“And now, Adventure, come forth!” commanded Katherine in sepulchral tones.
The side door of the cottage, leading to the garden, now opened as though at Katherine’s orders, and a broad ribbon of light fell across the labyrinth, picking out the snub-nosed Hebe and the sun-dial and one of the box chairs to illuminate. A man’s figure was silhouetted in the doorway, a figure so beautiful that the artist in Judy gasped. He had on running togs which exposed his clean-cut limbs and shapely shoulders. A woman stood beside him and Judy recognized the outline of Madame Misel. The Greek god of a man was strange to her, although there was something familiar about the poise of his head on its column-like neck.
The woman spoke in German in a low clear voice. Judy and Katherine both knew German fairly well and Otoyo had some knowledge of it. They heard Madame Misel say distinctly:
“It is wiser if you wait until midnight for the exercises. Some of these blockheads might be out.”
“Oh, absurd!” answered the man. “There is no one in this whole stupid place with the spirit to be from under cover after ten. I am cramped enough and must run and leap. Stand aside!”
“Misel, himself!” gasped Judy. Where were his crutch and cane and his lame back?
The girls sat as still as the stone Hebe. It was inky black in their corner of the summer-house where they cowered, not afraid at all but ready to knock the chip from the shoulder of Adventure. Judy’s first instinct on recognizing Madame Misel was to make herself known and explain their presence in her garden at such a late hour, but the realization that Misel was the man in running togs, which usually means running, glued her to her bench. What did it all mean?
The door was shut and then Misel began a series of exercises of which any circus actor might have been proud. He began by leaping over the clipped hedge of the labyrinth,—back and forth with most surprising gyrations. It was so dark that it was difficult to follow his every movement, and so rapid were his leaps and bounds that he was now here, now there before eyes could be focussed to take in the impression. Then almost without the girls realizing what had happened, he had cleared the five-foot hedge and was out on the deserted street running like a deer.
“Quick, before he is back!” gasped Judy, and the seekers for sensations were out of the garden and through the little turnstile in not much more time than it had taken the master of the house to leap the hedge.
Without a word they hastened back to the college grounds. As they turned a corner, they ran plump into Misel, who seemed to have let off steam enough to be trotting contentedly home. They need not have feared him. He was much more anxious to escape from them than they werefrom him. He turned and ran like the wind in the opposite direction.
“Gee, I wish we could have tripped him up!” exclaimed Judy.
“And I might have jiu jitsued him most neatlily,” put in little Otoyo. “I think he is what you might call a traitor-r-r.”
“I was never more excited in my life. What will the girls think when we tell them of what has happened to us?” panted Katherine.
“Do you realize we have run against a tremendous thing?” said Judy soberly. “Almost international importance! I fancy we must keep kind of quiet about it. Of course we will tell Molly and Edwin and the girls, but I have an idea this thing will have to be worked up slowly and cautiously. I bet you it will be a case of secret service men and enemy aliens and what not. Why should Misel have pretended to be lame? Why should they come to live at Wellington? Why—a million whys about the whole matter!”
“One thing:—Misel thought we were collegegirls on a lark and he will have no fear of our saying we met him or anyone outside the campus at such an hour,” said Katherine wisely.
The Welsh rarebit was just assuming its required thickness and smoothness and the toast was done to a turn ready to receive its libation of cheese, when the wanderers came pattering in.
“Where is Edwin?” demanded Judy.
“In his den! You see this is a kimono party and gentlemen are not admitted,” said Molly, helping Judy off with her coat and veil. “Now tell us all about it! Something has happened, I can see by your eyes and hair.”
“Happened! I should say it has! Something has bounced! Call Edwin! I don’t give a hang if we are in kimonos! I’ll be bound he does not know a kimono from a ball gown—I can’t tell it twice.”
“Otoyo and I are not dumb. We might help out when you fall by the wayside,” laughed Katherine, “but I, for one, don’t mind the professor.”
“Nor I! Nor I!” chorused the others.
“I think mine is vastly becoming,” Jessie whispered to Margaret, who called her a vain puss.
Edwin came in, rather pleased at being admitted and being allowed to have some of the party.
“I never expected to get in on a fudge party,” he said, contentedly settling himself by Judy, who was bursting with news.
“Now begin!” commanded Margaret, rapping for order in much the old manner of class president and presiding officer.
“Begin at the beginning!” begged Edith.
“Well, first we went by Prexy’s, just to get the feeling of youth back in our veins. She saw us, but we chased by.”
“So it was you! I wish I had run you down,” cried the brother-in-law.
“It is a blessing you did not or a good story would have been ruined,” said Katherine.
