She couldn’t have been any cuter.For when I stooped to kiss her,She said she’d tell her mother,For she was such an awful little tease.”
The singing was so evidently done for Melissa’s benefit that Molly felt indignant.
“I can’t stand teasing, and certainly not such silly teasing as Anne White delights in. She is a slippery little thing, and I have an idea means mischief for my Melissa. I wish Judy were here to circumvent her, but since she is not I shall have to keep my eye open.” So thought Molly, and accordingly opened her eyes just in time to see Anne White raise the cover of Melissa’s bowl of flour and drop in something. The instructor came in just then and the class came to order.
“It can’t do any real harm,” thought Molly, “because we don’t have to eat our messes, but if it is something to embarrass Melissa I shall have a talk with Anne White that she will remember all her days. She knows Melissa and I are notthe kind to blab on her, the reason she is presuming in this way.”
Miss Morse, the Domestic Science teacher, was so exactly like the advertisements in the magazines of various foodstuffs that one was forced to smile. She was always dressed in immaculate linen, and, as she would stand at her desk and hold out a sample of material with which she was going to demonstrate, her smile and expression were always those of the lady who says, “Use this and no other.” She was thoroughly in earnest, however, and scientific, and her lectures on Domestic Economy were really thrilling to Molly, who always took an interest in household affairs and was astonished to find out what a waste was going on in all American homes. Melissa listened to every word, and felt that the knowledge she was gaining in this branch of college work was perhaps the most necessary of all to take back to her mountain people.
Miss Morse had the most wonderful and capable hands that were ever seen. She was neverknown to spill anything or slop over; she used her scales and measures with the precision of an analytical chemist; and, no matter how complicated the experiment, there were no extra, useless utensils. This in itself is worth coming to college to learn, as I have never known a girl make a plate of fudge without getting every pan in the kitchen dirty. Later on in the course of lectures this wonderful woman actually killed a fowl and picked and dressed it right before the eyes of the astonished girls, without making a spot on her dress or on the cloth spread on her desk, and she did not even turn back her linen cuffs.
“I wish Ca’line could see that,” thought Molly on that occasion, a picture of the chicken pickin’ in the back yard at Chatsworth coming before her mind’s eye, with feathers flying hither and yon and Ca’line herself covered with gore.
“Now, young ladies,” said the precise Miss Morse, “enough flour is given each one for a small loaf of bread; the right amount of water ismeasured out; salt and sugar; lard and yeast. You have the correct material for a perfect loaf. This is a demonstration of yesterday’s lecture. Remember, salt retards the action of yeast and must not be put in until the yeast plant has begun to grow. Sugar promotes the growth and can be placed in the warm water with the yeast.”
The students went eagerly to work like so many children with their mud pies. In due course of time each little loaf was made out and put at exactly the right temperature to rise. Miss Morse explained to them the different methods of bread-making and the fallacy of thinking that good bread-making is due to luck. Molly smiled in remembering what dear old Aunt Mary had said about remembering to put the gumption in.
While the bread was rising and baking the girls were allowed to work on their Domestic Science problem, a pretty difficult one requiring all their faculties: it was how to feed a family consisting of five, mother and father and three children, on ten dollars for one week. The market priceof food was given and their menus were to be worked out with regard to the amount of nourishment to be gained as well as the suitability of food. Miss Morse told them they would have to study pretty hard to do it, but it was splendid practice. Poor Melissa was having a hard time. In the first place, she knew so little about food, having been brought up so very simply, and then, she confided to Molly, she was very much worried about her loaf of bread because it didn’t do just right.
Finally the time was up, and the bread, too, according to science, should have been up and ready to bake. The monitors were requested to place the loaves in the gas ovens, already tested and proved to be of proper temperature. The problems, meantime, must be completed at once and handed in.
A wail from Melissa on the aside to Molly: “Oh, Molly, Molly, I have got my family all fed for six days, and I forgot Sunday. Not a cent of money left from all of that ten dollars, andI have known whole families live for a month on less in the mountains! What shall I do?”
“I tell you,” said Molly, stopping a minute to think, “have them all invited out to Sunday dinner and let them eat no breakfast in anticipation of the good things they are expecting; and let the dinner be so delicious and plentiful that they can’t possibly want any supper.”
“Good,” said Melissa, ever appreciative of Molly’s suggestions, “I’ll do that very thing.” And so she did; and Miss Morse was so amused that she let it pass as a very good paper, as indeed it was.
All of the little loaves were baked and placed in front of the girls, the pans being numbered so that each loaf returned to its trembling maker. It was strange that in spite of science the loaves did not look exactly alike. Molly’s was beautiful, but had she not had her hand in Aunt Mary’s dough ever since she could climb up to the table and cut out little “bis’it wif a thimble”? Some of them looked bumpy and some stringy, but poorMelissa’s was a strange dark color and had not risen.
“Miss Hathaway, did you follow the directions in your experiment?”
“Yes, Miss Morse, to the best of my ability,” answered Melissa. And, then flushing and becoming excited, she dropped into her familiar mountain speech. “Some low-down sneak has drapped some sody in we’un’s pannikin. I mean, oh, I mean, some ill-bred person has put saleratus in my little bowl. I have been raised on too much saleratus in the bread, and I know it.” And the proud mountain girl, who had not minded the laughter caused by her appearance, burst into tears over the failure of her bread-making and fled from the room.
Miss Morse was shocked and sorry that such a scene should have occurred in her class, but was determined to investigate the matter. She dismissed the class without a word; but, as Molly was leaving the room, she requested her to stop a moment.
