Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Sophomore Days
CHAPTER IX.
VESPERS
There was a pretty little Episcopal chapel in the village of Wellington, where at Vespers on Sunday afternoons the students were wont to congregate. Six Wellington girls always served as ushers and the college Glee Club formed the Chapel choir.
"It's a good thing to go to Vespers," remarked Judy one Sabbath afternoon, pinning on her large velvet hat before the mirror over the mantel, notably the most becoming mirror in the house, "not only for the welfare of our souls, but also to attire ourselves in decent clothes."
"I suspect you of thinking it's good for your soul to wear good clothes, Judy," observed Nance.
"You suspect rightly, then," answered Judy. "If I had to dress in rags, I'm afraid my soul would become a thing of shreds and patches, too, all shiny at the seams and down at the heels."
Nance laughed.
"That's a funny way to talk, considering you are about to attend Vespers at the Chapel of the good St. Francis, who took the vows of poverty and lived a roving life on the hills around Assisi."
"That's all very true," said Judy, "and I've seen the picture of him being married to Lady Poverty, but our dispositions are different, St. Francis's and mine. I like the roving over the hills part, because I'm a wanderer by nature, but I like to wander in nice clothes. My manners are getting to be regular old gray sweater manners, and if I didn't put on my velvet suit and best hat once a week there's no telling what kind of a rude creature I would become."
"Why, Julia Kean, I'm ashamed of you," cried Nance, "you've as good as confessed that you go to Vespers to show your fine clothes."
"I don't go to show 'em, goosie; I go to wear 'em. But you have no sense of humor. What's the good of telling you anything? Molly, there, understands my feelings, I am sure."
Molly was not listening. She was making calculations at her desk with a blunt pencil on a scrap of paper.
"I've got as good a sense as you have," cried Nance hotly, "only I don't approve of being humorous about sacred things."
"Nonsense," broke in Judy, "don't you know, child, that you can't limit humor? It spreads over every subject and it's not necessarily profane because it touches on clothes at church. I suppose you think there is nothing funny about the Reverend Gustavus Adolphus Larsen, and you have forgotten how you giggled that Sunday when he announced from the pulpit that his text was taken from St. Paul's 'Efistle to the Epeesians.'"
"He's always getting mixed," here put in Molly, who at certain stages in the warm discussions between Nance and Judy always sounded a pacifying note. "They do say that he was talking to Miss Walker about one of the faculty pews, and he said: 'Do you occupew this pi?'"
This was too much for Nance's severity, and she broke down and laughed gaily with the others.
"He's a funny little man," she admitted, "but he's well meaning."
"Hurry up," admonished Judy; "it's twenty minutes of four and I want to get a good seat this afternoon."
"You want to show off your new fashionable headgear, you mean, Miss Vanity," said Nance, pinning on her neat brown velvet toque and squinting at herself in the mirror.
"Oh, me," thought Molly, "I wish I had a decent garment to show off."
She had intended to buy some clothes that autumn from a purchasing agent who came several times a year to Wellington with catalogues and samples, but she had been afraid to spend any of the money she had earned because of the precarious state of the family finances.
She ran her hatpin through her old soft gray felt, which had a bright blue wing at one side, and slipped on the coat of her last winter's gray suit. Then she drew white yarn gloves over her kid ones, because she had no muff and her hands were always frozen, and stoically marched across the campus with her friends.
The Chapel was already crowded when the girls arrived. They had not heard that the Rev. Gustavus's pulpit was to be filled that afternoon by a preacher from New York. At any rate, they had to sit in the little balcony, which commanded a better view of the minister than it did of the congregation. He was a nice-looking young man, with an unaffected manner, and he preached to the packed congregation as if he were talking quietly and simply to one person; at least, it seemed so to Molly. The sermon was a short address on "Faith." It contained no impassioned eloquence nor fiery exhortations, but it impressed the students profoundly.
