Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days
“Oh, what don’t we see when we haven’t got a gun! I’d give anything for a piece of charcoal and some paper.”
“I don’t know all of this song, but I shall sing all I do. I learned it from my grandmother, and she learned it from hers. This is all Granny knows, but she says her grandmother had many more verses,” said Melissa as Molly struck the opening chords of the accompaniment.
“So she dressed herself in scarlet red,
And she dressed her maid in green,
And every town that they went through
They took her to be some queen, queen, queen,
They took her to be some queen.
“‘Lord Ronald, Lord Ronald, is this your bride
That seems so plaguey brown?
And you might have married as fair skinned a girl
As ever the sun shone on, on, on,
As ever the sun shone on.’
“The little brown girl, she had a penknife,
It was both long and sharp;
She stuck it in fair Eleanor’s side
And it entered at the heart, heart, heart,
It entered at the heart.
“Lord Ronald, he took her by her little brown hand
And led her across the hall;
And with his sword cut off her head,
And kicked it against the wall, wall, wall,
And kicked it against the wall.
“‘Mother, dear mother, come dig my grave;
Dig it both wide and deep.
By my side fair Eleanor put,
And the little brown girl at my feet, feet, feet,
And the little brown girl at my feet.’”
As the beautiful girl finished the plaintive air there was absolute stillness for a few seconds. The audience was too deeply moved to speak. Melissa’s voice was sweet and full and came with no more effort than the song of the mocking bird heard in her own valleys at dawn. She took high note or low with the same ease that she had stooped and lifted her little hair trunk at Wellington station.
The song in itself was very remarkable, being one of the few original ballads evidently brought to America by an early settler, and handed down from mother to daughter through the centuries. Edwin Green recognized it, and noted the changes from the original from time to time. Richard Blount was the first to find his tongue, although he was the one most deeply moved by the performance.
“My, that was fine!” was all he could say, but he broke the spell of silence, and there was a storm of applause. Melissa bowed and smiled, pleased that she met with their approval, but with no airs or affectation.
“She has the stage manner of a great artist who is above caring for what the gallery thinks, but has sung for Art’s sake, and, as an artist, knows her work is good,” said Richard to Professor Green. “Miss Hathaway, you will sing again for us, please. I can’t remember having such a treat as you have just given us, and I have been to every opera in New York for six years.”
The demand was general, so Melissa graciously complied. This time she gave “The Mistletoe Bough.”
“The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
And the holly branch shone on the old oak wall;
And all within were blithe and gay,
Keeping their Christmas holiday.
Oh, the mistletoe bough,
Oh, the mistletoe bough.”
And so on, through the many stanzas of the fine old ballad, telling of the bride who cried, “I’ll hide, I’ll hide,” and then of the search and how they never found the beautiful bride until years had passed away, and then, on opening the old chest in the attic, her bones were discovered and the wedding veil.
When the applause subsided, Miss Grace asked Richard Blount to sing.
“I’ll do it, Cousin Grace, but I have never felt more modest about my little accomplishments. Miss Hathaway has taken all the wind out of my sails. I am going to sing a little thing that I clipped out of a newspaper and put to music. ‘It is a poor thing, but mine own.’ I think it is appropriate for this party, and hope you will agree with me.”
“Now, Dicky, you know we love your singing, and because Miss Hathaway has charmed us is no reason why you cannot charm us all over. Caruso can sing, as well as Sembrich,” said Miss Grace.
Richard Blount had a good baritone voice, and sang with a great deal of taste; and he played on the piano with real genius. With a few brilliant runs he settled down to the simple, sweet air he had composed for the little bit of fugitive verse, and then began to sing:
“The holly is a soldier bold,
Arrayed in tunic green,
His slender sword is never sheathed,
But always bared and keen.
He stands amid the winter snows
A sentry in the wood, —
The scarlet berries on his boughs
Are drops of frozen blood.
“The mistletoe’s a maiden fair,
Enchanted by the oak,
Who holds her in his hoary arms,
And hides her in his cloak.
She knows her soldier lover waits
Among the leafless trees,
And, weeping in the bitter cold,
Her tears to jewels freeze.
“But at the holy Christmas-tide,
Blessed time of all the year,
The evil spirits lose their power,
And angels reappear.