“Miss Brown, this is a very unfortunate thing to have occurred in this class. Domestic Science seems to be an easy prey to the practical joke, and when once it is started it is a difficult matter to weed out. I am particularly sorry for it to have been played on Miss Hathaway, who is so earnest and anxious to learn. Miss Walker has told me much about her, and the girl’s appearance alone is fine enough to interest one. I could not help seeing by your countenance, which is a very speaking one, my dear, that you knew something about this so-called joke. Now, Miss Brown, I ask you as a friend to tell me what you know, and, if you are not willing, I demand it of you as an instructor and member of the faculty of Wellington.”
Molly, who had been as pale as death ever since Melissa’s mortification and outbreak, now flushed crimson, held her breath a minute to get control of her voice, and then answered with as much composure as she could muster: “Miss Morse, I have gone through four years at Wellingtonand have happened to know of a great many scrapes the different students have got themselves in, but never yet have I been known to tell tales, and I could hardly start now. I do know who did the dastardly trick, and am glad that Melissa had recourse to her native dialect to express her feelings about the person who was mean enough to do it; ‘low-down sneak’ is exactly what she was.”
“Very well, Miss Brown, if you refuse to divulge the name of the joker, I shall be forced to take the matter up with the president. I hoped we could settle it in the class. This department being a new one at Wellington, and also my first experience at teaching, I naturally have some feeling about making it go as smoothly as possible.” This time Miss Morse was flushed and her lip trembling.
Molly felt truly sorry for her, and suddenly realized that Miss Morse, with all of her assurance, was little more than a girl herself. As for taking it up with the president, Molly smiledwhen she remembered the time Miss Walker had tried to make her tell, and when she had refused how Miss Walker had hugged her.
“Oh, Miss Morse, I am so sorry for you, and wish, almost wish, some one had seen the offence besides myself, some one who would not mind telling; but I truly can’t tell, somehow I am not made that way. There is something I can do, though, and that is, go call on the person myself and put it up to her to refrain from any more jokes in your class. I meant to see her, anyhow, and warn her to let my Melissa alone.”
“Would you do that? I think that would be all that is necessary, and I need not inform the president. I thank you, Miss Brown. You do not know how this has disturbed me.”
“Too much ‘sody’ in the bread is a very disturbing thing,” laughed Molly. “I remember a story they tell on my grandfather. He had an old cook who was very fond of making buttermilk biscuit, and equally fond of putting too much soda in them. He stood it for some time, but onemorning when they were brought to breakfast as green as poor Melissa’s loaf, grandpa sent for the cook and made her eat the whole panful. Needless to add, she was cured of the soda habit. It would be a great way to cure the would-be joker if we made her eat Melissa’s sad loaf.”
Molly did see Anne White that very afternoon, making a formal call on her and giving that mousy young woman a talk that made her cry and promise to play no more jokes in Domestic Science class, and to apologize to Melissa for the mortification she had caused her. Molly told her something about Melissa and the struggle and sacrifices she had made to get her education, and before she had finished Anne White was as much interested in the mountain girl and as anxious for her to succeed as Molly herself. She promised to help her all she could, and a Junior can do a great deal to help a Freshman. Molly was astonished to find that Anne White was really rather likable. She had a mistaken sense of fun, but was not really unkind.
Melissa had too much to do to brood long over her outbreak, and laughed and let the matter drop out of her mind when the following apology was poked under her door:
“My Dear Miss Hathaway: I am truly sorry to have caused you so much mortification in the Domestic Science class. It was a very foolish, thoughtless act, and I hope you will accept my apology. I wish I had found such a friend in my freshman year as you have in Molly Brown.
“Sincerely yours,
“‘A Low-Down Sneak.’”
Molly and Nance were very busy with their special courses, Nance working at French literature as though she had no other interest in the world, and Molly at English and Domestic Science.
“Thank goodness, I shall not have to tutor! Since we ‘struck ile’ I am saved that,” said Molly one day to her roommate, who was as usual occupied, in spite of its being “blind man’s holiday,” too early to light the gas and too late to see without it. “Nance, you will put out your eyes with that mending. I never saw such a busy bee as you are. Melissa tells me you are going to help her with a dress, too.”
“Yes, I am so glad she will let me. I told her how we made the Empire gown for you in yourFreshman year, and she seemed to feel that if her dear Molly allowed that much to be done for her, it was not for her to object to a similar favor. I know you will laugh when I tell you that I am going to get a one-piece dress and an extra skirt for shirtwaists out of the blue homespun. It is beautiful material, spun with an old-fashioned spinning wheel and woven on a hand loom by Melissa’s grandmother. Did you ever see so much goods in one dress? It seems that the dear woman who has taught her everything she knows has not had any new clothes herself for ten years, and could not give her much idea of the prevailing fashion; and Melissa made this dress herself from a pattern her mother had used for her wedding dress. I hate to cut it up. It seems a kind of desecration, but Melissa has a splendid figure and if her clothes were not quite so voluminous she would be as stylish as any one. She improves every day in many ways and seems to be less shy.”
“She has an instinct for good literature. ProfessorGreen tells me her taste is unerring. He says it is because her preference is for the simple, and the simple is always the best. Little Otoyo has the same feeling for the best in poetry. Haven’t we missed that little Jap, though? I’ll be so glad to have her back. I fancy I shall have some tutoring to do in spite of myself to get Otoyo Sen up with her class.”
