Speed Nell
Molly Brown's College Friends

CHAPTER III
THE WOULD-BE’S

What a chattering there was as the crowd of girls gathered for the weekly meeting of their literary club! Professor Green beat a hasty retreat from the library. He declared that listening to schoolgirl fiction was no treat to him. Besides there was so much to be read concerning the war in that month of March, 1917, and little time in which to read it. War was an obsession with Edwin Green. Waking and sleeping it was ever with him. He regretted his being unable to enlist as a private in the French army, so strong were his sympathies with that struggling nation. Certain that his country would finally drop its neutrality and come out strongly for democracy and the Allies, he could hardly wait for the final declaration of war. He had his den, safe from the encroachments of the “Would-be Authors’ Club,” and there he ensconced himself with enough newspapers and magazines to furnish reading matter for the whole of Wellington.

The rules of the club were as follows: Two pieces of original fiction must be read at each meeting. A chairman for the evening must be appointed by the two performers. All manuscript must be written legibly if not typewritten, so that the club need not have to wait while the author tried to read her own writing. Criticism must be given and taken in good humor and good faith.

Molly, in forming this club, had endeavored to have in it only those students who were really interested in short story writing and ambitious to perfect themselves, but in spite of her ideals there were some members who were in it for the fun they got out of it or for a certain prestige they fancied they would gain from these weekly meetings at the home of the popular wife of a popular professor. These slackers were constantly bringing excuses for plots when their time came to read, or trying to work off on the club old essays and theses on various subjects not in the least related to fiction.

“You are to read this evening, I believe, Mary,” said Molly to Mary Neil as the library filled. “You missed last time and so got put on this week.”

“Yes – I – that is – you see, I sat up all night trying to finish a story but couldn’t get it to suit me.”

“Did you bring it?”

“Oh no, it was too much in the rough.”

“That’s too bad, Mary!” cried Lilian Swift. “There are plenty of us who had things to read and you cut us out of the chance.”

“Surely some of you must have brought things,” said Molly, trying not to smile, knowing full well that in almost every pocket of the really and truly “Would-be’s” some gem of purest ray serene in the shape of a manuscript was only waiting to be dived for. The self-conscious expression on at least a dozen faces put her mind at rest in regard to the program of the evening.

“It seems I have the appointing of a chairman for the meeting in my power, since the other reader has fallen out of the running,” said Molly, looking as severely as she could look at the sullen, handsome Mary Neil, “so I appoint Billie McKym.”

Billie, a most ardent scribbler, had been drawn into the procession of short-story fiends by her dear friend Thelma Larson, who was destined to become famous as a writer of fiction. Billie had no great talent but she possessed a fresh breezy line of dialogue that covered a multitude of sins in the way of plot formation, motivation, crisis, climax and what not.

“Remember, Billie, the chair is not the floor,” teased one of the members.

Billie was a great talker and although she was no pronounced success as a writer of fiction, she was a good critic of the performance of others.

“Just for that I’ll ask you, Miss Smarty, to serve as vice, and when I have something important to say I’ll put you in the chair for keeps.”

“Oh, let Mrs. Green begin and stop squabbling,” demanded a girl who had a plot she was dying to divulge and devoutly hoped she would be called on when their hostess got through.

“Then begin!” and Billie rapped for order.

Molly took her seat by the reading-lamp and opened her manuscript. Having to read before the club was just as exciting to Molly as to the veriest freshman. Her cheeks flushed and her hand trembled a wee bit.

“Silly of me to get stage fright but I can’t help it,” she laughed.

“How do you reckon we feel then?” drawled a little girl from Alabama, who only the week before had been torn limb from limb by the relentless “Would-be’s.”

“This is a story that I have sent on many a journey and it always comes back to its doting mother. I have received several personal letters about it – ”

“Oh, wonderful!” came from several members.

“Only think, the most encouraging thing that has happened to me yet was once a Western magazine kept my manuscript almost three weeks,” sighed a willowy maiden.

“Now please criticize it just as severely as you can. I want to sell it, and something must be done to it before the editors will take it,” begged Molly, getting over her ridiculous stage fright.

“Fire away!” said parliamentary Billie.

“How long is it?” asked Lilian Swift.