They meet beside some friendly hearth,
While softly falls the snow —
The soldier Holly and his bride,
The mystic Mistletoe.”
Richard had been delighted by Melissa’s performance, and now she returned the compliment by being so carried away by his singing and the song that she forgot all shyness and reserve and openly congratulated him, praising his music with so much real appreciation and fervor that the young man was persuaded to sing again. He sang the beautiful Indian song of Cadman’s, “The Moon Hangs Low,” and was beginning the opening chords to “The Land of Sky-blue Water,” when there came a sharp ringing of the bell, followed by some confusion in the hall as the door was opened and a gust of wind blew in the fast falling snow. Then a man’s voice was heard inquiring for Professor Green.
CHAPTER VI. – MORE SURPRISES
“Whose voice is that?” exclaimed Molly and Judy in unison; and without waiting to be answered they rushed into the hall to find Kent Brown being warmly greeted by Professor Green. Before he had time to shake the snow from his broad shoulders, Molly seized him and he seized Judy, and they had a good old three-cornered Christmas hug.
“Did you get my note tied to the mistletoe?”
“Yes, you goose; but we did not know you were really coming. I thought you were speaking in parables,” said Molly, but Judy only blushed.
“Well, it is powerful fine to get here. My train is four hours late.”
“I know you are tired and hungry,” said Miss Green, who was as cordial as her brother in her reception of the young Kentuckian. “But where is your grip, Mr. Brown?”
“Oh, I left it at the inn in the village. I could not think of piling in on you in this way without any warning.”
“Well, Edwin will ‘phone for it immediately. You Southern people think you are the only ones who can put yourselves out for guests. It would be a pretty thing for one of Mrs. Brown’s sons to be in Wellington and not at our house.”
So Kent was taken into the Greens’ house with as much cordiality and hospitality as Chatsworth itself could have shown. The odor of coffee soon began to invade the hall and parlors, and in a little while the dining-room doors were thrown open and the feasting began. Miss Green was an excellent housekeeper, and knew how to cater to young people’s tastes as well as Mrs. Brown herself, so the food was plentiful and delicious. Molly noticed with a smile that some of the precious ham was smuggled to the plates of Dr. and Mrs. McLean and Mr. Oldham, where it was duly appreciated, and that later on the favored three were regaled with slices of the fruit cake.
Kent found a cozy seat for Judy by the hall fire, and soon joined her with trays of supper.
“Oh, Miss Judy, it has been years since last July. I have worked as hard as a man could, hoping to make the time fly, but it hasn’t done much good, – except that it made my firm suggest that I let up for a few days at Christmas, and here I am! I am working awfully hard trying to learn to do water coloring of the architectural drawings. I wish I had you to help me, you are so clever. I am hoping to get to New York or Paris some day to learn the tricks of the trade, but in the meantime there are lots of things to learn in Louisville; and I am getting more money for my work than I did. Did Molly give you my message tied to the mistletoe?”
“Yes, Kent.”
“Will you wait? I was speaking in parables. I think somehow that I must arrive a little more, before I can catch you under the mistletoe; and you must do your work, too. Oh, Judy, it is hard to be so wise and circumspect! But will you wait?”
“Yes, Kent. I am working hard, too, harder than I have ever worked in my life. I was terribly disappointed when papa would not let me go to Paris this winter, but insisted on the year of hard drawing in New York, to test myself and find myself, as it were, and I have been determined to make good. I am drawing all the time, and you know that is virtuous when I am simply demented on the subject of color. I let myself work in color on Saturday in Central Park, but the rest of the time it is charcoal from the antique or from life, with classes in composition and design. There is no use in talking about being a decorator if you can’t draw. I hope to be in Paris next year, and then I shall reap my reward and simply wallow in color.”
When supper was over, they were all called on to stand up for the Virginia Reel, which Mrs. McLean played with such spirit that Mr. Oldham and Dr. McLean could not keep their feet still; and before the astonished eyes of Edwin Green and Andy McLean, who had other plans, Mr. Oldham seized Molly and Dr. McLean Nance, and they danced down the middle and back again with as much spirit as they had ever shown in their youth.