Otoyo Sen, the little Japanese girl who had played such a close part in the college life of our girls, had been back in Japan, and had not been able to reach America in time for the opening weeks of college, due to some business engagements of her father. But she was trusting to Molly and her own industry to catch up with her class, and was hurrying back to Wellington as fast as the San Francisco Limited could bring her.
Molly had been writing every moment that she could spare from her hard reading, and now she had two things she really wanted to show Professor Green—a story she had worked on for weeksuntil it seemed to be part of her, and a poem. She had sent the poem to a magazine and it had been rejected, accompanied by a letter which she could not understand. At all times in earlier days she had gone frankly to the professor’s study to ask him for advice, but this year she could hardly make up her mind to do it.
“He is as kind as ever to me, but somehow I can’t make up my mind to run in on him as I used to,” said Molly to herself. “I know I am a silly goose—or is it perhaps because I am so grown up? It is only five o’clock this minute, it gets dark so early in November, and I have half a mind to go now.” The temperament that goes with Molly’s coloring usually means quick action following the thought, so in a moment Molly had on her jacket and hat. “Nance, I am going to see Professor Green about some things I have been writing. I won’t be late, but don’t wait tea for me. Melissa may be in to see us, but you will take care of her, I know.”
There was a rather tired-sounding, “Come in,”at Molly’s knock on Professor Green’s study door.
“Oh, dear, now I am going to bore him!” thought the girl. “I have half a mind to run back through the passage and get out into the Cloister before he has a chance to open the door and see who was knocking. But that would be too foolish for a postgraduate! I’d better run the risk of boring him rather than have him think I am some one playing a foolish Sophomore joke, or even a timid little Freshman, afraid to call her soul her own.”
“Come in, come in. Is any one there?” called the voice rather briskly for the usually gentle professor. And before Molly could open the door it was actually jerked open. “Dearest Molly!—I mean, Miss Molly—I thought you were going to be some one else. The fact is, I have had a regular visitation from would-be poets this afternoon, and, as it never rains but it pours, I had a terrible feeling that it was another one. I am so glad to see you; not just because you are notwhat I feared you were, but because you are you.”
Molly blushed crimson and tried to hide the little roll of manuscript behind her, but the young man saw it and kicked himself mentally for a rash, talking idiot.
“I can’t come in, thank you. I just stopped by to—to——I just thought I’d ask you when your sister was coming.”
“Oh, Molly Brown, what a poor prevaricator you do make! You know perfectly well you have written something you want me to see; and you also know, or ought to know, that I want to see what you have written above everything; and what I said about would-be poets had nothing to do with you and me. The fact is, I am a would-be myself and have been working on a sonnet this afternoon instead of looking over the thousand themes that I must have finished before to-morrow’s lecture. I had just got the eighth line completed when you knocked, and the six others will be easy. Please come in and take off your hat,and I’ll get Mrs. Brady to make us some tea; and while the kettle is boiling you can show me what you have been doing, and when I get my other six lines to my sonnet done I’ll show it to you.”
Molly of course had to comply with a request made with so much kindliness and sincerity. Mrs. Brady came, in answer to the professor’s bell which connected his study with his house, and was delighted to see Molly, remembering with great pleasure the Christmas breakfast the young girl had cooked for Professor Green the year before. Molly had a way with her that appealed to old people as well as young, and she had won Mrs. Brady’s heart on that memorable morning by telling her that she, too, boasted of Irish blood.
“And I might have known it, from the sweet tongue in your head,” Mrs. Brady had replied.
The old woman hastened off to make the tea, and Molly reluctantly unrolled her manuscript.
“Professor Green, I want you to think of meas some one you do not know or like when you read my stuff.”
“That is a very difficult task you have set me, and I am afraid one that I am unequal to; but I do promise to be unbiased and to give you my real opinion, and you must not be discouraged if it is not favorable, because, after all, it is worth very little.”
“I think it is worth a lot. This first thing is something I have been working on very hard. It is called ‘The Basket Funeral.’ I remembered what you told me about trying to write about familiar things, and then, on reading the ‘Life and Letters of Jane Austen,’ I came on her advice to a niece who was contemplating a literary career. It was, ‘Send your characters where you have never been yourself, but never take them.’ I had never been out of Kentucky, except to row across the Ohio River to Indiana, when I came to Wellington, and so I put my story in Kentucky with Aunt Mary as my heroine. Now be as hard on me as you want to. I can stand it.”
There was perfect silence in the pleasant study while Edwin Green carefully perused the well-written manuscript. An occasional involuntary chuckle was all that broke the quiet when one of Aunt Mary’s witticisms brought back the figure of the old darkey to his mind. When he had finished, which was in a very few minutes, as the sketch was a short one, he carefully rolled the paper and remained silent. Molly felt as though she would scream if he did not say something, but not a word did he utter, only sat and rolled the manuscript and smiled an inscrutable smile. Finally she could stand it no longer.
“I am sorry to have bothered you, Professor Green. I know it is hard for you to have to tell me the truth, so I won’t ask you.” She reached for the roll of paper, her hand shaking a little with excitement.
“Oh, please excuse me. Do you know, I took you at your word and forgot I knew you, and forgot how much I liked you; forgot everything in fact but Aunt Mary and the ‘Basket Funeral.’My dear girl, you have done a wonderful little bit of writing, simple, natural, sincere. I congratulate you and envy you.”
