Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Junior Days
CHAPTER XXI.
THE JUNIOR GAMBOL
“Hail, Wellington, beloved home!
Hail, spot forever dear!
We greet thy towers and cloisters gray,
Thy meadows fresh in spring array;
We greet thee, Wellington, to-day;
Thy hills and dales; thy valleys green;
Thy wood and lake – tranquil, serene;
We greet thee far and near.”
Molly and Judy were responsible for the words of these stirring lines, which with three other verses were sung by the junior class to the air of “Beulah Land,” the music having been adapted to the words rather than the words to the music.
The entire junior class, a long, slender line of swaying white stretched across the campus, lifted its voice in praise of Wellington that May Day morning at the Junior Gambol. In the center waved the class flag of primrose and lavender. In the background was the gray pile of Wellington and in the front stretched the level close-cut lawn of the campus, fringed by the crowd of spectators. It was an impressive sight and when the fresh young voices united in the class song of “Hail, Wellington!”, Miss Walker was moved to tears.
“The dear children!” she exclaimed to Professor Green at her side, “really I feel all choked up over their devotion.”
Winding in and out in an intricate march, the class moved slowly across the campus until it reached the sophomores grouped together in one spot. Here they paused while the President of the juniors made a speech and presented the President of the sophomores with a small spade wreathed in smilax, a symbol of learning, or rather of the delving for learning which that class had in prospect in another year. Next the juniors approached the seniors and sang one of the Wellington songs, “Seniors, Farewell.”
Then the line broke up and moved to the center of the campus, where stood a May pole. An orchestra, stationed under one of the trees, began playing an old English country dance, and the juniors seized the streamers and tripped in and out with the graceful dignity suitable to their new, uplifted position of seniors about-to-be.
Not one of the Wellington festivals could so stir her daughters of the present or the past, now grouped on the edge of the campus, as this Junior May-Day Gambol.
“Perhaps it is so sad because it is so beautiful,” Miss Pomeroy observed to Miss Bowles, teacher in Higher Mathematics, wiping her eyes furtively. But Miss Bowles, not being an ex-daughter of Wellington, and having a taste for more prosaic and practical pleasures, regarded the scene with only a polite and tolerant interest.
“Who is to be the May Queen?” asked Mrs. McLean, standing in the same group with Miss Walker and Professor Green.
As each succeeding year brought around the Junior Gambol the good woman hastened to view it with undiminished interest.
“It would be difficult to say,” answered Miss Walker. “In a class of such unusual individuality it will be very hard to select one who deserves it more than another.”
“It’s a question of popularity more than intelligence,” observed the Professor. “I think I might hazard a guess,” he added in a lower tone, but his voice was drowned in a burst of music. The juniors were singing an old English glee song, “To the Cuckoo.”
“‘Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove,
Thou messenger of spring,
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat
And woods thy welcome ring.’”
Many guesses were hazarded regarding the junior May Queen, not only among the crowds of spectators, but in the class itself.
The votes for the Queen were cast by secret ballot in charge of a committee of three. Wellington traditions required that the name of the chosen one should be kept in entire secrecy until the clock in the tower struck noon on May Day. Then the junior donkey was led forth garlanded with flowers. He had officiated on this occasion now for ten years. This was the great moment when the identity of the most popular girl in the junior class was established for all time, and it was an important moment, because the one selected was generally chosen as Class President the next year.
And now, as the tower clock boomed twelve deep strokes, there was a stirring among the spectators and a craning of necks. Three juniors appeared at the end of the campus, leading the aged donkey, who flicked his tail and walked gingerly over the turf. He wore a garland of daffodils and lilacs and moved sedately along, mindful of the importance of his position.
The three girls were Nance Oldham, Caroline Brinton and Edith Williams. One of them carried a wreath of narcissus and the other two held the ribbon reins of the donkey.
According to the time-honored rule, they approached their classmates with grave, still faces. It was really a solemn moment and the juniors waiting in an unbroken line never moved nor smiled.
The spectators held their breath and for a moment Wellington was so still that every human thing in it might have been turned to stone.
Why was it so exciting, this choosing of the May Queen?
No one could tell, and yet it was always the same. Even Miss Bowles felt a lump rise in her throat. Many of the alumnæ shamelessly wept, and Professor Green, watching the three white figures move slowly in front of the line of juniors, wondered if no one else could hear the pounding of his pulses.
Presently the committee came to a stop. The Professor thrust his hands into his pockets and drew a deep breath.
Nance stepped forward and placed the wreath on somebody’s head. The spectators could see that she was quite tall and slender, and that she shrank back with surprise and shyness as she was led forth and bidden to mount the donkey, which she did with perfect ease and grace, as one who has mounted horses all her life.
“Who is it?” cried a dozen voices. “They look so much alike.”