"Don't try to instruct God about the management of your lives," he said, "any more than you would direct a wise and kind master who employed you to work on his estate. All the Great Master asks of you is to work well and honestly. The reward is sure to come. You cannot hurry it and you cannot make it greater than you deserve. It is useless to struggle and rage inwardly. Is not that being rather like a spoiled child, who lies on the floor and kicks and screams because his mother won't give him any more cake? Just put your affairs in the hands of God and go quietly along, doing the best you can. All of a sudden the conditions you once struggled against will cease to exist, and before you have realized it, the thing you asked for is yours."
Lots of people, the minister said, prayed a great deal without believing that their prayers would be heard. It reminded him of a little anecdote.
"One Sunday morning during a terrible drought a country preacher knelt in the midst of his family at home and prayed earnestly for rain. When it was time to start for church, the minister noticed that his little daughter was carrying an umbrella.
"'Why do you take an umbrella, my child?' he asked, glancing at the cloudless sky.
"'Didn't you just pray for rain, father?' she answered.
"All the learning of the ages is not greater than the simple faith of a little child," finished the young preacher.
And now the sermon was over and the girls were chatting in groups outside the Chapel, or strolling along the sidewalk arm in arm. Molly had withdrawn from her companions for a moment and was standing alone in a corner of the vestibule.
"I'm afraid I've been acting just like the little child who threw himself on the floor and kicked and screamed for more cake," she was thinking. "I suppose another year at college is just like a nice big hunk of chocolate cake and it wouldn't be good for mental digestion. I might as well stop struggling and begin to cram mathematics. That's the hardest thing I have, and I ought to get in as much of it as I can before I go."
"Perhaps you won't have to go at all," spoke another voice in her mind.
But Molly couldn't see it that way. Other letters from her mother had made it clear to her that no more money could be raised. There was a good place waiting for her to step into, however, in a small private school made up of children who lived in the neighborhood. She could come home after the mid-year examinations when the present teacher in the school was planning to be married.
"Oh, Miss Brown," someone said. Molly looked up quickly. It was President Walker. "Will you walk along with me? I had a letter from your mother last night and I want to speak to you about it."
The President was a very democratic and motherly woman who not only guided the affairs of the college with a wise hand, but kept in personal touch with her girls, and it was not unusual to see her walking home from Vespers with several students. This time, however, she took Molly's arm and led her down the village street without asking any of the others to join her.
The young girl was very sensible of the honor paid her, thus singled out by the President to walk back to college. She felt a shy pleasure in the sensation they created as the crowd of students parted to let them pass.
"I am very, very sorry to receive this news from your mother, Miss Brown," began the President. "I suppose you know what it is?"
"You mean about leaving college, Miss Walker?"
"Yes. It's really a great distress to me to think that one of my Queen's girls especially must give up in the middle of her course. Instead of listening to that young man at Vespers, I was thinking and thinking about this unwelcome news."
Molly smiled. She had managed to listen to the preaching and to think about her affairs at the same time, because they somehow seemed to fit together. Once she almost felt that perhaps he knew all about her case and was preaching to her. But, of course, everybody had problems and lots of the girls thought the same thing, no doubt, – Madeleine Petit, for instance.
"Is there no possible way it could be arranged?" went on the President. "Is this decision of your mother's final?"
Evidently Mrs. Brown had not explained why Molly was obliged to come home.
"Oh, she didn't decide it," answered the young girl, quickly. "It's because – because the money's gone – lost."
"I suspected it was something of that sort," went on the President. "Now, there is a way, Miss Brown, by which you could remain if you would be willing to leave Queen's Cottage. I am in charge of a Student Fund for just such cases as yours. This provides for tuition and board, – not on the campus, but in the village. You're making something now tutoring the little Japanese girl, I understand. That's good. That will help along. You will have to manufacture some excuse to your friends about leaving Queen's. Otherwise, the fund arrangement may remain a secret between you and me."
Miss Walker pressed the girl's hand and smiled kindly as she searched her face for some sign of gladness and relief at this offer.
Molly tried to smile back.
"We'll leave everything as it is until the end of this semester," continued the President.
"Thank you very, very much," Molly said, making a great effort to keep her voice from sounding shaky.
