Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days
CHAPTER VIII. – THE OLD QUEEN’S CROWD
“Nance, do you fancy this has really been such a quiet, uneventful college year, or are we just so old and settled that we don’t know excitement when we see it? It has been a very happy time, and I feel that I have got hold of myself somehow, and am able to make use of the hard studying I have done at college. I know you will laugh when I tell you that one reason I have been so happy is that I have not had to bother myself over Math. No one can ever know how I did hate and despise that subject.”
“You poor old Molly, I know it was hard on you. You were in good company, anyhow, in your hatred of it. You remember Lord Macauley hated it, too, but for that very reason was determined ‘to take no second place’ in it. You always managed to get good marks after that first condition in our Freshman year. I often laugh when I think of you with your feet in hot water and your head tied up in a cold wet towel, trying to cure a cold and at the same time grasp higher mathematics,” answered the sympathetic Nance, looking lovingly at her roommate. The girls found themselves looking at each other very often with sad, loving glances. Their partnership was rapidly approaching its close. They could not be room-mates forever and college must end some time.
“The funny thing about me and Math. is that I never did really and truly understand it,” laughed Molly. “I learned how to work one example as another was worked, but it was never with any real comprehension. Nothing but memory got me through. I remember so well when I was a little girl, going to the district school. I came home in tears because division of decimals had stumped me. My father found me weeping my soul out with a sticky slate and pencil grasped to my panting breast. ‘What’s the matter, little daughter?’ he said. ‘Oh, father, I can’t see how a great big number can go into a little bits of number and make a bigger number still.’ ‘Well, you poor lamb, don’t bother your little red head about it any more, but run and get yourself dressed and come drive to town with me. I am going to take you to see Jo Jefferson play “Cricket on the Hearth.”’ I shall never forget that play, but I never have really understood decimals; and you may know what higher mathematics meant to me.”
“Speaking of a quiet year, Molly, I have an idea one reason it has been so uneventful is that our dear old Judy has not been here to get herself into hot water, sometimes pulling in her devoted friends after her when they tried to fish her out. Won’t it be splendid to see all the old Queen’s crowd again: Judy and Katherine and Edith, Margaret and Jessie? I wonder if they have changed much! I am so glad they are coming to the meeting of the alumnæ this year, and that we are here without having to come!”
“I do hope my box from home will get here in time for the first night of the gathering of the clan. I know it will seem more natural to them if we can get up a little feast. I want all of the girls to know Melissa. Isn’t she happy at the prospect of her dear teacher’s coming? Do you know the lady’s name? I never can remember to ask Melissa, who always speaks of her with clasped hands and a rapt expression as ‘teacher’.”
“Yes,” answered Nance. “She has a wonderful name for one who is giving up her life working for mankind: Dorothea Allfriend, all-friendly gift of God. I believe her name must have influenced her from the beginning.”
“We must ask her to our spread on Melissa’s account,” cried the impetuously hospitable Molly. “That makes ten, counting the eight Queen’s girls, and while we are about it, let’s have – ”
“Molly Brown, stop right there. If you ask a lot of outsiders, how can we have the intimate old talk that we are all of us hungering for? Of course we can’t leave Melissa out, as she has been too close to us all winter to do anything without her, and her friend must come, too; but in the name of old Queen’s, let that suffice.”
“Right, as usual, Nance, but inviting is such a habit with all of my family that it almost amounts to a vice. Of course we don’t want outsiders, and I shall hold a tight rein on my inclination to entertain until after the fourth of June. If there are any scraps left, I might give another party.”
“There won’t be any, unless all of us have fallen in love and lost our appetites.”
The fourth came at last, and with it our five old friends: the Williams sisters, Katherine and Edith, as amusing as ever, still squabbling over small matters but agreeing on fundamentals, which they had long ago decided was the only thing that mattered; Margaret Wakefield, with the added poise and gracious manner that a winter in Washington society would be apt to give one; Jessie Lynch, as pretty as ever but still Jessie Lynch, not having married the owner of the ring, as we had rather expected her to do when she left college; and our dear Judy, in the seventh heaven of bliss because The American Artists’ exhibition had accepted and actually hung, not very far above the line, a small picture done in Central Park at dusk.
