Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days
CHAPTER X. – AUNT CLAY MAKES A MISTAKE
“Sister Ann, do you see any dust arising?” called Molly to Judy, who had actually climbed up on the gate post, hoping to see a little farther up the road, expecting the automobile from Louisville with her beloveds in it.
“I see a little cloud and I hear a little buzzing. Oh, Molly, I believe it’s them.”
“Is it, oh, Wellington graduate? Get your cases straight before they come or your father will think that diploma is a fake.”
“Grammar go hang,” said Judy, performing a dangerous pas seul on the gate post and then jumping lightly down and racing up the avenue to meet the incoming automobile. Molly followed more slowly, never having been the sprinter that Judy was. Mr. Kean sprang from the car and lifted Judy off her feet in a regular bear hug.
“Save a little for me, Bobby,” piped the little lady mother. “Judy, Judy, it is too good to be true that we have got you at last, and I mean to keep you forever now, you slippery thing.” And then they all of them got into the car and had a three-cornered hug. Molly came up with only enough breath to give them a cordial greeting, welcoming them to Chatsworth.
“That is a very fine young man, your brother, who met us at the station, Miss Molly. Kent is his name? He recognized us by my likeness to you, Judy, so make your best bow and look pleased.” In looking pleased, Judy did a great deal of unnecessary blushing which her mother noticed, but, mothers being different from fathers, said nothing about it.
Mrs. Brown came hurrying down the walk to meet her guests. She was amused to see how much Judy resembled both her parents, although Mrs. Kean was so small and Mr. Kean so large. Mother and daughter were alike in their quick, extravagant speech, and a certain bird-like poise of the head, but father and daughter had eyes that might have been cut out of the same piece of gray and by the same pattern.
“Where is your baggage? Surely Kent gave you my message and you are going to visit us?”
“You have been so kind to my girl that I see no way but to let you be kind to us, too, and if we will not inconvenience you we will accept your invitation,” said Mr. Kean. “As for baggage: Mrs. Kean is a dressy soul, but she only carries a doll trunk which holds all of her little frocks and fixings and even leaves a tiny tray for my belongings.”
He assisted his smiling wife to alight and then from the bottom of the car produced a wicker trunk that was really no bigger than a large suitcase, but much more dignified looking.
“She says a trunk gives her a little more permanent feeling than a bag and makes a hotel room seem more homelike,” went on Mr. Kean. Mrs. Brown thought that she had never heard such a pleasant voice and jolly laugh.
“Judy, show your mother and father their room. I know they are tired and will want to rest before dinner.”
“Tired! Bless your soul, what have we done to be tired? We have been on a Pullman four nights, and that is when we get in rest enough for months to come. I know Julia will want to get at her doll trunk and change her traveling dress, but, if you will permit me, I shall stay down here with you. What a beautiful farm you have! How many acres in it?”
“I have three hundred acres in all; two hundred under cultivation and in grass, fifty in woodland, and fifty that are not worth anything. It is a strange barren strip of land that my father had to take as a bad debt and I inherited from him. We graze some forlorn sheep on it, but they won’t drink the water, and it is almost more trouble than they are worth to drive them to water on another part of the place.”
Mr. Kean listened intently. “I should like to see your farm, Mrs. Brown. Did you ever have the water on the barren strip analyzed?”
“No, Mr. Brown thought of looking into it but never did, and I have had so many problems to solve and expenses to meet with my large and growing family that I have never thought of it any more.”
Mrs. Kean and Judy came down to join the others in a very short time, considering that Mrs. Kean had unpacked her tiny trunk and shaken out her little frocks and changed into a dainty pink gingham that looked as though it had just come from the laundry, showing no signs of having been packed for weeks.
“What have you done to my Judy, Mrs. Brown? I have never seen her looking so well.”
“Fried chicken and candied sweet potatoes are the chief of my diet, and who would have the ingratitude not to show such keep?” laughed the daughter, pulling the little mother down on her lap and holding her as tenderly as though their relationship were reversed. “Robert and Julia, are you aware of the fact that your lady daughter has been a perfect lady since she came to these parts, and has got herself into no bad scrapes, and has not been saucy but once, and that was necessary? Wasn’t it, Mrs. Brown?”
