"Big camp meetin' down the swamp,Oh, my! Hallelujah!"
"Big camp meetin' down the swamp,Oh, my! Hallelujah!"
"Big camp meetin' down the swamp,Oh, my! Hallelujah!"
Mr. Kean suddenly joined in with a deep, booming bass. He had learned that song many years before in the south, he said, and had never forgotten it.
"He never forgets anything," said Judy proudly, laying her cheek against her father's. "And now, what will you sing, Bobbie, to amuse the ladies?"
Mr. Kean, without the least embarrassment, took the guitar, and, looking so amazingly like Judy that they might have been twins, sang:
"Young Jeremy Jilson Johnson JenksWas a lad of scarce nineteen——"
"Young Jeremy Jilson Johnson JenksWas a lad of scarce nineteen——"
"Young Jeremy Jilson Johnson JenksWas a lad of scarce nineteen——"
It was a delightful song and the chorus so catchy that after the second verse the entire fudge and stunt party joined in with:
"'Oh, merry-me, merry-me,'Sang young Jeremy,'Merry-me, Lovely Lou——'"
"'Oh, merry-me, merry-me,'Sang young Jeremy,'Merry-me, Lovely Lou——'"
"'Oh, merry-me, merry-me,'Sang young Jeremy,'Merry-me, Lovely Lou——'"
Presently Mr. Kean, seizing his daughter around the waist, began dancing, and in a moment everybody was twirling to that lively tune, bumping against each other and tumbling on the divans in an effort to circle around the room. Allthe time. Mrs. Kean, standing on a chair in the corner, was gently remonstrating and calling out:
"Now, Bobbie, you mustn't make so much noise. This isn't a mining camp."
Nobody heard her soft expostulations, and only the little lady herself heard the sharp rap on the door and noticed a piece of paper shoved under the crack. Rescuing it from under the feet of the dancers, and seeing that it was addressed to "Miss Kean," she opened and read it.
"Oh, how very mortifying," she exclaimed. "Now, Bobbie, I knew you would get these girls into some scrape. You are always so noisy. See here! Our own Judy being reprimanded! You must make your father explain to the President or Matron or whoever this Miss Blount is, that it was all his fault."
"What in the world are you talking about, Julia Kean?" demanded Judy, snatching the note from her mother and reading it rapidly. "Well, of all the unexampled impudence!" she cried when she had finished. "Will you be good enough to listen to this?
"'Miss Kean: You and your family are a little too noisy for the comfort of the other tenants in this house. Those of us who wish to study and rest cannot do so. This is not a dance hall nor a mining camp. Will you kindly arrange to entertain more quietly? The singing is especially obnoxious.
"'Judith Blount.'"
Judy was in such a white heat of rage when she finished reading the note, that her mother was obliged to quiet her by smoothing her forehead and saying over and over:
"There, there, my darling, don't mind it so much. No doubt the young person was quite right."
Mr. Kean was intensely amused over the letter. He read it to himself twice; then laughed and slapped his knee, exclaiming:
"By Jove, Judy, my love, it takes a woman to write a note like that."
"A woman? A cat!" broke in Judy.
Mrs. Kean put her hand over her daughter's mouth and looked shocked.
"Oh, Judy, my dearest, you mustn't say such unladylike things," she cried.
"It's just because she wasn't invited," continued Judy. "I wouldn't let the girls ask her this time. She usually is invited and makes as much racket as any of us."
"It was rather mean to leave her out," observed Molly. "I suppose she's sore about it. But we didn't ask all the girls at Queen's. Sallie Marks and two freshmen were not invited, and if we had gone outside, we'd have invited Mary Stewart and Mabel Hinton."
"Still," said Mr. Kean, "there's nothing meaner than the 'left-out' feeling. It cuts deep. Suppose we smooth things over by asking her to our next party. Let me see. Will all of you give Mrs. Kean and me the pleasure of having you dine with us to-morrow evening at the Inn? Now, may I borrow some writing materials?" he added, after a chorus of acceptances had been raised.
Nance conducted him to her writing desk, which was always the acme of neatness, and wellstocked with stationery. Here is the letter that Mr. Kean wrote to Judith Blount, which Judy, looking over her father's shoulder, read aloud as it evolved:
"'Dear Miss Blount:' (Blount, did you say her name was? Humph!) 'You were quite right to scold Mr. Kean and me for making so much noise. It was inconsiderate of us——'"
"But, Bobbie," protested Mrs. Kean, "it isn't fair to lay the blame on me and make me write the letter, too."
"Be quiet, my love," answered her husband.
"'Will you not give us the pleasure of your company at dinner to-morrow evening at the Inn? We are anxious to show you what really quiet, law-abiding people we are, and Mr. Kean and I will be much disappointed if you do not allow us the opportunity to prove it to you.'"
Judy's father paused, his pen suspended, while he asked:
"Didn't I see bill posters at the station announcing a performance at the Opera House?"
"Yes," cried Judy. "They're giving 'The Silver King.'"
"'Dinner will be a little early,'" he wrote, "'because Mr. Kean is planning to take us all to the play afterwards. He will call for you in'——what shall I call for you in?"
"The bus," promptly answered every girl in the room.
"'—the bus at six fifteen. Anticipating much pleasure in having you with us to-morrow, believe me,
Most cordially yours,
Julia S. Kean.'"
"Now, Julia, my love, sit down and copy what I've written in your best handwriting, and we'll try to smooth down this fiery young person's ruffled feathers."
Mrs. Kean obediently copied the note. After all, it wasn't an unkind revenge, and Otoyo delivered it at Judith's door while the others chatted quietly and absorbed quantities of hot fudge and crackers.
Presently Otoyo stole softly back into the room.
"What did she say, little one?" asked Judy.
"She was very stilly," answered Otoyo shyly. "She spoke nothing whatever. I thought it more wisely to departing go."
The laugh that was raised at this lucid report restored good humor in the company.