“About five thousand words, I think!”

“Whew!” blew the girl who hoped to get her plot in edgewise.

There was a general laugh and then Molly cleared her throat for action. “First, let me tell you I saw a clipping in the New York Times asking for Fairy Godmothers for the soldiers. That was what put the idea in my head. The title is: ‘Fairy Godmothers Wanted.’”

You could have heard a pin drop while Molly read, and occasionally one did hear the scratching of a pencil wielded by a member who was on a critical war-path.

CHAPTER IV
FAIRY GODMOTHERS WANTED

The ballroom was crowded but very quiet. The belle of the ball was the night nurse, deftly accomplishing the many duties that fall to the share of a night nurse. A letter must be written for a poor Gascon who had lost his right arm; a Bedouin chief must be watered every five minutes; a little red-headed Irishman begging for morphine to ease his pain, and a sad Cockney lad sobbing because he was “’omesick for ’Ammersmith,” must be comforted.

The beautiful old château had been converted into a hospital early in the war and the salle de bal was given over to the convalescents. The convalescent male is a very difficult proposition, and the little nurse sometimes felt her burden was greater than she could bear. There was so much to do for these sick soldiers besides nurse them. One thing, she must good-naturedly submit to being made love to in many different languages. She could stand all but the Bedouin chief.

“He seems so like our darkeys at home,” she had whispered to the one American who was getting well rather faster than he liked to admit.

This American wanted to get well and be back in the trenches, but who was to make love to the pretty night nurse in good old American when he left the convalescent ward?

“You promised to do something for me to-night. Don’t forget! You must be almost through with all of these fellows.”

“Ready in a minute!” She flitted down between the rows of cots, tucking in the covers here, plumping up a pillow there. The Bedouin was watered for the last time that night and finally closed his rolling black eyes.

“Now, what is it?” she asked, sinking down on a stool by the American’s bed, which was placed in an alcove at one end of the great salon. “If it is writing a letter, thank goodness, it won’t have to be in the second person singular in French. Why do you suppose they teach us such formal French at school? I can’t tutoyer for the life of me.”

“Same here! Je t’aime’s all I know. But I don’t want you to write a letter for me. I want you to read some. But first I must know your really truly name. I – I – like you too much just to have to call you nurse.”

“Mary Grubb!”

“No! Not really?”

“Yes! I’d like to know what is the matter with my name. It is a perfectly good name, I reckon.”

“Yes, Mary is beautiful – but – the other! Never mind, you can change it.”

“I have no desire to do so, at least not for many a day. I think Grubb is especially nice. It suggests Sally Lunn and batter bread.”

“There now, I would know you are from the South even if your dear little ‘reckons’ didn’t come popping out every now and then. Do you know, I have a friend who lives in Kentucky, and when the war is over I have been planning to go see her, but now – but now – I am afraid she won’t want to see me.”

“You mean the scars?” and she looked pityingly at the young man and put her firm little hand on his head. “Why, they will not amount to much. They will just make you look interesting. Your eyes will be well, I just know they will. Look at this long scar that has given the most trouble! It has turned to a pleasing pink and will be almost gone in a few months. You see you are so healthy.”

“It isn’t altogether the scars. If you think they are pretty, maybe she will, too. There is something else. I want to read over all this packet of letters before I decide something. You had better begin or that big, black, bounding beggar over there will begin to whine for water again. After you read the letters, maybe I will tell you the other reason why my friend in Kentucky might not want to see me.”

He took from under his pillow a packet of little blue letters, tightly tied with a piece of twine.

“Here they are! These letters have meant a lot to me while I was in the trenches. They still mean a lot to me. They were written by my Fairy Godmother.”

“Oh! Are they love letters?”

“No, indeed! I wouldn’t ask a woman to read another woman’s love letters. I wouldn’t let anyone but you read these letters, but my eyes are too punk to read them myself and I have to – to hear them to decide something, something very important.”

“All right! A nurse is a kind of father confessor and what one hears professionally is sacred.”

“But, my dear, I am not thinking of you as a nurse.”

“But I am thinking of you as a patient.”

She slipped the top letter from the packet and turned it over. “So your name is Stephen Scott!”

“Didn’t you know my name, either? How funny!”