“It certainly was. My old mammy used to tell me, ‘Don’ sass ole folks ‘til they fust sass you’; and Saint Paul says, ‘Live peaceably with all men, as much as lieth in you.’ When Judy felt called upon to speak out to Miss Hunt she had the gratitude of almost every one present.”
Professor Green joined them and, having made the Keans’ acquaintance at Wellington, introductions were not necessary. That young man was in a very happy frame of mind as his hated rival that he had to like in spite of himself had taken an early train to Lexington; and there had been a dejected look to his back as he got into the buggy that Edwin Green decided could not belong to an accepted lover. Molly had a soft, sad look about her blue eyes, but certainly none of the elation of the newly engaged. He had held a cryptic conversation with Mrs. Brown that morning on the porch, in which he had gathered that the dear lady considered Molly singularly undeveloped for a girl her age; that any thought of her becoming engaged for at least a year was very distasteful to her mother; that her mind should be left free for the postgraduate course she was so soon to enter upon. But she very delicately gave him to understand that she liked him and that Molly also liked him more than any friend she had. The conversation left him slightly dazed, but also very calm and happy, liking Mrs. Brown even better than before and admiring her for her delicate tact and frankness that does not often combine with such diplomacy. His mail had come and he had no excuse for further delay, and had determined to go home on the following day.
“Professor Green, I have been so long on the train that I feel the need of stretching my legs. Could you tear yourself away from these ladies long enough to show me around the farm?”
“Indeed, I could; but maybe the ladies would like to come.”
“No, indeed,” answered Mrs. Kean. “I know Bobbie’s leg-stretching walks too well to have any desire to try to keep up with him. It is so pleasant and restful here, and Mrs. Brown, Molly, Judy and I can have a nice talk.”
The two gentlemen started off at a good pace.
“Professor, I should like to see this barren strip of land Mrs. Brown tells me of. It sounds rather interesting to me. You know where it is, do you not?”
“Yes; and, do you know, I was going to ask you to look at it and give your opinion about it. It has the look to me of possible oil fields. I haven’t said anything to any of the family about it, as they are such a sanguine lot I was afraid of raising their hopes when nothing might come of it, but I had determined to have a talk with Kent before I left. He is the most level-headed member of the family, and would not fly off half-cocked. Miss Molly tells me they are contemplating selling this wonderful bit of beech woods. They have a good offer for it, but it is like selling members of the family to part with these trees.”
The two men walked on, discovering many things to talk about and finding each other vastly agreeable. Their walk led them through the beech woods, then through a growth of scrub pines and stunted oaks and blackberry bushes, until they gradually emerged into a hard stony valley sparsely covered with grass and broomsedge.
“About as forlorn a spot as you can find in the whole of Kentucky, I fancy,” said the younger man. “Its contrast with the beech woods we have just passed is about as great as that between Mrs. Brown and her sister, Mrs. Clay, who, with all due respect, is as rocky as this strip of barren land and as unattractive. She is the only person of whom I have ever heard Miss Molly and her brother Kent say anything unkind, and they cannot conceal their feeling against her. It seems that Mrs. Clay had the settling of her father’s estate, and arranged matters so well for herself that Mrs. Brown’s share turned out to be this stony strip. Mrs. Brown accepted it and refused to make a row, declaring that she would never have a disagreement with any member of her family about ‘things.’ She is a wonderful woman,” added the professor, thinking of his talk of the morning.
Mr. Kean stopped at the banks of a lonesome tarn, filled with black water with a greasy looking slime over it.
“Look at those bubbles over there! Could they be caused by turtles? No, turtles could not live in this Dead Sea. Look, look! More and more of them. Watch that big one break! See the greasy ring he made!”
He was so excited that Edwin Green smiled to see how alike father and daughter were, and was amused at himself for speaking of the Browns as being people who went off half-cocked to this man who was a hair trigger if ever there was one.
Mr. Kean stooped over and scooped up some of the water in his hand. “‘If my old nose don’t tell no lies, seems like I smell custard pies.’ Why, Green, smell this! It’s simply reeking of petroleum! I bet that old Mrs. Clay will come to wish she had made a different division of her father’s estate. Come on, let’s go break the news to the Browns.”
“But are you certain enough? They may be disappointed,” said the more cautious Edwin.