Margaret rapped for order and Judy took up the tale.
“Then we went to call on Mattie Math. She was burning the midnight oil, at least the 10p. m.oil, and when we acted the Musicians of Bremen, she threw up the sash.”
“The hash? What hash?” asked Jessie, who often arrived a bit late. Shrieks and more rappings from Margaret.
“My, how much I have missed in never being asked to a kimono party before,” whispered the male guest in Judy’s ear.
“After we had brayed and crowed and meouwed and a dog had barked for us——”
“All together!” cried Katherine, and the musicians gave a sample of their performance, Mrs. Matsuki outdoing all cats by her lifelike caterwauling.
“After that, we went silently down to the village.”
“I don’t believe it, not silently!” asserted Edwin.
“No interruptions from the minority! Wewent silently down to the village, veils down, steps stealthy, eyes open and mouths shut. The garden at the Misels’ was most inviting in its sweetness and beauty. Of course we wanted to go in and rest on the nice warm stone benches, so we walked through the turnstile and seated ourselves in the little dark summer-house, there to await Adventure.”
“Bang! Adventure comes stalkingly in!” cried Otoyo.
“Leaping was more like it!” from Katherine.
“Yes! Who should come springing from the side door, totally oblivious of us, but Misel, stripped for running and looking like a detail from a Greek frieze!”
“Monsieur Misel! Why, Judy, you are mad! Misel is so lame he can’t stand alone without crutch and cane!” cried Molly.
“Lame your grandmother! He is a perfect circus actor. I have never seen a private citizen with such control of his muscles. He actually turned somersaults over the hedge in the labyrinth, walked on his hands better than I can onmy feet, and cleared the five-foot hedge that borders the street with as much ease as—as—I eat this fudge,” reaching for another piece.
“But, Judy, are you sure it was he?” asked Edwin excitedly.
“Of course I am sure!” And then Judy repeated the conversation they had overheard between Misel and his wife. “My German is shady when I have to use it, but I can understand very well.”
“So can I,” declared Katherine.
“And while I am constructionally verily faultily, I comprehend can,” said Otoyo, so excited that she ran off to adverb forms as was her wont in times of stress.
“This is serious,” said Edwin solemnly. “So serious that I feel I must do something about it and do it immediately. What time is it, honey?” he asked Molly.
“Eleven-fifty! Why, what can you do? Not go fight Misel—not that!”
“No, not that, at least not that yet, although I should like to break his lying crutch over his traitoroushead. I must get in touch with the Secret Service. War will be declared any day now and Germany is getting busy even in quiet Wellington.”
“You forget Exmoor College is so near,” put in Margaret. “Our college boys will officer the new army in part. I’ll wager anything that this man has already begun his pacifist propaganda here in Wellington and at Exmoor, too. Has he been to Exmoor?”
“Why, certainly! He got me to take him over and introduce him, the beast!” stormed Edwin. “Please pack my little grip for me, honey,” he asked, drawing Molly to him. “I can catch the twelve-forty to New York. Don’t give out that I am away. We had better do a little camouflage act of our own. I am ill, very ill! That will do! Let it be—what shall it be?”
“Mumps!” cried Edith.
“Not mumps, please!” cried Jessie. “Nothing contagious or we might catch it!”
“Or worse than that, even, be quarantined!” laughed Nance.
“Pretty hard on you, honey, as it would stop the ceremony,” suggested Molly.
“What do you usually have when you have anything?” asked Margaret with her judicial manner.
“Neuralgia!”
“Then neuralgia would be the natural thing to have when you have not anything.”
“Of course! Then, Molly, all day to-morrow your poor husband is ill with neuralgia. Not even the servants and children must come in my darkened room. I’ll be home in the night and wake up the next morning feeling much better,” and Molly hurried off to pack the grip.
“In time to give the bride away!” suggested Judy.
“May I tell Andy all about it?” asked Nance shyly.
“Of course! We would not be so cruel as to make you start out with a secret from your lord and master,” said Edwin.
“It makes me so mad to think how kind Andy was to that man, offering his medical services tohim and what not. I know the brutes had a good laugh over his gullibility. Andy told me afterwards that he could not understand the case, and if the man wasn’t shamming, it was the most peculiar thing he had ever seen: the way he jumped up out of his chair when he was so lame.”
“Now I remember that very night that I heard Madame Misel call her husband a fool on the way into the dining-room. I had forgotten all about it until this minute. I kept wondering what she meant,” said Molly.
“I tell you they are deep ones,” put in Katherine.