“It takes the old timers to dance the old dances, hey, Mr. Oldham?” said the panting doctor as he came up the middle smiling and cutting pigeon wings, while Nance arose to the occasion and “chasseed” to his steps like any belle of the sixties. Even Miss Alice Fern forgot her dignity and romped, but she was very gay, as Edwin had sought her out when Molly danced off with Mr. Oldham. He had remembered that he had been rather remiss in his attentions to his fair cousin.
How they did dance! – and all of the extra men danced with each other, so there were no wall flowers. Richard Blount claimed Melissa as a partner, and they delighted the crowd by singing as they danced a song that Melissa had taught Richard, as she told him of some of the mountain dance games, the words fitting themselves to Mrs. McLean’s lively tunes.
“‘Old man, old man, let me have your daughter?’
‘Yes, young man, for a dollar and a quarter.
Pick up her duds and pitch ’em up behind her.’
‘Here’s your money, old man, I’ve got your daughter.’”
After the dance they drew around the open fire in the hall and roasted chestnuts and popped corn and told stories, and had a very merry old-fashioned time capping quotations. And finally the one thing wanting, as Molly thought, came to pass, and Professor Green read Dickens’ Christmas Carol just as he had three years before, when he and his sister gave Molly the surprise party at Queen’s in her Sophomore year.
“At the risk of making myself verra unpopular, I am afraid I shall have to say it is time for all of us to be in bed,” said Mrs. McLean, when the professor closed the worn old copy of Dickens.
“Oh, not ’til we have had a little more dancing, please, dear Mrs. McLean,” came in a chorus from the young people; and Professor Green told her that it would be a pity to throw Dodo back on a rocking chair for a partner before he had had a little more practice with flesh and blood. So up they all sprang, and with Miss Grace at the piano, to relieve the good-natured Mrs. McLean, who had thrummed her fingers sore, off they went into more waltzes and two-steps, even the shy Melissa dancing with Richard Blount as though she had been at balls every night of her life. Otoyo and Mr. Seshu hopped around together as though “step-twoing” and “dance-rounding” were the national dances of Japan.
And so ended the delightful surprise party. Before they departed, Dr. McLean drew his wife under the mistletoe and kissed her.
“Just to show you bashful young fellows how it is done,” said the jovial doctor.
“And I will give the lassies a lesson in how to accept such public demonstration,” said his blushing wife, and she suited the action to the word by giving him a playful slap, whereupon he kissed her again, but instead of another slap she hugged him in return, and there was a general laugh.
“I did that just to show the indignant lassies that they must not hold with their anger too long. A kiss under the mistletoe has never yet been offered as an insult, and the forward miss is not the one to get the kiss.”
CHAPTER VII. – DREAMS AND REALITIES
The holidays were all too soon over. Much feasting went on, what with Molly’s big turkey and her fruit cake and Rosemary pickles; and the invitations to Mrs. McLean’s and Miss Walker’s; and Otoyo’s Japanese spread, where she and Melissa charmed the company with the beautifully arranged rooms and the dainty, delicious refreshments. Mr. Seshu, throughout, was very attentive to his little countrywoman, and the girls decided that he was in love with her just like any ordinary American might be.
“I am so glad it is coming about this way,” said Molly. “Just think how hard it might have been for our little Otoyo, now that she has been in this country long enough to see how we do such things, had she been compelled, by filial feeling, to marry some one whom she did not love and who did not love her. I think she is all over the sentimental attachment she used to have for the unconscious Andy, don’t you, Nance?”
“I fancy she is,” said the far from unconscious Nance, who always had a heightened color when young Andy’s name got into the conversation. “I don’t think she ever really cared for Andy. He was just the first and only young man who was ever nice to her, and it went to her head. Andy is so kind and good natured.”
“You forget Professor Green. He was always careful and attentive, and Otoyo would chatter like a magpie with him.”
“Oh, but he is so much older!” And then Nance wished she had bitten out her tongue, as Molly looked hurt and sad.
“Professor Green is not so terribly old! I think he is much more agreeable than callow youths who have no conversation beyond their own affairs.”
“Now, Molly Brown, I didn’t mean to say a thing to hurt your feelings or to imply that Professor Green was anything but perfection. He is not too old for y – us, I mean; but Otoyo is like a child.”