“I am sure enough to want to send to Louisville immediately for a drill to test it. I have had a lot of experience with oil in various places and I am a regular oil wizard. You have heard of a water witch? My friends say that my nose has never played me false, and I can smell out oil lands that they would buy on the say-so of my scent as quickly as with the proof of a drill and pump. My, I’m glad for this good luck to come to these people who have been so good to my little girl.”
The two men were very much excited as they made their way back to the house.
“It is funny the way oil crops up in unexpected places,” said Mr. Kean. “There is very little of it in this belt, and for that reason Mrs. Brown should get a very good price for her land. I think it best for her to sell to the Trust as soon as possible. There is no use in fighting them. They are obliged to win out. They will be pretty square with her if she does not try to fight them. What a fine young fellow that Kent is! And as for Miss Molly, she is a corker! She has got my poor little wild Indian of a Judy out of dozens of scrapes at college. Judy always ends by telling us all about the terrible things that almost happened to her. She seems to me to be a little tamer, but maybe it is a strangeness from not seeing us for so long.”
Edwin Green had his own opinion about the reason for that seeming tameness, but he held his peace. He could not help seeing Kent’s partiality for Miss Julia Kean, and had no reason to believe otherwise than that the young lady reciprocated. Love, or the possibility of loving, might be a great tamer for Judy. He was really not far from the mark. Judy was interested in Kent, very much so, but it was ambition that was steadying her and a determination to do something with the artistic talent that she was almost sure she possessed. Paris was her Mecca, and she was preparing herself to talk it out with her parents. They, poor grown-up children that they were, had no plans for their daughter’s future. College had solved the problem for four years, but, now that that was over, what to do with her next? They loved to have her with them and had looked forward eagerly to the time when she could be with them, but after all was a railway camp the best place for a girl of Judy’s stamp?
“Mrs. Brown, what will you take for that barren strip of land over there?” said Mr. Kean, sinking into a chair on the porch where the ladies were still having their quiet talk.
“Well, Mr. Kean, since it is not worth anything, and I have to pay taxes on it, I think I would give it away to any one who would promise to keep up the fences.”
“Can you get right-of-way through the adjoining place to the road behind you, where I see that a narrow-gauge railroad runs?”
Mrs. Brown flushed and hesitated. “There is a lane connecting these two turnpikes older than the turnpikes themselves. My place does not go through to this narrow-gauge railroad that you saw this morning, but my father’s old place, the Carmichael farm, now owned by my sister, Mrs. Clay, borders on both roads. This lane divides the two places as far as mine goes and then cuts through her place to the road behind. She has lately closed that lane, fenced it off and put it in corn.”
“Rather high-handed proceedings,” growled Mr. Kean. “Did you protest?”
“The boys went to see her about it, as it blocks their short cut to the Ohio River, where they go swimming, but she was so insulted at what she called their interference that I insisted upon their letting the matter drop. Paul, who always has insisted on his rights, went so far as to see a lawyer about it. His opinion was that Sister Sarah had no more right to fence off that lane than she would have to build a house in the middle of Main Street. But, if you knew my Sister Sarah, you would understand that if she decided to build a house in the middle of Main Street she would do it.”
“Perhaps she would if the Law were as ladylike as you are, Mrs. Brown,” laughed Mr. Kean, “but the Law happens to be not even much of a gentleman. What I wanted to get at was whether or not you had right-of-way, not way. You have the right if not the way. Now I am going to come to business with you. Did you know, my dear lady, that that despised strip of land is worth more than all of your fruitful acres put together, beech woods and apple orchard thrown in?” He jumped up from his chair, able to contain himself no longer, and in clarion tones literally shouted, “Lady, lady, you’ve struck oil, you’ve struck oil!”
BOOK II
CHAPTER I. – WELLINGTON AGAIN
“Wellington! Wellington!”
