My dear Godson:It is so wonderful to be a Godmother that I can hardly contain myself for joy. It is through an advertisement I saw in a New York paper, headed Fairy Godmothers Wanted, that I happen to have you and you happen to have me. I consider our introduction quite regular as it came through the wife of a great general.I wonder how you like belonging to me? I wonder if you are as alone in the world and homeless as I am. I wonder if you are big or little, dark or fair, old or young. I wonder all kinds of things about you,—after all, it makes no difference, any of these things. You are my Godson and every day Iam going to pray for you and think about you. I am going to send you presents and write you long letters and send you newspapers. The only trouble about it is by the time I get hold of English papers they will be weeks and weeks old. I wonder if American magazines and papers would appeal to you. I wonder what kind of presents you would like,—not beaded antimacassars and not mouchoir cases surely. I will knit you a sweater maybe, but I am not very fond of knitting.This business of being a Fairy Godmother is a very serious one, more serious than being a real mother, I believe. A real mother can at least do something towards forming the character of her child, but a Fairy Godmother has her child presented to her and takes it as the husband used to take his bride in the old English prayer book: “With all her debts and scandals upon her.” The worst of it is that she is ignorant what those debts and scandals are. I don’t even know what kind of smoke to send you. Are you middle-aged and sedate and do you smoke a corn-cob pipe? Are you young and giddy and do you live on cigarettes? A terrible possibility has entered into my mind! Are you one of those awful persons that uses what our darkeys call “eatin’ tobacco”? If so, I shall begin to train you immediately.Perhaps you want to know something about me. There is not much to know. I am an orphan of independent means and character. Being the first, enables me to be the second, which sounds like ariddle but isn’t. You see I have rafts and oodlums of kin, and if I did not have an income of my own they would step in and coerce me even more than they do. I said in the beginning that I was homeless. I am not really that, but the trouble is I have too many homes. I must spend the winter with Aunt Sally and the spring with Cousin Kate. Cousin Maria and Uncle Bruce want me to take White Sulphur by storm with them as chaperones; and so it is from one year’s end to the other, kind relations planning for me. I am bored to death with it all and am even now preparing a bomb to throw in this camp of overzealous kin. But I’ll tell you about that later,—that is, if you want to hear about it. I may be boring you stiff. If I am, it is an easy matter for you to repudiate me and tell Mrs. Johnson to get you a more agreeable Godmother.My numerous family does not at all approve of my being a Godmother. They think I am too young for the responsibility and have entered upon it too lightly. I even heard Aunt Sally whisper to Cousin Maria: “Just like her mother!” That means in their minds that I am headstrong and difficult. You see my mother was also of independent means and character. Also (I whisper this) she was not a Southerner. That is as serious in a Southerner’s eyes as not being British is in yours. They think it is very forward of me to be writing to a man what has not been properly introduced. Uncle Bruce suggests that you may not even beborn. I tell him soldiers don’t have to be born and that the bravest soldiers that were ever known sprang up from dragon’s teeth.I am sending you as my first present all kinds of tobacco, even plug. I must not let my prejudices get away with me. If my dear Godson likes “eatin’ tobacco,” he shall have it. If you don’t indulge in it, give it to some soldier less dainty. For my part, I should think the trenches would be dirty enough without adding to them.I want to tell you that I like your name. I think Stephen Scott sounds very manly and upstanding, somehow. I am hoping for a letter from you just to give me an inkling of your tastes. Of course I know one of the duties of a Fairy Godmother is not to worry her charge, and I don’t want to worry you but to help you. I think of you in those damp, nasty ditches eating all kinds of food, served in all kinds of ways. (I am sure what should be hot is cold, and what should be cold is hot.) And when I sit down to batter-bread and fried chicken I can hardly force it down, I do so want you to have it instead of me.Your affectionate Godmother,Polly Nelson.
My dear Godson:
It is so wonderful to be a Godmother that I can hardly contain myself for joy. It is through an advertisement I saw in a New York paper, headed Fairy Godmothers Wanted, that I happen to have you and you happen to have me. I consider our introduction quite regular as it came through the wife of a great general.
I wonder how you like belonging to me? I wonder if you are as alone in the world and homeless as I am. I wonder if you are big or little, dark or fair, old or young. I wonder all kinds of things about you,—after all, it makes no difference, any of these things. You are my Godson and every day Iam going to pray for you and think about you. I am going to send you presents and write you long letters and send you newspapers. The only trouble about it is by the time I get hold of English papers they will be weeks and weeks old. I wonder if American magazines and papers would appeal to you. I wonder what kind of presents you would like,—not beaded antimacassars and not mouchoir cases surely. I will knit you a sweater maybe, but I am not very fond of knitting.
This business of being a Fairy Godmother is a very serious one, more serious than being a real mother, I believe. A real mother can at least do something towards forming the character of her child, but a Fairy Godmother has her child presented to her and takes it as the husband used to take his bride in the old English prayer book: “With all her debts and scandals upon her.” The worst of it is that she is ignorant what those debts and scandals are. I don’t even know what kind of smoke to send you. Are you middle-aged and sedate and do you smoke a corn-cob pipe? Are you young and giddy and do you live on cigarettes? A terrible possibility has entered into my mind! Are you one of those awful persons that uses what our darkeys call “eatin’ tobacco”? If so, I shall begin to train you immediately.
Perhaps you want to know something about me. There is not much to know. I am an orphan of independent means and character. Being the first, enables me to be the second, which sounds like ariddle but isn’t. You see I have rafts and oodlums of kin, and if I did not have an income of my own they would step in and coerce me even more than they do. I said in the beginning that I was homeless. I am not really that, but the trouble is I have too many homes. I must spend the winter with Aunt Sally and the spring with Cousin Kate. Cousin Maria and Uncle Bruce want me to take White Sulphur by storm with them as chaperones; and so it is from one year’s end to the other, kind relations planning for me. I am bored to death with it all and am even now preparing a bomb to throw in this camp of overzealous kin. But I’ll tell you about that later,—that is, if you want to hear about it. I may be boring you stiff. If I am, it is an easy matter for you to repudiate me and tell Mrs. Johnson to get you a more agreeable Godmother.
My numerous family does not at all approve of my being a Godmother. They think I am too young for the responsibility and have entered upon it too lightly. I even heard Aunt Sally whisper to Cousin Maria: “Just like her mother!” That means in their minds that I am headstrong and difficult. You see my mother was also of independent means and character. Also (I whisper this) she was not a Southerner. That is as serious in a Southerner’s eyes as not being British is in yours. They think it is very forward of me to be writing to a man what has not been properly introduced. Uncle Bruce suggests that you may not even beborn. I tell him soldiers don’t have to be born and that the bravest soldiers that were ever known sprang up from dragon’s teeth.
I am sending you as my first present all kinds of tobacco, even plug. I must not let my prejudices get away with me. If my dear Godson likes “eatin’ tobacco,” he shall have it. If you don’t indulge in it, give it to some soldier less dainty. For my part, I should think the trenches would be dirty enough without adding to them.
I want to tell you that I like your name. I think Stephen Scott sounds very manly and upstanding, somehow. I am hoping for a letter from you just to give me an inkling of your tastes. Of course I know one of the duties of a Fairy Godmother is not to worry her charge, and I don’t want to worry you but to help you. I think of you in those damp, nasty ditches eating all kinds of food, served in all kinds of ways. (I am sure what should be hot is cold, and what should be cold is hot.) And when I sit down to batter-bread and fried chicken I can hardly force it down, I do so want you to have it instead of me.