And what should Molly do, great, big, grown-up postgraduate that she was, but behave exactly as the little Freshman had four years before when this same august professor had rescued her from the locked Cloisters: she burst into tears. At that crucial moment the rattle of tea cups was heard as Mrs. Brady came lumbering down the hall, and Molly had to compose herself and make out she had a bad cold.
“Have some hot soup,” said the young man, and both of them laughed.
“It was natural for me to blubber, after all,” said Molly, after Mrs. Brady had taken her departure. “When you sat there so still, with your lips so tightly closed, I felt exactly as I did four years ago, shut out in the cold with all the doors locked; and when you finally spoke it was like coming into your warm pleasant study again with you being kind to me just as you were to the littlescared Freshman. Do you know, I like my picture of Aunt Mary, too, and when I thought you didn’t like it I felt forlorn indeed.”
“I notice one thing, Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky doesn’t cry until everything is over. The little Freshman didn’t blubber while she was locked out, but waited until she got into the pleasant study, and now the ancient postgrad is able to restrain her tears until the awful ogre of a critic praises her work. Now let’s have another cup of tea all around and show me what else you have brought.”
“I hesitate to show you this more than the other thing, after your cutting remarks about would-bes. But I want you to read this so you can tell me what this letter means that I got from the editor of a magazine, when he politely returned my rejected poem.”
“Read me the poem yourself. Would you mind? Poetry should always be read aloud, I think; and afterward I will see what I think the editor meant.”
“Read me the poem yourself. Would you mind?”—Page 218.“Read me the poem yourself. Wouldyou mind?”—Page 218.
“All right, but I am afraid it is getting late and Nance will worry about me.”
The study was cosy indeed with its rows and rows of books, its comfortable chairs and the cheerful open grate. This was his one extravagance in a land of furnace heat and drum stoves, so Edwin Green declared. “But somehow the glow of the fire makes me think better,” he said in self-defence.
Molly read any poetry well, her voice with its musical quality being peculiarly adapted to it. This was her poem:
“My thoughts like gentle steeds to-dayRest quiet in the paddock fold,Munching their food contentedly.Was it last night? When up—away!Through spaces limitless, untold,Like storm clouds lashed before the wind,Nor strength, nor will could check nor hold,Manes flying—through the night they dashed‘Til the first glimmering sun’s ray flashedIts blessed light; ‘til the first sighOf dawn’s awak’ning stirred the leaves.Then back to quiet fold—the night was done—Bend patient necks—the yoke—and day’s begun.”
“Let me see it. Your voice would make ‘Eany, meany, miney, mo’ sound like music. I should have read it first to myself to be able to pass on it without prejudice.”
He took the poem and read it very carefully. “Miss Molly, you are aware of the fact that you may become a real writer? How old are you?”
“Almost twenty.”
“Well, I consider that a pretty good poem for almost twenty. I bet I know what that saphead of an editor had to say without reading his letter. Didn’t he say something about your having only thirteen lines?”
“Oh, is that what he meant? I have puzzled my brains out over his note. I didn’t even know I had only thirteen lines. Of course I knew it wasn’t exactly sonnet form, but somehow Istarted out to make fourteen lines and thought I had done it. Here is his cryptic note.”
“Dear M. B.: We are sorry to say we are too superstitious to print your poem. Are the poor horses too tired to go a few more feet? If you can urge them on, even if you should lame them a bit, we might reconsider and accept your verses.
“The Editor of——”
“Fools, fools, all of them are fools! Don’t you change it for the whole of the silly magazine. It is a good poem, and its having thirteen lines is none of his business. Haven’t you as much right to create a form of verse as Villon or Alfred Tennyson? That editor would have rejected ‘Tears, idle tears,’ because it hasn’t a rhyme in it and looks as though it might have.”
The professor was so excited that Molly had to laugh.
“You are certainly kind to me and my efforts. I must go now. Please give my love to Mrs.Brady and thank her for her tea. You never did tell me when you expect your sister.”
“Bless my soul,” said Edwin Green, looking at his watch, “she will be here in a few minutes now!”
“Don’t forget to let me see your sonnet, and please put all the lines in. I am so glad your sister is to be with you, and hope to see her often.”
And Molly flew away, happy as a bird that her writing was coming on, and that she felt at home again with the most interesting man she had ever met.
Christmas was upon our girls almost before they had unpacked and settled down to work. Mid-year exams. had no terrors for our two post-graduates, but they were working just as hard as they ever had in their collegiate course.
“I don’t know what it is that drives us so, Nance, unless it is that we are getting ready for the final examination at Judgment Day,” said Molly. “I am so interested, I never seem to get tired these days; and I don’t even mind the tutoring that has been thrust upon me. Now that I shall not have to teach for a living, I really believe I should not mind it very much.”
Otoyo Sen was safely sailing under Molly’s tutelage through her senior year. She spoke the most correct and precise English unless she wasembarrassed or upset in some way, and then, like Melissa Hathaway, she spoke from the heart, and little Otoyo’s heart seemed to beat in adverbs and participles. She and Melissa had struck up the closest friendship.
“We might have known they would,” said the analytical Nance. “They are strangely alike to be so different.”
“Now, Nance, how Bostonesque we are becoming! I have never asked a Bostonian a question that I have not been answered in this way, ‘It is and it isn’t,’” teased Molly.