Molly waked from her reverie with a start. It seemed only yesterday that she was coming to Wellington for the first time, “a greeny from Greenville, Green County,” as she had been scornfully designated by a superior sophomore. She could vividly recall her arrival, a poor, tired, timid little girl in a shabby brown dress, with soot on her face and seemingly not a friend on earth. She smiled when she thought of how many friends she had made that first day, friends who had really stuck. First of all there had been dear old Nance Oldham; then Mary Stewart, who had taken her under her wing and looked after her like a veritable anxious hen-mother during the whole of her freshman year; then the vivid, scintillating Julia Kean, her own Judy; then Professor Green, who certainly had proved a friend. On looking back, it seemed that every one with whom she had come in contact on that day had done something nice for her and tried to help her. Mother had always told her that friends were already made for persons who really wanted them, made and ready with hands outstretched, and all you had to do was reach out and find your friend.
Now, as before, the trainload of girls piled out at the pretty, trim little station, and there was dear old Mr. Murphy ready to look after the baggage, no easy job, as he declared, there being as many different kinds of trunks as there were young ladies. Molly shook his hand warmly, for, after all, he was really the very first friend she had made at Wellington. Her trunk being shabby had had no effect on his manner to her as a Freshman, but he noticed now that she had a new one and remarked on its elegance.
“I simply had to have a new one, Mr. Murphy, ‘the good old wagon done broke down.’ It was old when I started in at Wellington, and four round trips have done for it.”
Next to Molly’s big new trunk, – and this time it was a big one, as she had some new clothes and enough of them for about the first time in her life, and had bought a trunk with plenty of trays so as to pack them properly, – and snuggled up close to it as though for protection, was the strangest little trunk Molly had ever seen: calf-skin with the hair on it, spotted red and white, a little moth eaten in spots, with wrought iron hinges and a lock of great strength but of a simple, fine design – oak leaves with the key hole shaped like an acorn. A rope was tied tightly around it, reminding Molly of a halter dragging the poor little calf to slaughter.
“Well, well, I haven’t seen such a trunk as this since I left the ould counthry,” said the baggage master, putting his hand fondly on the strange-looking trunk. “I’ll bet the owner of this, Miss Molly, will have many a knock from some of the high-falutin’ young ladies of Wellington. They haven’t seen it yet, because it is hiding behind your grand new big one. I pray the Blessed Virgin that the poor little maid will find a strong friend to get behind and to look after her.”
Molly smiled at the old man’s imagery, and thought, “What a race the Irish are! I am glad I have some of their blood.”
She turned at the sound of laughter and saw coming toward her as strange a figure as Wellington Station had ever sheltered, she was sure. A tall girl of about twenty years was approaching, dressed in a stiff blue homespun dress with a very wide gathered skirt and a tight basque (about the fashion of the early eighties), and a cheap sailor hat. In her hand she carried a bundle done up in a large, flowered, knotted handkerchief. Her hair was black and straight and coming down, but when your eyes once got to her face her clothes paled into insignificance, and Molly, for one, never gave them another thought. Imagine the oval of a Holbein Madonna; a clear olive skin; hazel eyes wide and dreamy; a broad low forehead with strongly marked brows; a nose of unusual beauty (there are so few beautiful noses in real life); and a determined mouth with a “do or die” expression. She came down the platform, head well up and an easy swinging walk, no more regarding the amused titter of the crowd of girls, separating to let her pass, than a St. Bernard dog would have noticed the yap of some toy poodles. On espying her trunk – of course it was hers, the little hair trunk with the wrought iron hinges and lock – she quickened her gait, as though to meet a friend, stooped over, picked it up, and swung it to her broad fine shoulder, more as though it had been a kitten than a calf. Turning to the astonished Molly, she said in a voice so sweet and full that it suggested the low notes of a ‘cello, “Kin you’uns tell me’uns whar – no, no, I mean – can you tell me where I can find the president?”
“Indeed, I can,” answered Molly. “I am going to see her myself just as soon as I get settled in my quarters in the Quadrangle, and if you will tell me where you are to be I will take you to your room and then come for you to go and see President Walker. Mr. Murphy, the baggage master, will attend to your trunk. You will see to this young lady’s trunk soon, won’t you, Mr. Murphy?”
“The Saints be praised for answering the prayers of an ould man in such a hurry! Of course I will, Miss Molly; and where shall I be after sinding the little trunk, miss?”
“I don’t know until I see the president. I think I’ll just keep my box with me. I can carry it myself. ’Tain’t much to tote.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that,” said Molly, hardly able to keep back the laugh that she was afraid would come bubbling out in spite of her. “I tell you what you do: let Mr. Murphy keep your trunk until you find out where your room is to be, and in the meantime you come to my place; then as soon as you are located we can ‘phone for it.” The girl looked at her new-found friend with eyes for all the world like a trusting collie’s, and silently followed her to the ’bus.