“I am ashamed of myself, Nance, but I do get kind of tired of everybody’s taking the stand that Professor Green is so old. He is the best man friend I ever had, and – and – ” But Nance kissed her fondly, and she did not have to go on with her sentence, which was lucky, as she did not know how she was going to finish it without committing herself.
Kent had to fly back to Louisville to work at his chosen profession and try to learn how to do water color renderings of the architectural elevations; Judy back to New York to dig at her charcoal drawings and dream of swimming in color, with Kent striking out beside her; Dodo again at Johns Hopkins, learning much about medicine and how to “turkey trot” with a broken sofa; young Andy and Mr. Seshu at Harvard, studying the laws of their country, for was not Mr. Seshu fast becoming an American? They had their dreams, too, these two young men. Andy was looking forward to the day when he would not have to stop talking to Nance just at the most interesting turn of the argument, but could stay right along with her forever and ever, – and sure he was that they would never talk out! Mr. Seshu’s dreams – but, after all, what do we know of his dreams? Certain we are that he looked favorably on the little Miss Sen, and that honorable Father Sen and honorable Father Seshu had a long and satisfactory talk in the shop in Boston with the beautiful Japanese prints hanging all around them, representing in themselves money enough to make the prospective young couple very wealthy.
Mr. Oldham went back to Vermont, also dreaming that the day might come when his little Nance would keep house for him, and he could leave the hated boarding house, and have a real home. Richard Blount returned to New York, dreaming, too, and his dream was of the beautiful mountain girl with the dignity and poise of a queen, eyes like the clear brown pools of autumn and a purposeful look on her young face that showed even a casual observer that she had a mission in life.
Mid-year examinations came and went. Melissa and Otoyo came through without a scratch, which made Molly rejoice as though it had been her own ordeal.
Domestic Science grew more thrilling; so interesting, indeed, that Molly could not decide for a whole day whether she would rather be a scientific cook or a great literary success. But a note from a magazine editor accepting her “Basket Funeral” and asking for more similar stories decided her in favor of literature. And on the same day, too, Professor Edwin Green said to her, “Please, Miss Molly, don’t learn how to cook so well that you forget how to make popovers. I am afraid all of these scientific rules you are learning will upset the natural-born knowledge that you already possess, and your spontaneous genius will be choked by an academic style of cooking that would be truly deplorable.”
Molly laughingly confided in the professor that she would not give one of Aunt Mary’s hot turnovers for all of Miss Morse’s scientifically made bread.
“I know her bread is perfect, but it lacks a certain taste and life, and is to the real thing what a marble statue is to flesh and blood. Judy described it, in speaking of the food at a lunchroom for self-supporting women that she occasionally goes to in New York, as being ‘too chaste.’”
“That is exactly it, too chaste,” agreed Professor Green.
“Of course, cooking is a small part of what we learn in Domestic Science, – food values, economic housekeeping, etc. It really is a very broad and far-reaching science.”
They were in the professor’s study, where Molly had come to tell him the good news about her story, and to ask his advice concerning what other of her character sketches she should send to the magazine. She was wearing her cap and gown, as she was just returning from a formal college function. When the young man greeted her, he had quickly rolled up something, looking a little shamefaced. But as they talked, he rolled and unrolled and finally determined to show the papers to her.
“Miss Molly, Kent has sent me the plans for my bungalow that I commissioned him at Christmas to get busy on. I wonder if you would care to see them.”
“Of course I’d be charmed to, Professor Green. There is nothing in the world that is more interesting to me than plans of a house. Kent and I have been drawing them ever since we could hold pencils. Kent was the master hand at outside effects, and I was the housekeeper, who must have the proper pantry arrangements and conveniences.”
“Well, please pass on these. The outside effects seem lovely to me, but I cannot tell about the interior.”
Molly seated herself and pored over the prints, soon mastering the details with a practiced eye, noting dimensions and windows and doors.
“I think it is splendid, but do you really want my criticism?”
“I certainly do, more than any one’s.”