“I only know the names of the patients who have charts, and you are too well to waste a chart on. We nurses call you the convalescent American. Sure these are not love letters?”

“Of course!” impatiently. “But if you don’t want to read them to me, just say so. Maybe you are tired. Of course you are. You look pale and your little hand is trembling.”

“No, no! I am not tired! Let me begin.”

The salle de bal of the old château was very quiet. The wounded soldiers were dropping off to sleep one by one. Even the Bedouin chief had stopped rolling his eyes and was softly snoring. In a low clear voice she read the letters.

My dear Godson:

It is so wonderful to be a Godmother that I can hardly contain myself for joy. It is through an advertisement I saw in a New York paper, headed Fairy Godmothers Wanted, that I happen to have you and you happen to have me. I consider our introduction quite regular as it came through the wife of a great general.

I wonder how you like belonging to me? I wonder if you are as alone in the world and homeless as I am. I wonder if you are big or little, dark or fair, old or young. I wonder all kinds of things about you, – after all, it makes no difference, any of these things. You are my Godson and every day I am going to pray for you and think about you. I am going to send you presents and write you long letters and send you newspapers. The only trouble about it is by the time I get hold of English papers they will be weeks and weeks old. I wonder if American magazines and papers would appeal to you. I wonder what kind of presents you would like, – not beaded antimacassars and not mouchoir cases surely. I will knit you a sweater maybe, but I am not very fond of knitting.

This business of being a Fairy Godmother is a very serious one, more serious than being a real mother, I believe. A real mother can at least do something towards forming the character of her child, but a Fairy Godmother has her child presented to her and takes it as the husband used to take his bride in the old English prayer book: “With all her debts and scandals upon her.” The worst of it is that she is ignorant what those debts and scandals are. I don’t even know what kind of smoke to send you. Are you middle-aged and sedate and do you smoke a corn-cob pipe? Are you young and giddy and do you live on cigarettes? A terrible possibility has entered into my mind! Are you one of those awful persons that uses what our darkeys call “eatin’ tobacco”? If so, I shall begin to train you immediately.

Perhaps you want to know something about me. There is not much to know. I am an orphan of independent means and character. Being the first, enables me to be the second, which sounds like a riddle but isn’t. You see I have rafts and oodlums of kin, and if I did not have an income of my own they would step in and coerce me even more than they do. I said in the beginning that I was homeless. I am not really that, but the trouble is I have too many homes. I must spend the winter with Aunt Sally and the spring with Cousin Kate. Cousin Maria and Uncle Bruce want me to take White Sulphur by storm with them as chaperones; and so it is from one year’s end to the other, kind relations planning for me. I am bored to death with it all and am even now preparing a bomb to throw in this camp of overzealous kin. But I’ll tell you about that later, – that is, if you want to hear about it. I may be boring you stiff. If I am, it is an easy matter for you to repudiate me and tell Mrs. Johnson to get you a more agreeable Godmother.

My numerous family does not at all approve of my being a Godmother. They think I am too young for the responsibility and have entered upon it too lightly. I even heard Aunt Sally whisper to Cousin Maria: “Just like her mother!” That means in their minds that I am headstrong and difficult. You see my mother was also of independent means and character. Also (I whisper this) she was not a Southerner. That is as serious in a Southerner’s eyes as not being British is in yours. They think it is very forward of me to be writing to a man what has not been properly introduced. Uncle Bruce suggests that you may not even be born. I tell him soldiers don’t have to be born and that the bravest soldiers that were ever known sprang up from dragon’s teeth.

I am sending you as my first present all kinds of tobacco, even plug. I must not let my prejudices get away with me. If my dear Godson likes “eatin’ tobacco,” he shall have it. If you don’t indulge in it, give it to some soldier less dainty. For my part, I should think the trenches would be dirty enough without adding to them.

I want to tell you that I like your name. I think Stephen Scott sounds very manly and upstanding, somehow. I am hoping for a letter from you just to give me an inkling of your tastes. Of course I know one of the duties of a Fairy Godmother is not to worry her charge, and I don’t want to worry you but to help you. I think of you in those damp, nasty ditches eating all kinds of food, served in all kinds of ways. (I am sure what should be hot is cold, and what should be cold is hot.) And when I sit down to batter-bread and fried chicken I can hardly force it down, I do so want you to have it instead of me.

