“All those who have lost property during the winter may possibly be able to obtain it by applying to the Secretary of the President.”
“All those who have lost property during the winter may possibly be able to obtain it by applying to the Secretary of the President.”
That the thief had been apprehended at last was of course understood. Putting two and two together, the Wellington girls concluded that Millicent Porter must have had some important reason for fleeing early in the morning without explanations, leaving two trunks and a debt of honor behind her. The trunks were afterwards expressed, according to directions left in her room.
But, for the honor of Wellington, open conversation on the subject was not encouraged, and most of the talk was in whispers behind closed doors.
A crowd of the girls from the Quadrangle, where most of the pilfering had been carried on, went together to claim their property on Monday evening. Those who had lost money returneddisappointed. The box of restored goods contained none whatever. But the other articles were duly claimed and distributed, with the exception of one.
“Does any one know to whom this belongs?” asked the secretary, placing a photograph in a beautiful silver frame on the top of the desk.
“It must be yours, Nance,” announced Edith Williams, with a teasing smile.
“It is not,” said Nance emphatically.
The other girls, now gathered around the picture, began to laugh.
Undoubtedly the small lanky boy in kilts in the photograph was Andy McLean.
“Perhaps it is Mrs. McLean’s,” suggested some one.
Margaret, examining the frame with the eye of an experienced detective, remarked in her usual authoritative tone:
“The design on the frame is Japanese.”
“Otoyo,” cried Judy, and the little Japanese, lingering near the door, crept timidly up and claimed the picture. Her face was a deep scarlet,as, with drooping head, she rushed from the room.
“Bless the child’s heart, who’d have thought she had a boy’s picture,” laughed Katherine Williams.
That very night Otoyo returned the photograph to Mrs. McLean, and with many tears confessed that she had removed it from the drawer without so much as asking permission.
“My sweet lass,” exclaimed the doctor’s wife, kissing her, “you shall have a good picture of Andy if you like, taken just lately. I am only too happy that you admire his picture enough to put it in that beautiful frame. I’m sure I think he’s a braw lad, the handsomest in three kingdoms; but I am his mother, you know, and not accountable.”
Together the two women fitted the latest photograph of the callow youth into the frame. Otoyo presently bore it triumphantly back to her room and placed it on the mantel shelf where all the world could see it. That night she slept with an easy conscience and a thankfulheart. Her one dishonest deed was wiped out forever.
The untangling of one snarl in the skein of affairs generally leads to the untangling of many others. So it happened that Molly and Judy, by the turn which events had taken, were able to clear up a mystery that had puzzled them for months.
“I feel, Judy,” remarked Molly, one day, “that we ought to do something nice for Minerva Higgins, because of—you know what. We mentioned no names and never breathed it even to each other except vaguely Christmas day, you remember. But we did suspect her, and thinking is just as bad as talking when you think a thing like that, so cruel and horrible.”
Judy nodded her head thoughtfully.
“But she will never know we are making reparation, Molly,” she said. “It will have to be purely for our own private satisfaction.”
“Of course,” replied Molly. “That is what I meant. We did her a wrong in our minds, and in our minds we must undo it.”
“And how, pray?” demanded Judy.
“Well, let me see. Couldn’t we ask her here some night with just the three of us, and make her fudge and be awfully sweet and interested?”
“I suppose we could, if we made a superhuman mental and physical effort,” answered Judy lazily. “And it would take both. Why not let well enough alone?”
“But it isn’t ‘well enough,’ Judy, and we’ve had an ugly thought about her for weeks.”
“Do you call those practical jokes she played on us last autumn pretty?” demanded Judy, who had no liking for Minerva.
“No, but she has learned better now. Anyhow, Judy, I want to try an experiment. Do you remember the allegory of the sun and the wind and the man wrapped in his cloak? The wind made a wager with the sun that he could make the man take off his cloak, and he blew and blew with all his might, and the more he blew the closer the man wrapped his coat about him. Then the wind gave up and the sun came out and tried his method of just shining verybrightly and cheerfully, and presently the man was so hot he took off his coat.”
Judy laughed.
“Meaning, I suppose, that we have been trying the human gale method instead of the merry little sunshine way. All right, Molly, dearest, bring on your Minerva and I’ll be as gentle as a May morning. But don’t let the Gemini come, because we could never carry it through if they were present.”
It was agreed that the three friends, Molly, Nance and Judy, should entertain the vain little freshman at an exclusive party all to themselves. Other persons were advised to keep away.