A vehicle called for Mr. and Mrs. Kean at a quarter before ten to take them down into the village, and it was not long before every light was out in Queen's Cottage but one in a small single room in an upper story. Here, in front of the mirror over the dressing table, sat a black-eyed girl in a red silk dressing gown.
"Judith," she said fiercely to her image in the glass, "can't you remember that you are too poor to insult people any longer?"
Then she rolled up Mrs. Kean's note into a little ball and flung it across the room with such force that it hit the other wall and bounded back again to her feet, and she ground it under her heel. After this exhibition of impotent rage, she put out her light and flung herself into the bed, where she tossed about uneasily and exclaimed to herself:
"I won't be poor! I won't work. I hate this hideous little room and I loathe Queen's Cottage. I wish I had never been born."
Nevertheless, Judith Blount did humble herself next day to accept Mrs. Kean's invitation. At the dinner she was sullen and quiet, but she could not hide her enjoyment of the melodrama later.
The one taste which she had in common with her brother Richard was an affection for the theatre, no matter how crude the acting, nor how hackneyed the play.
But the insulting letter that she had sent to Judy Kean widened the breach between her and the Queen's girls, and no amount of effort on her part after that could bridge it over.
Molly was not sorry to spend Christmas in Wellington this year. Numbers of invitations had come to her, but even Mary Stewart could not tempt her away from Queen's Cottage.
"Otoyo and I shan't be lonesome," she said. "We have a lot of work to do before the mid-year exams. and by the time you come back, Otoyo's adverbs are going to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. You'll see," she assured her friends cheerfully.
And when the last train-load pulled out of Wellington, and she trudged back along the deserted avenue, there was a strange gladness in her heart.
"I'm not homesick and I'm not lonesome," she said to herself. "I'm just happy. Except for Otoyo's lessons, I'm going to give myself a holiday.I'm going to read—poetry—lots of it, all I want, and to sit in the library and think. I'm going to take long walks alone. It will be like seeing the last of a dear friend, because Wellington will not be Wellington to me when I am installed at O'Reilly's."
Hardly half a dozen girls remained at college that Christmas, and Molly was glad that she knew them only by sight. She was almost glad that the doctor and Mrs. McLean had taken Andy south. She could not explain this unusual lack of sociability on her part, but she did not want to be asked anywhere. It was a pleasure to sit with Otoyo at one end of the long table in Queen's dining room, and talk about the good times they had been having. As for the future, Molly hung a thick veil between these quiet days and the days to come. Through it dimly she could see the bare little room at O'Reilly's, sometimes, but whenever this vision rose in her mind, she resolutely began to think of something else.
It would be time enough to look it in the face at the end of the semester, when she must breakthe news to Nance and Judy and pack her things for the move.
Most of the girls had left on Saturday, and it seemed to Molly that Sunday was the quietest day of her whole life. Scarcely a dozen persons appeared at the Chapel for Vespers and the responses had to be spoken, the choir having departed for the holidays. Monday was Christmas Eve, and on that morning Mrs. Murphy, kind, good-natured soul that she was, carried Molly's breakfast to her room with a pile of letters from home. Molly read them while she drank her coffee, and saw plainly through their thinly veiled attempts at cheerfulness. It was evident that her family's fortunes were at a low ebb. Her mother was glad that Miss Walker had arranged for her to stay at college and she hoped Molly would be happy in her new quarters.
Molly finished her dressing.
"If I could onlydosomething," she said to herself fiercely as she pinned on the blue tam, buttoned up her sweater and started out for awalk. Otoyo, that model of industry, was deep in her lessons as Molly passed her door.
"I'll be back for lunch, Otoyo," she called as she hurried downstairs.
She had no sooner left the house than Queen's Cottage became the scene of the most surprising activities. Little Otoyo leaped to her feet as if she had unexpectedly sat on a hornet's nest and trotted downstairs as fast as her diminutive legs could carry her.
"Mrs. Murphee, I am readee," she called.
There was no telling what plot they were hatching, these two souls from nations as widely different as night from day. Boxes were pulled from mysterious closets. Mrs. Murphy and one of the maids emerged from the cellar with their arms full of greens and, stranger still, the dignified Professor of English Literature actually made his appearance at the kitchen door with a big market basket on one arm and—but what the Professor carried under the other arm had been carefully concealed with wrapping paper. These things he deposited with Mrs. Murphy.
"It's a pleasant sight, surely, to see you this Christmas Eve marnin', Professor," exclaimed the Irish woman. "You're as ruddy as a holly berry, sir, and no mistake."
"Well, Mrs. Murphy, I'm a Christmas Green, you know," answered the Professor, and Mrs. Murphy laughed like a child over the little joke.
"As for the young Japanese lady, she is that busy, sir. You would niver expect a haythen born to take on so about the birthday of our blessed Lord. But she's half a Catholic already, sir, and she's bought a holy candle to burn to-night."
"You're a good woman, Mrs. Murphy," said the Professor, standing beside the well-laden kitchen table, "and whatever she learns from you will do her good, too. She's a long way from home and I have no doubt she'll be very thankful for a little mothering, poor child."
"Indade, and she's as cheerful as the day is long, sir. And so is the other young lady, and she's used to a deal of rejicin' in her family, too. I can tell by the way she loves the entertainin'.Her company niver goes away hungry and thirsty, sir. It's tea and cake always and more besides. 'Have you a little spare room in your oven so that I can bake some muffins for some friends this mornin', Mrs. Murphy?' she'll say of a Sunday. She's that hospitable and kind, sir. There's nobody like her in Queen's. I'd be sorry ever to lose her."
"Should you call her hair red, Mrs. Murphy?" asked the Professor irrelevantly.
"It's more red than anything else, sir, especially when the weather's damp."
"And what color should you say her eyes were, Mrs. Murphy?"
"An' you've not seen her eyes, surely, sir, if you can be askin' me that question. They're as blue—as blue, sir, like the skies in summer."