Leave Queen's! Was it possible the President didn't know that life at Queen's was the best part of college to her? Would there be any pleasure left if she had to tear herself away from her beloved chums and take up quarters in the village, living on a charity fund?
When she separated from Miss Walker at the McLeans' front door, she was so filled with inward lamentations and weeping that she could scarcely say good-night to the President, who looked somewhat puzzled at the girl's still pale face.
Rushing back to Queen's, Molly flung herself through the front door and tore upstairs. On the landing she bumped into Judith Blount, who gave her a sullen, angry look.
"Please be careful next time and don't take up the whole stairs," exclaimed that young woman rudely.
Molly glanced at her wildly. What right had she to talk, this wretch of a girl who could remain at Queen's and live on other people's money? Oh, oh, oh! Misery of miseries! She rushed up the second flight. She was having what Judy called "the dry weeps." At the door of Otoyo's room she paused. It was half open and the little Japanese was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a lamp beside her, studying.
"May I come in?"
"With much gladness," answered Otoyo, rising and bowing ceremoniously.
"I want to stay in here a little while, Otoyo, away from other people. May I sit here by the window in this big chair? Go on with your lessons. I don't want to talk. I wanted to be with someone who was quite quiet. I should have been obliged to hide in a closet if you hadn't let me in."
"I am very happily glad you came to me," said Otoyo.
She helped Molly off with her coat and hat, pulled out the Morris chair so that it faced the window and sat down again quietly with her book.
At the end of three-quarters of an hour, Otoyo began to move noiselessly about the room. Molly was still sitting in the big arm-chair, her hands clasped in her lap. Presently she became aware that Otoyo was standing silently before her bearing a lacquer tray on which was a cup of tea and a rice cake.
"Otoyo, you sweet, little dear," she said, placing the tray on the arm of the chair. She gulped down the tea and ate the cake, and while the small hostess made another cupful, Molly continued: "Otoyo, I'm going to let God manage my affairs hereafter. I'm not going to lie on the floor any more and kick and scream like a spoiled child for another piece of chocolate cake. I shall always carry an umbrella now when I pray for rain, and I mean to begin to-night to polish up in math."
"I am happily glad," said Otoyo, giving her a gentle, sympathetic smile.
CHAPTER X.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
There was no happier girl in Wellington one morning than Nance Oldham, and all because she had been invited to the Thanksgiving dance at Exmoor College. Nance had never been to a real dance in her life, except a "shirtwaist" party at the seashore, where she had been a hopeless wallflower because she had known only one man in the room – her father. Now, there was no chance of being a wallflower at Exmoor, where a girl's card was made out beforehand, and she had that warm glow of predestined success from the very beginning of the festivity.
Molly and Judy were also invited and the girls were to go over to Exmoor on the 6.45 trolley with Dr. and Mrs. McLean and return on the 10.45 trolley, permission having been granted them to stay up until midnight. Three other Wellington girls were bound for the dance on the same car. A young teacher chaperoned this little company, of which Judith Blount was one.
"I wonder that Judith Blount can make up her mind to go to a dance," Judy Kean remarked to Molly. "She's been in such a sullen rage for so long, she's turned quite yellow. I don't think she will enjoy it."
"It will do her good," answered Molly. "Dancing always makes people forget their troubles. Just trying to be graceful puts one in a good humor."
"The scientific reason is, child, that it stirs up one's circulation."
"And brooding is bad for the circulation," added Molly.
It had been a very gloomy holiday, the skies black and lowering and a dead, warm wind from the south. But there had been no sign of rain, and now, as they alighted from the car at Exmoor station, they noticed that the wind had shifted slightly to the east and freshened. The great blanket of frowning black had broken, and a myriad of small clouds were flying across the face of the moon like a flock of frightened sheep. Molly shivered. She had often called herself a human barometer and her spirits were apt to shift with the wind.
"The wind has changed," she observed to the doctor. "I feel it in my bones."
"Correct," said the doctor, scanning the heavens critically. "There's no flavoring extract so strong as a drop of East wind. Let us hope it will hold back a bit until after the shindig."
