze her head off. I might content myself with making an apple pie bed for my dear brother-in-law——”
“Oh, please not that!” begged Molly. “My supply of sheets is stretched to the limit.”
“O. Henry would advise you to go out in the night and await Adventure. Adventure is always just around the corner. Step up to him and tap him on the shoulder,” suggested Katherine.
“It is very comfortable in here,” purred Jessie.
“Infirm of purpose!” cried Judy.
“Well, I’m not infirm of purpose,” said Molly. “I’ve been purposing all along to have a Welsh rarebit and make some cloudbursts and I’m still going to do it. If you Don Quixotes want to go off and hunt trouble in the meantime, though, you are welcome, only don’t stay too long.”
“Ain’t Molly the broad-minded guy, though? Live and let live was always Molly. Aren’t you coming, Nance?” And Judy sprang from her cross-legged position on the rug ready for any fray. “Come on, Margaret! Come on, Edith.”
“Don’t you know Edith is too stuffy to do such a thing? She’s afraid her perfectly good husband would not approve,” teased her sister.
“No such thing, but I’m not going. I mean to help Molly. You crazy kids go get in all the trouble you want to. Me for the house this night!”
“And Margaret? You, too, must keep the ‘home fires burning,’ I fancy.”
“I am going to stir the rarebit,” announced Margaret firmly.
“I’m going to pick out nuts for the cloudbursts,” purred Jessie.
“I must whip lace,” blushed Nance.
“Oh, you middle-aged persons! I bite my thumb at you!” cried Judy. “Who among you is young enough to go hunt adventure?”
“I told you I intended to go,” said Katherine, looking rather longingly at the crowded shelves of poetry that she was simply dying to poke in. “No one is going to call me middle-aged.”
“And I, too, will take greatly pleasure to knock the kindling from the shoulder of Adventure,” said little Otoyo.
“She means the chip! She means the chip!” screamed the delighted Judy. “Oh, Otoyo, I love you in all the world next to my immediate family!”
It took but a moment to slip on great coats over kimonos and then, heavily veiled, the three adventuresses started forth, with admonitions from Molly not to be gone more than half an hour.
“And please don’t get arrested!” she calledafter them. “Kent says he always expects Judy to get arrested some day. This spirit of adventure seizes her every now and then and nothing will stop her.”
“It is well it struck her here at Wellington instead of in New York. She can’t get into very much mischief here,” laughed Edith.
“She could in the old days,” put in Margaret, “but now that she is not compelled to keep rules I fancy she will not care to break them. What a Judy she is! It must be great to have her in the family, Molly.”
“Indeed it is! She is the favorite in-law with the whole lot of Browns. Mother adores her and all the boys think she is just about perfect. Even Aunt Clay can’t help liking her.”
“I wonder what they will find to-night. I almost wish I had left the lace off of this old camisole and gone with them,” said Nance.
“I think you need not hunt adventure right now,” drawled Jessie. “Any girl who is deliberately getting married and going to the war zone will have enough to keep her busy for a lifetime.I don’t believe they will do more than go to the drug store and get limeades.”
“You don’t know Judy and Katherine,” said Edith, “and little Otoyo with her determination to knock the kindling from the shoulder of Adventure. I wonder what Mr. Matsuki would say if he could know that his sedate little wife is engaged in such a harum scarum pursuit.”
“Why, he would just smile and bow and look more like an ivory Buddha than ever. Otoyo has the charming little gentleman completely under her thumb. She works a kind of mental jiu jitsu on him and he just lets her have her way. The joke of it is he thinks she is the most docile, obedient little wife in all the world, and so she is. She simply makes him want what she wants,” explained Molly.
Molly was busily engaged in the preparations for the midnight feast. It would have been simpler and easier just to have gone to the kitchen and made the rarebit over the gas stove, but that would not have been at all like college days and this night must be as near a reproductionof those times as possible. Chafing dishes must be used and dishes must be scarce or the spell would be broken.