The Professor blinked his own brown eyes very thoughtfully.
"Well, good day, Mrs. Murphy, I must be off. Do you think you and Miss Sen together can manage things?"
"We can, surely," said Mrs. Murphy. "She'sas neat and quick a little body as I've seen this side the Atlantic."
"My sister gets here at noon. Good day," and the Professor was off, around the house, and across the campus, before Mrs. Murphy could take breath to continue her conversation.
In the meantime, Molly was hastening through the pine woods to a grove where she had once seen some holly bushes. In the pocket of her sweater were a pair of scissors and a penknife.
"We must have a little holiday decoration, Otoyo and I," she said to herself. "And it's lots nicer to gather it than buy it at the grocery store. I suppose my box from home will reach here to-night. I'll ask Mr. and Mrs. Murphy up to-morrow and give a party. There'll be turkey in it, of course, and plum cake and blackberry cordial—it won't be such a bad Christmas. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are dears—I must do up their presents this afternoon. I hope Otoyo will like the little book. She'll be interested to know that Professor Green wrote it."
As she hurried along, breathing in the frostyair, like Pilgrim she spied a figure a great way off coming toward her.
"Another left-over," she thought and went on her way, her steps keeping time to a poem she was repeating out loud:
"'St. Agnes' Eve—ah, bitter chill it was!The owl for all his feathers was a-cold;The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grassAnd silent was the flock in woolly fold——'"
"'St. Agnes' Eve—ah, bitter chill it was!The owl for all his feathers was a-cold;The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grassAnd silent was the flock in woolly fold——'"
Molly had just repeated the last line over, too absorbed to notice the advancing figure through the pine trees, except sub-consciously to see that it was a girl.
"Ah, here's the holly," she exclaimed.
"'Numb were the beadsman's fingers——'"
She knelt on the frozen ground and began cutting off branches with the penknife.
"I suppose you are rather surprised to see me, aren't you?"
Molly looked up. It was Judith Blount.
"Why, where did you come from, Judith?" she asked. "Didn't you go up to New York Friday, after all?"
"I was supposed to, but I didn't. I am staying down in the village at the Inn. I may go this afternoon. I haven't decided yet. To tell the truth, I am not very anxious to see my family. Papa—isn't at home and Richard and mamma are rather gloomy company. I think I'd rather spend Christmas almost anywhere than with them, this year."
"But your mother, Judith," exclaimed Molly, shocked at Judith's lack of feeling, "doesn't she need you now more than ever?"
"Why?" demanded Judith suspiciously. "What do you know of my affairs?"
"I happen to know a great deal," answered Molly, "since they have a good deal to do with my own affairs."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Now, Judith," went on Molly, "this is Christmas and we won't quarrel about our misfortunes. Whatever mine are, it's not your fault. I'mgathering some holly to decorate for Otoyo and me. Won't you help me?"
"No, thanks," answered the other coldly. "I don't feel much like Christmas this year," she burst out, after a pause. "I'm seeing my last of college now, unless I choose to stay under certain conditions—and I won't—I won't," she repeated, stamping her foot fiercely on the frozen earth, which gave out a rhythmic sound under the blow. "Queen's is bad enough, but if I am to descend to a room over the post-office after this semester, I'd—I'd rather die!" she added furiously.
"We're in the same box," thought Molly. "I can appreciate how she feels, poor soul. I was just about as bad myself at first."
"Do you blame me?" went on the unhappy Judith. "Through no fault of mine I've had troubles heaped on me all winter—first one and then another. I have had to suffer for another person's sins; to be crushed into a nobody; taken from my rightful place and shoved off first into one miserable little hole and then another. I tellyou I don't think it's fair—it's unkind—it's cruel!"
Molly was not accustomed to hear people pity themselves. She had been brought up to regard it as an evidence of cowardice and low breeding.
"I've just about made up my mind," continued Judith, "to chuck the whole thing and go on the stage. I can sing and dance, and I believe I could get into almost any chorus. Richard, of course, wouldn't hear of my taking part in his new opera and he could arrange it just as easily as not, but he doesn't approve and neither does mamma. But it would be less humiliating than this." She pointed to Wellington.
"But Judith, it would be a great deal more humiliating," ejaculated Molly. "You would be fussed with and scolded, and you'd hear horrid language, and live in wretched hotels and boarding houses a great deal worse than the rooms over the post-office!"
It was very little Molly knew about chorus girl life, but that little she now turned to good account.
"You would have to travel a lot on smoky, uncomfortable trains and stay up late at night, whether you wanted to or not. You wouldn't be treated like a lady," she added innocently, "and you'd have to cover your face with grease and paint every night."
"I don't care," answered Judith. "Anything would be better than being banished from Wellington and living in a room next to that talkative little southern girl who does laundry work."
"Judith," exclaimed Molly, "I'm being banished from Wellington, too. I've taken a room at O'Reilly's. I've been through all the misery you're going through, and I know what you are suffering. I was almost at the point of going home once. But Judith, don't you see that it's rather cowardly to enjoy prosperity and the good things that come in time of peace, and then run away when the real fight begins? And it wouldn't do any good, either. It would only make other people suffer and we'd be much worse off ourselves. Don't you think Judith Blount, B. A.,would be a more important person than Judith Blount, Chorus Girl?"
Judith began picking the leaves off a piece of holly. Almost everything she did was destructive.
"I suppose you're right," she said at last. "Mamma and Richard would have a fit and the chorus girl rôle wouldn't suit me, either. I'm too high-tempered and I can't stand criticism. But you're going to O'Reilly's? That puts a new face on it. I'll change to O'Reilly's, too."
Molly groaned inwardly. She would almost rather live next to a talking machine than a firebrand.
"They aren't such bad rooms," she said quietly. "When we get our things in, they'll be quite nice."