“Well, there is waste space here that should be put in the store room. This little passage from dining-room to kitchen is entirely unnecessary and should be incorporated in the butler’s pantry. These twin doors in the hall, one leading to the attic and one to the cellar, are no doubt very pretty, but they are not wide enough. An attic is for trunks, and how could one larger than a steamer trunk get through such a narrow door? A cellar is certainly for barrels and the like, and I am sure it would be a tug to pull a barrel through this little crack of a door. I’d allow at least nine inches more on each door, and that means a foot and a half off something. Let me see. It seems a pity to take it off of the living-room, and rather inhospitable to rob the guest chamber.
“Aunt Clay always puts the new towels in the guest chamber for the company to break in. She says company can’t kick about the slick stiffness of them, and somehow it would seem rather Aunt Clayish to take that eighteen inches off of the poor unsuspecting guests, whoever they may be.”
Molly sat a long time studying the plans, and she looked so sweet and so earnest that Edwin Green thought with regret of the tacit promise he had made Mrs. Brown: to let Molly stay a child for another year. How he longed to know his fate! How simple it would be while she was showing her interest in his little bungalow to ask her to tell him if she thought she could ever make it her little home, too! Was she the child her mother thought her? Did she think he was a “laggard in love,” and despise him for a “faint heart”? Or could it be that she thought of him only as an old and trusted friend, too ancient to contemplate as anything but a professor of literature, and, at that, one who was building a home in which to spend his rapidly declining years?
“Time will tell,” sighed the poor, conscientious young man, “but if I am letting my happiness slip through my fingers from a mistaken sense of duty, then I don’t deserve anything but ‘single blessedness’.”
“I have it!” exclaimed Molly. “Have the cellar entrance outside by the kitchen door with a gourd pergola over both, and take this inside space where the cellar door and steps were to be for a large closet in the poor guests’ room, to make up to them for coming so near to losing a foot and a half off of their room.”
“That suits me, if it suits you. Is there anything else?”
“If you won’t tell Kent it is my suggestion, I do think the bathroom door ought to open in and not out. He and I have disagreed about doors ever since we were children.
“Do you know what plan Kent is making for mother and me? He wants us to go abroad next winter. Sue is to be married to her Cyrus in June, muddy lane and all; Paul and John are in Louisville most of the time, now that Paul is on a morning paper and has to work at night, and John is building up his practice and has to be on the spot; Kent hopes to be able to take a course at the Beaux Arts next winter if he can save enough money, and that would leave no one at Chatsworth but mother and me. There is no reason why we should not go, and you know I am excited about it; and, as for mother, she says she is like our country cousin who came to the exposition in Louisville and said in a grandiloquent tone, ‘I am desirous to go elsewhere and view likewise.’ Mother and I have never traveled anywhere, and it would be splendid for us. Don’t you think so?”
“I certainly do, especially as next year is my sabbatical year of teaching, and I expect to have a holiday myself and do some traveling. I have something to dream of now, and that is to meet you and your mother in Europe and ‘go elsewhere and view likewise’ in your company!”
“Oh, Mother and I will be so glad to see you,” exclaimed Molly. “I have brought a letter from Mildred to read to you, Professor Green. It is so like Mildred and tells so much of her life in Iowa that I thought it might interest you.”
“Indeed it will. I have thought so often of that delightful young couple and the wonderful wedding in the garden.”
So Molly began:
“‘Dearest Sister: – You complain of having only second-hand letters from me and you are quite right. There is nothing more irritating than letters written to other people and handed down. Your letters should belong to you, and you only, just as much as your tooth-brush. You remember how mad it used to make Ernest to have his letters sent to Aunt Clay, and how he would put in bad words just to keep Mother from handing them on.
‘Crit and I are more and more pleased with our little home out here in this Western town (not that they call themselves Western, and on the map they are really more Eastern than Western). The people are lovely, and so neighborly and hospitable. It is a good thing for Southern people to get away from home occasionally and come to the realization that they have not got a corner on hospitality. Entertaining out here really means trouble to the hostess, as there are no servants and the ladies of the house have all the work to do; and still they entertain a great deal and do it very well, too.