With all its penetrating qualities, however, the drop of East wind did not affect the air in the beautiful old dining hall of Exmoor, used always for the larger entertainments. Its polished hardwood floor and paneled walls, its two great open fireplaces, in which immense back logs glowed cheerfully, made a picture that drove away all memory of bad weather.
Then the music struck up. The dancers whirled and circled. Nance was in a seventh heaven. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone, and she seemed to float over the floor guided by the steady hand of young Andy; while his father looked on and smiled laconically.
"Every laddie maun hae his lassie," he observed to his wife, "and it's gude luck for him when he draws a plain one with a bonnie brown eye."
"She's not plain," objected Mrs. McLean.
"She has no furbelows in face nor dress that I can see," answered the doctor.
"They're just a boy and a girl, Andrew. Don't be anticipating. There's no telling how often they may change off before the settling time comes."
"And was it your ainsel' that changed so often?" asked the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Nay, nay, laddie," she protested, leaning on the doctor's arm affectionately, "but those were steadier days, I'm thinking."
"There's not so muckle change," said the doctor, "when it comes to sweethearting."
Many old-fashioned dances were introduced that night: the cottage lancers, and Sir Roger de Coverly, led off by the doctor and his wife, whose old-world curtseys were very amusing to the young dancers.
And while the fun waxed fast and furious indoors, outside queer things were happening. The South wind, gently and insistently battling with the East wind, had conquered him for the moment. All the little clouds that had been scuttling across the heavens before the East wind's icy breath, now melted together into a tumbled, fleecy mass. Snowflakes were falling, softly and silently, clothing the campus and fields, the valleys and hills beyond in a blanket of white. Then the angry East wind returned from his lair with a new weapon: a drenching sheet of cold, penetrating rain, which changed to drops of ice as it fell and tapped on the high windows of the dining hall a warning rat-tat-tat quite drowned in the strains of music. The South wind, conquered and crushed, crept away and the East wind, summoning his brother from the North to share the fun, played a trick on the world which people in that part of the country will not soon forget. Together they covered the soft, white blanket with a sheet of ice as hard and slippery as plate glass. At last, having enjoyed themselves immensely, they retired. Out came the moon again, shining in the frozen stillness, like a great round lantern.
In the meantime, the dance went on and joy was unconfined. Nobody had the faintest inkling of the drama which had been acted between the East and the South winds.
Most unconscious of all was Molly, who, having danced herself into a state of exuberant spirits, sat down to rest with Lawrence Upton in an ingle-nook of one of the big fireplaces. As chance would have it, they were joined by Judith Blount and a very dull young man, who, Lawrence informed Molly, had more money than brains. Judith had not noticed Molly at first. Probably she would never have chosen that particular spot if she had. But the destinies of these two girls had been ordained to touch at intervals in their lives and whenever the meeting occurred something unfortunate always happened. They were exactly like two fluids which would not mix comfortably together. There was a general movement of partners for supper at this juncture and the two girls found themselves alone for the moment while their escorts departed for coffee and sandwiches.
"Are you having a good time?" Molly asked, glancing at Judith timidly.
She would have preferred to have said nothing whatever, but she had made a compact with herself to try and overcome her dislike for this girl whom she had distrusted from the moment of their first meeting at the railroad station when Mr. Murphy had given Molly's baggage check preference.
"Did I appear to be a wallflower?" demanded Judith insolently.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Molly. "I didn't mean that of course."
Then she sighed and turned toward the fire with a trembly, unnerved feeling.
"I don't believe I'll ever get used to having people cross to me," she thought. "It always frightens me. I suppose I'm too sensitive." She began to shiver slightly. "The wind is surely in the East now," she added to herself.
When the young men came back bearing each a tray with supper for two, she was grateful for the cup of steaming coffee.
"Will you hold this for a minute, Miss Molly," asked Lawrence Upton, "while I get a chair to rest it on? Lap tables are about as unsteady as tables on shipboard."