The meeting at No. 5, Quadrangle, was a joyous one. Everybody talked at once, except of course little Otoyo, whose manners were still so good that she never talked when any one else had the floor; but her smile was so beaming that Edith declared it was positively deafening.
“Silence, silence!” and Margaret, the one-time class president, rapped for order. “I am so afraid I will miss something and I can’t hear a thing. Let’s get the budget of news and find out where we stand, and then we can go on with the uproar.”
“Well, what is the matter with refreshments?” inquired the ever-ready Molly. “That will quiet some of us at least. But before we begin, I must ask you, Otoyo, where Melissa is. She and her friend Miss Allfriend understood the time, did they not?”
“Yes, they understood and send you most respectful greetings, but my dearly friend, Melissa, says she well understands that the meeting of these eight old friends is equally to her meeting of her one friend, and she will not intrusive be until we our confidences have bartered, and then she will bring Miss Allfriend to meet the companions of Miss Brown and Miss Oldham.”
“I haven’t heard who Melissa is, but she must be fine to show so much tact,” exclaimed Katherine. “I am truly glad we are alone. I am bursting with news and drying up for news, and any outsider would spoil it all.”
Nance gave a triumphant glance in Molly’s direction, and Molly stopped carving the ham long enough to give an humble bow to Nance before remarking, “You girls are sure to adore my Melissa, but if Katherine is already bursting with news, suppose she begins before I get the ham carved. What is it, Kate? A big novel already accepted?”
“No, but a good job as reader for a publisher, and two magazine stories in current numbers, and an order for some college notes for a big Sunday sheet. Isn’t that going some for the homeliest one of the Williams sisters? But that is nothing. My news is as naught to what is to come. Have none of you noticed the blushing Edith? Look at her fluffy pompadour, her stylish sleeves, her manicured nails. Compare them with those of the old Edith. Remember her lank hair and out-of-date blouses and finger nails gnawed down to the quick. Note the change and guess and guess again.”
“Edith, Edith! Oh, you fraud!” in chorus from the astonished girls.
“Is it a man?”
“Who is he?”
“When is it to be?”
They certainly guessed right the very first time. Edith Williams was to be the first of the old guard to marry, and she was certainly the last to expect such a thing. She took the astonishment of her friends very coolly and accepted their congratulations without the least embarrassment.
“I can’t see what you are making such a fuss about. You must have known all the time that my hatred of the male sex was a pose, just adopted because I had a notion that no man in his senses could ever see anything in me to care for; or if one did, he would be such a poor thing that I could not care for him. But,” with a complacent smile, “I find I was mistaken.”
“Tell us all about him, do please, Edith. I know he is splendid or you would not want him,” said Molly, handing Edith the first plate piled with all dainties.
“I can’t eat and talk, too, so I’ll cut my love affair short. His name is plain James Wilson, but he is not plain, at all. He is very tall, very good looking and very clever. He is dramatic critic on a big New York paper and has written a play that is to be produced in the fall. Oh, girls, I can’t keep it up any longer! I mean, this seeming coldness. He is splendid and I am very happy!” With which outburst, she attempted to hide her blushes in her plate, but Katherine rescued it, saying sternly, “Don’t ruin the food, but effuse on your napkin,” which made them laugh and restored Edith’s equanimity. Then the girls learned that she was to be married in two weeks and go to Nova Scotia on her honeymoon.
“Next!” rapped Margaret. “How about you, my Jessica, and what have you done with your winter?”
Pretty Jessie blushed and held up her fingers, bare of rings. “Not even any borrowed ones?” laughed Judy. “Why, Jessie, I believe you have sought the safety that lies in numbers, and have so many beaux you can’t decide among them.”
“I have had a glorious debutante winter and do not feel much like settling down as yet,” confessed the little beauty. “There is lots of time for serious thoughts like matrimony later on.”