“Not a bit of it!” stormed Judy. “They are the worst of all fools because they think no one else has any sense. Bobby, my beloved parent, always says that is the worst kind of fool. That the wise man, who wants to put over anything, must go to work with the idea that all the persons he wants the scheme to get by with have as much and more sense than he has. Now these Huns think they are the only pebbles on the beach and take for granted that they are dealing with childrenand fools, and as a rule they get caught up with.”
“Not before they do lots of damage, however,” said Nance.
“I hope in this instance their machinations have not done any,” said Edwin devoutly. “Be sure and give the Misels no inkling they are suspected. All of you remember to be as polite as usual to them if you happen to run across them.”
“I’ll try, but it will surely go against the grain,” said Judy, her eyes flashing.
“Prove your father’s statements, dear little sister, and we shall let these foreigners know that we are not the blockheads they call us.”
“Also we are not the sleepily heads that must go bedwardly at such earlyly hour,” and little Otoyo opened her almond eyes very wide to show that she at least would neither slumber nor sleep until the enemies to her country and her adopted country were safely caught up with.
Molly came in with the grip packed. Some fudge was tucked in to help out his journey andEdwin, with the warm wishes of the kimono party, started on his patriotic travels.
“Remember to let Prexy know I am almost dead with neuralgia and do not let a soul but Andy on to the fact that I am off on a journey. I’ll creep in to-morrow night. Keep your eyes open for deviltries that the Misels may be up to, but don’t let them know you are not the dummies they think you. They will not be classed as alien enemies until war is formally declared, and that will be day after to-morrow, according to the latest news.”
Nance was quietly stitching while most of the above conversation was going on, but her thoughts were very busy. The idea that was uppermost in her mind was that the day United States was to form an alliance with the nations, she was to form one equally strong with her Andy.
Edwin Green occasionally had an attack of neuralgia that incapacitated him for work for at least a day, so when Molly solemnly gave out the news that her poor husband was suffering with one of his spells of that painful malady, sympathy was expressed by servants, teachers, and students. Blinds in the invalid’s room were carefully closed and the door locked, with the key in Molly’s pocket. Instructions were sternly given that nobody must disturb him. When he felt better he would ask for what he wanted. Little Mildred was very sad that she was not allowed to take him his “tup of toffee.”
“I weckon he’s a-gonter die, sho,” she confided to Cho-Cho-San. “Only my mother don’t knowit or she wouldn’t be a-smilin’ an’ laughin’ so hard.”
“I am going to work this morning at my war relief, even if we are to get married to-morrow,” declared Molly at breakfast. “If I let anything short of death interfere I get into bad habits, and the work simply must be done. They are crying out for more and more dressings.”
“Let’s all of us go help! We can turn out oodlums of work if we try,” cried Judy.
“Not Nance!” insisted Molly. “I know she has a lot of little stitches to put in before to-morrow.”
“If you will excuse me, I will beg off,” blushed Nance. “Andy is coming in this morning for a few moments, besides.”
“I tell you, you must stay at home to take care of poor dear Edwin,” laughed Judy. “It would look terribly heartless for all of us to go leave him.”
“Oh, I forgot Edwin!” declared Molly, just as Kizzie came in with a stack of waffles. The girl looked at her mistress in astonishment.What was coming over her Miss Molly, “fergittin’ of the boss and then a-larfin’ about it?”
“Shall I take Andy up to see him?” asked Nance soberly.
“Perhaps!”
“Hadn’t we better take the kids along so their noise won’t disturb poor dear Brother Edwin?” suggested Judy, “Mildred and Cho-Cho and Poilu, the puppy.” Poilu was a diminutive mongrel, the love of Mildred’s heart.
“Oh, Mother, please, please!” begged Mildred.
“I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee!” sang Cho-Cho as Molly smiled her consent.
“They can play in the churchyard and will be good, I am sure,” she declared.
And so Nance was left to put in her finishing stitches, to receive her lover and to take care of the fictitious case of neuralgia.
“Hot cloths on his head if he is in very great agony,” Molly called back as the gay throng started for the war relief rooms. “There is more aspirin in the top drawer if he is in much pain.”
Nance had a busy morning answering the ’phone, which rang many times with inquiries for the popular professor. Mary Neil sent a box of candy to Molly as a kind of consolation prize and Billie McKym sent Edwin a pot of flowers. Lilian Swift sent a basket of fruit.
“If their friends rally around them so for an imaginary disease, what would they do if something were really the matter?” thought Nance.
M. Misel and Andy met at the front door, Misel to inquire for the poor ill man and Andy to catch a glimpse of his Nance. Misel had walked slowly and painfully across the campus from his class room. Nance, from the window, had watched him approaching and she could but admire his patience as he made his crippled way.