Your affectionate Godmother,Polly Nelson.
The night nurse quietly folded up the first letter and slipped it back in its blue envelope. She had a whimsical, amused expression on her face.
“What are you smiling over? Don’t you think that is a nice letter?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t say it was. I think that is a sweet letter. I tell you it meant a lot to me. Of course, I am not the homeless Tommy she thought I was. I fancy I have as many Aunt Sallies and Cousin Marias as she has, but they happen to be in New England.”
“You are not an orphan, then!”
“Oh, yes! I’m an orphan all right enough, but I am related to half of Massachusetts and all of Boston.”
“Did you tell your Fairy Godmother that?”
“No,—that’s what makes me feel so bad. I was afraid she would stop being my Godmother if she found out I was—well, not exactly poor, so I—I didn’t exactly lie——”
“You didn’t exactly tell the truth, either,” and the night nurse curled her pretty lip and looked disgusted.
“Oh, please don’t be angry with me, too. I know she will be. I have simply got to tell herthe truth about myself. I did let her know I am an American. I am going to write her a letter just as soon as I can see to do it. But go on with the next, please. You are sure it is not tiring you too much?”
“Sure,” and the night nurse slipped out another.
My dear Godson:It was very nice of you to answer my letter so promptly. I am so glad you are an American and do not chew tobacco. You must not feel compelled to answer all my letters because you must be very busy and I have very little to do, so little that I am becoming very restless. I have thrown the bomb in the camp of the enemy, my kin. They are shattered into smithereens. I am going to enter a hospital, take training, and just as soon as I am capable go to France with the Red Cross nurses. I should like to go immediately but I want to be a help not a hindrance, and they say all the untrained persons who butt in on the war zone are a nuisance. Six months of training should make me fit, don’t you think? But how should you know?I am very happy at the thought of being of some use. I owe it all to you, my dear Godson. If I had not been presented with you I should never have thought of such a thing. Just as soon as I realized that over in the trenches was a human being who wanted to hear from me and whom I could help, Ibegan to take a new interest in the war and all the soldiers, and then I began to feel that maybe I, insignificant little I, might be of some use to those poor soldiers, some use besides just knitting foolish caps and mittens and sending theSaturday Evening Postand cigarettes. I only wish I could go immediately. My training begins to-morrow. Aunt Sally and Cousin Maria feel that it is a terrible blot on the family name. They are sure someone will say that I am doing this because I am not a success in society, although they say over and over that I am. I don’t know whether I am or not, all I know is that society is not a success with me. Uncle Bruce is rather nice about it all.There are so many I’s in this letter I am mortified. I believe writing to a Godson in the trenches is almost like keeping a diary. I am sending you some cards and poker chips (but you mustn’t play for money). I’d hate to think that my presents exerted a poor moral influence on my dear Godson. Would you mind just dropping a hint as to what kind of presents would be most acceptable? I have never been in the habit of giving presents to men and the kinds of presents some of my friends give would not be very appropriate, it seems to me. Silver match boxes and cigarette holders would not be very useful, nor would silk socks with initials embroidered on them be much better. Do you like chocolate drops and poetry?Your affectionate Fairy Godmother,Polly Nelson.
My dear Godson:
It was very nice of you to answer my letter so promptly. I am so glad you are an American and do not chew tobacco. You must not feel compelled to answer all my letters because you must be very busy and I have very little to do, so little that I am becoming very restless. I have thrown the bomb in the camp of the enemy, my kin. They are shattered into smithereens. I am going to enter a hospital, take training, and just as soon as I am capable go to France with the Red Cross nurses. I should like to go immediately but I want to be a help not a hindrance, and they say all the untrained persons who butt in on the war zone are a nuisance. Six months of training should make me fit, don’t you think? But how should you know?
I am very happy at the thought of being of some use. I owe it all to you, my dear Godson. If I had not been presented with you I should never have thought of such a thing. Just as soon as I realized that over in the trenches was a human being who wanted to hear from me and whom I could help, Ibegan to take a new interest in the war and all the soldiers, and then I began to feel that maybe I, insignificant little I, might be of some use to those poor soldiers, some use besides just knitting foolish caps and mittens and sending theSaturday Evening Postand cigarettes. I only wish I could go immediately. My training begins to-morrow. Aunt Sally and Cousin Maria feel that it is a terrible blot on the family name. They are sure someone will say that I am doing this because I am not a success in society, although they say over and over that I am. I don’t know whether I am or not, all I know is that society is not a success with me. Uncle Bruce is rather nice about it all.
There are so many I’s in this letter I am mortified. I believe writing to a Godson in the trenches is almost like keeping a diary. I am sending you some cards and poker chips (but you mustn’t play for money). I’d hate to think that my presents exerted a poor moral influence on my dear Godson. Would you mind just dropping a hint as to what kind of presents would be most acceptable? I have never been in the habit of giving presents to men and the kinds of presents some of my friends give would not be very appropriate, it seems to me. Silver match boxes and cigarette holders would not be very useful, nor would silk socks with initials embroidered on them be much better. Do you like chocolate drops and poetry?
Your affectionate Fairy Godmother,Polly Nelson.
The night nurse laughed outright at the close of the letter and Stephen Scott reached out for the packet from which she was extracting a third blue envelope.
“If you are going to make fun of them, you can stop.”
“I wasn’t making fun. I was just thinking what funny presents girls do give men.”
“Well, so they do, but my little Godmother gave me bully presents,—cigarettes to burn, home-made molasses candy and beaten biscuit. She had lots of imagination in the presents she sent and the blessed child never did burden me with a work-box but sent me a gross of safety-pins that beat all the sewing kits on earth. I don’t believe you like my Godmother much.”
“Don’t you? Well, I do.”
“You should like her because somehow you remind me of her.”
“Oh! Have you seen her?”
“Only in my mind’s eye. I begged her for a picture of herself but she has never sent it. Shehas promised it, though. You see I got to answering her letters in the same spirit in which she wrote to me, only I was not quite so frank, I am afraid. She told me everything about herself while I told her only my thoughts. I never did tell her I was not a homeless soldier of fortune. She thinks I am absolutely friendless and dependent on my pay as a private for my living. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a sou—at least I have felt that way—but now——”
“But now what?”
“But now I don’t think it is so bad to have a little tin,” and he held one of the little stained hands in his for a moment.
She gently withdrew it and opened a third letter. This was full of hospital experiences and so were all that followed. The tone of them became more intimate and friendly. The desire to serve was ever uppermost—just to get in the War Zone and help.
“I got awfully stuck on her, somehow,” confessed the man. “She was so sweet and so girlish—I did not say so for fear of scaring her off,but I used to write her pretty warm ones, I am afraid.”
“Why afraid?”
“Don’t you know?”
“How should I know?”
“Why, honey, you must see that I am head over heels in love with you. I oughtn’t to be telling it to you when I have written my little Godmother that as soon as the war is over I am going to find her and tell her the same thing. But, somehow, I was loving her only on paper and in my mind; but you—you—I love you with every bit of my heart, soul and body.” He caught her hand and all of the poor little slim blue letters slipped from the twine and scattered over the floor.
“Oh, the poor little letters!” she cried. “Is that all they mean to you?”