"And now, I'll hurry on," continued Judith, utterly absorbed in her own affairs. "I think I will take the train to New York this afternoon. I suppose it would be rather cowardly to leave mamma and Richard alone, this Christmas, especially. Good-by." She held out her hand."What are your plans? Are you going to do anything tonight to celebrate?"
"No," answered Molly, shaking Judith's hand with as much cordiality as she could muster. "Just go to bed."
"I thought perhaps you had formed some scheme of entertainment with my cousins."
"You mean the Greens? I didn't know they were here."
"I don't know that they are here, either. They have been careful to keep their plans from me."
Molly ignored this implication.
"I hope you'll enjoy your Christmas, Judith," she said. "Perhaps something will turn up."
"Something will have to turn up after next year," exclaimed Judith, "for I have made up my mind to one thing. I shall never work for a living."
And she strode off through the pine woods with her chin in the air, as if she were defying all the powers in heaven to make her change this resolution.
Molly shivered as she knelt to clip the holly.She seemed to see a picture of a tiny little Judith standing in the middle of a vast, endless plain raging and shaking her fists at—what? The empty air. She sighed.
"I don't suppose I could ever make her understand that she'd be lots happier if she'd just let go and stop thinking that God has a grudge against her."
At six o'clock that evening a mouse's tail brushed Molly's door.
"Come in, little one," called Molly, recognizing Otoyo's tap. "My, how dressed up you are!" she cried as the little Japanese appeared in the doorway blushing and hesitating.
"You like it? This is real American young lady's toilet. It came from a greatly big store in New York."
Molly felt a real regret sometimes in correcting Otoyo's funny English. Was not the Brown family careful for many years to call bears "b'ars" just because the youngest brother said it when he was a little child?
"But why did you wear your pink cashmere this evening, dear?" she asked.
"Ah, but this is a holidee. In Japan we wear always best on holidee."
"Then I must dress up, too, I suppose," remarked Molly, sighing, "and I had thought to let myself off easy to-night, Otoyo. But I couldn't appear before Mrs. Murphy in this old garment and you so resplendent. What shall I wear, chicken?" she asked, pinching Otoyo's cheek.
"The dress of sky blue."
"What, my last year's best?" laughed Molly. "My lady, you ask too much. I must preserve that for year after next best. But, seeing that you are doing honor to this happy occasion, Miss Sen, I'll wear it to please you."
She soon attired herself in the blue crêpe de chine over which she and Nance had labored so industriously the winter before.
The two girls strolled downstairs together and at the first landing Molly began sniffing the air.
"'If my ole nose don't tell no lies,It 'pears like I smells custard pies,'"
"'If my ole nose don't tell no lies,It 'pears like I smells custard pies,'"
she remarked smiling.
"It's meence," said Otoyo.
Molly squeezed the little Japanese's plump waist.
"Yes, I know it's 'meence,'" she said, "but custard pies stand for mince and turkey and baked macaroni and all sorts of good things. We'll soon find out what Mrs. Murphy's been up to."
Pushing open the dining room door, she gave a start of surprise. The room was deserted and almost dark, and the long table was not even set for two.
"Why, we must have come down too soon, Otoyo. You little monkey, you led me to believe it was quite late."
Otoyo smiled and winked both eyes rapidly several times.
"I think Mrs. Murphee is a very week-ed ladee," she said slowly. "She run away from thees house and leave us all alone. We shall have no deener? Ah, that will be very sadlee."
They retreated from the dismal, deserted dining room into the hall. Immediately a door atthe far end was thrown open and a flood of light poured from Mrs. Markham's sitting room. Then Mrs. Murphy's ample figure blocked the doorway, and in her rich Irish brogue she called:
"You poor little lost lambs, is it for me you're lookin', then? Here I am and here's your supper waitin' for you."
Mrs. Markham was away for the holidays.
"All right, Mrs. Murphy," called Molly cheerfully. Taking Otoyo's hand, she led her down the hall. "Why, little one, I don't believe you are well," she exclaimed. "Your hands are cold and you are trembling."
The truth is, Miss Sen was almost hysterical with suppressed excitement.
"No, no, no," she replied. "I am feeling quite, quitely well."
Grasping Molly's hand more firmly, she began running as if the strain were too great to be endured longer.
All this time Molly had not the faintest suspicion of the surprises awaiting her in Mrs. Markham's sitting room. Imagine her amazementwhen she found herself confronting Miss Grace Green, her two brothers and Lawrence Upton in that cozy apartment! In the center was a round table set for six, and in the center of the round table was the most adorable miniature Christmas tree decorated with tiny ornaments and little candles, their diminutive points of light blinking cheerfully. Four tall silver candlesticks with red shades flanked the Christmas tree at each side; a wood fire crackled in the open fireplace and everywhere were bunches and garlands of holly.
Molly was quite speechless at first and she came very near crying. But she choked back the lump which would rise in her throat and smiled bravely at the company.
"I hope you are pleased with the surprise, dear," said Miss Grace Green, kissing her. "It seemed to Edwin and me that six homeless people should unite in making a Christmas for themselves. Lawrence is like you. He lives too far away for Christmas at home, and I am at the mercies of a boarding house. So, Mrs. Murphyhas agreed to be a mother to all of us this Christmas and cheer us up."
"Shure, and I'd like to be the mother of such a foine family," said Mrs. Murphy. "Me old man wouldn't mind the responsibility, either, I'm thinkin'."
They all laughed and Molly found herself shaking hands with Professor Green and Dodo and Lawrence Upton; kissing Miss Green again; rapturously admiring the exquisite little tree and rushing from one holly decoration to another, to the joy of Otoyo, who had arranged the greens with her own hands.
Surely such a happy Christmas party had never taken place before at old brown Queen's. Mrs. Murphy herself waited on the table and joined in the conversation whenever she chose, and once Mr. Murphy, baggage master at Wellington station, popped his head in at the door and smiling broadly, remarked:
"Shure, 'tis a happy party ye're after makin' the night; brothers and sisters; swatehearts and frinds—all gathered togither around the sameboard. It'll be a merry evenin' for ye, young ladies and gintlemin, and it's wishin' ye well I am with all me heart."