Judith's partner had followed Lawrence's example, and presently the two students were seen hurrying through the throng, each pushing a chair in front of him. By some strange fatality, history was to repeat itself. Just as he reached the girls, the young person who had more money than brains slipped on a fragment of buttered bread which had fallen off somebody's plate, skidded along, bumped his chair into Lawrence, who lost his balance and fell against poor Molly's tray. Then, oh, dreadful calamity! over went the cup of coffee straight onto Judith's yellow satin frock.
Molly could have sunk into the floor with the misery of that moment, and yet she had not in the least been the cause of the accident. It was the small-brained rich individual who was to blame. But Judith was not in any condition to reckon with original causes. Molly had been carrying the tray with the coffee cups and that was enough for her. She leapt to her feet, shaking her drenched dress and scattering drops of coffee in every direction.
"You awkward, clumsy creature!" she cried, stamping her foot as she faced Molly. "Why do you ever touch a coffee cup? Are you always going to upset coffee on me and my family? You have ruined my dress. You did it on purpose. I saw you were very angry a moment ago and you did it for revenge."
Molly shrank back in her seat, her face turning from crimson to white and back to crimson again.
"Don't answer her," said a small voice in her mind. "Be silent! Be silent!"
"But, Miss Blount," began her supper partner, feeling vaguely that justice must be done, "I stumbled, don't you know? Awfully awkward of me, of course, but I slipped on an infernal piece of banana peel or something and fell against Upton. Hope your gown isn't ruined."
"It is ruined," cried Judith, her face transformed with rage. "It's utterly ruined and she did it. It isn't the first time she's flung coffee cups around. Last winter she ruined my cousin's new suit of clothes. She's the most careless, awkward, clumsy creature I ever saw. I – "
A curious little group had gathered over near the fireplace, but Judith was too angry to care who heard what she was saying. In the meantime, Lawrence Upton had taken his stand between Judith and Molly, feeling somehow that he might protect poor Molly from the onslaught. Presently he took her hand and drew it through his arm.
"Suppose we join the McLeans," he said. "I see they are having supper all together over there." As they turned to leave, he said to Judith in a cold, even voice that seemed to bring her back to her senses:
"I upset the coffee. Blanchard fell against me and joggled my arm. If there is any reparation I can make, I shall be glad to do it."
Whereupon, Judith departed to the dressing room and was not seen again until it was time to leave.
"What a tiger-cat she is!" whispered Lawrence to Molly, as he led her across the room.
Molly did not answer. She was afraid to trust her voice just then, and still more afraid of what she might say if she dared speak.
"What was all that rumpus over there?" demanded Judy when the young people had joined their friends.
"Oh, just a little volcanic activity on the part of Mount Ætna and a good deal of slinging of hot lava. Miss Molly and I are refugees from the eruption, and Mount Ætna has gone upstairs."
"You mean Miss Ætna Blount?" asked Judy.
"The same," said Lawrence.
When it was time for the Wellington party to catch the trolley car home, they emerged from the warm, cheerful dining hall into a world of dazzling whiteness. The trees were clothed in it, and the ground was covered with a crust of ice as hard and shining as marble.
A path of ashes was sprinkled before them, so that they walked safely as far as the station.
"Heaven help us at the other end," Mrs. McLean exclaimed, clinging to the doctor's arm.
The car was late in arriving at Exmoor station. At last it hove into sight, moving at a hesitating gait along the slippery rails. But it had a comfortably warm interior and they were glad to climb in out of the bitter cold.
"All aboard!" called the conductor. "Last car to-night."
There is always a gloomy fatality in the announcement, "Last car to-night." It is just as if a doctor might say: "Nothing more can be done."
Clang, clang, went the bell, and they moved slowly forward.
After an age of slipping and sliding, frequent stopping and starting and exchanges of loud confidences between the motorman and the conductor, the car came to a dead stop.
Dr. McLean, who had been sound asleep and snoring loudly, waked up.
"Bless my soul, are we there?" he demanded.
"No, sir, and far from it," answered the conductor, who had opened the door and come inside, beating his hands together for warmth.
