Molly Brown's College Friends Part 28

"Oh, Bobby! Only suppose we had not gone out that night in search of adventure!" cried Judy, when she was safe under her mother's wing.

"Why don't you just suppose you had never been born?" boomed the delighted Bobby. "When you were once born you were sure to be out hunting adventure. You are made that way, eh, Mother?"

"Yes, I am afraid she is," sighed that tiny lady. "You and Judy are exactly alike."

"Do you mind?" asked her big husband humbly.

"No, I would not have either one of you different. But I fancy Kent and I are in for lives of anxiety."

"Well, he likes us the way we are, too," declared Judy, blushing.

"Well, I have two things to say:" declared Mr. Kean, giving a mighty yawn, "I am glad I let you have a Parisian education if with it you can make clever enough sketches to catch these German spies; and the other is, that it is high time we were all of us in bed."

Madame Mitzel, before she was sentenced to the imprisonment that she so richly deserved, requested an interview with Judy, which was granted, although Judy was most reluctant.

"I can't bear to see her again! She looked like a snake caught in a net."

"I--want--you--to tell--Mrs. Green--that--I--am sorry for--her to--know--about me--That is all! If--I could--have--had a woman--like that--to--be--my friend--in my--youth--I would have--been different."

She spoke in the faltering manner she had used at Wellington, one she employed in speaking English, and then she plunged into voluble German, so rapid that Judy could hardly follow her:

"But you! You have outwitted me and I cannot but admire you for it, but I hate you with all my heart."

"That is all right! I'd rather have your hate than your love! I'll tell Molly, though."

Before we leave the Misels, or Mitzels, for good, I must tell you that the shipment of paint arrived at Wellington as the mysterious dealer had informed Monsieur Jean Misel it would. One of the Secret Service men remained in Wellington to receive it. It was light grey, as was promised; at least, it was marked light grey on the outside of the six large cans. On opening these cans, which I can a.s.sure you the detective did with the utmost caution, many things besides paint were disclosed,--in fact, there was no paint there at all. He found various chemicals, necessary for the making of the modern bomb; poisons of all sorts, and innocent looking little vials containing deadly germs. Those six cans if let loose on the unsuspecting community would have caused as much damage as the imps in Pandora's box.

Even Molly had to confess that the Misels were not very good persons, and when her husband gave her to understand that her own little Mildred and Dodo might have been poisoned by polluted water had the foreigners accomplished all they no doubt intended to with some of those bottled germs, the young mother came to the conclusion that they were not only not very good but they were extremely wicked, and perhaps just imprisonment was too mild a punishment to be meted out to them.

CHAPTER XXIII

THEY ALSO SERVE

There was a very serious meeting of students of Wellington being held in the library of the Square Deal. Twenty of the leading spirits of the student body had asked Mrs. Edwin Green to let them confer with her on a most important matter.

The college authorities had announced that the H. C. of L. had affected Wellington just as it had every person and every inst.i.tution, and students' board would have to be raised for the ensuing year. This came as a blow to the majority of girls. Going to college is an expensive matter at best, and while there are many rich girls gathered in those inst.i.tutions, the majority come from homes of moderate incomes and many from actual poverty. It will never be known how many sacrifices had been made to educate some of those Wellington girls, and the H. C. of L.

had affected their families just as much as it had the inst.i.tution; and the news that the following year college expenses would increase had caused much consternation in the student body.

"We won't stand for it!" said one tense little girl from Indiana, who had been working her way through three years of college by doing all kinds of odd jobs, which reminded Molly of her own strenuous student days.

"It's harder on you than me, Mary Culbertson," said a st.u.r.dy soph.o.m.ore.

"You haven't but one more year. At least I haven't wasted as much time in this old joint as you have."

"But, my dear, please don't look upon it as wasted time," begged Molly.

"Well, I came for a degree and if I don't get it, I consider I have wasted two years. I might just as well have taken a job at home. A teacher's place was open for me then and now it may be filled for good.

A degree will give one a better salary, but two years of college won't get you anywhere."

"I am sure some scheme can be worked to keep down the expenses,"

insisted Molly.

"We can't live on less food!" bluntly declared Lilian Swift.

"Nor plainer!" from a discontented one.

"It might be plainer without being less nourishing," suggested Molly.

"How about your doing some light housekeeping on your own hook and not trying to board with the college?"

"But I am sure the college authorities do not make money on the girls as it is," said Billie McKym, who had come to the meeting from truly altruistic motives, as expenses made no difference to her personally.

"If a great body of girls cannot be fed on the amount charged now, I am certain a girl could not live on less if she went in for herself."

Billie, with all her wealth, had a good keen eye for business and understood the management of money rather better than any poor girl at Wellington.

"I reckon you are right," said Molly sadly. "Would you girls mind if I ask my husband to come in and talk it over with you?"

"No!" in chorus. "Bring him in!"

"Not that knowing how to read Chaucer in old English will make him wise as how to live on nothing a year," whispered one.

Professor Green was in the den with his cousin, old Major Fern, who had motored in from the country to have a chat with his favorite kinsman.

Molly entered, smiling at the clouds of tobacco smoke which almost obscured the two gentlemen.

"Edwin, I know the Major will excuse you for a moment. I need you badly."

"Of course, my dear! But I hope it is nothing serious that is beclouding your fair brow," said the old gentleman with the courteous manner of his generation.

"Yes, it is serious in a way," and Molly told her husband and his cousin what was the problem the girls had brought to her to solve.

"Of course, I can't blame the college authorities," she sighed. "It is hard to feed people as it is, and with expenses going up, up, I know they will have to raise the board. But on the other hand, there are many girls who simply cannot pay more than they are already paying. I feel for them, as I was one of them when I was at college. If the board had been raised one nickel I should have had to stop. I almost had to as it was. If it had not been for Edwin's fondness for apples, I should have been degreeless to this day."

"Adam and I!" laughed the professor. "But what do you want me to do, Molly? I am yours to command."

"I don't know exactly! I thought you might talk to the girls and we might keep on thinking and praying until some solution is reached."

"I have a proposition to make that might interest your college friends,"

said Major Fern. "They may scorn it, but on the other hand they may like the idea. Let me talk to them."

"Oh, how lovely! I knew there would be a way," cried the optimistic Molly.

"Wait until you hear it first," smiled the old gentleman.

Molly led the way to the library, where the twenty girls were having a hot discussion on ways and means. She introduced Major Fern, who took his seat among them and beamed on them with kindly eyes.

"Ahem!" he began. "I am not much of a public speaker but I am going to put a plan before you and see how it strikes you. I understand that you are making a kick because of the raising of board for the ensuing year----"