“Hands off,” exclaimed Judy. “Stay away from our premises this evening, ladies, because we are going to try an experiment with explosives, and it might be dangerous.”
It was unfortunate that, on the very evening that Minerva Higgins had arranged to go to the three friends, somebody played a practical joke on her and she was in an extremely bad humor. Although she had regained her twomedals, she was always losing things and crying her losses up and down the corridor. She usually found the articles mislaid in her own room, but she had a suspicious nature and was generally on the lookout for thefts. That afternoon she had rushed into the corridor crying:
“My water pitcher has been stolen from me. I will not have people going into my room and taking my things.”
“As if anybody wanted her old water pitcher,” remarked Margaret, in a tone of disgust.
Edith Williams smiled mysteriously.
Presently Minerva and the matron, much bored, passed the door.
“Come on, let’s go and see the fun,” suggested Edith.
“How do you know there will be any fun?” demanded Margaret.
“There’s likely to be.”
They strolled slowly up the corridor, and as they passed the door the matron was saying:
“Really, Miss Higgins, I must request younot to raise any more false alarms like this. There is your water pitcher.”
She pointed to the chandelier where the pitcher had been hoisted on a piece of cord. A good many other girls had gathered about Minerva’s door, and a ripple of laughter swept along the hall.
“Edith, did you play that joke?” asked Margaret later.
“Judy was a party to it, and Katherine and several others,” answered Edith evasively. “We thought it high time to put an end to burglar alarms. Minerva Higgins has come to be a public nuisance.”
Margaret smiled. Her dignity would never allow her to enter into what she called “rowdy jokes.” However, it did not mar her enjoyment of the story about them afterward.
But it was an angry, sullen Minerva who presented herself at the door of No. 5, Quadrangle, that evening at eight o’clock. She had left off her medals and she had not worn the indigo blue.Judy was relieved at this, but Molly and Nance considered it a bad sign.
The first half-hour of the reparation party dragged slowly.
“We’ve piped for Minerva and she will not dance; we’ve mourned for her and she will not mourn. It’s a hopeless case,” Judy remarked in an aside to Nance.
But Molly had formed a resolution and she was determined to carry it through.
“Behind that Chinese wall of vanity, Minerva has a little soul hidden somewhere and I’m going to reach it to-night if I have to blast with dynamite,” she thought.
Nance was stirring fudge on the chafing dish and Judy was occupying herself strumming chords on the piano. Molly led Minerva to the divan and sat down beside her.
“Are you glad you came to college, Minerva?” she asked, wondering what in the world to talk about.
“No,” answered the other emphatically. “I detest college. Except that the studies arehigher, I think Mill Town High School is better run. I don’t like college girls, either. They are all conceited snobs.”
“Perhaps you will like it better when you are a sophomore and have more liberty,” suggested Molly. “The first year one can’t look forward to much pleasure. But a freshman is always under inspection, you see. If she accepts the situation without complaining and is nice and obliging and modest, it’s like so much treasure laid by for her the next year when she finds how popular she is with the other girls.”
“It’s not like that in Mill Town. A freshman is just as good as anybody else,” snapped Minerva.
Judy, overhearing this statement, blinked at Nance, who smiled furtively and went on stirring fudge.
Molly still persisted with the patience of one who looks for certain success.
“The most interesting part of being a freshman,” she continued, “is that a girl begins to findout about herself, and by the time she’s a sophomore she knows what she really wants.”
“Oh, but I knew perfectly well what I wanted before I came,” interrupted Minerva in a lofty tone, “I want to study the dead languages.”
“But there is something you want more than that,” broke in Molly. “You want to be popular.”
Minerva gave her a suspicious glance, but Molly was beaming kindly upon her with all the warmth of her affectionate nature.
“How do you know that?” she demanded in a somewhat softened tone.
“It was not hard to guess. You said you were disappointed with the girls here because they seemed to be snobs. Now if you hadn’t minded it very much, you never would have mentioned it. Don’t you think the girls are just a little afraid of you? You see, they had heard you were the brightest girl in your school and when they saw all the medals and you talked to them on such deep subjects, they were scared off. They thought, perhaps, you wouldn’t care for thembecause they didn’t know enough. After all, people’s feeling toward you is just a reflection of what you feel toward them. If you are interested and admire and love them, they are pretty sure to feel the same toward you. You see, I know you can be just as nice and human and everyday as the rest of us—” Molly laid her hand on Minerva’s—“but the others haven’t had a chance yet to find out.”