Your affectionate Godmother,

Polly Nelson.

The night nurse quietly folded up the first letter and slipped it back in its blue envelope. She had a whimsical, amused expression on her face.

“What are you smiling over? Don’t you think that is a nice letter?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“But you didn’t say it was. I think that is a sweet letter. I tell you it meant a lot to me. Of course, I am not the homeless Tommy she thought I was. I fancy I have as many Aunt Sallies and Cousin Marias as she has, but they happen to be in New England.”

“You are not an orphan, then!”

“Oh, yes! I’m an orphan all right enough, but I am related to half of Massachusetts and all of Boston.”

“Did you tell your Fairy Godmother that?”

“No, – that’s what makes me feel so bad. I was afraid she would stop being my Godmother if she found out I was – well, not exactly poor, so I – I didn’t exactly lie – ”

“You didn’t exactly tell the truth, either,” and the night nurse curled her pretty lip and looked disgusted.

“Oh, please don’t be angry with me, too. I know she will be. I have simply got to tell her the truth about myself. I did let her know I am an American. I am going to write her a letter just as soon as I can see to do it. But go on with the next, please. You are sure it is not tiring you too much?”

“Sure,” and the night nurse slipped out another.

My dear Godson:

It was very nice of you to answer my letter so promptly. I am so glad you are an American and do not chew tobacco. You must not feel compelled to answer all my letters because you must be very busy and I have very little to do, so little that I am becoming very restless. I have thrown the bomb in the camp of the enemy, my kin. They are shattered into smithereens. I am going to enter a hospital, take training, and just as soon as I am capable go to France with the Red Cross nurses. I should like to go immediately but I want to be a help not a hindrance, and they say all the untrained persons who butt in on the war zone are a nuisance. Six months of training should make me fit, don’t you think? But how should you know?

I am very happy at the thought of being of some use. I owe it all to you, my dear Godson. If I had not been presented with you I should never have thought of such a thing. Just as soon as I realized that over in the trenches was a human being who wanted to hear from me and whom I could help, I began to take a new interest in the war and all the soldiers, and then I began to feel that maybe I, insignificant little I, might be of some use to those poor soldiers, some use besides just knitting foolish caps and mittens and sending the Saturday Evening Post and cigarettes. I only wish I could go immediately. My training begins to-morrow. Aunt Sally and Cousin Maria feel that it is a terrible blot on the family name. They are sure someone will say that I am doing this because I am not a success in society, although they say over and over that I am. I don’t know whether I am or not, all I know is that society is not a success with me. Uncle Bruce is rather nice about it all.

There are so many I’s in this letter I am mortified. I believe writing to a Godson in the trenches is almost like keeping a diary. I am sending you some cards and poker chips (but you mustn’t play for money). I’d hate to think that my presents exerted a poor moral influence on my dear Godson. Would you mind just dropping a hint as to what kind of presents would be most acceptable? I have never been in the habit of giving presents to men and the kinds of presents some of my friends give would not be very appropriate, it seems to me. Silver match boxes and cigarette holders would not be very useful, nor would silk socks with initials embroidered on them be much better. Do you like chocolate drops and poetry?

Your affectionate Fairy Godmother,

Polly Nelson.

The night nurse laughed outright at the close of the letter and Stephen Scott reached out for the packet from which she was extracting a third blue envelope.

“If you are going to make fun of them, you can stop.”

“I wasn’t making fun. I was just thinking what funny presents girls do give men.”

“Well, so they do, but my little Godmother gave me bully presents, – cigarettes to burn, home-made molasses candy and beaten biscuit. She had lots of imagination in the presents she sent and the blessed child never did burden me with a work-box but sent me a gross of safety-pins that beat all the sewing kits on earth. I don’t believe you like my Godmother much.”

“Don’t you? Well, I do.”

“You should like her because somehow you remind me of her.”

“Oh! Have you seen her?”