“Well, they are alike in being foreign, for Melissa is as foreign from us as is Otoyo. Then they are both scrupulously courteous until theiramour propreis stepped on, and then you realize that they are both medieval. They are certainly alike in pride and in fortitude and perseverance and family feeling. You know perfectly well that the real Melissa that is so covered up by this educated Melissa would take a gun and shoot every living Sydney she could get at if her grandmothertold her to! I hope to goodness modernism will never get to the old woman and she will learn that women can do anything men can, or she will make Melissa take the place of the sons she mourns. On the other hand, little Otoyo would commithara-kiriwithout winking an eyelash if honorable-father told her to.”
“You have so convinced me of their similarity that I see no room for difference. They will look to me exactly like twins after this,” laughed Molly; and both the girls could hardly restrain their merriment, for at that moment the so-called twins came in to call: Melissa, tall and stately as “the lonesome pine,” with all doubts as to her fine figure removed now, thanks to Nance’s skillful reformation of the blue homespun; and little Otoyo looking more like a mechanical toy than ever, since she had taken on a little more of the desirable flesh, according to the taste of her countrymen.
“Melissa and I have determined to move into a suite together,” said Otoyo, as they entered.“Miss Walker said it is not usually for a Freshman and Senior to be so intimately, but since there is a suite vacant in the Quadrangle and more visits for singletons than suites, she is willing.”
“You are excited over it, I know, you dear little Otoyo,” said her tutor, “or you would not be so adverbial, and you must mean ‘calls for singletons’ instead of ‘visits.’”
“Oh, you English and your language, made for what you call puns!”
“I am glad you call them puns instead of visiting them on us,” said Nance, dodging a soft cushion hurled by Molly. “Did you girls hear the news? I am to stay at Wellington for Christmas and my father is coming down here to spend it with me. I can’t think when father has taken a holiday before, and I am as excited about it as can be. He needs a rest, and he needs some fun. I wish he could have come last year before the old guard disbanded.”
“But listen to me,” put in Molly. “I have somenews, too, that I was trying to keep for a surprise, but I am a sieve where news is concerned: Judy Kean is to be here for Christmas, too. She writes that as her mother and father are in Turkey she will have to have some turkey in her, and she can think of no place that she would rather have that turkey than at Wellington with us. Dear old Judy, won’t it be fun? And she will help to whoop things up for your father, Nance. She expected to be studying art in Paris by now, but Mr. Kean insisted on a year of drawing in New York before Paris, and that makes her in easy reach of us. We shall have to stop work and go to playing. I declare I have grown so used to work—I don’t believe I know how to play.”
“Mees Grace Green is going to have an astonishment party for her brother, the young student medical,” said Otoyo, the ever-ready news monger.
“A surprise party for Dodo,” shrieked the girlswith delight. “Otoyo, Otoyo, you are too delicious.”
“Also, Mr. Andy McLean will be home with his honorable parents for making holiday, having done much proud work in the law school at Harvard University.”
Nance smiled. Her private opinion was that Mr. Andrew McLean and his proud work were the cause of Otoyo’s very mixed English.
“Also,” continued Otoyo, “Mr. Andrew McLean will bring with him honorable young Japanese gentleman, who has hugged the Christian faith and is muchly studying to live in this country, whereas his honorable father has a wonderful shop of beautiful Japanese prints in Boston. My honorable father is familiar with his honorable father, namely, Mr. Seshu.”
“Oh ho, and that is the reason of the many mistakes,” said Molly, in an aside to Nance. “I thought at first it was Andy’s return, but I bet the little thing is contemplating something in connection with the honorable Mr. Seshu. I wonder if her fatherhas written her about this young Jap.”
During all this chit-chat Melissa had sat perfectly quiet, but her quiet was never heavy nor depressing. She looked calmly and interestedly on and listened and smiled and sometimes gave a low laugh, showing that her humor was keen and ready. Otoyo was a never-failing source of delight to her, and when the little thing spoke of hugging the Christian faith a real hearty laugh came bubbling up. But she put her arm affectionately around her little friend and smothered her laugh in Otoyo’s smooth black hair, that always had a look of having just been brushed, no matter how modern and American was the arrangement.
And very modern and American were all of Otoyo’s arrangements now. Her clothes bore the stamp of the best New York shops, with the most up-to-date shoes and hats, and she endeavored in every way to be as American as possible. She even tried to use the slang she heard around her,but her attempts in that direction were very laughable.
In due time the holidays arrived, and with them came our own Judy full of enthusiasm for her work at the art school; came young Andy with his Japanese friend from the law school. Andy looking older and broader and more robust, not half so raw-boned as he used to be, and the young Japanese gentleman, on first sight, so like Otoyo that it was funny—but, on further acquaintance, it proved to be a racial likeness only; came Nance’s father, a staid, quiet gentleman with his daughter’s merry brown eyes and a general look of one to be depended on; came George Theodore Green, familiarly known as Dodo, no longer so shy, but with much more assurance of manner, as befitted a medical student from Johns Hopkins.
Miss Grace Green had secretly sent out invitations for the surprise party for Christmas Eve, and all the girls were very busy getting their best bibs and tuckers in order to do honor to theoccasion. Molly had seen a good deal of Miss Green since she came to Wellington to keep house for her brother, and they had become fast friends. Miss Green often asked her to come in to afternoon tea, and then they would have the most delightful talks in the professor’s study, and he would read to them. Sometimes Molly would be prevailed upon to read some of her sketches, always of Kentucky and the familiar things of her childhood. She lost her shyness in doing this, and felt that it rather helped her and gave her new ideas for more things to write about.
“Judy, please help me unpack this barrel from home,” called Molly the day before Christmas. “I know you will want to help carry some of the things to the Greens for me. I almost wish I had sent the barrel there, as so many of the things are to go to them. We shall be laden down, I am sure.”