"Thank you, Mr. Murphy," said the Professor, "and we be wishin' the same to you and many Christmasses to follow."
"Which one of us is your swateheart, Miss Sen?" asked Lawrence Upton mischievously.
"I like better the 'meat-sweet' than the sweet-heart," answered Miss Sen demurely. There was no doubt, however, that she knew the meaning of the word "sweetheart."
How they all laughed at this and teased Lawrence.
"Just bebonbonand you'll be a 'meat-sweet' Larry," said the Professor, who appeared this evening to have laid aside all official dignity and become as youthful as his brother Dodo.
After dinner the table was cleared, the fire built up, and the company gathered around the hearth. They roasted chestnuts and told ghost stories. Otoyo in the quaintest English told a blood-curdling Japanese story which interestedProfessor Green so deeply that he took out a little book and jotted down notes, and questioned her regarding names and places.
Molly knew a true story of a haunted house in Kentucky, fallen into ruins because no one had dared live in it for years.
Then Mrs. Murphy brought in the lamps and Professor Green drew up at the table and read aloud Dickens's "Christmas Carol." Molly's mother had read to her children the immortal story of "Tiny Tim" ever since they could remember on Christmas day, and it gave Molly much secret pleasure to know that these dear kind friends had kept up the same practice. After that they fetched down Judy's guitar and, with Molly accompanying, they sang some of the good old songs that people think they have forgotten until they hear the thrum of the guitar and someone starts the singing.
At last the tower clock boomed midnight, and as the echo of the final stroke vibrated in the room, the door opened and Santa Claus stood on the threshold.
"Shure, an' I'm just on the nick of time," he said with a good Irish accent, as he unstrapped his pack and proceeded to distribute packages done up in white tissue paper tied with red ribbons.
There were presents for everyone with no names attached, but Molly suspected Professor Green of being the giver of the pretty things. Hers was a volume of Rossetti's poems bound in dark blue leather. There was a pretty volume of Tennyson's poems for Otoyo; and funny gifts for everybody, with delightful jingles attached which the Professor read very gravely. Otoyo almost had hysterics over her toy, which was simply a small, imitation book shelf on which was a row of the works of Emerson and Carlyle, filled with "meat-sweets."
Only one thing happened to mar that evening's pleasure, and this was the fault of the little Japanese herself, to her undying mortification and sorrow. When the party was at its very height and they had joined hands and were circling around Santa Claus, who was singing "TheWearing of the Green," Otoyo unexpectedly broke from the circle and with a funny, squeaky little scream pointed wildly at the window.
"Why, child, what frightened you?" asked Miss Grace Green, taking the girl's hand and looking into her white, scared face.
But Otoyo refused to explain and would only say over and over:
"I ask pardon. I feel so sorrowfully to make this beeg disturbance. Will you forgive Otoyo?"
"Of course we forgive you, dear. And won't you tell us what you saw?"
"No, no, no. It was notheeng."
"We ought to be going, at any rate," said the Professor. "Miss Sen isn't accustomed to celebrations like this when old people turn into children and children turn into infants."
"Am I an infant?" asked Molly, "or a child?"
"I am afraid you still belong to the infant class, Miss Brown," replied the Professor regretfully.
They attributed Otoyo's fright to nervousnesscaused from over-excitement, and a few minutes later the party broke up.
It was one o'clock when the two girls finally climbed upstairs to the lonely silent third floor. Molly escorted Otoyo to her little room and turned on the light.
"Now, little one," she said, putting her hands on the Japanese girl's shoulders and searching her face, "what was it you saw at the window?"
Otoyo closed the door carefully and, tipping back to Molly's side, whispered:
"The greatly beeg black eyes of Mees Blount look in from the window outside. She was very angree. Oh, so angree! She look like an eevil spirit."
"Then she didn't go to New York, after all! But how silly not to have joined us. What a jealous, strange girl she is!"
Molly could not know, however, with what care and secrecy the Greens had guarded their Christmas plans from Judith, who had caught a glimpse of the Professor and his sister at the general store that afternoon. It was revealed to herthat her cousins would much rather not spend Christmas with her, and with a sullen, stubborn determination she changed her mind about going to New York. There was a good deal of the savage in her untamed nature, and that night, wandering unhappily about the college grounds and hearing sounds of laughter and singing from Queen's, she pressed her face against the window and the gay picture she saw inflamed her mind with rage and bitterness. The poor girl did resemble an evil spirit at that moment. There was hatred in her heart for every merrymaker in the room, and if she had had a dynamite bomb she would have thrown it into the midst of the company without a moment's hesitation.
When Molly went to her own room after her talk with Otoyo, she found a note on her dressing table which did not worry her in the least considering she was quite innocent of the charge.
"You told me a falsehood this morning with all your preaching. I'd rather live over the post-office next to an incessant talker who does laundry work than stay in the same house with a person as deceitful and untruthful as you. J. B."
"You told me a falsehood this morning with all your preaching. I'd rather live over the post-office next to an incessant talker who does laundry work than stay in the same house with a person as deceitful and untruthful as you. J. B."
"I'm sorry for the poor soul," thought Molly, as she contemplated her own happy image in the glass. "She is like a traveller who deliberately takes the hardest road and chooses all the most disagreeable places to walk in. If she would just turn around and go the other way she would find it so much more agreeable for herself and all concerned."
Nevertheless, Molly felt a secret relief that Judith had chosen to stay over the post-office.
As for the incorrigible Judith, she did leave for New York early next morning and spent the rest of the holidays with her mother and brother.