“My name is Molly Brown, of Kentucky. Please tell me yours.”
“Kaintucky? Oh, I might have known it. I am Melissa Hathaway, and am pleased to make your acquaintance, Molly Brown of Kaintucky. I come from near Catlettsburg, Kaintucky, myself.”
“Well, we are from the same state and must be friends, mustn’t we?”
There were many curious glances cast at Molly’s new friend, but the giggling at her strange clothes had stopped and the spell of her countenance had in a measure taken hold of the girls. Molly spoke to many friends, but she missed her intimates and wondered where Nance was, and if any of the others were coming back for the postgraduate course. At the thought of Nance she smiled, knowing just how she would take her befriending this mountain girl. She would be cold at first and perhaps a bit scornful in her ladylike way, and end by being as good as gold to her, and perhaps even making her some proper clothes.
The door at No. 5 Quadrangle was ajar and Molly could see Nance flitting back and forth getting things to rights. What a busy soul she was and how good it was to know she was already there! The girls were soon locked in each other’s arms, so overjoyed to be together again that Molly for a moment forgot her guest; and Nance did not see her as she stood in the doorway, a silent witness to the enthusiastic meeting of the chums.
“Oh, Melissa, what am I thinking of, leaving you standing there so long? You must excuse me. Nance Oldham and I always behave this way when we get back in the fall; and now I want to introduce you two. Miss Oldham, this is my new friend, Miss Hathaway, also of Kentucky.”
Nance shook hands with the quaint-looking new friend and awaited an explanation, which she knew would be forthcoming from Molly as soon as she could get a chance. Melissa was quiet and composed, taking in everything in the room. Her eyes lingered hungrily on the books that Nance had already arranged on the shelves, and then rested in a kind of trance on the pictures that Nance had unpacked and hung.
“Nance, I have some biscuit and fudge in my grip, if you could scare up some tea. I am awfully hungry, and I fancy Miss Hathaway could eat a little something before we go to look up the president. She does not know where her room is to be, and I asked her to come with us until she is located.”
“You are very kind to me, and your treating me so well makes me feel as though I were back in the mountains. We-uns – I mean we always try to be good to strangers, back where I come from.”
Nance was drawn to the girl as Molly had been.
“She knows how to sit still, and waits until she has something to say before she says anything,” thought the analytical Nance. “I believe I am going to like Molly’s ‘lame duck’ this time; and, goodness me, how beautiful she is!”
Melissa was glad to get her tea, having been in a day coach all night with nothing but a cold lunch to keep body and soul together until she got to Wellington. Nance noticed that she knew how to hold her cup properly and ate like a lady; her English, too, was good as a rule, with occasional lapses into the mountain vernacular. The girls were curious about her, but did not like to question her, and she said nothing about herself.
Tea over, they went to call on the president, leaving Nance to go on with her “feminine touches,” as Judy used to call her arrangements.
Miss Walker was very glad to see Molly, kissing her fondly and calling her “Molly.” “It is good, indeed, to have you back. Every Wellington girl who comes back for the postgraduate course gives me a compliment better than a gift of jewels. And this is Miss Melissa Hathaway? I have been expecting you, and to think that you should have fallen to the care of Molly Brown on your very first day at college! You are to be congratulated, Miss Hathaway. Molly Brown’s friendship keeps one from all harm, like the kiss of a good fairy on one’s brow. Molly, if you will excuse me, I shall take Miss Hathaway into my office first and have a talk with her and shall see you later.”
Molly was blushing with pleasure over the praise from Prexy, and was glad to sit in the quiet room awaiting her turn.
Melissa was closeted for some time with the president, and in the meantime the waiting-room began to fill with students, some of them newcomers tremblingly awaiting the ordeal of an interview with the august head of Wellington; others, like Molly, looking forward with pleasure to a chat with an old friend. Melissa came back alone with a message for Molly to come in to Miss Walker, and told her that she was to wait, as the president wished Molly to show the stranger her room.
“Molly Brown, how did you happen to be the one to look after this girl? It seems providential.”