“Oh, honey, they meant a lot to me and still do, but they are just letters and you are—you.”
“But how about the letters you wrote Miss Polly Nelson? Are they just letters to her andnothing more? Don’t you think it is possible that she may have treasured your letters, especially the pretty warm ones, and be looking forward to the end of the war with the same eagerness that you have felt up to—say——”
“The minute I laid eyes on you. At first I used to dream maybe you were she, but I began to feel that she must be much—younger—somehow, than you. You are so capable, so mature in a way. She is little more than a child and you are a grown woman.”
“I am twenty-one—but the war ages one.”
“I don’t mean you look old—I just mean you seem so sensible.”
“And Miss Nelson didn’t?”
“I don’t mean that, I just mean she seemed immature. But suppose you read the last letter. And couldn’t you do it with one hand and let me hold the other?”
“Certainly not!” and the night nurse stooped and gathered the scattered letters. Leaning over may have accounted for the rosy hue that overspread her countenance.
“You certainly read her writing mighty easily. I had a hard time at first. I think she writes a rotten fist, although there is plenty of character in it, dear little Godmother!”
“Humph! Do you think so? I wouldn’t tell her that if I were you—I mean that you think her fist is rotten.”
“Of course not, but begin, please, and say—couldn’t you manage with one hand?”
But the night nurse was adamant and drew herself up very primly and began to read:
My dear Godson:I am afraid gratitude has got the better of you. You must not feel that because a girl in America has written you a pile of foolish letters and sent you a few little paltry presents, you must send her such very loverlike letters in return. I am disappointed in you, Godson. I had an idea that you were steadier. Just suppose I were a designing female who was going to hold you up and drag you through the wounded-affections court? There is quite enough in your last two letters to justify such a proceeding. It may be only your poverty that will restrain me. In the first place, you don’t know me from Adam or rather Eve. I may be a Fairy Godmother with a crooked back and a black cat, who prefers a broom-stick to alimousine; I may have a hare-lip and a mean disposition; I may write vers libre and believe in dress reform. In fact I am a pig in a poke and you are a very foolish person to think you want to carry me off without ever looking at me. I won’t say that I don’t want to see you and know you, because I do. I have been very honest with you in my letters because, as I told you once, it has seemed almost like keeping a diary to write to you, and I think a person who is not honest in a diary is as bad as the person who cheats at solitaire. When the war is over if you want to look me up you will find me in Louisville, Kentucky. When you do find me, I want you to be nothing but my Godson. You may not like me a bit and I may find you unbearable,—somehow, I don’t believe I shall, though. I do hope you will like me, too. One thing I promise—that is, not to fall in love with anyone else until I have looked you over. And you—I fancy you see no females to fall in love with.I never let myself think about your getting killed. As Fairy Godmother I cast a spell about you to protect you. There are times when I almost wish you could be safely wounded. Those are the times when I doubt the efficacy of my prayers and the powers of my fairy gifts.And now for the news: I am going to the front! I have worked it by strategy. A girl I know has had all her papers made out ready to join the Red Cross nurses, and now at the last minute her young man has stepped in and persuaded her to marryhim instead. I have cajoled the papers from her and am leaving in a few hours. Aunt Sally and Cousin Kate, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Maria are half demented. They don’t know how I worked it or I am sure they would have the law on me for perjury. I am free, white, and twenty-one now, and they could control me in no other way. Good-by, Godson! I wonder if we will meet somewhere in France. I will write you when I can, but I am afraid I shall not be able to send any more presents for a while.Your affectionate Godmother.
My dear Godson:
I am afraid gratitude has got the better of you. You must not feel that because a girl in America has written you a pile of foolish letters and sent you a few little paltry presents, you must send her such very loverlike letters in return. I am disappointed in you, Godson. I had an idea that you were steadier. Just suppose I were a designing female who was going to hold you up and drag you through the wounded-affections court? There is quite enough in your last two letters to justify such a proceeding. It may be only your poverty that will restrain me. In the first place, you don’t know me from Adam or rather Eve. I may be a Fairy Godmother with a crooked back and a black cat, who prefers a broom-stick to alimousine; I may have a hare-lip and a mean disposition; I may write vers libre and believe in dress reform. In fact I am a pig in a poke and you are a very foolish person to think you want to carry me off without ever looking at me. I won’t say that I don’t want to see you and know you, because I do. I have been very honest with you in my letters because, as I told you once, it has seemed almost like keeping a diary to write to you, and I think a person who is not honest in a diary is as bad as the person who cheats at solitaire. When the war is over if you want to look me up you will find me in Louisville, Kentucky. When you do find me, I want you to be nothing but my Godson. You may not like me a bit and I may find you unbearable,—somehow, I don’t believe I shall, though. I do hope you will like me, too. One thing I promise—that is, not to fall in love with anyone else until I have looked you over. And you—I fancy you see no females to fall in love with.
I never let myself think about your getting killed. As Fairy Godmother I cast a spell about you to protect you. There are times when I almost wish you could be safely wounded. Those are the times when I doubt the efficacy of my prayers and the powers of my fairy gifts.
And now for the news: I am going to the front! I have worked it by strategy. A girl I know has had all her papers made out ready to join the Red Cross nurses, and now at the last minute her young man has stepped in and persuaded her to marryhim instead. I have cajoled the papers from her and am leaving in a few hours. Aunt Sally and Cousin Kate, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Maria are half demented. They don’t know how I worked it or I am sure they would have the law on me for perjury. I am free, white, and twenty-one now, and they could control me in no other way. Good-by, Godson! I wonder if we will meet somewhere in France. I will write you when I can, but I am afraid I shall not be able to send any more presents for a while.
Your affectionate Godmother.
“Now don’t you hate and despise me for telling you what I did just now? You see she says she will at least not fall in love with anyone else until she looks me over, and think what I have done! What must I do? I am going to try not to tell you I love you any more until that other girl knows what a blackguard I am, but you must understand all the time that I do.”
“I understand nothing, Mr. Stephen Scott. I am simply the night nurse in the convalescent ward and you have asked me to read some letters to you, and I have read them; and now it is my duty to forget what is in them, and I am going to do it,—I have done it. All I can say is that youmight give Miss Polly Nelson the chance to find someone else she likes better than she does you before you are so quick to take for granted she will stick to her bargain, too. If there is any jilting going on, we Southern girls rather prefer to be the jilters than the jiltees.”
“Don’t say jilting! It isn’t fair. Please be good to me! I am so miserable.”
The night nurse smiled in spite of herself and felt his pulse.
“There now! Just as I thought! You have worked yourself up into an abnormal pulse and I shall have to start a chart on you.”
“Abnormal nothing! How is a fellow’s pulse to remain normal when you put your dear little fingers on his wrist? But I forgot! I am not going to make love to you until I can let my Godmother know. Maybe she has met some grand English Tommy by this time——” And then he groaned aloud and cried: “But I don’t want her to do that, either!”
“Blessed if I’m not in love with two girls,” he thought.
The night nurse sat quietly down to her charts after having gone the rounds of her ward. All was quiet. The convalescent soldiers were sleeping peacefully, dreaming of home, she hoped. Scott stirred restlessly now and then. He could not sleep but watched the busy little stained hand of the night nurse as it glided rapidly over the charts. She had no light but that of a guttering candle, carefully shaded from her patients’ eyes, but Scott could see her well-poised head and fine profile as she bent over her writing. How lovely she was! Would she ever listen to him? How she stood up for her sex,—and still she did not exactly repulse him. What a strange name for a girl like that to have! Grubb! It was preposterous. Indeed, he felt it his duty to make her change that name as soon as possible. Polly Nelson is a pretty name—dear little Godmother! Would she despise him, too, like this other girl? But did this other one despise him?