Molly saw a great deal of the Greens for the next few days. They had tea together and long walks, and once the Professor read aloud to his sister and the little girl from Kentucky in the privacy of his own study. Miss Green and her two brothers left Wellington on New Year's Eve to visit some cousins in the next county, and still Molly was not lonely, for Lawrence Upton put in a great deal of time teaching her to skate and showing Otoyo and her the country around Wellington.
Mrs. Markham had received due notice that Molly Brown of Kentucky would be obliged to give up her half of the big room on the third floor at Queen's. The matron was very sorry. Miss Blount also was moving to other quarters, she said; but she was too accustomed to the transitory tenants of Queen's to feel any real grief over sudden departures.
"It only remains to break the news to the others," thought Molly, but she mercifully determined to wait until after the mid-year examinations. She was very modest regarding her popularity, but she was pretty sure that Judy's highly emotional temperament might work itself into a fever from such a shock. Remembering her last year's experience at mid-years, Mollyguarded her secret carefully until after the great crisis.
At last, however, the fateful moment came. All the Queen's circle was gathered in that center of hospitality in which Molly had spent so many happy months. The walls never looked so serenely blue as on that bright Sunday morning in January, nor the Japanese scroll more alluring and ornamental. A ray of sunlight filtering through the white dimity curtains cast a checkered shadow on the antique rug. Even the imperfections of the old room were dear to Molly's heart now that she must leave them forever; the spot in the ceiling where the roof had leaked; the worn place in the carpet where they had sat around the register, and the mischievous chair with the "game leg" which precipitated people to the floor unexpectedly.
Everybody was in a good humor.
"There are no shipwrecks on the strand this year," Margaret Wakefield was saying. "Everybody's safe in harbor, glory be."
"Even me," put in Jessie meekly. "I neverthought I'd pull through in that awful chemistry exam., and I was morally certain I'd flunk in math., too. I'm so afraid of Miss Bowles that my hair stands on end whenever she speaks to me."
"She is rather formidable," said Edith Williams. "Why is it that Higher Mathematics seems to freeze a body's soul and turn one into an early Puritan?"
"It simply trains the mind to be exact," said Margaret, who always defended the study of mathematics in these discussions. "And exactness means sticking to facts, and that's an excellent quality in a woman."
"Meaning to say," broke in Katherine Williams, "that all un-mathematical minds are untruthful——"
"Nothing of the sort," cried Margaret hotly. "I never made any such statement. Did I, girls? I said——"
There was a bumping, tumbling noise in the hall. Judy, the ever-curious, opened the door.
"The trunks are here, Miss," called Mr. Murphy,"and sorry we are to lose you, the old woman and I."
"Thank you, Mr. Murphy," answered Molly.
"Well, for the love of Mike," cried Judy, turning around and facing Molly. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm not talking about anything," answered Molly, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Did you flunk in any of the exams., Molly Brown?" asked Edith in a whisper.
"No," whispered Molly in reply. It was going to be even worse than she had pictured to herself. "No," she repeated. A pulse throbbed in her throat and made her voice sound all tremolo like a beginner's in singing. "I waited to tell you until after mid-years. I'm not going very far away—only to O'Reilly's."
Nance, who had been sitting on the floor with her head against Molly's knee, began softly to weep. It was certainly one of the most desolating experiences of Molly's life.
"O'Reilly's?" they cried in one loud protesting shriek.
"Yes, you see, we—we've lost some money and I have to move," began Molly apologetically. "We can be friends just the same, only I won't see quite as much of you—it—it will be harder on me than on you——"
It would have been gratifying if it had not been so sad, this circle of tear-stained faces and every tear shed on heraccount.
"We simply can't do without you, Molly," cried pretty, affectionate Jessie Lynch. "You belong to the 'body corporate' of Queen's, as Margaret calls it, to such an extent that if you leave us, we'll—well, we'll just fall to pieces, that's all."
It remained for Judy Kean, however, that creature of impulse and emotion, to prove the depths of her affection. When she rushed blindly from the room, her friends had judged that she wished to be alone. Molly had once been a witness to the awful struggle of Judy in tears and she knew that weeping was not a surface emotion with her.
For some time, Molly went on quietly explaining and talking, answering their questions andassuring them that there would be many meetings at O'Reilly's of Queen's girls.
"I expect you'll have to move into Judith Blount's singleton, Nance," she continued, patting her friend's cheek. "That is, unless you can arrange to get someone to share this one with you."
"Don't, don't," sobbed Nance. "I can't bear it."
Again there was a noise outside of trunks being carried upstairs and dumped down in the hall.
"There go poor Judith's trunks," observed Molly. "It will be harder on her than on me because she takes it so hard. She's——"
Molly broke off and opened the door. Judy's voice was heard outside giving directions.
"Just pull them inside for me, will you, Mr. Murphy? I know they fill up the room, but I like to pack all at once. Will you see about the room for me at Mrs. O'Reilly's as you go down to the station? I'll notify the registrar and Mrs. Markham. And Mr. Murphy, get a room nextto Miss Brown's, if possible. I don't care whether it's little or big."
Nance pushed Molly aside and rushed into the hall.
"Why hadn't I thought of that?" she cried. "Mr. Murphy, I want a room at O'Reilly's. Will you engage one for me as near Miss Brown's as you can, and before you go bring up my trunks, please?"
"Now, may the saints defind us," cried the distracted Mr. Murphy. "It looks as if the whole of Queen's was movin' down to the village. You're a foine lot of young ladies, Miss, and loyalty ain't so usual a trait in a woman, either."
"But Nance, but Judy!" protested Molly. "I can't—you mustn't——"
"Don't say another word," put in Judy as if she were scolding a bad child. "Nance and I would rather live at O'Reilly's with you than at Queen's without you, that's all. We mean no reflection on the others, but I suppose you all understand. Edith and Katherine wouldn't be separated,and Jessie and Margaret wouldn't. Well, it's the same with us."