“It must be worse to have to pretend to be lame than to be lame,” she said to herself. “I wonder if Andy is still fooled.”
The two men came into the library together, Andy showing great solicitude for the disabled foreigner. Misel was so extremely polite and seemed so distressed at Edwin’s illness thatNance could hardly believe that Judy and the girls could be right in the discovery they had made the night before. His manner was perfect, so respectful, so kindly and courteous.
“I believe I am to wish you joy, Dr. McLean,—and I do so with all my heart.” Andy grinned his appreciation. “My wife and I were quite charmed by Miss Oldham. I hear you are to go to the front to assist poor stricken France. I admire the courage of your fiancée to contemplate going with you.”
“It would take more for me to stay away,” whispered Nance softly.
“Ah, it is the spirit of the women which is what the Germans have to fight!”
“Is not the spirit of the German women quite as courageous as ours?” asked Nance, looking at Misel keenly.
“Ah!Wonderschön!”his eyes glowed. Suddenly the fact that he had dropped into German seemed to embarrass him. “That is—that is the word for the German women, just as ‘wonderful’ is the one for the Americans.”
“Tell me about Edwin,” interrupted Andy, as though he meant to put Misel at his ease again. “Is he very ill?”
“Oh, very!”
“Can’t I go up to see him?”
“Molly said he was not to be disturbed. These headaches just wear themselves out. He will be all right to-night.”
“But there is something to be done before it wears Edwin out as well as itself,” insisted the young doctor.
“Molly says not!” Nance shook her head at Andy as much as to tell him he was talking too much, and that young man subsided until Misel had gone. Then Nance revealed to her lover the whole nefarious plot.
“I had my doubts about that man from the first. I could not see how anyone as lame as he was could have jumped up so briskly. The beast! How could you be so polite to him?”
“Camouflage! Fighting the devil with fire!”
“I am glad old Ed took matters in hand so promptly. I tell you these college professorsshow up pretty well in these times! Wilson and Green forever!”
In the meantime the industrious war relief workers were hard at it. The be-aproned and be-kerchiefed ladies of Wellington held their séances in the basement of the little church. It was astonishing how large was their output, but busy fingers had been steadily at work ever since word had come from France that wounded men were dying for lack of surgical dressings, and that word had come very soon after the breaking out of the World War.
Women with earnest faces were bending over the long tables, some rolling bandages; some tearing cotton cloth; some pulling threads for careful cutting of gauze, later to be deftly folded in the prescribed shape. In one corner, cotton batting was being fluffed up for the making of fracture pillows. Huge baskets were being emptied by one group as they stuffed the pillows, while others were being filled by the fluffers, as Judy called the women whose duty it was to pick the cotton. Much sneezing went on in this cornerand he who wonders why, might try once fluffing unrefined cotton.
“Let me make the tampons!” begged Jessie.
“I know why! Because they look like powder puffs,” teased Edith.
The house party was received with enthusiasm by the Wellington workers. There always seems to be more work than can be accomplished and then workers come and by hook or crook the task is completed. All of our girls had done some war relief work, so it was easy to set them to their stints. Pretty Jessie could make tampons that were so soft and so regular that they really did look like powder puffs. Katherine could pick cotton as fast as Mother Carey can chickens and her advent caused an increase of sneezing. Edith stuffed fracture pillows just to show that she could go faster than her sister. Margaret rolled bandages with a precision equal to her parliamentary ruling when she was presiding officer. Otoyo and Judy and Molly folded the gauze into the neat little six-inch squares. This is the most difficult part of the work, requiring such accuracythat only the expert should choose that table. The edges must come just together, no threads must be left on the gauze, the corners must be turned under exactly enough and the finished articles stacked in even piles.
Madame Misel came in with the work she had taken home to finish. Never were such neat, wonderful dressings as hers. In the short time she had been at Wellington she had accomplished the work of two women, bringing in great stacks of the accurately-made dressings.
It was difficult for the girls to treat her with the courtesy they knew it was policy to employ. Behind that calm mask they could now detect the lying spy. Her expression was as demure as ever and she spoke with the same hesitation that they felt was assumed, just as her husband’s halting gait was. Why they should have taken up that particular disguise, Molly and her friends were at a loss to know.
Madame Misel was almost a beautiful woman. Animation would have made her quite beautiful, animation and better dressing. Her hair wasparted in the middle and brushed as slick as glass, coiled in a tight knob at exactly the wrong angle. She habitually wore an old-fashioned basque of a bygone cut buttoned up close to the neck with a narrow band of white collar, which but accentuated the severity of her garb. Her shoes were broad and ugly with no heels, her skirt skimpy and badly hung.
