Molly Brown's College Friends Part 20

"Also we are not the sleepily heads that must go bedwardly at such earlyly hour," and little Otoyo opened her almond eyes very wide to show that she at least would neither slumber nor sleep until the enemies to her country and her adopted country were safely caught up with.

Molly came in with the grip packed. Some fudge was tucked in to help out his journey and Edwin, with the warm wishes of the kimono party, started on his patriotic travels.

"Remember to let Prexy know I am almost dead with neuralgia and do not let a soul but Andy on to the fact that I am off on a journey. I'll creep in to-morrow night. Keep your eyes open for deviltries that the Misels may be up to, but don't let them know you are not the dummies they think you. They will not be cla.s.sed as alien enemies until war is formally declared, and that will be day after to-morrow, according to the latest news."

Nance was quietly st.i.tching while most of the above conversation was going on, but her thoughts were very busy. The idea that was uppermost in her mind was that the day United States was to form an alliance with the nations, she was to form one equally strong with her Andy.

CHAPTER XVI

WAR RELIEF

Edwin Green occasionally had an attack of neuralgia that incapacitated him for work for at least a day, so when Molly solemnly gave out the news that her poor husband was suffering with one of his spells of that painful malady, sympathy was expressed by servants, teachers, and students. Blinds in the invalid's room were carefully closed and the door locked, with the key in Molly's pocket. Instructions were sternly given that n.o.body must disturb him. When he felt better he would ask for what he wanted. Little Mildred was very sad that she was not allowed to take him his "tup of toffee."

"I weckon he's a-gonter die, sho," she confided to Cho-Cho-San. "Only my mother don't know it or she wouldn't be a-smilin' an' laughin' so hard."

"I am going to work this morning at my war relief, even if we are to get married to-morrow," declared Molly at breakfast. "If I let anything short of death interfere I get into bad habits, and the work simply must be done. They are crying out for more and more dressings."

"Let's all of us go help! We can turn out oodlums of work if we try,"

cried Judy.

"Not Nance!" insisted Molly. "I know she has a lot of little st.i.tches to put in before to-morrow."

"If you will excuse me, I will beg off," blushed Nance. "Andy is coming in this morning for a few moments, besides."

"I tell you, you must stay at home to take care of poor dear Edwin,"

laughed Judy. "It would look terribly heartless for all of us to go leave him."

"Oh, I forgot Edwin!" declared Molly, just as Kizzie came in with a stack of waffles. The girl looked at her mistress in astonishment. What was coming over her Miss Molly, "fergittin' of the boss and then a-larfin' about it?"

"Shall I take Andy up to see him?" asked Nance soberly.

"Perhaps!"

"Hadn't we better take the kids along so their noise won't disturb poor dear Brother Edwin?" suggested Judy, "Mildred and Cho-Cho and Poilu, the puppy." Poilu was a diminutive mongrel, the love of Mildred's heart.

"Oh, Mother, please, please!" begged Mildred.

"I'm so 'appee! I'm so 'appee!" sang Cho-Cho as Molly smiled her consent.

"They can play in the churchyard and will be good, I am sure," she declared.

And so Nance was left to put in her finishing st.i.tches, to receive her lover and to take care of the fict.i.tious case of neuralgia.

"Hot cloths on his head if he is in very great agony," Molly called back as the gay throng started for the war relief rooms. "There is more aspirin in the top drawer if he is in much pain."

Nance had a busy morning answering the 'phone, which rang many times with inquiries for the popular professor. Mary Neil sent a box of candy to Molly as a kind of consolation prize and Billie McKym sent Edwin a pot of flowers. Lilian Swift sent a basket of fruit.

"If their friends rally around them so for an imaginary disease, what would they do if something were really the matter?" thought Nance.

M. Misel and Andy met at the front door, Misel to inquire for the poor ill man and Andy to catch a glimpse of his Nance. Misel had walked slowly and painfully across the campus from his cla.s.s room. Nance, from the window, had watched him approaching and she could but admire his patience as he made his crippled way.

"It must be worse to have to pretend to be lame than to be lame," she said to herself. "I wonder if Andy is still fooled."

The two men came into the library together, Andy showing great solicitude for the disabled foreigner. Misel was so extremely polite and seemed so distressed at Edwin's illness that Nance could hardly believe that Judy and the girls could be right in the discovery they had made the night before. His manner was perfect, so respectful, so kindly and courteous.

"I believe I am to wish you joy, Dr. McLean,--and I do so with all my heart." Andy grinned his appreciation. "My wife and I were quite charmed by Miss Oldham. I hear you are to go to the front to a.s.sist poor stricken France. I admire the courage of your fiancee to contemplate going with you."

"It would take more for me to stay away," whispered Nance softly.

"Ah, it is the spirit of the women which is what the Germans have to fight!"

"Is not the spirit of the German women quite as courageous as ours?"

asked Nance, looking at Misel keenly.

"Ah! _Wonderschon!_" his eyes glowed. Suddenly the fact that he had dropped into German seemed to embarra.s.s him. "That is--that is the word for the German women, just as 'wonderful' is the one for the Americans."

"Tell me about Edwin," interrupted Andy, as though he meant to put Misel at his ease again. "Is he very ill?"

"Oh, very!"

"Can't I go up to see him?"

"Molly said he was not to be disturbed. These headaches just wear themselves out. He will be all right to-night."

"But there is something to be done before it wears Edwin out as well as itself," insisted the young doctor.

"Molly says not!" Nance shook her head at Andy as much as to tell him he was talking too much, and that young man subsided until Misel had gone.

Then Nance revealed to her lover the whole nefarious plot.

"I had my doubts about that man from the first. I could not see how anyone as lame as he was could have jumped up so briskly. The beast! How could you be so polite to him?"

"Camouflage! Fighting the devil with fire!"

"I am glad old Ed took matters in hand so promptly. I tell you these college professors show up pretty well in these times! Wilson and Green forever!"

In the meantime the industrious war relief workers were hard at it. The be-ap.r.o.ned and be-kerchiefed ladies of Wellington held their seances in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the little church. It was astonishing how large was their output, but busy fingers had been steadily at work ever since word had come from France that wounded men were dying for lack of surgical dressings, and that word had come very soon after the breaking out of the World War.

Women with earnest faces were bending over the long tables, some rolling bandages; some tearing cotton cloth; some pulling threads for careful cutting of gauze, later to be deftly folded in the prescribed shape. In one corner, cotton batting was being fluffed up for the making of fracture pillows. Huge baskets were being emptied by one group as they stuffed the pillows, while others were being filled by the fluffers, as Judy called the women whose duty it was to pick the cotton. Much sneezing went on in this corner and he who wonders why, might try once fluffing unrefined cotton.

"Let me make the tampons!" begged Jessie.

"I know why! Because they look like powder puffs," teased Edith.

The house party was received with enthusiasm by the Wellington workers.

There always seems to be more work than can be accomplished and then workers come and by hook or crook the task is completed. All of our girls had done some war relief work, so it was easy to set them to their stints. Pretty Jessie could make tampons that were so soft and so regular that they really did look like powder puffs. Katherine could pick cotton as fast as Mother Carey can chickens and her advent caused an increase of sneezing. Edith stuffed fracture pillows just to show that she could go faster than her sister. Margaret rolled bandages with a precision equal to her parliamentary ruling when she was presiding officer. Otoyo and Judy and Molly folded the gauze into the neat little six-inch squares. This is the most difficult part of the work, requiring such accuracy that only the expert should choose that table. The edges must come just together, no threads must be left on the gauze, the corners must be turned under exactly enough and the finished articles stacked in even piles.