"You'll be sorry," cried Molly. "Oh, Judy, I know you'll regret it the very first day. It will be very different from Queen's. We'll have to get our own breakfasts, and take meals at the place next door, and the rooms are plain with ugly wall paper, and there isn't any white woodwork, and it's a big empty old place. It used to be a small hotel, you know, and Mrs. O'Reilly is trying to sell it. The only recommendation it has, is that it's very cheap."
"Why didn't you go over to the post-office, Molly?" asked Margaret.
"They are nicer rooms," admitted Molly, "but——"
"Judith Blount is going there," put in Judy.
"That wasn't the only reason. I really had arranged about O'Reilly's before I knew Judith Blount was going to leave here."
The girls looked puzzled.
"I know," said Edith. "There's a young personwith a soft cooing voice at the post-office who talks a mile a minute."
"She's a very nice girl," broke in Molly, "and works so hard. I really like her ever so much. She's very clever, but I have a sort of bewildered feeling when I am with her."
"I know," said Edith. "It's like standing on the banks of a rushing river. There's no way to stop it and there's no way to get across. You might as well retreat to O'Reilly's in good order."
"O'Reilly's it is," cried Judy with the gallant air of one about to go forth in search of adventure.
It was in vain that Molly protested. Her friends had made up their minds and nothing could swerve them. By good luck, the checks in payment for board and lodging at Queen's for the new quarter had not arrived, and the two girls were free to move if they chose.
Together the three friends, more closely united than ever by the sacrifice of two of them, walked down into the village that afternoon to have a look at O'Reilly's, and they were obliged to confessthat they were not impressed with its possibilities as a home. But it was a dark, cold day—when even cheerful, pretty rooms would not have looked their best.
"These two back rooms will be rather nice when the spring comes," observed Nance, with a forced gaiety. "They look over the garden, you see. Perhaps Mrs. O'Reilly will let us plant some seeds in March."
"It won't be nice," Molly cried. "It will be miserable. I've known it all along myself, but I wouldn't admit it until now. Girls, I implore you to stay at Queen's. You never will be happy here, and I shall be twice as unhappy."
"Now, don't say another word, Molly Brown," said Judy. "We're going to follow you if it's to the Inferno."
"Think how you'll miss the others."
"Think how we'd miss you."
"We'd better go back and pack our things, then," sighed Molly, feeling very much like a culprit who had drawn her friends into mischief.
That night they packed their belongings, andnot once by the blink of an eyelash did Judy or Nance show what they felt about leaving Queen's forever. At last with walls cleared of pictures, curtains neatly folded, books piled into boxes and rugs rolled up, the three girls went to bed, worn out with the day's labors and emotions.
In the night, Nance, shivering, crawled into Molly's bed and brought all her covering with her. Under a double layer of comforts they snuggled while the thermometer went down, down until it reached ten degrees below zero.
Molly often looked back on that famous bitter Monday as the most exciting day of her entire life. Surprises began in the morning when they learned for a fact that it was ten degrees below zero. Barometers in a house always make the weather seem ten times worse. In the night the water pipes had burst and flooded the kitchen floor, which by morning was covered with a layer of ice. On this, the unfortunate Mrs. Murphy, entering unawares, slipped and sprained her ankle. The gas was frozen, and neither the gas nor the coal range could be used that eventful morning. The girls prepared their own breakfasts on chafing dishes, and wrapped in blankets they shivered over the registers, up which rose a thin stream of heat that made but a feeble impression on the freezing atmosphere.
"We do look something like a mass meeting of Siberian exiles," observed Judy grimly, looking about her in Chapel a little later.
Miss Walker herself wore a long fur coat and a pair of arctic shoes and in the assembled company of students there appeared every variety of winter covering known to the civilized world, apparently: ulsters, golf capes, fur coats, sweaters, steamer rugs and shawls.
Molly was numb with cold; fur coats were the only garments warm enough that day, and a blue sweater under a gray cloth jacket was as nothing against the frigid atmosphere.
"Bed's the only comfortable place to be in," she whispered to Judy, "and here we've got classes till twelve thirty and moving in the afternoon! The trunks are going this morning. Oh, heavens, how I do dread it!"
"At least O'Reilly's couldn't be any colder than Queen's is at present," replied Judy, "and there's a grate in the room I am to have. We'll have a big coal fire and cheer things up considerably."
Everything was done on the run that day.Groups of girls could be seen tearing from one building to another. They dashed through corridors like wild ponies and rushed up and down stairs as if the foul fiends were chasing them.
The weather was like a famous invalid rapidly sinking. They frequently took his temperature and cried to one another:
"It's gone down two degrees."
"The bulletin says it will be fifteen by night."
"Oh," groaned Molly, thinking of her friends at that dismal O'Reilly's.
Having half an hour to spare between classes, she went to the library where she met Nance.
"There are some letters for you, Molly. They came by the late mail. I saw them in the hall," Nance informed her.
But Molly was not deeply interested in letters that morning.
"Never mind mail," she said. "I can only think of two things. How cold I am this minute, and how uncomfortable you and Judy are going to be for my sake."
"Don't think about it, Molly, dear," said Nance."We'll soon get adjusted at O'Reilly's with you, and we never would at Queen's without you."
Molly could not find her mail when she returned to Queen's for lunch, which had been prepared with much difficulty on several chafing dishes and a small charcoal brazier by Mrs. Markham and the maid. Nobody seemed to know anything about letters in the upset and half-frozen household, until it was finally discovered that Mr. Murphy had taken Molly's mail down to O'Reilly's when he had moved the trunks.
Having disposed of indifferently warmed canned soup and creamed boned chicken that was chilled to its heart, the three friends went down to the village. They looked at the rooms; they stood gazing pensively at their trunks; it seemed too cold to make the physical effort to unpack their clothes. Again the fugitive letters had escaped Molly. Mr. Murphy, finding she was not to come down until afternoon had kept them in his pocket and was at that moment at the station awaiting the three fifteen train.