Minerva’s stiff figure relaxed a little and she leaned against Molly confidingly.
“I do want to be liked,” she whispered. “All my life I’ve wanted it more than anything in the world. But even at Mill Town the girls were afraid of me, just as you say they are here. I might as well own up, as you have guessed it already.”
“But it’s only a question of time now before you make lots of friends,” said Molly, “You are so clever that you’ll find out how to make them like you.”
“But how?”
“Well,” said Molly, “I think people who aresympathetic and who listen more than they talk generally have a good many friends. I’m afraid I’ve talked more than I listened this evening,” she added, pinching Minerva’s cheek.
“But you’ve talked about me,” answered Minerva. Suddenly her face turned very red and her eyes filled with tears. “I shall not wear the medals any more,” she whispered unsteadily. “And—there is something I want to confess. I—I waited for you that night you were on the lake, and I sent an unsigned note to Miss Walker the next day to get even with you because you wouldn’t let me go walking with you.”
Judy, at the piano, was singing a vociferous medley, and Nance was joining in.
“That’s all right,” whispered Molly. “It was much better for her to know because we would have been misrepresented always unless someone had told her, and we couldn’t exactly tell her ourselves. But I think it’s awfully nice of you to confess, Minerva. Now, we shall be better friends than ever.”
The two girls kissed each other. The cloakof vanity had slipped off and the smartest-girl-in-Mill-Town-High-School became her real natural self.
Until a quarter before ten the four girls laughed and talked pleasantly together, while the convivial fudge plate was passed from one to the other. But never once did Mill Town High School or comparative philology come into the conversation.
When at last the evening was at an end and Minerva had departed, Nance and Judy led Molly gravely to the divan.
“Now, tell us how you did it,” they demanded in one voice.
“I only told her the truth,” answered Molly, “but I didn’t put it so that it would hurt her. I said the reason why the girls were stand-offish was because they were afraid of her learning and her gold medals.”
“Marvelous, brilliant creature!” cried Judy, embracing her friend, while Nance laid a cheek against Molly’s.
“You are a perfect darling, Molly,” she said.
“Hail, Wellington, beloved home!Hail, spot forever dear!We greet thy towers and cloisters gray,Thy meadows fresh in spring array;We greet thee, Wellington, to-day;Thy hills and dales; thy valleys green;Thy wood and lake—tranquil, serene;We greet thee far and near.”
“Hail, Wellington, beloved home!Hail, spot forever dear!We greet thy towers and cloisters gray,Thy meadows fresh in spring array;We greet thee, Wellington, to-day;Thy hills and dales; thy valleys green;Thy wood and lake—tranquil, serene;We greet thee far and near.”
“Hail, Wellington, beloved home!Hail, spot forever dear!We greet thy towers and cloisters gray,Thy meadows fresh in spring array;We greet thee, Wellington, to-day;Thy hills and dales; thy valleys green;Thy wood and lake—tranquil, serene;We greet thee far and near.”
Molly and Judy were responsible for the words of these stirring lines, which with three other verses were sung by the junior class to the air of “Beulah Land,” the music having been adapted to the words rather than the words to the music.
The entire junior class, a long, slender line of swaying white stretched across the campus,lifted its voice in praise of Wellington that May Day morning at the Junior Gambol. In the center waved the class flag of primrose and lavender. In the background was the gray pile of Wellington and in the front stretched the level close-cut lawn of the campus, fringed by the crowd of spectators. It was an impressive sight and when the fresh young voices united in the class song of “Hail, Wellington!”, Miss Walker was moved to tears.
“The dear children!” she exclaimed to Professor Green at her side, “really I feel all choked up over their devotion.”
Winding in and out in an intricate march, the class moved slowly across the campus until it reached the sophomores grouped together in one spot. Here they paused while the President of the juniors made a speech and presented the President of the sophomores with a small spade wreathed in smilax, a symbol of learning, or rather of the delving for learning which that class had in prospect in another year. Next thejuniors approached the seniors and sang one of the Wellington songs, “Seniors, Farewell.”
Then the line broke up and moved to the center of the campus, where stood a May pole. An orchestra, stationed under one of the trees, began playing an old English country dance, and the juniors seized the streamers and tripped in and out with the graceful dignity suitable to their new, uplifted position of seniors about-to-be.