It was after ten o’clock as the three veiled figures glided from the square house on the campus. The night was dark, fit for the deed they had to do. They did not know what the deed was but whatever it was the intrepid females were fully prepared to do it.
“First we’ll go by Prexy’s house and perchance she may see us and then we’ll run. That will be fun!” suggested Judy. “Nothing would so warm my old blood as to be taken for a junior.”
It so happened that a consultation was being held at the president’s home and as they passed, Miss Walker opened the front door and Professor Green emerged.
“Ministers and saints defend us! My brother-in-law!” cried Judy.
“Who is that?” called Miss Walker as the three girls ran swiftly out of the broad band of light pouring from the open door.
“Run for your lives!” hissed Judy.
“Shall I chase them?” laughed Professor Green. “I’d much rather not.”
“No,” sighed poor Prexy. “I fancy they are up to no harm, but it is late for girls to be out alone. Such terrible things seem to be happening all over the world. I’ll have to deliver a lecture to the whole student body, I am afraid, about late rambles and pranks.”
“Those girls were veiled, so evidently whatever they were doing they did not want to be recognized. I’d hate to hold your job, Miss Walker. I’d much rather be the humble professor of English.”
“Surely it is not a sinecure,” laughed the president, “but when all is told, my girls are a pretty good lot. Their mischief is never, at least hardly ever, serious. How glad I am to see Judy Kean again,—Mrs. Kent Brown! She is the same old Judy. Such pranks as that child could play! Ishall never forget when she dyed her hair purple-black.”
“Judy is a great girl. I am glad we married into the same family,” declared the professor. “But tell me, Miss Walker, how Misel is doing. I feel quite responsible for him since it was I who introduced him to you.”
“The students like him. He seems to be able to impart knowledge. I am afraid he is too handsome, however. It isn’t quite safe to have a professor too good-looking. College girls are very impressionable.” Then Miss Walker realized she had made quite a break. Edwin Green was certainly a very good-looking man but not the type to make girls languish with love. While M. Misel was a much more romantic figure with his flashing eyes and lameness.
“Are the girls losing their hearts to him?” laughed Edwin. “Again I am thankful I am what I am and not what others are.”
And so the two old friends chatted in the doorway while the three veiled figures made their way towards the village.
“We got them going that time,” panted Judy after the run through the dark. “I bet you anything Prexy lectures the girls to-morrow morning. Dear Prexy!”
“Let’s tick-tack the math teacher. I bet you she’s still out of bed thinking up deviltry to make the girls miserable with on the morrow,” suggested Katherine.
“I can make a noise very muchly like a cat. Would not that be as gruesomely as a mathematicktack? We might be the Musicians of Bremen, as one reads in the beautifully fairy story.”
“Fine, Otoyo! Here’s her domicile! Cut loose!” whispered Judy. “I’ll be the donkey and Katherine crow like the rooster.”
Crouched down under the window where a light still burned for the much abused teacher of mathematics, the Musicians of Bremen, all but the dog, got ready for their song. The noise was something shocking. Judy’s bray was so lifelike that little Otoyo sprang aside as though in fear of kicking hind legs.
A dog in the neighborhood, feeling that harmony could be established by his voice alone, joined in the chorus.
Windows were opened on the campus! Silence reigned supreme!
“Don’t run!” whispered Judy. “Scrooge down close to the wall.”
“Who is there?” called the math teacher.
Mr. Dog went on howling as though he had been responsible for the whole infernal racket. His timely tact seemed to satisfy the curious ones and windows were closed, lights went out and the campus took itself off to bed.
“Once more for luck!” commanded Great Commander Judy.
“Practice makes perfect,” so this time the Musicians of Bremen outdid themselves. Otoyo made a most wonderful pussy; Maud Adams herself could not have been a more realistic chanticler than Katherine; and Judy’s donkey was so good that one could almost see the ears wagging as her great bray made night hideous.