Scores of opera glasses and field glasses were raised.
“It’s Molly Brown, of course,” cried a girl.
The Professor smiled happily.
“Of course,” he repeated, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.
And now the ban of silence was lifted. The orchestra played; the audience cheered and the three classes gave their particular yells in turn, while the juniors, marching two by two, followed Molly Brown, riding the donkey, around the entire circuit of the campus.
As for Molly Brown, she hung her head and blushed, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
“The sweet lass, she might be a bride, she is so shy!” ejaculated Mrs. McLean as the procession moved slowly by.
“Hurrah for Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky!” yelled a group of Exmoor students.
“‘Here’s to Molly Brown, drink her down,’” sang the entire student body of Wellington.
It was a thing that happened every year and there were those who had seen it thirty times or more, and still the spectacle was ever new.
“I think I must be dreaming,” Molly was saying to herself. “Of course, I might have known Nance and Judy would have voted for me and perhaps one or two others, – but so many – and what have I done to deserve it? I have hardly seen anything of Caroline Brinton and her crowd. ‘Oh Lord, make me thankful for these and all thy mercies,’” she added, repeating the family grace, which somehow seemed appropriate to this stirring moment.
After the triumphal march, Molly with the class officers, flanked by the rest of the class, held an informal reception on the lawn. This was followed by the Junior Lunch, quite an elaborate affair, served in the gymnasium, decorated for the occasion by the sophomores.
Lawrence Upton was Molly’s guest for the day. Many of the girls had asked Exmoor students, but Nance had been visited with a disappointment that was too amusing to be annoying.
Otoyo Sen, on the sophomore committee for decorating the gymnasium, and therefore entitled to ask a guest, had not let the grass grow under her little feet one instant. The moment the committee had been selected, she sent off a formal, polite note to Andy McLean, 2nd, inviting him to be her guest.
“Oh, Nance, that’s one on you,” cried Judy, when she heard this bit of news. “You always thought Andy was so much your property that no one would ever think of treading on your preserves. It’s just like Japan, creeping quietly in and taking possession.”
“I suppose Andy will be hurt because I didn’t get there first,” replied Nance, laughing good-naturedly. “I suppose I shall have to ask Louis Allen, but I don’t think it will do Andy any harm to know there are other fishes in the sea.”
“I guess it won’t,” answered Judy. “Nance is learning a thing or two,” she added to herself.
But all’s fair in love and war, and there was no more charming figure on the campus that day than little Otoyo in a pink organdy and a large hat trimmed with pink roses. On her face was an expression of shy, discreet triumph as of one who has gained a victory by stratagem.
The Junior Gambol came to an end at six that evening, and the tired students repaired to their rooms to rest and relax after eight hours of continuous entertaining. The eight friends of old Queen’s days had gathered in No. 5 of the Quadrangle, where refreshments were being handed around, chiefly lemonade and hickory-nut cake. Eight limp young women in dressing-gowns draped themselves about the divans and in the arm chairs to discuss the joys of the day.
Molly, at the window, was reading something written on a card tied to the stem of an exceedingly large yellow apple. It was Professor Edwin Green’s card, and the inscription thereon read: “The first of the three golden apples was won to-day. Congratulations and best wishes.”
Untying the card, she slipped it into her portfolio.
“Shall I divide it or eat it alone?” she asked herself, and, without waiting for the second voice to answer, she seized Judy’s silver knife and divided the apple into eight sections, which she passed around the company.
“Did this come from the Garden of Hesperides, Molly?” asked Edith Williams, always ready with her classic allusions.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did,” answered Molly, smiling mysteriously.
There was much to talk about that evening. It was the moment for reminiscences and they reviewed the past year with all its excitements and pleasures. When Millicent Porter had departed from Wellington in dishonorable flight, her place in the Shakespeareans had been immediately filled, and Judy Kean was the girl selected; which goes to show that after a good deal of suffering and when the edge is taken off the appetite, we generally get what we once earnestly desired. Judy was not excited over the honor paid her, but she acquitted herself creditably in the beautiful performance of “A Winter’s Tale,” which the society eventually produced.
She sat on the floor now, leaning against Molly, whom, next to her father and mother, she loved best in all the world. Without realizing it herself, Judy’s character had been wonderfully developed and strengthened by the events of that winter and she looked on the world with a new and broader vision.
It was nearly bedtime; the night was warm and still and through the open windows came the sound of singing. The girls were silent for a while, too weary to make any more conversation.
“And next year we’ll be hoary old seniors,” suddenly announced Judy, following up a train of thought.
Several in the company sighed audibly. Already the thought of parting from each other and from their beloved Wellington cast a shadow before it.
But this sorrowful last year was to be filled with interest and happy times, as you will see who read the next volume of this series, entitled “Molly Brown’s Senior Days.”