Not one of the Wellington festivals could so stir her daughters of the present or the past, now grouped on the edge of the campus, as this Junior May-Day Gambol.
“Perhaps it is so sad because it is so beautiful,” Miss Pomeroy observed to Miss Bowles, teacher in Higher Mathematics, wiping her eyes furtively. But Miss Bowles, not being an ex-daughter of Wellington, and having a taste for more prosaic and practical pleasures, regarded the scene with only a polite and tolerant interest.
“Who is to be the May Queen?” asked Mrs. McLean, standing in the same group with Miss Walker and Professor Green.
As each succeeding year brought around the Junior Gambol the good woman hastened to view it with undiminished interest.
“It would be difficult to say,” answered Miss Walker. “In a class of such unusual individuality it will be very hard to select one who deserves it more than another.”
“It’s a question of popularity more than intelligence,” observed the Professor. “I think I might hazard a guess,” he added in a lower tone, but his voice was drowned in a burst of music. The juniors were singing an old English glee song, “To the Cuckoo.”
“‘Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove,Thou messenger of spring,Now heaven repairs thy rural seatAnd woods thy welcome ring.’”
“‘Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove,Thou messenger of spring,Now heaven repairs thy rural seatAnd woods thy welcome ring.’”
“‘Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove,Thou messenger of spring,Now heaven repairs thy rural seatAnd woods thy welcome ring.’”
Many guesses were hazarded regarding the junior May Queen, not only among the crowds of spectators, but in the class itself.
The votes for the Queen were cast by secret ballot in charge of a committee of three. Wellingtontraditions required that the name of the chosen one should be kept in entire secrecy until the clock in the tower struck noon on May Day. Then the junior donkey was led forth garlanded with flowers. He had officiated on this occasion now for ten years. This was the great moment when the identity of the most popular girl in the junior class was established for all time, and it was an important moment, because the one selected was generally chosen as Class President the next year.
And now, as the tower clock boomed twelve deep strokes, there was a stirring among the spectators and a craning of necks. Three juniors appeared at the end of the campus, leading the aged donkey, who flicked his tail and walked gingerly over the turf. He wore a garland of daffodils and lilacs and moved sedately along, mindful of the importance of his position.
The three girls were Nance Oldham, Caroline Brinton and Edith Williams. One of them carried a wreath of narcissus and the other two held the ribbon reins of the donkey.
According to the time-honored rule, they approached their classmates with grave, still faces. It was really a solemn moment and the juniors waiting in an unbroken line never moved nor smiled.
The spectators held their breath and for a moment Wellington was so still that every human thing in it might have been turned to stone.
Why was it so exciting, this choosing of the May Queen?
No one could tell, and yet it was always the same. Even Miss Bowles felt a lump rise in her throat. Many of the alumnæ shamelessly wept, and Professor Green, watching the three white figures move slowly in front of the line of juniors, wondered if no one else could hear the pounding of his pulses.
Presently the committee came to a stop. The Professor thrust his hands into his pockets and drew a deep breath.
Nance stepped forward and placed the wreath on somebody’s head. The spectators could see that she was quite tall and slender, and that sheshrank back with surprise and shyness as she was led forth and bidden to mount the donkey, which she did with perfect ease and grace, as one who has mounted horses all her life.
“Who is it?” cried a dozen voices. “They look so much alike.”
Scores of opera glasses and field glasses were raised.
“It’s Molly Brown, of course,” cried a girl.
The Professor smiled happily.
“Of course,” he repeated, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.
And now the ban of silence was lifted. The orchestra played; the audience cheered and the three classes gave their particular yells in turn, while the juniors, marching two by two, followed Molly Brown, riding the donkey, around the entire circuit of the campus.
As for Molly Brown, she hung her head and blushed, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
“The sweet lass, she might be a bride, she isso shy!” ejaculated Mrs. McLean as the procession moved slowly by.
“Hurrah for Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky!” yelled a group of Exmoor students.
“‘Here’s to Molly Brown, drink her down,’” sang the entire student body of Wellington.
It was a thing that happened every year and there were those who had seen it thirty times or more, and still the spectacle was ever new.
“I think I must be dreaming,” Molly was saying to herself. “Of course, I might have known Nance and Judy would have voted for me and perhaps one or two others,—but so many—and what have I done to deserve it? I have hardly seen anything of Caroline Brinton and her crowd. ‘Oh Lord, make me thankful for these and all thy mercies,’” she added, repeating the family grace, which somehow seemed appropriate to this stirring moment.