“So there is, my child, but don’t do like the poor princess who was so choosey that she ended by having to take the crooked stick. My Jessica must have the best stick in the forest, if she must have any at all,” said Margaret, putting her arm around her friend. “For my part, I have had a busy winter and haven’t felt the need of a stick, straight or crooked. What with entertaining for my father and keeping up the social end necessary for a public man, and a general welfare movement I am interested in, and the Suffrage League, I have often wished I had an astral body to help me out. Mind you, I am not opposed to matrimony, but I am just not interested in it for myself.”
“That is a dangerous sentiment to express,” teased Judy. “I find that a statement like that from a handsome young woman usually means she is taking notice. Come now, Margaret, if, instead of having an astral body to do part of the work you are planning for yourself, you had been born triplets, you would have let one of you get married, wouldn’t you? Now ‘fess up. Margaret could attend the suffrage meetings, and Maggie could look after the child’s welfare, while dear, handsome, wholesome Peggy could be the beloved wife of some promising public man. I don’t believe Margaret or Maggie would mind at all if Peggy had to hurry home from the meetings to have the house attractive for a brilliant young Senator from the western states whom we shall call ‘the Baby of the Senate’ just for euphony, and who would come dashing up to the door in his limousine whistling ‘Peg o’ my Heart’ in joyful anticipation of his welcome.”
Margaret, the stately and composed, was blushing furiously at Judy’s nonsense.
“Judy Kean, who has been telling you things?”
“No one, I declare, Margaret. I was just visualizing. I wouldn’t have presumed to hit the nail on the head had I realized I was doing it. You must forgive me, dear, but I am rather proud of being able to predict, and if I ever meet the ‘Baby of the Senate’ I shall tell him to ‘try, try again’.”
Molly interfered at this point and stopped Judy’s naughty mouth with a beaten biscuit. “Aren’t you ashamed, Judy? How should you like to be teased as you have teased Margaret?”
“Shouldn’t mind in the least. If in a moment of ambitious dreaming I have said ‘nay, nay’ to any handsome young western senators, Margaret has my permission to tell them to ‘try, try again,’ that I was just a-fooling. I am perfectly frank about my intentions in regard to the husband question. I am wedded to my art, but it is merely a temporary arrangement, and I may get a divorce any day if more attractive inducements are offered than my art can furnish. It is fine, though, to get my picture accepted and almost well hung by The American Artists. I have an idea its size had something to do with the judges taking it. It would have been cruel to refuse such a little thing; and then it is so easy to hang a tiny picture, and there are so many gaps in galleries that have to be filled in somehow.”
“What a rattler you are, Judy,” broke in Edith. “Your picture is lovely, and it made me proud to tell James, who took me to the exhibition, that you were my classmate and one of the immortal eight.”
“Three more to report,” rapped Margaret, “Molly and Nance and Otoyo. Otoyo first, to punish her for being so noisy,” and Margaret drew the little Japanese to her side with an affectionate smile.
“It is not for humble Japanese maidens to bare lay their heart throbbings, so my beloved friends will have to excuse the little Otoyo.”
And it spoke well for the breeding of the other seven that they respected the reticence of their little foreign friend and did not try to force her confidence, although they were none of them ignorant of the intentions of the wily Mr. Seshu.
“Otoyo is right,” declared Nance. “I have nothing to confess, but if I had, I should be Japanesque and keep it to myself.”
“Oh, you ‘copy cat’,” sang Judy. “I’ll wager anything that Nance has more up her sleeve than any of us. Look, look! It has gone all the way up her sleeve and is crawling out at her neck.”
Nance made a wild grab at her neck, where, sure enough, the sharp eyes of Judy had discovered a tiny gold chain that Nance had not meant to show above her neat collar. She clutched it so forcibly that the delicate fastening broke, and a small gold locket was hurled across the room right into Molly’s lap. Molly caught it up and handed it back to the crimson and confused Nance amid the shrieks of the girls.
“I reckon a girl has a right to carry her father’s picture around her neck if she has a mind to,” said Molly.