The night nurse made her rounds again and then left the ward for a moment. When she returned, she came to the American’s bedside.
“A letter has just come for you, Mr. Scott.”
“For me? Splendid! Will you read it to me?”
“Yes, if you cannot possibly see to do it yourself.”
“I might, but I’d rather not.”
“It is in the same rotten fist of those I read you to-night.”
“My Fairy Godmother! I—I—believe I can see to read that myself.”
She handed him the letter. Her hand was trembling a little and so was his. She brought the guttering candle and he opened his letter.
Somewhere in France.My dear Godson:I have always been so frank with you that I feel I must make a confession. I promised you in my last letter, the one I wrote just before I left home, that I would not fall in love with anyone until after the war, when you were to present yourself in Louisville and we were to view each other for the first time. Dear Godson—— I have not kept my word. They say a man falls in love with his nurse often because of the feeling he has for his mother. She makes it seem as though he werea little child again. I reckon a nurse falls in love with her patient because he seems so like a little boy. She loves him first because of the maternal instinct. Be that as it may, I am in love with one of my patients. I tell you this fearing you may be wounded and you may fall in the hands of a cap and apron, and from a feeling of noblesse oblige you may not grasp the happiness within your reach.God bless you, my dear Godson!Always,Your Fairy Godmother.P. S.—He is an American.
Somewhere in France.
My dear Godson:
I have always been so frank with you that I feel I must make a confession. I promised you in my last letter, the one I wrote just before I left home, that I would not fall in love with anyone until after the war, when you were to present yourself in Louisville and we were to view each other for the first time. Dear Godson—— I have not kept my word. They say a man falls in love with his nurse often because of the feeling he has for his mother. She makes it seem as though he werea little child again. I reckon a nurse falls in love with her patient because he seems so like a little boy. She loves him first because of the maternal instinct. Be that as it may, I am in love with one of my patients. I tell you this fearing you may be wounded and you may fall in the hands of a cap and apron, and from a feeling of noblesse oblige you may not grasp the happiness within your reach.
God bless you, my dear Godson!
Always,Your Fairy Godmother.
P. S.—He is an American.
A great tear rolled down the scarred cheek of the young soldier and splashed on the signature. Then something happened that made him sit up very straight in his cot and stretch out a shaking hand for the night nurse. She was by his side in a moment.
“Look! Look! The ink is not dry yet. See where that tear dropped! Dry ink would not float off like that!” He turned the sheet over. It was a chart.
“But you—you—little Fairy Godmother! Who is he?”
“There is only one American in my ward.”
“But you said your name was Grubb!”
“That’s my official name. Mary Grubb was the girl whose place I got with the Red Cross. Do you know, you hurt my feelings terribly when you said my fist was rotten?”
And Stephen Scott, holding the little stained and roughened hand in his, wondered that he ever could have made such a break.
“Thank God, you are just one girl, after all!” he cried.
But the night nurse wished that there were two of her for a while at least: one to stay by the bedside of the convalescent American and one to make out the charts that must be got ready for the morning rounds of the surgeon in charge.
“Ahem!” said Billie, rapping for order as the girls began all at once to say what they thought of “Fairy Godmothers Wanted.” The one with the burning plot began rattling her paper in preparation of the turn she hoped for.
“First general impressions are in order! One at a time, please! You, Miss Oldham, you tell us how it strikes you.”
“Pleasing on the whole, but——”
“We’ll come to the ‘buts’ later,” was the stern mandate of the chairman of the day.
“You, Lilian Swift, you next!”
“Too long!” from the blunt Lilian.
“The idea! I think it was just sweet,” from the gentle Alabamian.
“I got kind of mixed in the middle and couldn’t tell which was the nurse and which PollyNelson,” declared one who had evidently gone off into a cataleptic fit, no doubt dreaming of a story she meant to write some day.
“I never, never could love a man who had deceived me,” sighed the sentimental one with big eyes and a little mouth.
“Personal predilections not valuable as criticism,” said Billie sternly.
Many and various were the opinions expressed. Molly diligently and meekly took notes, agreeing heartily with the ones who thought it was too long.
“Where must I cut it?” she asked eagerly.
“Cut out all the letters!” suggested Lilian.
“How could she? It is all letters,” asked Billie, whose chair was becoming a burden as she felt she must get into the discussion.
“Cut ’em, anyhow. Letters in fiction are no good.”
“Humph! How about the early English novelists?” asked Molly.
“Dead! Dead! All of them dead!” stormed Lilian.
“Then how about Mary Roberts Rinehart and Booth Tarkington and lots of others? Daddy Longlegs is all letters.”
“All the samey, it is a poor stunt,” insisted the intrepid Lilian. “I call it a lazy way to get your idea over.”
“Perhaps you are right, but the point is: did I get my idea over?”
“We-ll, yes,—but they tell me editors don’t like letter form of fiction.”
“Certainly none of them have liked this,” sighed Molly, who had devoutly hoped her little story would sell. The money she made herself was very delightful to receive and more delightful to spend. A professor’s salary can as a rule stand a good deal of supplementing.
“How about the plot, now?” asked Billie, having finished with the general impression.
“Slight!”
“Strong!”
“Weak!”
“Impossible!”
“Plausible!”
“Original!”
“Bromidic!”
“Involved!” were the verdicts. The matter was thoroughly threshed out, Billie with difficulty keeping order. Nance was called on for the “but” that she had been left holding.
“The plot is slight but certainly original in its way. The letters are too long, longer than a Godmother would be apt to write, I think. The story could be cut to three thousand words, I believe, to its advantage.”
“I have already cut out about fifteen hundred words,” wailed Molly. “The first writing was lots longer.”
“Gee!” breathed the one eager for a hearing.
“Now for the characterization! Don’t all speak at once, but one at a time tell what you think of it.”
“Did you mean to make Polly so silly?” asked Lilian.
“I—I—perhaps!” faltered Molly.
“Of course if you meant to, why then your characterization is perfect.”
“Silly! Why, she is dear,” declared the girl from Alabama. “I don’t like her having to nurse that black man, though.”
“Too many points of view!” suddenly blurted out a member who had hitherto kept perfectly silent, but she had been eagerly scanning a paper whereon was written the requisites for a short story.
“But you see——” meekly began Molly.
“The point of view must either be that of the author solely or one of the characters,” asserted the knowing one. “Why, you even let us know how the Bedouin feels.”
“Oh!” gasped the poor author. “I think you would limit the story teller too much if you eliminated such things as that.”
“Here’s what the correspondence course says——”
“Spare us!” cried the club in a chorus.
“I hate all these cut and dried rules!” cried Billie. “It would take all the spice out of literature if we stuck to them.”
“That’s just it,” answered Lilian. “We arenot making literature but trying to sell our stuff. Persons who have arrived can write any old way. They can start off with the climax and end up with an introduction and their things go, but I’ll bet you my hat that you will not find a single story by a new writer that does not have to toe the mark drawn by the teachers of short story writing.”