“Only in my mind’s eye. I begged her for a picture of herself but she has never sent it. She has promised it, though. You see I got to answering her letters in the same spirit in which she wrote to me, only I was not quite so frank, I am afraid. She told me everything about herself while I told her only my thoughts. I never did tell her I was not a homeless soldier of fortune. She thinks I am absolutely friendless and dependent on my pay as a private for my living. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a sou – at least I have felt that way – but now – ”

“But now what?”

“But now I don’t think it is so bad to have a little tin,” and he held one of the little stained hands in his for a moment.

She gently withdrew it and opened a third letter. This was full of hospital experiences and so were all that followed. The tone of them became more intimate and friendly. The desire to serve was ever uppermost – just to get in the War Zone and help.

“I got awfully stuck on her, somehow,” confessed the man. “She was so sweet and so girlish – I did not say so for fear of scaring her off, but I used to write her pretty warm ones, I am afraid.”

“Why afraid?”

“Don’t you know?”

“How should I know?”

“Why, honey, you must see that I am head over heels in love with you. I oughtn’t to be telling it to you when I have written my little Godmother that as soon as the war is over I am going to find her and tell her the same thing. But, somehow, I was loving her only on paper and in my mind; but you – you – I love you with every bit of my heart, soul and body.” He caught her hand and all of the poor little slim blue letters slipped from the twine and scattered over the floor.

“Oh, the poor little letters!” she cried. “Is that all they mean to you?”

“Oh, honey, they meant a lot to me and still do, but they are just letters and you are – you.”

“But how about the letters you wrote Miss Polly Nelson? Are they just letters to her and nothing more? Don’t you think it is possible that she may have treasured your letters, especially the pretty warm ones, and be looking forward to the end of the war with the same eagerness that you have felt up to – say – ”

“The minute I laid eyes on you. At first I used to dream maybe you were she, but I began to feel that she must be much – younger – somehow, than you. You are so capable, so mature in a way. She is little more than a child and you are a grown woman.”

“I am twenty-one – but the war ages one.”

“I don’t mean you look old – I just mean you seem so sensible.”

“And Miss Nelson didn’t?”

“I don’t mean that, I just mean she seemed immature. But suppose you read the last letter. And couldn’t you do it with one hand and let me hold the other?”

“Certainly not!” and the night nurse stooped and gathered the scattered letters. Leaning over may have accounted for the rosy hue that overspread her countenance.

“You certainly read her writing mighty easily. I had a hard time at first. I think she writes a rotten fist, although there is plenty of character in it, dear little Godmother!”

“Humph! Do you think so? I wouldn’t tell her that if I were you – I mean that you think her fist is rotten.”

“Of course not, but begin, please, and say – couldn’t you manage with one hand?”

But the night nurse was adamant and drew herself up very primly and began to read:

My dear Godson:

I am afraid gratitude has got the better of you. You must not feel that because a girl in America has written you a pile of foolish letters and sent you a few little paltry presents, you must send her such very loverlike letters in return. I am disappointed in you, Godson. I had an idea that you were steadier. Just suppose I were a designing female who was going to hold you up and drag you through the wounded-affections court? There is quite enough in your last two letters to justify such a proceeding. It may be only your poverty that will restrain me. In the first place, you don’t know me from Adam or rather Eve. I may be a Fairy Godmother with a crooked back and a black cat, who prefers a broom-stick to a limousine; I may have a hare-lip and a mean disposition; I may write vers libre and believe in dress reform. In fact I am a pig in a poke and you are a very foolish person to think you want to carry me off without ever looking at me. I won’t say that I don’t want to see you and know you, because I do. I have been very honest with you in my letters because, as I told you once, it has seemed almost like keeping a diary to write to you, and I think a person who is not honest in a diary is as bad as the person who cheats at solitaire. When the war is over if you want to look me up you will find me in Louisville, Kentucky. When you do find me, I want you to be nothing but my Godson. You may not like me a bit and I may find you unbearable, – somehow, I don’t believe I shall, though. I do hope you will like me, too. One thing I promise – that is, not to fall in love with anyone else until I have looked you over. And you – I fancy you see no females to fall in love with.

I never let myself think about your getting killed. As Fairy Godmother I cast a spell about you to protect you. There are times when I almost wish you could be safely wounded. Those are the times when I doubt the efficacy of my prayers and the powers of my fairy gifts.