“Well, Mr. Murphy attributes it to himself, and declares it is the direct answer to his prayers,” laughed Molly, and told Miss Walker of the little calf trunk and the old baggage master’s sentimentality about it.
“I am going to read you part of a letter concerning Melissa Hathaway, and that will explain her and her being at Wellington better than any words of mine. This letter is from an old graduate, a splendid woman who has for years been doing a kind of social settlement work in the mountains of Virginia and Kentucky.
“‘I am sending you the first ripe fruit from the orchard that I planted at least ten years ago in this mountain soil. You must not think it is a century plant I am tending. I gather flowers every day that fully repay me for my labor here, but, alas, flowers do not always come to fruit. Melissa Hathaway is without doubt one of the most remarkable young women I have ever known, and has repaid me for the infinite pains I have taken with her, and will repay every one by being a success. She comes from surroundings that the people of cities could hardly dream of, in spite of the slums that are, of course, worse because of their crowded condition and lack of air. But in these mountain cabins you find a desolation and ignorance that is appalling, but at the same time a rectitude and intelligence that astonish you; and unbounded hospitality.
“‘A generation ago the Hathaways were rather well-to-do, for the mountains; that is, they owned a cow and some hogs and chickens and did not sleep in the kitchen, but had a second room and some twenty beautiful home-made quilts. A feud wiped almost the whole family off the face of the earth. Melissa’s father, grandfather and three uncles were killed in a raid by their mortal enemies, the Sydneys, and the grandmother and Melissa were the only ones left to tell the tale. (Her young mother died in giving birth to Melissa.) Melissa was eight years old at the time of the wholesale tragedy, which occurred a few days before I came here to take up my life work. I went to old Mrs. Hathaway’s cabin as soon as I could make my way across the mountain. The old woman received me with dignity and reserve, but some suspicion. I asked her to let Melissa come to school. She was rather eager for her to learn, since she was nothing but a miserable girl. She was bitter on the subject of Melissa’s sex. “Ter think of my bringing forth man-child after man-child, and here in my old age not a thing but this puny little gal ter look to, ter shoot down those dogs of Sydneys!”
“‘This child of eight (Melissa is now eighteen, but looks older), came to school every day rain or shine, walking three miles over the worst trail you have ever imagined. Her eagerness for knowledge was something pathetic. I realized from the beginning that she had a very remarkable intellect and gave her every chance for cultivation and preparation for college, determined that my Alma Mater should have the final hand in her education if it could be managed. And now, managed it is by a scholarship presented to my now flourishing school by the Mountain Educational Association. I am sorry her clothes are not quite what my beautiful Melissa should have, but she would not accept a penny for clothes from any of the funds that I sometimes have at my disposal. “Money for my education is different,” she said. “I mean to bring all of that back to the mountains and give it to my people, but I cannot let any one spend money on clothes for me. They would burn my back unless I earned them myself.” She was that way from the time she first came to me. I remember she had a green skirt and an old black basque of her grandmother’s, belted in on her slim little figure. I wanted all of my pupils to have a change of clothing, as from the first I was trying to teach cleanliness and hygiene along with the three R’s. I asked the children one day to let me know if they had two of everything. Melissa stood up and proudly raised her hand. “Please, Miss Teacher, we’uns is got two dresses; one ain’t got no waist and one ain’t got no skirt, but they is two dresses.”
“‘I know that my dear Miss Walker will do her best to place my girl where she can make some friends and not get too homesick for her mountains. I wish she had clothes more like other people, but, since she is what she is, I fancy the clothes in the long run will not make much difference.’
“That is all of interest to you,” concluded Miss Walker. “Miss Hathaway is, to say the least, a very remarkable young woman. Her entrance examination was unconditioned. And now to get her into a suitable room! I had expected to put her in one over the postoffice, but she would be so isolated there. I wish she could have the singleton near you in the Quadrangle. I, too, have some funds at my disposal that would enable me to give her one of these more expensive rooms, but do you think she would accept it?”
Molly, rather amused at being asked by Prexy herself to decide what to do with this proud girl, smilingly answered, “I am proud myself, but lots of things have been done for me without my knowing about it, and when I do find out I am not hurt but pleased to feel that my friends want to help me. I can’t remember being insulted yet.”