Judy, all excitement, began to knock off the top hoop and then with much hacking and prying they finally got off the head of the formidable-lookingbarrel and began to unpack the goodies: a ham for the professor of English cooked by Aunt Mary; a fruit cake for Molly, black and rich, with an odor to it that Judy said reminded her of the feast in St. Agnes Eve; a jar of Rosemary pickles; one of brandy peaches; a box of beaten biscuit; a roasted turkey, stuffed with chestnuts, and a wonderful bunch of mistletoe full of berries, growing to a knobby stunted branch of a walnut tree, which Kent had sawed off with great care and then packed so well with tissue paper that not one berry or leaf was misplaced.
“This is for Miss Green’s party. I asked Kent to get it for me. You know her party is to be an old English one, and it would not be complete without mistletoe. What is this little note hitched to it?
“’Dearest Molly:
“‘I almost broke my neck getting this, and hope it is what you want. Tell Miss Judy Kean,who, I hear, is to spend Christmas with you, not to get under this until I get there.
“’Kent.’
“What can he mean? Judy Kean, is Kent coming here for Christmas? Answer me.”
But Judy only buried her crimson face in the big turkey’s bosom and giggled.
“Answer me, Judy Kean.”
“How do I know? Am I your brother’s keeper?”
“He couldn’t be coming or mother would have written me! I see he means for you to wait for him until he ‘arrives’ in his profession. Oh, Judy, Judy, I do hope you will! But come on now, we must take these things to the Greens. Miss Grace is very busy with her preparations, while Dodo is off for the day with young Andy and his Jap friend, revisiting their old college, Exmoor. We must get the mistletoe hung; and the ham is to be part of the party, I fancy. I am going to take them some of these pickles, too,and half of my fruit cake. It is so big that it will take us months to devour it, besides ruining our complexions.”
The girls, weighed down with their heavy contributions—ham, pickle, fruit cake and mistletoe—rang the bell at Professor Green’s house, fronting on the campus. The door was quickly opened by Miss Alice Fern. She eyed them haughtily and coldly, hardly responding to Molly’s greeting and barely acknowledging the introduction to Judy, whom she already knew, but refused to remember.
“My cousin, Miss Green, is very busy and regrets she cannot speak to you just now.”
“Oh, I am sorry not to see her! I have some mistletoe that my brother sent her from Kentucky, and Miss Kean and I were going to ask her to let us hang it for her.”
“You are very kind, but I am decorating the house for my cousins, and can do it very well without any assistance from outside.”
“Molly, we had better leave our packages andmake a chastened departure,” said Judy, the irrepressible. “We have some interior decorations besides the mistletoe, Miss Fern, in the way of an old ham and a fruit cake, and some Rosemary pickles. Are you also chairman of the committee on that kind of interior decorations? If you are not, I should think it were best for us to interview the secretary of the interior, if we are not allowed to see the head of the department.”
At that moment who should come bounding up the steps but Edwin Green himself.
“Good morning to both of you! I am so glad to see you back in Wellington, Miss Kean. I have just come from the Quadrangle, where I went to call on you, but saw Miss Oldham, who told me you and Miss Molly were on your way to see my sister. Why don’t you come in? Grace is in the pantry, preparing for the ‘astonishment party,’ as I am told Miss Sen calls it. I will call her directly.”
“Grace has asked to be excused to callers, Edwin,” said the stately Miss Fern.
“Nonsense, Alice, she was expecting Miss Brown to decorate the parlors, and Miss Kean is not a stranger to any of us. Come in, come in,” and the indignant professor ushered them into the parlor and went to call his sister, confiding to her, as she hastened to greet the girls, that if Alice Fern did not stop trying to run their affairs he was going to do something desperate.
“I am afraid you brought it on us by being too nice to her two years ago when she first came home from abroad,” teased his sister; and he remembered that he had been rather attentive to his fair cousin at a time when Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky had had a little misunderstanding with him.
“How good of you, you dear, sweet girl, to have this mistletoe sent all the way from Kentucky for our party, and what a wonderful piece of walnut it is growing to, this great, knotted, knobby branch! But, Alice, don’t break any of it off! You will ruin it.” Miss Green stopped Alice just in time, as she had begun with rapidtugs to pull the mistletoe from the branch that Kent had sawed off with such care, and to stick it in vases among the holly, where it did not show to any advantage. “Of course, it must be hung from the chandelier just as it is.”
“Oh, very well, Cousin Grace; but it seems to me to be a very heavy looking decoration.” And the young woman flounced off, leaving Molly and Judy feeling very much mystified, to say the least.
“Aunt Mary sent you a ham, Professor Green. I brought it to-day, thinking maybe your sister would like it for part of the night’s festivities.”
“Not a bit of it. That ham is to be brought out when there are not so many to devour it. I am not usually a greedy glutton, but beech-nut fed, home-cured ham is too good for the rabble, and I am going to hide it before Grace casts her eagle eye on it.” He accordingly picked it up and pretended to conceal it from his smiling sister.
“Well, anyhow, Miss Green, you will use myfruit cake for the party, will you not?” begged Molly.
“Oh, please don’t ask me to. I know there is nothing in the world so good as fruit cake, and Edwin has told me of the wonders that come from Aunt Mary’s kitchen. So if you don’t mind, Molly, I am going to keep my cake for our private consumption. It would disappear like magic before the young people to-night, and Edwin and I could have it for many nights to come. Do you think I am as greedy as Edwin is with his ham?”