"Far from it? What do you mean by that, my good man?" asked the doctor.
"There ain't no more power, sir," answered the man. "The trolley's just a solid cable of ice and budge she won't. You couldn't move her with a derrick."
"But what are we to do?" asked the doctor.
"I couldn't say, sir, unless you walked. It's only a matter of about two miles. Otherwise, you'd have to spend the night here and it'll be a cold place. There ain't no more heat, is there, Jim?"
"There ain't," was Jim's brief reply.
"I guess Jim and I'll foot it into Wellington and the best you can do is to come along."
The doctor and his wife conferred with the young teacher who had chaperoned the other party. The question was, would it not be a greater risk to walk two miles in thin-soled shoes and party dresses over that wilderness of ice than to remain snugly in the car until they could get help? The motorman and conductor were well protected from the cold and from slipping, too, with heavy overcoats and arctic shoes. While they were talking, these two individuals took their departure, letting in a cold blast of air as they slid the door back to get out.
The Wellington crowd sat huddled together, hoping to keep warm by human contact. They tried to beguile the weary hours with conversation, but time dragged heavily and the car grew colder and colder. Some of the girls began to move up and down, practicing physical culture exercises and beating their hands together.
"I think it would be better to walk," announced Mrs. McLean at last. "We are in much greater danger of freezing to death sitting here than moving. We'll stick to the track. It won't be so slippery between the rails."
Even the doctor was relieved at this suggestion, fearful as he was of slipping on the ice. The gude wife was right, as she always was, and the lassies had better take the risk and come along quickly. Before they realized it, they were on the track with faces turned hopefully toward Wellington. Scarcely had they taken six steps, before three of the girls tumbled flat, and while they were picking themselves up, Dr. and Mrs. McLean sat down plump on the ice, hand in hand, like two astonished children. It was quite impossible to keep from laughing at this ludicrous situation, especially when the doctor's great "haw-haw" made the air tremble. The ones who were standing helped the ones who had fallen to rise and fell themselves in the effort.
"If we only had on skates," cried Judy, "wouldn't it be glorious? We could skate anywhere, right across the fields or along the road. It's just like a sea of solid ice."
For an hour they took their precarious way along the track, which was now on the edge of a high embankment.
"A grand place for coasting," remarked Judy, peeping over the edge.
Suddenly her heels went over her head and her horrified friends beheld her sliding backwards down the hill.
"Are you hurt at all, my lass?" called the doctor, peeping fearfully over the side, and holding onto his wife as a drowning man catches at a life preserver.
"Hurt? No," cried Judy, convulsed with laughter.
"Do you think you can crawl back?" asked Mrs. McLean doubtfully.
Then Judy began the most difficult ascent of her life, on hands and knees. There was nothing to take hold of and, when she had got half-way up, back she slipped to the bottom again.
A second time she had almost reached the top when she lost her footing and once more slipped to the base of the embankment.
"You'd better go on without me," she cried, half sobbing and half laughing.
The doctor was very uncomfortable. Not for worlds would he have put foot outside the trolley rails, but something had to be done.
"Let's make a human ladder," suggested Molly, "as they do in melodramas. I'll go first. Nance, you take my foot and someone hold on to yours and so on. Then, Judy can climb up, catching hold of us."
The doctor considered this a good scheme and the human chain was accordingly formed, the doctor himself grasping the ankle of the last volunteer, who happened to be Judith Blount. But hardly had Judy commenced the upward climb, when the doctor's heels went over his head and the entire human ladder found itself huddled together at the foot of the embankment.
"It's a case of every mon for himself and the divvel tak' the hindmost," exclaimed the doctor, sitting up stiffly and rubbing his shins. "Help yoursel's, lassies. I can do nae mair."
Some of them reached the track at last and some of them didn't, and those who couldn't make it were Molly and Judith Blount.
"You'll have to follow along as best you can down there," called Mrs. McLean, grasping her husband's arm. "We'll keep an eye on you from above."
Once more the belated revellers started on their way, while Molly and Judith Blount pursued a difficult path between a frozen creek and the trolley embankment.