“Which hat?” teased Billie. “The one you put on for Great-aunt Gertrude? If it is that one, I won’t bet. I wouldn’t read a short story by a new writer for it.”
“To return to my story,” pleaded Molly, “do you think if I rewrite it, leave out the letters, strengthen the plot a bit and make Polly a little wiser that I might sell it?”
“Sure!” encouraged Lilian.
“Yes, indeed!” echoed Nance.
“And the black man—please cut him out! I can’t bear to think of him,” from the girl from Alabama.
“Dialogue,—how about it?” asked the chairman.
“Pretty good, but a little stilted,” was the verdict of several critics.
“I think you are all of you simply horrid!” exclaimed Mary Neil, who had been silent and sullen through the whole evening. “I think it is the best story that has been read all year and I believe you are just jealous to tear it to pieces this way.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Lilian.
“We do hope we haven’t hurt your feelings, Mrs. Green,” cried the girl who was taking the correspondence course.
“Hurt my feelings! The very idea! I read my story to get help from you and not praise. I am going to think over what you have said and do my best to correct the faults, if I come to the conclusion you are right.”
“You would have a hard time doing what everybody says,” laughed Nance, “as no two have agreed.”
“Well, I can pick and choose among so many opinions,” said Molly, putting her manuscript back in its big envelope. “I might do as mymother did when she got the opinion of two physicians on the diet she was to have: she simply took from each man the advice that best suited her taste and between the two managed to be very well fed, and, strange to say, got well of her malady under the composite treatment.”
“Ahem!” said the girl with the burning plot, rattling her manuscript audibly so that the hardhearted Billie must perforce recognize her and give her the floor.
“Aunt Nance, what’s the use you ain’t got no husband an’ baby children?” Mildred always said use instead of reason.
“Lots of reasons!” answered Nance, smiling at her little companion. Mildred had moved herself and all her belongings into the guest-chamber. Her mother had at first objected, but when she found it made Nance happy to have the child with her, she gave her consent.
“Ain’t no husbands come along wantin’ you?”
“That is one of the reasons.”
“I’m going to make Dodo marry you when he gets some teeth.”
“Thank you, darling! Dodo would make a dear little husband.”
“Dodo wouldn’t never say nothin’ mean to you. He’s got more disposition than any baby in the family.”
“I am sure he wouldn’t,” said Nance, trying to count the stitches as she neatly turned the heel of the grey sock she was knitting. Nance was always knitting in those days.
“’Cose if I kin get you a husband a little teensy weensy bit taller than Dodo, I’ll let you know.”
“Fine! But Dodo will grow.”
“Maybe you’ll make out to shrink up some. Katy kin shrink you. My muvver said Katy kin shrink up anything. She done shrinked up Dodo’s little shirts jes’ big enough for my dolly. I’s jes’ crazy ’bout Katy. I’m gonter ask her kin she shrink you up no bigger’n Dodo an’ then won’t you be cunning? You can look jes’ like you look now only teensy weensy little. Your little feet’ll be so long, not great big ones like mine, an’ your little hands will be ’bout as big as my little fingers an’—an’—you kin knit little bits of baby socks an’ I kin take you out ridin’ in my little doll-baby carriage, all tucked in nice.”
“But then I’ll be too little to marry Dodo. You won’t trust your doll to Dodo, and if I’m so teensy maybe he might break me.”
“Well, then, I guess Katy’ll have to stretch you some. She done stretched the shirt mos’ a mile.”
“What do you say to taking a little walk?”
“I say: ‘Glory be!’ That’s what Kizzie, our cook, says when she’s happy.”
“Shall we take Dodo out in his carriage?”
“If I can put my dolly in, too!”
Dodo was awake and pleased to be included in this outing, if gurglings and splutterings were an indication of happiness. He and the doll were tucked safely in. Katy, who had been longing for the time to come when she could scrub the nursery, was delighted to be relieved of her charge for the time being.
“Where shall we walk?” asked Nance.
“Down by the lake! My dolly ain’t never seed the lake yet. They’s a little blue boat down there what my papa, the ’fessor, done say he gonter set sail in some day. He say he gontergo way out in the middle of the lake where th’ ain’t no little girls with curls to come tickle his nose in the morning. My papa is kind and good, but he sho’ do hate to have his nose tickled with curls early in the morning.”
The lake! How many memories it brought back to Nance! The blue boat might be the same one in which Judy Kean had her memorable midnight jaunt, or was it a canoe? Nance smiled at the picture that arose in her mind’s eye. It was their Junior year and Judy had gone off in a fit of jealousy and rage, and when she came to herself she was out in the middle of the lake while Molly and Nance rowed frantically after her. What a time they had covering their tracks to keep Judy from being found out and perhaps even expelled! Nance laughed aloud.
The sun was warm on that day in late March, almost like a southern sun. Dodo, lazy baby, had slipped from his sitting posture and lay flat on his back. He had the same characteristics as Mildred’s doll baby: the moment he lay down his eyes closed.
“Oh, what a sleepy husband I have got!” cried Nance. “Let’s camp out here, darling. I brought my knitting and while my little husband sleeps——”
“And my doll baby, too!”
“You can play in that nice clean sand. Don’t go too close to the water.”
There was a stretch of beach at that side of the lake where a small pier had been built for a boat-landing. The sand was fine and white, a most delectable medium for houses or pies, whatever the young sculptor wished to create.
Nance seated herself on a nice warm rock while her little companion busied herself collecting pebbles for the castle she contemplated building. The sock grew under the girl’s skillful fingers while her thoughts were miles away from the poor soldier whose foot it was destined to cover. Dodo snoozed peacefully and no doubt the doll did, too.
“Look! Look! Aunt Nance, I’ve done found some kitty flowers!” cried Mildred, rushing toNance with a switch of willow catkins she had found growing near the water’s edge.
“‘I had a little pussyHer coat was silver grey.She lived down in the meadow,She never ran away.“‘Her name was always Pussy,She never was a cat.‘Cause she was a Pussy-Willow.Now what do you think of that?’”
“‘I had a little pussyHer coat was silver grey.She lived down in the meadow,She never ran away.“‘Her name was always Pussy,She never was a cat.‘Cause she was a Pussy-Willow.Now what do you think of that?’”
“‘I had a little pussyHer coat was silver grey.She lived down in the meadow,She never ran away.
“‘Her name was always Pussy,She never was a cat.‘Cause she was a Pussy-Willow.Now what do you think of that?’”
sang Nance. “Now let me teach you that nice verse so you can say it to your father.”
Mildred obediently learned the poetry in so short a time that her teacher marveled at her cleverness and good memory.
“Now, darling, you mustn’t go quite so close to the water again. Aunt Nance will gather a big armful of the pussy-willows to take back to Mother, but you might get your little tootsies wet if you go too close to the edge. Then I’ll have to put you in the carriage with my husband and run home every step of the way.”
Mildred trotted off with assurances of caution. Nance settled herself to her knitting and herthoughts. What a boon this universal knitting has become to women who want to think and be busy at the same time! The girl’s thoughts were centered on herself. What was she to do with her life? The desire to teach had left her with the years she had spent nursing her father and mother. United States was on the verge of war—any moment it might be declared. That would mean the women of the land would be in demand just as they had been in Europe. There would be work to do, but what was her share to be?