"It's too cold to follow him," said Molly, neverdreaming that Mr. Murphy was carrying about with him a letter which was to change the whole tenor of her life. "I'm so homesick," she exclaimed, "let's go back to Queen's for awhile."
And back they hastened. Somehow they didn't know what to do with themselves in their new quarters. It seemed unnatural to sit down and chat in those strange rooms.
As they neared the avenue they noticed groups of girls ahead of them, all running. The three friends began to run, too, beating their hands together to stir up the circulation. A bell was ringing violently. Its clang in the frosty air sounded harsh and unnatural.
"That's the fire bell," cried Judy.
They dashed into the avenue. The campus was alive with students all running in the same direction.
"It's Queen's," shrieked Nance. "Queen's is burning!"
Smoke was pouring from every window in the old brown house. The lawn in front was filled with a jumbled mass of furniture and clothes.Margaret and Jessie appeared on the porch dragging a great bundle of their belongings tied up in a bedspread. Otoyo rushed from the house, her arms filled with things. Mrs. Murphy, seated in a big chair on the campus, was rocking back and forth and moaning:
"Queen's is gone. Nothing can save her. The pipes is froze."
Out of the front door Edith Williams now emerged, quite calmly, with an armload of books.
"Edith," cried Katherine, who had run at full speed all the way from the Quadrangle, "why didn't you bring our clothes?"
For an answer her sister pointed at a pile of things on the ground.
"I made two trips," she replied.
All this the girls heard as in a dream as they stood in a shivering row on the campus. Old brown Queen's was about to be reduced to ashes and cinders! No need to summon the fire brigade or call in the volunteer fire department from the village, although this organization presently came dashing up with a small engine. Flameswere already licking their way hungrily along the lower story of the house, and the slight stream of water from the engine hose only seemed to rouse them to greater fury.
"I'm only thankful it didn't happen at night," they heard Miss Walker cry as she pushed her way through the throng of girls. "And you, my dear child," she continued, laying a hand on Molly's shoulder, "did you save your things?"
Molly started from her lethargy. She was so cold and unhappy, she had forgotten all about her belongings.
"Oh, yes, Miss Walker," she answered. "You see, we moved this morning. Wasn't it fortunate?"
"We?" repeated Miss Walker.
"Yes. My two friends, Miss Oldham and Miss Kean, moved, too. They—well, they wouldn't stay at Queen's without me."
"Is it possible?" said the President. "And their trunks had gone down to the village? Dear, dear, what a remarkably providential thing. And what devoted friends you seem to make, MissBrown," she added, patting Molly's hand and then turning away to speak to Professor Green, who had hurried up.
"Is everybody safe?" he asked breathlessly.
"Yes, yes, Professor, everybody's safe and everything has been done that could be done. I am afraid some of the girls have lost a good many things, but you will be glad to know that three of them had only this morning sent their trunks to rooms in the village—Miss Brown and her two friends."
"Miss Brown moving to the village?"
Molly looked up and caught the Professor's glance turned searchingly on her.
"I am going to live at O'Reilly's," she said.
"And you are safe and your things are safe?" he asked her, frowning so sternly that she felt she must have displeased him somehow. "I'm glad, very glad," he added, turning abruptly away. "Is there nothing I can do, Miss Walker?"
For answer she pointed to the volunteers from the village who had leaped away from the house.The crowd swerved back. There was a crackling sound, a crash; a great wave of heat swept across the campus and the front wall of Queen's fell in. They had one fleeting view of the familiar rooms, and then a cloud of ashes and smoke choked the picture. It was not long before only the rear wall of old brown Queen's was left standing.
"Dust to dust and ashes to ashes," said Edith Williams, solemnly.
It did seem very much like a funeral to the crowd of Queen's girls who stood in a shivering, loyal row to the end.
"So much for Queen's," said Margaret Wakefield. "She's dead and now what's to be done?"
It was decided that the girls should go to O'Reilly's for the time being, all other available quarters being about filled. If they preferred the post-office they could stay there; but they preferred O'Reilly's.
And thither, also, went Mrs. Markham and the Murphys and the maids from Queen's. In a few short hours, it would seem, Queen's had been changed to O'Reilly's, or O'Reilly's to Queen's.It turned out, too, that Mrs. O'Reilly was nearly related to Mr. Murphy, and all things, therefore, worked together in harmony.
O'Reilly's seemed a place of warmth and comfort to the half-frozen girls who clustered around the big fire in Judy's room at five o'clock that afternoon, scalding their tongues with hot tea and coffee while they discussed their plans for the future.
"Mrs. Markham toldme," announced Margaret, a recognized authority on all subjects, political, domestic, financial and literary, "that it would probably be arranged to make O'Reilly's into a college house for the rest of the winter. She said they might even do over the rooms. It would be a smaller household than Queen's, of course—only eight or nine—but it would be rather cosy and—there would be no breaking up of old ties. If this isn't approved," she continued, exactly as if she were addressing a class meeting, "we shall have to scatter. There's another apartment in the Quadrangle and there are a few singletons left in some of the campus houses. Now,girls,"—her voice took on an oratorical ring—"of course, I know that we are nearly fifteen minutes' walk by the short cut from the college and that we may not beinthings as much; but the best part of college we have here at O'Reilly's. And that's ourselves. I move that we change O'Reilly's into Queen's and make the best of it for the rest of the winter."
"Hurrah! I second the motion," cried Katherine Williams.
"All those in favor of this motion will please say 'aye'," said the President.
"Aye," burst from the throats of the eight friends, Otoyo's shrill high note sounding with the others.
"Hurrah for our President," cried Molly, dancing around the room in an excess of happiness.
"Unitus et concordia," said Edith gravely.
"It's really Molly that's transformed O'Reilly's into Queen's," continued Margaret, who had a generous, big way of saying things when she chose. "It's Molly who has kept us all together.With Molly and Nance and Judy gone, Queen's would have been a different place."
"It would! It would!" they cried. "Three cheers for Molly Brown!"