Judy studied the countenance of the foreigner as she bent over her work. The nimble fingers moved very rapidly as she folded the gauze.
“Gee, I’d like to sketch her!” Judy whispered to Molly. “A mixture of Mona Lisa and the Unknown Woman and plain repressed devil!”
She whipped out her sketch book, which was never far from her, and with a few strokes had Madame Misel’s pose, then with a skill that was quite wonderful had suggested her features. The model moved uneasily as though conscious of scrutiny, but before she looked up Judy had closed her book and was demurely folding gauze. Madame arose and walked away, standing by thetable where Margaret was rolling bandages. Judy again whipped out her book and made a rapid impression of the unstylish figure in its flat shoes and tight basque.
Just then little Mildred and Cho-Cho came screaming from the churchyard where they had been playing happily. Mildred had in her arms the poor little much-petted puppy. Blood was streaming from the creature’s leg and he was giving forth pathetic wails.
“A big dog done bitted him all up!” cried Mildred.
“Greatly dog ’ave ’urt little puppee!” said Cho-Cho-San.
“First aid to the injured!” exclaimed Judy, as she took the bleeding canine in her arms. The pile of beautifully made dressings Madame Misel had just brought in was on the corner of the long table. Without a by-your-leave, Judy snatched up one from the top and bound it around the poor gory leg. “There, you poor little precious! You may be part French poodle, anyhow, and surely a wound is a wound.”
Madame Misel put out a hand as though to stay her, but before she could say anything Judy had the dressing wrapped around the puppy’s little leg.
“Too bad to take one so perfectly made, but I just grabbed the one closest to hand. Now, Mildred, you and Cho-Cho can be Red Cross nurses and little Poilu can be your wounded warrior. Take him out and nurse him carefully. It isn’t much of a place and no doubt with good care he will be all well by to-morrow.”
“I—think—it—would be—advisable to—apply—iodine to the wound—is it—not so, Madame Brown? I shall be pleased to—go to—my—house—and—procure some,” faltered Madame Misel.
“I don’t think it is really necessary,” insisted Molly. “We shall be going home presently and I can put some on then. You are very kind.” Enemy alien or not, Madame Misel was certainly very thoughtful to want to take the trouble for the pet. Molly, ever ready to see the good in persons, had a feeling that this quiet, pleasantwoman could not be shamming. Perhaps Misel was not what he should be, but not this wife, who was so untiring in her labors of mercy.
When they started home, the roly-poly Poilu seemed to have recovered entirely. He did not even limp, so he was spared the ordeal of having the stinging iodine poured on the wounded leg. It was nothing more than a scratch anyhow, Judy declared.
At midnight Edwin returned, letting himself quietly in the front door. Molly was waiting for him, eaten up with curiosity about what had transpired. He had been closeted with the Secret Service officials, who considered the matter of the gravest importance. Two of the cleverest and most cautious of the detective force were put on the job.
“They were no doubt on the train with me,” he said, “but I have no idea what they look like or what disguise they themselves will employ. At least a dozen persons got off the train at Wellington Station and all of them or none of them may have been Sherlock Holmeses.”
“I hope your neuralgia is better,” laughed Molly.
“Well, the joke of it is, I really did have neuralgia all day, not severe enough to keep me from enjoying a very good luncheon with your brother Kent and Jimmie Lufton at the Press Club, but quite bad enough to keep you from having told a lie.”
“Poor dear! I am so sorry for you to have suffered at all, but it is certainly considerate of you to be instrumental in saving my soul. And now, since to-morrow is the wedding day, we had better get all the sleep we can.”
The small home wedding that Nance and Molly had originally planned grew to be quite large. Little by little it seemed impossible to get married without first one person and then the other. Andy had many friends at Exmoor and Wellington; Dr. and Mrs. McLean knew half the country and had a long list to be invited; Nance wanted the whole faculty and some of the girls who were favorites of Molly’s; Kent Brown arrived from New York bringing with him Mr. Matsuki, frankly delighted to be included in so honorable an assemblage.
“Surely they can’t all of them sleep here,” said Edwin to his wife as he put on his wedding garments.
“They can, but they won’t,” she answered,laughing at his woeful expression. “The house party breaks up after the ceremony. Do I look all right?”
“Beautiful!”
“I mean my dress!”
“But I mean you! I don’t know anything about your dress except that it is blue as it should be.”
“Can you find your collar buttons and is your tie all right?” asked the anxious housewife as she accepted with very good grace the embrace Edwin felt was necessary to his happiness just then.