This little breathing time with Molly was very sweet, but it could not go on forever. The time would come when she must take up life again. Her unruly thoughts would dwell on how different things would have been had Andy McLean not shown himself so unreasonable. She might have gone to the front with him. There was work in the hospitals in France for others besides trained nurses, lots of work! Cooking, cleaning, sewing, peeling potatoes, scrubbing floors—nothing was too menial for her. It would have beensweet to work near Andy, shoulder to shoulder in spirit even if he would happen to be the surgeon in charge and she a poor scrub girl. She might have been taking care of some of the war orphans. Minding little babies was her long suit, it seemed. A big tear gathered and spilled on the toe of the sock that was being so neatly finished off.
A shrill scream broke on the still air.
“I’m a-sinkin’! I’m a-sinkin’!”
“Mildred!” cried Nance, jumping to her feet.
“Never mind, nurse, I’ll go after her,” said a stern voice from behind her. “You had better look after your other charge,” in a tone which made no attempt to veil its sarcasm.
Dodo had awakened and was sitting up in the carriage reaching for the willow catkins. His position was precarious, as one more inch might have sent him headlong in the sand.
Nance dropped her knitting and grabbed the venturesome baby while the stern voice materialized into a tall grey figure with sandy hair who ran towards the water’s edge, skinning out of his coat and vest as he ran and in some miraculousway also divesting himself of his shoes. His hat he had already hurled at Nance’s feet.
Mildred had walked out on the little pier and decided that she would get in the pretty blue boat that her father considered such a safe refuge from tickling curls. It was bobbing about most invitingly in easy stepping distance.
“Won’t Aunt Nance be ’stonished?” the child had said to herself. “She’s gonter holler out: ‘M-i-i-l-dred! Where you Mi—ldred baby?’ an’ I gonter lay low an’ keep on a-sayin’ nothin’.”
She put out her little foot and set it firmly on the bow of the boat that was almost grazing the edge of the landing.
“My legs is a-gettin’ mos’ long enough to step up to the moon an’ stars,” she boasted.
But how strangely boats behaved! This one did not stay still as she had expected but ran away from her. Her legs had not grown nearly so long as she had thought and they refused to grow another bit. The boat got farther and farther away and the horrid little pier seemed tobe moving, too, and in the opposite direction. The time came when Mildred must choose between land and water. She decided to stay on shore and with a mighty effort jerked her little foot from the unsteady blue boat. Three years going on four is not a period of great equilibrium. Fate took matters out of Mildred’s hands and kersplash! she went in the cold waters of the lake. It was not very deep so close to the shore, but neither was the little girl so very tall. By standing on her tiptoes she might have managed to keep her inquisitive nose out of the water, but the naughty blue boat came swinging back to her rescue and she clutched first the painter and then the side of the boat, screaming lustily as she clung.
The grey figure with the sandy hair ran lightly along the pier and with one swoop gathered the child up into his arms. He might have saved himself the trouble of taking off his coat and shoes, but he had seen the child as she fell in the water and did not know what would be required of him as life saver. Mildred was sobbing dolefullyas she buried her wet curls in the neck of her rescuer.
“Your nurse should have looked after you,” he muttered.
“She had her husband to ’tend to,” said Mildred, “an’ I was a-keepin’ keer of myself. ’Sides she ain’t my nurse but my ’loved aunty.”
“Oh! And who may you be?”
“I’m Mildred Carbuncle Green.” The family name of Molly’s mother, which was Carmichael, was thus perverted by this scion of the race.
“And your aunt’s name?” asked the young man as he picked up his discarded coat and wrapped it around his burden.
“She’s Aunt Nance——”
“Nance Oldham!” and he almost dropped little Mildred. “And you say she was busy with her husband?”
“Yessir! He keeps her busy mos’ of the time.”
The rescue and this conversation had taken but a moment. In the meantime, poor Nance had shoved her little husband back in the carriage andwas rapidly wheeling him towards the scene of disaster.
She had recognized Andy McLean in the tall grey figure and sandy hair. The moment he had spoken to her so sternly she had known it was he. At that moment she envied no creature in the world so much as an ostrich. If she could only bury her head in the sand. Why should Fate be so cruel to her? Why should Andy McLean come back on her horizon at that moment when she was neglecting her duty? But then, she reflected, if he had not come back at that psychological moment either Mildred would have drowned or Dodo broken his neck. She could not have rescued both of them at once. Indeed, both of them might have been killed! The fact that the water was shallow and Mildred could have walked out of it was no comfort to Nance, nor did it allay her suffering and self-reproaches in the least to know that almost every baby that has grown to manhood has at one time or another fallen out of his carriage or bed, down the steps or even out of the window.
Andy McLean, too, was going through some uncomfortable moments as he held the dripping child close in his arms and made his way across the beach to Nance. There had never been a moment since he and Nance had parted that he had not regretted his hasty words; but what good were regrets? Nance could not have cared for him or she would have felt that at her father’s death he was the person to whom she must turn instead of that Dr. Flint. As far as he could see, there was no reason under Heaven why Nance should not have married him immediately. He knew nothing of her mother’s determination to give up her public life nor of her decision to remain at home for Nance to nurse. He had not yet learned of Mrs. Oldham’s death, as he had arrived at Wellington only the evening before, and Mrs. McLean, with a wisdom sometimes granted mothers, had not mentioned Nance’s name to him, much less the fact that she was even then visiting the Greens.
“Married! and so engrossed with her husband that she let little children entrusted to her carefall in the water and almost fall out of baby carriages! But where is the—the—cad?” was what Andy was thinking as he approached the frantic Nance, who was pushing the carriage as for dear life through the heavy sand.
“Mildred! Mildred! You promised not to go near the water’s edge!”
“I never went near it but jes’ ran out on the little wooden street. I wasn’t goin’ to be naughty. I knowed I might get my feet wet down by the edge so I walked on the planks. I never done nothin’ nor nothin’! ’Twas the bad little blue boat what wobbled.”
Nance and Andy both laughed at the amusing child. The laugh made matters easier for them.
Brown eyes looked into blue and then such a blush o’erspread their countenances that a day’s fishing under a summer sun could not have accomplished.
“You had better put her in the carriage—it is warm there and I can carry Dodo.”
“No, I will keep her wrapped in my coat. That will be better.”
“But you—you might be cold.”
“Not at all! I never catch cold,” shortly.
Nance remembered otherwise, but there was nothing to do but turn and wheel the baby back to the house on the campus.
“I—you must think—I know I was careless to let such an accident happen to my charges. I have no excuse—I was just thinking!”
“About your husband, I fancy!”
Again Nance’s cheeks were crimson, remembering only too well what her thoughts had been as she sat in the sand knitting.
“I——”
“Mildred told me about him,” said Andy grimly.
“Did she?” laughed Nance, thinking that Andy was speaking of Dodo, of course. “He is a darling husband.”
“Humph!” They walked on in silence, Andy taking great strides with Mildred clasped closely in his arms, while Nance wheeled the baby carriage, almost running to keep up.
“I don’t know what to call you,” said Andy at last.
“Call me? Why, call me Nance! Why not? My name is still Nance no matter what has happened.”
“I—I—perhaps he wouldn’t like it.”
“Who?”
“Your husband! Is it Flint?”
“Andy McLean, you are a fool! There is no other word for you!” and Nance grabbed Dodo from his carriage and ran up the steps, thankful that they had arrived at the Square Deal.
“If not Flint, who?” muttered Andy under his breath. “I am going to stay here until I find out.”