‘I have never seen anything like the system the women have evolved for their work. For instance: they wash on Monday morning and have a “biled dinner.” When washing is over, they are too tired to do any more work, so they usually go calling or have club meetings or some form of amusement to rest up for Tuesday, ironing day. Wednesday, they bake. Thursday is the great day for teas and parties. Friday is thorough cleaning day, and I came very near making myself very unpopular because in my ignorance, when I first came here, I returned some calls on that fateful day. I was greeted by irate dames at every door, their heads tied up in towels and their faces very dirty. I could hardly believe they were the same elegant ladies I had met at the Thursday reception, beautifully gowned and showing no marks of toil. On Saturday they bake again and get ready for Sunday, and on Sunday no one ever thinks of staying away from church because of cooking or house work.
‘I am so glad our mother taught us how to work some, at least not to be afraid of work, but I do wish I had been as fond of the kitchen as you always were and had learned how to cook from Aunt Mary. My sole culinary accomplishment was cloudbursts, and if Crit is an angel he has to have something to go on besides cloudbursts. The restaurants and hotels here are impossible and there are no boarding houses. There are only twenty servants in the whole town and they already have a waiting list of persons who want them when the present employers are through with them, which only death or removal from the town would make possible, so you see we have to keep house. I am learning to cook, and simply adore Friday when I can tie up my head and pull the house to pieces and make the dust fly. Crit calls me a Sunbonnet Baby because I am so afraid of not keeping to the schedule set down for me by my neighbors. Crit has bought me every patent convenience on the market to make the work easy: washing machine, electric iron and toaster, fancy mop wringer, and a dust pan that can stand up by itself and let you sweep the dirt in without stooping, vacuum carpet cleaner (but no carpets as yet), window washer and dustless dusters, fireless cooker and a steamer that can cook five things at once and blows a little whistle when the water gets low in the bottom vessel. I have no excuse for not being a good cook except that I lack the genius that you have. I thought I never should learn how to make bread but I have mastered it at last and can turn out a right good loaf and really lovely turnovers.
‘Thank you so much for your hints from your Domestic Science class. I really got a lot from them. I had an awfully funny time with some bread last week. You see, having once learned how to make it, it was terribly mortifying to mix up a big batch and have it simply refuse to rise. I didn’t want Crit to see it, so I took it out in the backyard and buried it in some sand the plasterers had left there. Crit came home to dinner and went out in the yard to see if his radishes were up and came in much excited: said he had found a new mushroom growth (you remember he was always interested in mushrooms and knew all kinds of edible varieties that we had never heard of). Sure enough there was a brand new variety. That hateful old dough had come up at last! The hot sand had been too much for it and it was rising to beat the band. I was strangely unsympathetic with Crit and his mushroom cult, so he came in to dinner. As soon as Crit went back to work, I went out and covered up the disgraceful failure with a lot more sand, hammered it down well and put a chicken coop on it, determined to get rid of it; but surely murder must be like yeast and it will out. When Crit came back to supper that old leaven had found its way through the cracks under the chicken coop and a little spot was appearing to the side of the sand pile. Crit was awfully excited and began to pull off pieces to send to Washington for the Government to look into the specimens, and I had to give in and tell him the truth. He almost died laughing and decided to send some anyhow, just to see what Uncle Sam would make out of it. The report has not come yet. I have lots more things to tell you about my housekeeping but I must stop now. I am so sorry I can not come home to Sue’s wedding, but it is such an expensive trip out here that I do not see how Crit and I can manage it just now. Of course Crit could not come anyhow as the bridge would surely fall down if he were not here to hold it up, and even if we could afford it I should hate to leave him more than I can tell you. Oh, Molly, he is so precious! We have been married almost a year now and when I was cross about his mushrooms was the nearest we have ever come to a misunderstanding. That is doing pretty well for me who am a born pepper pot. It is all Crit, who is an angel, as I believe I remarked before. Please write to me all about your class reunion, and give my love to that adorable Julia Kean, and also remember me to that nice Professor Green.
‘Your ’special sister,MILDRED BROWN RUTLEDGE.’”
“What a delightful letter and how happy they are,” said the professor, fingering his roll of blue prints with a sad smile. “It was good of her to remember me. Please give her my love when you write.”
“I did not tell you quite all she said,” confessed Molly, opening the letter again and reading. “She says, ‘remember me to that nice Professor Green, who is almost as lovely as Crit,’” and Molly beat a hasty retreat.