And now for the news: I am going to the front! I have worked it by strategy. A girl I know has had all her papers made out ready to join the Red Cross nurses, and now at the last minute her young man has stepped in and persuaded her to marry him instead. I have cajoled the papers from her and am leaving in a few hours. Aunt Sally and Cousin Kate, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Maria are half demented. They don’t know how I worked it or I am sure they would have the law on me for perjury. I am free, white, and twenty-one now, and they could control me in no other way. Good-by, Godson! I wonder if we will meet somewhere in France. I will write you when I can, but I am afraid I shall not be able to send any more presents for a while.

Your affectionate Godmother.

“Now don’t you hate and despise me for telling you what I did just now? You see she says she will at least not fall in love with anyone else until she looks me over, and think what I have done! What must I do? I am going to try not to tell you I love you any more until that other girl knows what a blackguard I am, but you must understand all the time that I do.”

“I understand nothing, Mr. Stephen Scott. I am simply the night nurse in the convalescent ward and you have asked me to read some letters to you, and I have read them; and now it is my duty to forget what is in them, and I am going to do it, – I have done it. All I can say is that you might give Miss Polly Nelson the chance to find someone else she likes better than she does you before you are so quick to take for granted she will stick to her bargain, too. If there is any jilting going on, we Southern girls rather prefer to be the jilters than the jiltees.”

“Don’t say jilting! It isn’t fair. Please be good to me! I am so miserable.”

The night nurse smiled in spite of herself and felt his pulse.

“There now! Just as I thought! You have worked yourself up into an abnormal pulse and I shall have to start a chart on you.”

“Abnormal nothing! How is a fellow’s pulse to remain normal when you put your dear little fingers on his wrist? But I forgot! I am not going to make love to you until I can let my Godmother know. Maybe she has met some grand English Tommy by this time – ” And then he groaned aloud and cried: “But I don’t want her to do that, either!”

“Blessed if I’m not in love with two girls,” he thought.

The night nurse sat quietly down to her charts after having gone the rounds of her ward. All was quiet. The convalescent soldiers were sleeping peacefully, dreaming of home, she hoped. Scott stirred restlessly now and then. He could not sleep but watched the busy little stained hand of the night nurse as it glided rapidly over the charts. She had no light but that of a guttering candle, carefully shaded from her patients’ eyes, but Scott could see her well-poised head and fine profile as she bent over her writing. How lovely she was! Would she ever listen to him? How she stood up for her sex, – and still she did not exactly repulse him. What a strange name for a girl like that to have! Grubb! It was preposterous. Indeed, he felt it his duty to make her change that name as soon as possible. Polly Nelson is a pretty name – dear little Godmother! Would she despise him, too, like this other girl? But did this other one despise him?

The night nurse made her rounds again and then left the ward for a moment. When she returned, she came to the American’s bedside.

“A letter has just come for you, Mr. Scott.”

“For me? Splendid! Will you read it to me?”

“Yes, if you cannot possibly see to do it yourself.”

“I might, but I’d rather not.”

“It is in the same rotten fist of those I read you to-night.”

“My Fairy Godmother! I – I – believe I can see to read that myself.”

She handed him the letter. Her hand was trembling a little and so was his. She brought the guttering candle and he opened his letter.

Somewhere in France.

My dear Godson:

I have always been so frank with you that I feel I must make a confession. I promised you in my last letter, the one I wrote just before I left home, that I would not fall in love with anyone until after the war, when you were to present yourself in Louisville and we were to view each other for the first time. Dear Godson – I have not kept my word. They say a man falls in love with his nurse often because of the feeling he has for his mother. She makes it seem as though he were a little child again. I reckon a nurse falls in love with her patient because he seems so like a little boy. She loves him first because of the maternal instinct. Be that as it may, I am in love with one of my patients. I tell you this fearing you may be wounded and you may fall in the hands of a cap and apron, and from a feeling of noblesse oblige you may not grasp the happiness within your reach.

God bless you, my dear Godson!

Always,

Your Fairy Godmother.

P. S. – He is an American.

A great tear rolled down the scarred cheek of the young soldier and splashed on the signature. Then something happened that made him sit up very straight in his cot and stretch out a shaking hand for the night nurse. She was by his side in a moment.