Molly was very much amused, but her amusement was turned to embarrassment when she heard Miss Fern say to her Cousin Edwin: “Miss Brown seems to be trying very hard to give the party.”
She did not hear Edwin’s answer, but noticed that he hugged his ham even more fervently, it being, fortunately for him and his coat, well wrapped in waxed paper. She also noticed that he went around and took out of the vases the fewpieces of mistletoe that his cousin had pulled from the big bunch, and carefully wired them where they belonged on the walnut branch, and then got a step ladder and tied the beautiful decoration to the chandelier, while Judy, ignoring the stately Alice, bossed the job.
“Miss Molly, did you know that Dicky Blount will be here to-night?” asked the professor. “We can have some good music, which will be a welcome addition to the program, I think.”
“That is fine; but please give him a slice of ham. I feel as though some were coming to him. Five pounds of Huyler’s was too much for the old ham bone he got that memorable evening at Judith’s dinner. By the way, Professor Green, I want to ask a favor of you and your sister.”
“Granted before asked, as far as I am concerned, and Grace is usually very amiable where you are in question,” said the eager Edwin.
“Oh, it isn’t so much of a favor, and I have an idea I am doing you one to ask it of you. My dear friend Melissa Hathaway has a most wonderful voice,but no one ever knows it, as she is so reserved. I thought, maybe to-night, you might persuade her to sing. She has some ballads that are splendid for an Old English celebration.”
“I should say we will ask her, and be too glad to! I am so pleased that she is coming. She seemed rather doubtful whether she could or not.”
“Oh, that was just clothes, and clever Nance solved the problem for her just as she often has for me by making something out of nothing. When you see our Melissa and realize that her dress is made of eight yards of Seco silk at twenty cents a yard, you will think Nance is pretty clever.”
The old red brick house, where Professor Green had his bachelor quarters, had been put in good order for his sister’s régime, and with the furniture that had been in storage for many years since the death of their parents was made most attractive. It was designed for parties, seemingly, as the whole lower floor could be turned practically into one room. It had begun to snow, which made the glowing fire in the big hall even more cheerful by contrast.
“Whew! aren’t we festive?” exclaimed Dodo, bursting in at the front door with Lawrence Upton, whom he had picked up at Exmoor. “Looks to me like a ball, with all of this holly and the bare floors ready for dancing. Andy and his little Jap are coming around this evening tosee you, Gracey, and I wish we could get some girls to have a bit of a dance. I have been learning to dance along with my other arduous tasks at the University, and I’d like to trip the light fantastic toe with some real flesh and blood. I have had nothing but a rocking chair to practice with for ever so long. I’ve got a little broken sofa that is great to ‘turkey trot’ with.”
“How about the old tune, ‘Waltzing ’Round with Sophy, Sophy Just Seventeen,’ for that dance of yours?” laughed his older brother. “I declare, Dodo, we ought to do better than that for you at a girls’ college, even in holiday time. Let’s wait and see if young Andy comes, and then with his help maybe we can scare up a girl or so.”
Miss Grace thanked Edwin with an appreciative pat for keeping up the game of surprise party. Just then Richard Blount came blowing in from New York, and they all went in to supper, where the greedy Edwin permitted them to have a try at his ham.
“What a girl that Miss Brown is!” declared Dicky. “She seems to me to be the most attractive blonde I have ever seen.” Richard, being very fair, of course, had a leaning toward brunettes. “We were talking about her the other evening at the Stewarts’, and we agreed that when all was told she was about the best bred person we knew.”
Miss Fern, to whom praise of Molly seemed to be bitterness and gall, gave a sniff of her aristocratic nose and remarked: “There must have been some question of Miss Brown’s breeding for you to have been discussing it. I have always thought breeding was something taken for granted.”
“So it should be,” said Professor Green, laconically.
“Do you know, it is a strange thing to me, but the only two persons in the world that I know of who don’t like Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky are our two cousins on different sides ofthe house—Judith Blount and you, Cousin Alice.”
This from Dodo, enfant terrible. Edwin turned the color of his old ham and looked sternly at Dodo, who was entirely unconscious of having said anything amiss. Miss Grace and Lawrence Upton giggled shamefully, while Richard Blount hastened to say, “I think you are mistaken about Judith. On the contrary, she now speaks very highly of Miss Brown, and looks upon her as a very good friend.”
“As for me,” said Alice, “I have never given Miss Brown a thought one way or the other. I do not know her well enough to dislike her. She impresses me as being rather pushing.”
At this Miss Grace made a sign for them to rise, as she was anxious to get the dining-room in readiness for the entertainment.
“All of you boys had better put on your dress suits if there is a chance of scaring up some dancers,” she tactfully suggested, so there was a general rush for their rooms, and she was left inpeace to get everything ready for the surprise party.
The guests, as had been agreed upon, arrived together. The old house was suddenly filled with dancers enough to satisfy the eager Dodo, and dear Mrs. McLean, ready to play dance music until they dropped. Dodo was astonished enough to delight his sister, and the fun began.
Dr. McLean and Mr. Oldham found much to talk about, so Nance felt that her father was going to have a pleasant evening, and with a glad sigh gave herself up to having a good time with the rest. Young Andy was not long in attaching himself to her side, and they picked up conversation where they had dropped it the year before and seemed to find each other as agreeable as ever.