Molly was not at home to receive her wet daughter. Nance and Katy rubbed her down and dressed her while Andy waited miserably in the library. Why had his mother not warned him that Nance Oldham was in Wellington? They had had a long talk and she had told him news of all their old friends. Molly and Edwin had been mentioned again and again but the factthat they had a guest had been kept dark. He had never talked to his mother about his break with Nance. A certain reticence in his make-up withheld him. Many times he had longed to put his head in her lap and tell her all about it.
A great intimacy existed between Mrs. McLean and this only child, but instead of his being like a daughter to her, as is the case sometimes with a woman and an only child when that child happens to be a son, this worthy mother had adjusted herself more into the relationship of an elder brother to Andy. There were few if any subjects they could not discuss together, but somehow he could not bring himself to tell her of Nance. She had known they were engaged—that was easy to tell, and she knew the engagement was no more—that was all. Mrs. McLean bided her time.
“They are young yet,” she had said to her husband. “Some misunderstanding has come up, but if they are really meant for one another it will be explained away. If they can’t forgive, then they are not suited for mating.”
The good woman had been delighted beyond measure that Nance should be in Wellington while her son was on his farewell visit to her, and she had devoutly prayed that they might meet by chance, just as they had. Of course she had not stipulated in her prayers that Andy should mistake Nance for the Greens’ nurse and reprimand her for carelessness; and then fish Mildred out of the water; and get Dodo and the hated Dr. Flint hopelessly mixed, and be called a fool for his blunder!
Molly, coming in hurriedly from her labors at the French War Relief rooms where she had been engaged in making surgical dressings until her back ached so that she had more sympathy for the poor wounded than ever, if possible, found young Dr. McLean cooling his heels and drying his coat by her library fire.
“Andy! I am so glad to see you!” she cried, grasping both of his hands. “When did you come? Did you know Nance Oldham is with me?”
“Yes, I have seen her,” grimly.
“Oh, then you know of her trouble?”
“Trouble! I shouldn’t call it that. She evidently does not consider it in that light.”
“Andy McLean, how can you say such a thing?”
“Well, I formed my opinions from the evidence of my own eyes. In fact, she told me with her own lips that she was contented; if not in so many words, at least she gave me that impression.”
“Resigned, of course! That is Nance’s way, but she is very sad and lonesome for all that.”
“Lonesome! Ye Gods, how many does she want?”
“Excuse me, Andy, but you are talking like a goose,” declared Molly, irritated in spite of herself.
“Thank you, madam,” he said, bowing low. “Your guest has just called me a fool and now you call me a goose. I bid you good-by.”
“Good-by, indeed! Andy McLean, sit down here and let me send for your father. I believe my soul you are in a fever or something.” Molly pushed him down in a chair near the fire. “Why, Andy, your coat is damp! Where have you been?”
She drew a chair by him and seated herself, looking anxiously into his flushed face. Andy laughed in a hard tone.
“Perhaps you are right, but don’t send for Father. I got my coat wet in a perfectly sane way, but perhaps you had better find out about that from Mrs. Fl—Nance—I mean.”
Andy balked at that name of Mrs. Flint and then, besides, Nance had called him a fool when he had hinted at the doctor’s being the happy man. At this juncture little Mildred came running into the library.
“Mumsy! Mumsy! Is you heard ’bout me an’ the blue boat?”
“No, darling! But what makes your curls so wet?”
“That was that baddest blue boat. It wouldn’t stay still ’til I got in—it jes’ moved and moved—an’ the little wooden street, it moved an’ moved an’ I went kerblim! kersplash!”
“In the lake! Oh, Mildred! I know you didn’t mind Aunt Nance. Are you cold? Did Aunt Nance get wet? Where is Dodo?”
“You ’fuses me with so many ain’t’s an’ do’s and didn’t’s.”
“You tell me all about it,” said the doting mother, trying to compose herself as she gathered the first-born in her arms.
“Well, you see, me’n’ Aunt Nance we went a-walkin’ an’ we tooked Dodo along an’ my dolly, an’ Aunt Nance she says that one use she ain’t got no husband is ’cause don’t no husband want her, an’ I done tol’ her that if Katy kin shrink her up some that Dodo kin be her husband. You see, Mumsy, I been a-feelin’ sorry for Aunt Nance ever since that time I mos’ went to sleep in her lap an’ she talked about a beau lover what got to fightin’ with her an’ she hit him back. She wetted my ear all up with her tears. I jes’ done thunk somethin’!” the child exclaimed, getting out of her mother’s lap and peering curiously into Andy’s face. “Is you the Andy what talked so crule to my Aunt Nance? ’Cause if you is, I’m sorry you done pulled me out’n the lake.”
“Mildred! Mildred!” admonished Molly, but in her heart of hearts she knew that what the enfantterrible was saying to the young doctor was no doubt of a very salutary nature. He needed a good talking to and he was getting it.
“I am the one,” said Andy meekly.
“Well, when Dodo grows up to be big enough he is goin’ to—to—cut you up in little pieces. He’s growin’ up fast an’ bein’ a husband is makin’ him cut his teeth early——”
“Molly Brown!” interrupted Andy McLean eagerly. “Is Nance not married?”
“Married! The idea, Andy! Of course not!”
“Yes, she is! She’s married to Dodo Green. I married ’em this morning,” declared Mildred defiantly.
“Oh, oh! I see it all now!” laughed Molly hysterically. “You were talking about her mythical marriage while I was speaking of her mother’s death.”
“Her mother dead? I had not heard a word of it. Strange that so important a woman as Mrs. Oldham should have died without my seeing it mentioned in the paper.”
“But Mrs. Oldham dropped out of public lifetwo years ago, when her husband died, in fact. Nance had hardly rested from the long siege of nursing her father before she began on her mother.”
Andy bowed his sandy-haired head in his hands and groaned:
“Fool! Fool! Every kind of fool and goose you and Nance choose to call me,—fool and knave! Bad-tempered brute! Jealous idiot! Oh, Molly, please call Nance.”
When Nance had hurled her “fool” at Andy’s sandy head, she flew up-stairs, determined never to speak to him again. She longed for a few quiet moments in her own room, but Mildred must be rubbed down and dressed before she could seek retirement. She was sure he would leave the house immediately. His coat was wet and no doubt his vest and shirt, too, after having carried the dripping child such a distance. Of course he would not want to call on the Greens while she was in the house. The girl bitterly regretted having timed her visit so unfortunately. The Greens and McLeans were very intimate,and would perforce see each other often. She hated to be a wet blanket—a skeleton at the feast. She determined to pack her trunk and go on a promised visit to an old college friend then living in New York. Molly would object, she knew, but it was surely best for all of them that she should take herself off for a few weeks.
Nance was always an orderly person and packing a trunk with her was a very simple matter. She began in her usual systematic way and had already folded her dresses neatly in the trays and was emptying the bureau drawers when Molly’s voice was heard calling her from the lower hall.
“Nance! Oh, Nance!”
She sounded quite excited. No doubt she had just been informed of Mildred’s accident and wanted to hear the details of it.
“Coming!” called Nance, hurrying down the steps. “Oh, Molly, what do you think of me for taking out the children and almost drowning Mildred? And while that was going on, little Dodo came within an ace of tumbling out of the carriageon his precious sleepy head! You will never trust them with me again.”