Just then there was a knock at the door and Melissa and Miss Allfriend were ushered in, much to the relief of Molly, who by their coming had escaped the ordeal of the teasing from her friends that she knew was drawing near; and it also gave Nance the chance to compose herself.
Miss Allfriend proved to be delightful. She was overjoyed to be back at her Alma Mater and eager to know Melissa’s friends and to thank them for their kindness to her protégée. Personalities were dropped and the program for the entertainment of the alumnæ was soon under discussion. Miss Allfriend had been president of her class and she and Margaret found many subjects of mutual interest. Melissa was anxious to know the old Queen’s girls, having heard so much of them from Otoyo, and the girls were equally anxious to know the interesting mountain girl. The party was a great success, and Nance was delighted to see that there were no “scraps” left for Molly to give another, as there were many things on foot for the alumnæ meeting for the next week and Nance felt sure Molly would have enough to do without any more entertaining.
And now we will leave our girls. Their postgraduate year is over. A very happy one it has been, with little excitement but much good, hard work. Nance is to go to Vermont and rescue her long-suffering father from the boarding house, and give the poor man the taste of home life that he has never known. Mrs. Oldham cannot keep house in Vermont and make speeches, now at the International Peace Conference at The Hague, and then at a Biennial of Woman’s Clubs in San Francisco, with a stop over in New York to address the Equal Suffrage League between boat and train!
Molly is going back to Kentucky to assist at her sister’s wedding, this wedding a formal affair in a church, to suit the notions of the formidable Aunt Clay. Molly has many plots in her head to work out. Her little success with “The Basket Funeral” has fired her ambition, and she is longing for time to write more. French must be studied hard all summer if they are to go abroad, and Kent must be coached, as he is very rusty in his French and must rub up on it for lectures at the Beaux Arts. She has promised Edwin Green to write to him, and he has offered to criticize her stories, which will be a great help to her. The place of meeting in Europe has not been decided on, but Professor Green is determined that meeting there shall be.
Melissa will go back to her beloved mountains and try to give out during her well-earned vacation some of the precious knowledge she has gained in her freshman year to the less fortunate children of her county. She will in a measure repay the noble woman who has spent her life in the mountain mission work for all the care and labor she has expended on her, and will go back to Wellington for the sophomore course with her purpose stronger and deeper: to help her people and uplift them as she herself has become uplifted.
One more incident only we must record before this volume ends. After Molly got home she received by express a box wrapped in Japanese paper, so carefully and wonderfully done up that it seemed a pity to break the fastenings. In the box was the most beautiful little stunted tree in a pot that looked as though it had come out of a museum. The tree had all the characteristics of a “gnarled oak olden,” with thick twisted branches and one limb that looked as though little children might have had a swing on it, so low did it sag. And this tiny tree, with all the dignity of a great “father of the forest,” was, pot and all, only eight inches high! With it, came the following letter:
“Will the honorably and kindly graciously Miss Brown be so stoopingly as to accept this humble gift from the father of Otoyo Sen, who has by the most graciously help of Miss Brown passed her difficulty examinations at Wellington College and now is to become the humble wife of honorable Japanese gentleman, Mr. Seshu? The honorable gentleman gave greatly praise to graciously Miss Brown for her so kindly words about humble Japanese maiden and is gratefully that his humble wife is the friend of so kindly lady.”
With this little note, it seemed to Molly that the last ties that bound her to the precious life at Wellington and the old, complete Queen’s group had suddenly snapped. Little Otoyo had outstripped them all! She was quietly entering the school of Life, while the rest were only standing at the threshold.
Molly, knowing the serene satisfaction with which the Japanese maiden awaited the new bonds, and remembering the transforming happiness of Edith Williams in anticipation of a similar experience, thoughtfully pondered upon her own future.
She had the eye of faith but she was not a seer; and she could not travel in advance those devious paths by which Destiny was to lead her.
How she finally came to her own and fulfilled the promise of college days, it remains for “Molly Brown’s Orchard Home” to disclose.