“Yes! Everything O. K.! I am sorry for the bride because you are so lovely, honey. Nance is a pretty girl but I am afraid nobody will see her because of the matron of honor.”
“Such a goose! Now I must go look after the flower girls. Katy has them coralled in the nursery where they can’t get dirty. They are the sweetest looking creatures you ever saw in your life. Dodo looks like a beautiful cabbage rose himself, his cheeks are so rosy. I wish Mother could see him.”
“Why doesn’t she come on to the wedding?”
“Sue needs her in Kentucky. The only trouble about Mother is that there is only one of her. I need her more than anything right now. If she were here she would take hold of this wedding breakfast and I would know it would come off right,” sighed Molly, who, true to her character, had planned to do enough for two persons. “Thank goodness, Judy is here!”
The ceremony was to be at twelve and then a wedding breakfast served. This meant Molly was to be very busy. The girls were helping, but at the same time they were more or less flustered trying to get themselves dressed all in one room. They had determined to make this a gay light wedding as to clothes at least. There was a feeling of excitement in every breast, excitement mingled with sadness. Was not this the most momentous day in the life of every true American? War was declared! Perhaps had they realized just what war meant, those girls could not have donned those gay, bright garments. Would they have had the courage to wish their friend God-speedso cheerily? I believe they would. They were of the stuff of the mothers of men. On that second of April, 1917, every woman in the United States must have felt somewhat as Molly Brown’s college friends felt. It was a feeling of excitement, awe, exhilaration and dread combined.
Nance was gowned in white with a wonderful lace veil Otoyo had brought as her present. It was as filmy as the clouds that rest on Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of Otoyo’s country.
“Only suppose she had brought a tea basket like mine! What would that have looked like on your head?” giggled Judy, who was in a strangely hysterical state. She was one girl who very well knew what the war was to mean. Had she not been on the outskirts of war in 1914 when she was stranded in Paris? Had she not seen the soldiers marching off bidding farewell to their nearest and dearest,—sometimes a final farewell? Kent had spent all the time he could in training camps since they had been opened to citizens of the United States, and now he was confident of receiving a commission. Perhaps it would meanthat her husband would be in the trenches in a short time. She wanted him to want to go, was proud of him for wanting to,—but oh, the agony of it all!
Almost time for the ceremony now! Molly made her final tour of inspection. Edwin, Kent and Mr. Matsuki were safe in the den where they eagerly discussed politics. Dr. and Mrs. McLean arrived, holding Andy between them as though they might lose him before it was time.
“I meant to help you, Molly, child, but my hea-r-r-t is so joompy I am afraid it will be best for me to compose meself,” said the poor mother. “Don’t let Andy know!”
Molly kissed the dear lady and asked Katherine to stay near her. Katherine’s dressing was always a simple matter, as her gowns consisted of shirt-waists and skirts in various materials to suit various occasions. She declared she could dress in the dark and look just as well as though she had had cheval glasses and a blaze of light.
The other girls were ready and came down tothe parlors to help receive the guests. Nance was lovely and looked as fresh and sweet as a white violet as she sat in her room sedately awaiting the hour. A visit to the nursery disclosed the children piously standing with backs to the window and arms held well away from their fluffy skirts, as charming flower girls as one could find.
“I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee! I’m Mildred’s Japanese dollee! She’s my kick-up dollee!” sang the little Cho-Cho-San. “All I want is bald spot, and all she wants is stick up hair!”
“Ain’t we your little comforts, Muvver?” asked Mildred.
“Indeed you are, my darling! Now when Judy calls, you come running so you can go down the stairs in front of Aunt Nance. Judy will have your wreaths all ready. Where is Katy?”
“She’s peeking at the comply.”
“Well, you kiddies be good and don’t get your dresses mussed. It is almost time now.Don’t wake Dodo.” Of course Dodo had gone to sleep, since there was nothing more important on hand just then. Molly hurried off to the kitchen to see that the wedding breakfast was coming on as she had planned. Mrs. Murphy had hobbled up to help Kizzie, and Mrs. McLean had sent over her two maids.
“All they need is a boss,” sighed poor Molly. “If I only could be two places at one time!”
But whose familiar figure was that seen through the scullery door? The maids were all in a broad grin and Kizzie, as she expressed it, “was fittin’ to bust.”
“Mother! Mother! Where on earth did you come from?” and Molly had that dear lady clasped in her arms. “What are you doing in the back? Come on and hurry and get dressed! It is almost time!” Molly felt like little Cho-Cho when she cried out: “I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee!”
“I just this minute arrived and have no idea of dressing!” cried that dear lady when she could speak.