“Nonsense! Mildred is old enough not to try to get in boats alone, and as for Dodo, Aunt Mary always said: ‘Whin chilluns grows up ’thout ever gittin’ a tumble, they is sho’ to be idjits.’”
“Well, then, my real duty was to let him tumble,” laughed Nance. “What do you want with me, honey? I am very busy.”
“Not too busy to come in and talk with me a little while,” insisted the wily Molly, putting her arm around her friend’s waist and leading her to the library door.
“I do want to talk to you a moment,” agreed Nance. “Molly, I am going away for a few weeks.” They had reached the door, which was ajar, and Andy, ensconced in the sleepy-hollow chair dear to the professor’s bones, could plainly hear the conversation.
“Going away! You are going to do no such thing.”
“I must. There is no use in asking me why—youknow why—— It is too hard for me and there is no use in pretending it is not.”
“But, Nance——”
“I have begun to pack and I will go to-morrow.”
Instead of the hospitable protestations characteristic of Molly, that young housewife said not a word, but giving her friend a little push towards the fireplace, she grabbed up Mildred and rushed from the room, closing the door after her.
Andy undoubled himself with alacrity and sprang from the sleepy-hollow chair. His stern face was softened and filled with a boyish eagerness.
“Oh, Nance! Can’t you forgive me?”
“Excuse me, Dr. McLean, I did not know you were still here,” and Nance turned to leave the room.
Andy with long strides reached the door first and with his back against it held out beseeching hands.
“Yes, I’m here and am going to stay here——”
“Well, I am not! Please let me pass.” Nance was filled with a righteous indignationagainst Molly at having played this trick on her.
“But, my dear, I must tell you what a fool I have been——”
“That is not necessary. I know.”
Andy laughed. Nance had a laconic way of putting things that always tickled his humor.
“Now you sound like yourself, honey, but oh, please act like yourself! The real Nance Oldham could not be so cruel as to go off without letting me explain—I have no excuse—there could be none for my blind rage and jealousy—none unless loving you too hard could be called one. Will you listen to me?”
“I shall have to unless I stop up my ears, since you stop up the doorway.” Nance was very pale and trembling. Two years of suffering could not be done away with in a moment and the girl had surely suffered.
“Couldn’t we sit down and let me tell you?”
“We could!”
Andy eagerly directed Nance to the sofa, but she sedately seated herself in a small isolated sewingrocker. Andy accepted the amendment and placed his chair as near to hers as the frigid atmosphere around her permitted.
“Before I explain I must apologize. I would have done it the very day after that awful row we had, the very moment after it, if I had not thought you hated me.”
“And now?”
“And now I am going to apologize and explain, whether you hate me or not. I could do it lots better if you would let me hold your hand while I am doing it,” but Nance drew Molly’s knitting from a bag hung on the back of the chair and declared her hands were otherwise occupied. Molly had reached the purling end of a sleeveless sweater and no doubt would be glad of Nance’s expert assistance.
“Nance, there never has been any other woman in my life but you, you and my mother. You know perfectly well from the time I met you, when I was at Exmoor College and you were here at Wellington, that you were the only girl in the world for me. I had a kind of notion inmy fool brain that I was going to be the only man in the world for you. When we were engaged I thought I was, but when I realized that Dr. Flint was paying you such devoted attention, at your home constantly——”
“My father’s physician!”
“Yes, I know,—but, honey, you see you were way up there in Vermont and I was down in New York and I was hungry for you all the time, and when your father died I thought you would pick right up and come to me—I knew nothing of your mother’s determination to stay with you—nothing of her illness—nothing but that you were staying in the same town with Flint and I must go back to New York. You did not tell me.”
“Well, hardly, after the way you raged and tore! I felt if you could rage that way we had better separate.”
“But, my dear, I’ll never rage that way again—I’ve learned my lesson. Can’t you forgive me?” Nance was silent.
“I love you just as much as I always did,—more,in fact. When little Mildred Green told me you had let her fall in the water because you were so busy with your husband, I wanted to die that minute. Of course I thought it was Flint. How could I know the child was playing a game with you? Nance, do you hate me as much as you did that terrible day two years ago?”
“Yes!” Nance’s answer was very low but Andy heard it.
“Well, then, there is no use in saying any more,” he sprang to his feet, his face grey with misery.
“I didn’t hate you then at all—nor do I now.”
“Oh, Nance, don’t tease me! Can you forgive me?” and poor Andy sank on his knees and bowed his head on her knees.
Nance’s arms were around him in a moment. She hugged his sandy head to her bosom with one hand and patted his back with the other while he gave a great sob.
“Andy McLean, you are still wringing wet. Get up from here this minute and take off that coat and let me dry it! And your shirt is damp,too! My, what a boy! Here, sit right close to the fire and dry that wet sleeve.”
Andy meekly submitted in a daze. Nance’s motherly attitude and sudden melting were too much for him. The coat was hung by the fire to dry while the young doctor stood helplessly by in his shirt sleeves.
“And now, Andy, I’m going to apologize to you and ask you to forgive me,” declared Nance, stoutly trying to go on with her knitting.
But Andy firmly took it from her and possessed himself of those busy hands.
“I was worse than you—when you said those hard things to me they hurt like fury—you didn’t know how they did hurt, but I did, and I should not have done the same thing to you. I said worse things to you than you did to me,—at least I tried to.”
“You did pretty well,” said Andy whimsically, pressing one of the imprisoned hands to his lips.
“Dr. Flint did want to marry me; I guess he still does, but—but——”
“But what, lassie?” Sometimes Andy dropped into his parents’ vernacular.
“I am not going to tell a man in his shirt sleeves why I didn’t marry Dr. Flint,” said Nance firmly. “It is too unpicturesque.”
“Then I’ll put on my coat.”
“No, you won’t! I wouldn’t tell a man in a wet coat, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t like to lay my brown head on a damp shoulder. Why don’t you do as I told you and dry that shirt sleeve? Hold it close to the fire, sir!”
“I won’t do it unless you tell me why you didn’t marry Dr. Flint.”
“Well, then, to keep you from catching your death of cold, I will tell you, but remember I have saved your life. It was—it was because—because he didn’t have sandy hair and a bad temper,” and Nance was enfolded in the despised shirt sleeves and found a very nice dry spot on which to lay her brown head.
The sun had set and twilight was upon them.The front door opened to admit the master of the house, but Molly was in ambush ready to catch him to keep him out of the library. Kizzie had started in to mend the fire but Molly stopped her.
“Never mind the fire, Kizzie. It is all right for such a warm evening. Give us tea in the den.”
“Why all of this mystery?” asked Edwin Green as he followed his wife back to the den, going on tiptoe as she demanded.
“Andy and Nance are in there.”
“Andy McLean! Fine! I want to see him. Won’t he be here to tea? I’ll go in and speak to him.”
“You’ll do no such thing! Edwin Green, you may be—in fact, are, a grand lecturer on English, but you have no practical sense. Don’t you know you might break in just at the wrong moment and Andy may get off to France without their making it up?”
“Making up what? Who making up: the Allies and the central powers?”
“Oh, Edwin, you know I mean Nance and Andy!”
“What are they making up? If it is a row, let’s go help them.”
“Not a soul shall go in that room until they come out, unless it is over my dead body.”
“Well, well! I’d rather stay in this room with your live body than go in there over your dead one,” and the professor pulled his wife down on the sofa by him, “especially if you will give me some tea,” as Kizzie came in grinning with the tea tray.