After the triumphal march, Molly with the class officers, flanked by the rest of the class, held an informal reception on the lawn. This was followed by the Junior Lunch, quite an elaborateaffair, served in the gymnasium, decorated for the occasion by the sophomores.
Lawrence Upton was Molly’s guest for the day. Many of the girls had asked Exmoor students, but Nance had been visited with a disappointment that was too amusing to be annoying.
Otoyo Sen, on the sophomore committee for decorating the gymnasium, and therefore entitled to ask a guest, had not let the grass grow under her little feet one instant. The moment the committee had been selected, she sent off a formal, polite note to Andy McLean, 2nd, inviting him to be her guest.
“Oh, Nance, that’s one on you,” cried Judy, when she heard this bit of news. “You always thought Andy was so much your property that no one would ever think of treading on your preserves. It’s just like Japan, creeping quietly in and taking possession.”
“I suppose Andy will be hurt because I didn’t get there first,” replied Nance, laughing good-naturedly. “I suppose I shall have to ask Louis Allen, but I don’t think it will do Andy anyharm to know there are other fishes in the sea.”
“I guess it won’t,” answered Judy. “Nance is learning a thing or two,” she added to herself.
But all’s fair in love and war, and there was no more charming figure on the campus that day than little Otoyo in a pink organdy and a large hat trimmed with pink roses. On her face was an expression of shy, discreet triumph as of one who has gained a victory by stratagem.
The Junior Gambol came to an end at six that evening, and the tired students repaired to their rooms to rest and relax after eight hours of continuous entertaining. The eight friends of old Queen’s days had gathered in No. 5 of the Quadrangle, where refreshments were being handed around, chiefly lemonade and hickory-nut cake. Eight limp young women in dressing-gowns draped themselves about the divans and in the arm chairs to discuss the joys of the day.
Molly, at the window, was reading something written on a card tied to the stem of an exceedingly large yellow apple. It was Professor Edwin Green’s card, and the inscription thereonread: “The first of the three golden apples was won to-day. Congratulations and best wishes.”
Untying the card, she slipped it into her portfolio.
“Shall I divide it or eat it alone?” she asked herself, and, without waiting for the second voice to answer, she seized Judy’s silver knife and divided the apple into eight sections, which she passed around the company.
“Did this come from the Garden of Hesperides, Molly?” asked Edith Williams, always ready with her classic allusions.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did,” answered Molly, smiling mysteriously.
There was much to talk about that evening. It was the moment for reminiscences and they reviewed the past year with all its excitements and pleasures. When Millicent Porter had departed from Wellington in dishonorable flight, her place in the Shakespeareans had been immediately filled, and Judy Kean was the girl selected; which goes to show that after a good deal of suffering and when the edge is takenoff the appetite, we generally get what we once earnestly desired. Judy was not excited over the honor paid her, but she acquitted herself creditably in the beautiful performance of “A Winter’s Tale,” which the society eventually produced.
She sat on the floor now, leaning against Molly, whom, next to her father and mother, she loved best in all the world. Without realizing it herself, Judy’s character had been wonderfully developed and strengthened by the events of that winter and she looked on the world with a new and broader vision.
It was nearly bedtime; the night was warm and still and through the open windows came the sound of singing. The girls were silent for a while, too weary to make any more conversation.
“And next year we’ll be hoary old seniors,” suddenly announced Judy, following up a train of thought.
Several in the company sighed audibly. Already the thought of parting from each otherand from their beloved Wellington cast a shadow before it.
But this sorrowful last year was to be filled with interest and happy times, as you will see who read the next volume of this series, entitled “Molly Brown’s Senior Days.”
Transcriber’s note:Besides some minor printer’s errors the following corrections have been made: on page 265 and 269 “Madeleine” has been changed to “Millicent” (helped Millicent with the remainder) (leaving Millicent still in the window seat). Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. Additional: “Rosomond Chase” was called “Rosamond” in the first book of this series, “Molly Brown’s Freshman Year.”
Transcriber’s note:
Besides some minor printer’s errors the following corrections have been made: on page 265 and 269 “Madeleine” has been changed to “Millicent” (helped Millicent with the remainder) (leaving Millicent still in the window seat). Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. Additional: “Rosomond Chase” was called “Rosamond” in the first book of this series, “Molly Brown’s Freshman Year.”