“Of course you needn’t dress! You are lovely as you are—your hair is a bit mussed—and——”
“You mussed it but it will do very well for the part I am to play. I have no idea of appearing. I mean to serve this breakfast.”
“But, Mother, I couldn’t let you!”
“Nonsense! That is what I hurried on for. Why, child, when I realized that you were having a house party and a wedding and going to serve a great breakfast, I simply jumped on the train with a hand-bag and flew to you. You always have behaved as though you were triplets. Now run along and don’t tell a soul I am here. I can be honored later on; now I want a big apron and room to operate. Kizzie has already told me what the breakfast is to be and you need not think about it. Run along!”
“Well, one more hug and I am gone. Aren’t you even going to peek at the comply, as Mildred says?”
“Oh, I’ll see the ceremony, never fear; but fly, Molly! The guests are coming.”
Molly felt as though she really could fly. Hermother’s arrival had relieved her of all fear about the wedding breakfast. It would be obliged to go off without a hitch now. Dear, dear Mother! How like her to come quietly slipping in the back way just in the nick of time!
One could have heard a pin drop in the old square house on the campus as the first strains of the wedding march arose and the rustle of skirts on the stairway announced the approach of the wedding procession. Andy was shaking and shivering in the hall, tightly clutching his father’s arm. He had declared that Dr. McLean must be his best man and would hear of no other. Of course he was just as scared as the groom always is, at least, all proper grooms.
At Judy’s signal the little flower girls came dancing from the nursery, their fluffy skirts flying. The wreaths and garlands were handed them and they marched down the stairs feeling much more important than Nance herself.
“Heavens!” thought Molly as she followed them with Nance, “what on earth is the matter with Mildred’s hair?” It was standing up in amost peculiar way. Instead of the curls that Katy had so carefully made, her ringlets had been brushed out and Molly realized that at least four inches of her daughter’s hair had been cut off. “And Cho-Cho-San! What has happened to her?” In the middle of the child’s head was a bare spot at least three inches in diameter. It looked as though it had been shaved.
Whatever the matter was, it affected the flower girls not in the least. With many tosses of those shorn heads they marched into the parlor, scattering their posies as they had been told. When Otoyo saw the bald spot on the head of her offspring she almost fainted and had to hold on to the ready arm of honorable husband. Cho-Cho-San had clipped Mildred’s hair to make it stand up like a kick-up dolly, and Mildred had stolen her father’s safety razor and converted her little friend into a veritable Japanese dolly.
Nothing but the solemnity of the occasion kept Molly from hysterics. The little wretches must have got busy after she made her visit to the nursery. Evidently they were doing what Mildredcalled “playing true.” Cho-Cho was a Japanese dolly and Mildred was a kick-up. The little visitor did look exactly like one of those fascinating Japanese dolls, and Molly could but smile in spite of her distress. She was afraid to catch Judy’s eye as she stepped back to let Andy take his place by Nance’s side.
Never had the wedding ceremony seemed so impressive as on that second of April. Every mind was filled with the importance of the step that the country was taking, and with the prayer that Andy and Nance would prosper, was breathed the thought that the United States might come out victorious.
Nance was to go with Andy’s unit in the capacity of interpreter. She was not a brilliant French scholar but was thorough in her knowledge of that as of everything she had undertaken. She frankly declared that she had been separated from Andy long enough and she intended to follow him to the ends of the earth if need be. It was that wonderful fact that made Andy’s “I will!” so strong and clear. His tremblings lefthim and he stood by his dear girl like the soldier of the Red Cross that he was. Nothing was impossible or too hard if Nance was to be with him.
Mrs. McLean’s good, honest face was like an angel’s as she gazed on her new daughter-in-law. No jealousy was depicted there—nothing but adoration, gratitude that the girl was to make her Andy happy. Poor Dr. McLean was sobbing like a baby and his good wife had to put her arms around him to comfort him.
All over! “Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” Andy clasped his Nance with the look of: “I dare anyone to try!”
Otoyo and Molly held a whispered consultation over their imaginative offspring and decided that nothing was to be said or done to the culprits on that day of days,—the reckoning must be deferred.
Those infants were greatly astonished, somewhat relieved and secretly chagrined that their prank was not noticed. They had expected to be even more important than the bride in their rôles of Japanese and kick-up dolls.
“I weckon nobody don’t love us ’nough to spank us even,” pouted Mildred.
“Japanese babee gets not spank-ed—but honorable mother frowns on Cho-Cho when she loves her most after naughtiness—but now—but now—she smiles, but not with love,” was the wail of the companion in crime and misery.