“Now run before they have a chance to opentheir windows!” and Judy was up and off in the darkness with the two other girls close on her heels.
“I bet you investigating will go on at a great rate to-morrow,” gasped Katherine, as after leaving the college grounds they came to the outskirts of the village.
“It was so funnily,” giggled Otoyo. “We must amusement make for the smally Mildred and Cho-Cho when the to-morrow has come.”
“I can’t believe I am a full-fledged teacher in a model modern school in our great metropolis,” said Katherine. “I feel just exactly like a schoolgirl,—not even a college girl. I know I could run a mile and there is no mischief I would not welcome.”
“I tooly!” agreed Otoyo. “It seems but a dream that I have honorable husband and smally babee, Cho-Cho. I feel like badly naughtily Japanese girl in masque.”
“Well, it is surely great to be a boy again just for to-night,” declared Judy.
“What next?” asked Katherine.
“Next will be our great adventure! This has been only in the foothills of happenings. Soon we will have something really great come to us,” encouraged the captain.
The village was well-lighted on the principal street, but that the girls avoided and crept down the side streets where all was quiet and almost dark, except at the corners where small gas-posts sent out feeble rays of light. They passed comfortable homes surrounded by large yards where the élite of Wellington lived. The élite were evidently a well-behaved lot, as they were all safely bestowed in bed, sleeping the sleep of the just as our naughty girls crept in front of their spacious mansions.
Next to the great, came the near great: a row of pleasant cottages, each one with its little garden separated from its neighbor’s by neat whitewashed palings. After these, they approached a cottage set in a large yard and isolated as much as if it were in the country. It was well back from the street and instead of the white palingsof its neighbors, it boasted a box hedge about five feet high and at least three feet broad. Generations of close clipping had made this hedge as solid as a brick wall. The yard enclosed was laid out as a formal garden with box labyrinth and winding paths. In the rear was a summer-house with stone pillars covered with ivy. Two stone benches were on each side in this quaint house where no doubt dead and gone lovers had sat and perhaps caught rheumatism. Box bushes were placed at the four sides of the garden and these had been cut to represent armchairs by some zealous gardener long since passed away. The modern shears had but followed the lines of the original ones and the armchairs were still there although somewhat lopsided and hazy in drawing. There was the sun-dial and a snub-nosed stone Hebe who held aloft her little pitcher with a cup in the other hand ready to serve the Gods with imperceptible nectar.
Our girls’ eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and they peeped over the hedge (at least Katherine and Judy did, poor little Otoyowas too short), plainly discerning the charming ensemble of the little formal garden.
“There, Adventure awaits us!” said Katherine melodramatically.
“I want muchly to see,” pleaded Otoyo. So Judy lifted her up for a peep.
“I believe that is where the Misels live,” said Judy. “It looks quite different at night, but I’m almost sure it is the place. Molly and I called at dusk and we came up on the other side, but I think it is this cottage. Isn’t it lovely? I am so sorry for them, they do seem so friendless, somehow. Madame is already working for the Red Cross. Molly says she can make surgical dressings faster than anybody she ever saw. She takes them home and does them and brings them back so neatly folded and tied up that they think it is perfect foolishness to inspect them. They are sure there will be no mistakes where such a careful worker is on the job. M. Misel is so lame he can hardly locomote.”
“Let’s go in their garden and sit down a little while,” suggested Katherine, who but a few momentsbefore had declared she could run a mile. The sedentary life as a teacher had not improved her wind. Her spirits might have been those of a schoolgirl but her endurance was equal only to a full-fledged teacher in a model school.
They passed through the small green turnstile and silently crept around the labyrinth to the summer-house. The three girls sank on one of the cold stone benches and peered out into the picturesque garden. Their veils were raised but ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.
“Ghosts might walk in such a garden,” whispered Judy.
“The bench is coldly like a ghost,” shivered Otoyo.