All the girls looked lovely, as girls should when they have an evening of fun ahead of them and plenty of partners to make things lively. Several more young men came over from Exmoor, in response to a secret invitation sent byMiss Grace through young Andy, so, as Judy put it, “There were beaux to burn.”
Judy was going in very much for the picturesque in dress, as is the usual thing with art students, so she was very æsthetically attired in a clinging green Liberty silk. Molly wore her bridesmaid blue organdy, which was very becoming. Nance,—who always had the proper thing to wear on every occasion without having to scrape around and take stitches and let down hems, and find a petticoat to match, and for that reason had time to do those necessary things for the other girls,—wore a pretty little evening gown of white chiffon, and she looked so pretty herself that Dr. McLean whispered to his wife that he took it all back about young Andy’s having picked out a plain lassie. Little Otoyo had on the handsomest dress of the evening, a rose pink silk embroidered in cherry blossoms. The clever child had bought the dress in New York at a swell shop and taken it to Japan with her, and there had the wonderful embroidery put on it. Melissa was a revelationto herself and her friends. The black Seco silk fitted her so well that Nance was really elated over her success as a mantuamaker. Melissa had never gone décolleté in her life, and at first the girls could hardly persuade her to wear the low-necked dress; but when she saw Molly she was content.
“Whatever Molly does is always right, and if she wears low neck then I will, too,” said the artless girl.
Her hair was rolled at the sides and done in a low knot on her neck. As she came into the parlor Richard Blount, who was going over some music at the piano, did not see her at first. Looking up to speak to Edwin about a song he was to sing, he was struck dumb by her beauty. Clutching Edwin he managed to gasp out, “Great Cæsar! who is she?”
“She is not Medusa, my dear Dick. Don’t stand as though you had turned to stone. It is Miss Hathaway, a friend of Miss Brown’s, and a very interesting and original young woman,also from Kentucky, but from the mountains. I will introduce you with pleasure.”
Edwin Green did introduce him, and if Richard Blount took his eyes from Melissa once during the evening he did it when no one was looking.
Mr. Seshu, young Andy’s friend, proved to be a charming, educated young man, who understood English perfectly and spoke with only an occasional blunder. He made himself very agreeable to Molly, who was eager to talk with him, hoping to find out if he were worthy of their little Otoyo. The girls were almost certain that he had come to Wellington with the idea of viewing Otoyo and passing on her as a possible wife. Otoyo had let drop two or three remarks that made them feel that this was the case. She was very much excited, and her little hands were like ice when Molly took them in hers to tell her how sweet she looked and how beautiful and becoming her dress was. It was a trying ordeal for any girl, and Molly wondered that the little thingcould go through with it, but honorable father had thus decreed it and it must be borne.
“I fancy it is better than having the marriage broker putting his finger in, which is what would have happened if the Sens and Seshus had not ‘hugged the Christian faith’ and come to America,” whispered Molly to Nance as they took off their wraps.
“I’d see myself being pranced out like a colt, honorable father or not,” said Nance. “I fancy he is very nice, however, or Andy would not be so chummy with him.”
Molly was amused at the farce of telling Mr. Seshu that one of his country women was a student at Wellington, and she hoped to have the pleasure of introducing them. He received the information with a polite bow, and no more expression than a stone image, but with volubly expressed thanks and eagerness for the introduction.
“Our little Otoyo is very precious to us,” said Molly, “and we are very proud of her progressin her studies. She takes a fine place with her class, and will graduate this year with flying colors. She writes perfect English, but there are times in conversation when adverbs are too many for her. She is excited to-night over coming to a dance, having but recently added dancing to her many accomplishments, and her adverbs may get the better of her.” Molly was determined that the seeker for a wife should not take the poor little thing’s excitement to himself.
Mr. Seshu seemed more anxious to talk about Otoyo than to meet her.
“And so you are trying to pump me about my little friend, are you, you wily young Jap? Well, you have come to the right corner. I’ll tell you all I can, and you shall hear such good things of Otoyo that you will think I am a veritable marriage broker,” said Molly to herself.
“Is Mees Sen of kindly heart and temper good, you say?”
“She has the kindest heart in the world and agood temper, but she is well able to stand up for herself when it is necessary.”
“He shall not think he is getting nothing but a good family horse, but I am going to try to let him understand that our little Otoyo has a high spirit and is fit for something besides the plow,” added Molly to herself.
After much talk, in which Molly felt that she had been most diplomatic, Mr. Seshu was finally presented to Miss Sen. Poor little Otoyo was not as embarrassed as she would have been had she not learned to converse with honorable gentlemen quite like American maidens. The practice she had had with young Andy and Professor Green came in very well now, and her anxious friends were delighted to see that she was holding her own with her polished countryman, and that he seemed much interested in her chatter. At the instigation of Molly and Nance, Andy McLean soon came up and claimed Otoyo for a dance. She looked very coquettishly at her Japanese suitor and immediately accepted, and Mr.Seshu was as disconsolate as any other young man would have been to have a pleasant companion snatched from him.
“We’ll teach him a thing or two,” said our girls. “And just look how well Otoyo is ‘step twoing,’ as she calls it, with Andy!”
“While the dancers are resting we will have some music,” said the gracious hostess. “I am going to ask you, Miss Hathaway, to sing for us.”
Melissa looked astonished that she should be chosen, but, with that poise and dignity that years in society cannot give some persons, she agreed to sing what she could if Molly would accompany her on the guitar.
“Sing ‘Lord Ronald and Fair Eleanor,’” whispered Molly. “I want Professor Green to hear it.”