The efficient helmsman in the kitchen steered the wedding breakfast to safety. The affair went off with such expedition that the housekeepers present marveled at Molly’s cleverness.
“She must have trained her servants wonderfully well,” whispered one.
“I remember the joke they got off on Molly in college,” laughed Miss Walker. “It was that she came of a family of famous cooks.”
“It is not only the cooking now,” said Mrs. Fern, Edwin’s cousin and the mother of the perfect Alice. “It is the way it is served and the orderliness of the waitresses. I wonder that Molly can be with her guests while it is being done unless she has had a caterer come up from New York. I simply have to be in the pantrymyself when my daughters entertain on a large scale. That is, unless I can hire someone to come take charge, and Wellington does not boast such a person. Alice is very particular but not willing to do much herself,—not able, in fact,” she added lamely, a little afraid of having criticized her perfect daughter in public.
Mrs. Fern was very fond of Molly and admired her greatly in spite of the fact that she could not help bearing her a tiny secret grudge for marrying Edwin Green. That good lady had in her heart of hearts hoped that Alice was to bear off the professional prize. Perfect persons are not always very pleasant to live with and Alice Fern was no exception to the rule. Mrs. Fern wished no harm to Edwin but she would have been glad to shift her burden of perfectness to other shoulders.
“We are just asking ourselves how you do it, my dear,” she said as Molly came up to see that all was going well with her guests.
“Do it! I’ll tell you a secret that I was not to divulge but I am simply bursting with it:Mother is in the pantry! She came in the back way, without my even knowing she had left Kentucky, and now she is directing operations. She refuses to appear until the party is over.”
“Ah, that is the reason for that glow in your eyes!” exclaimed Miss Walker. “I used to say when you were a college girl that I could tell by your expression when the western mail had brought you a letter from Kentucky.”
“I didn’t know it showed so,” blushed Molly, “but it does make me feel warm all over when I know my mother is near.”
The last rice thrown and the bridal party gone! Molly and Judy all that was left of the gay girls! The old crowd once more dispersed! I wonder if they will ever come together again. It had been a perfect time, and Molly, although dead tired, was very happy that she had been able to gather them in under her roof. All that worried her now was the fact that Mildred was to be punished. How, she was not certain.
Mrs. Brown, no longer in her apron but now the most honored of all, was ensconced on the sofa with Dodo in her arms and Mildred snuggled up close to her side. The child’s eyes were big and sad. Her little cropped head was drooping and her mouth trembling. Even Grannywas not noticing her naughtiness. Evidently nobody loved her!
Kent was seated on the floor, his head against his mother’s knee, where, without exerting himself, he could see Judy’s animated face and bright fluffy hair. Perhaps the time was soon coming when he would have to be far away from these beloved women. He was sure of his commission now and was ready for his country’s call, but oh, it was hard to be uprooted from the pleasant spot where love had planted him! Ah, well! The war could not last forever and maybe there was a good time coming for all of them. It was hard to leave Judy, but it would be harder to take her with him if duty sent him to France. He did not criticize Andy McLean in the least. He knew his own business and Nance wanted to go with him but he, Kent Brown, had no idea of exposing his Judy to any more horrors of war. The taste both of them had had of it was enough.
The little group around the fire was very quiet. Dormouse Dodo went off into his usual soporific state. Judy was knitting rapidly, and the clickof her needles was all that broke the stillness. Judy always declared she did not mind knitting if she could just make her needles click. Molly was too tired to knit, too tired to do anything. If only she had settled matters with her first born! Her conscience told her it must be done and done soon. If only something would happen to keep her from having to do it, whatever it was to be. She actually prayed for strength to take the matter up and also that she would not have to take it up.
Suddenly on the twilight calm of the library there arose a broken-hearted wail! Mildred had broken out into an abandon of grief. Her wails rent the air.
“Gee whilikins! I thought the Germans had come,” exclaimed Kent, jumping to his feet.
“My darling, what is it?” asked Mrs. Brown as Mildred clutched her around the neck.
“Oh, Granny, Granny! My muvver hates me!”
“Oh, Molly! What have you done to this angel?” asked the grandmother almost sternly.
“Nothing! I declare!”
“That’s jes’ it! She ain’t done nuffin! That shows she hates me. Kizzie done say, ‘Who de Lord loveneth he chases,’ an’ I done did the wussest thing I could do an’ my muvver she ain’t so much as said: ‘Why, Mildred!’ I wants to git spanked! I wants to git spanked!”
“Why, darling, what have you done?” asked Mrs. Brown, trying to control her risibles.
“I done shave-pated, number-eighted my little Haythen friend. Kizzie called Cho-Cho: