Molly Brown's College Friends Part 8

"Dialogue,--how about it?" asked the chairman.

"Pretty good, but a little stilted," was the verdict of several critics.

"I think you are all of you simply horrid!" exclaimed Mary Neil, who had been silent and sullen through the whole evening. "I think it is the best story that has been read all year and I believe you are just jealous to tear it to pieces this way."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Lilian.

"We do hope we haven't hurt your feelings, Mrs. Green," cried the girl who was taking the correspondence course.

"Hurt my feelings! The very idea! I read my story to get help from you and not praise. I am going to think over what you have said and do my best to correct the faults, if I come to the conclusion you are right."

"You would have a hard time doing what everybody says," laughed Nance, "as no two have agreed."

"Well, I can pick and choose among so many opinions," said Molly, putting her ma.n.u.script back in its big envelope. "I might do as my mother did when she got the opinion of two physicians on the diet she was to have: she simply took from each man the advice that best suited her taste and between the two managed to be very well fed, and, strange to say, got well of her malady under the composite treatment."

"Ahem!" said the girl with the burning plot, rattling her ma.n.u.script audibly so that the hardhearted Billie must perforce recognize her and give her the floor.

CHAPTER VI

"I HAD A LITTLE HUSBAND NO BIGGER THAN MY THUMB"

"Aunt Nance, what's the use you ain't got no husband an' baby children?"

Mildred always said use instead of reason.

"Lots of reasons!" answered Nance, smiling at her little companion.

Mildred had moved herself and all her belongings into the guest-chamber.

Her mother had at first objected, but when she found it made Nance happy to have the child with her, she gave her consent.

"Ain't no husbands come along wantin' you?"

"That is one of the reasons."

"I'm going to make Dodo marry you when he gets some teeth."

"Thank you, darling! Dodo would make a dear little husband."

"Dodo wouldn't never say nothin' mean to you. He's got more disposition than any baby in the family."

"I am sure he wouldn't," said Nance, trying to count the st.i.tches as she neatly turned the heel of the grey sock she was knitting. Nance was always knitting in those days.

"'Cose if I kin get you a husband a little teensy weensy bit taller than Dodo, I'll let you know."

"Fine! But Dodo will grow."

"Maybe you'll make out to shrink up some. Katy kin shrink you. My muvver said Katy kin shrink up anything. She done shrinked up Dodo's little shirts jes' big enough for my dolly. I's jes' crazy 'bout Katy. I'm gonter ask her kin she shrink you up no bigger'n Dodo an' then won't you be cunning? You can look jes' like you look now only teensy weensy little. Your little feet'll be so long, not great big ones like mine, an' your little hands will be 'bout as big as my little fingers an'--an'--you kin knit little bits of baby socks an' I kin take you out ridin' in my little doll-baby carriage, all tucked in nice."

"But then I'll be too little to marry Dodo. You won't trust your doll to Dodo, and if I'm so teensy maybe he might break me."

"Well, then, I guess Katy'll have to stretch you some. She done stretched the shirt mos' a mile."

"What do you say to taking a little walk?"

"I say: 'Glory be!' That's what Kizzie, our cook, says when she's happy."

"Shall we take Dodo out in his carriage?"

"If I can put my dolly in, too!"

Dodo was awake and pleased to be included in this outing, if gurglings and splutterings were an indication of happiness. He and the doll were tucked safely in. Katy, who had been longing for the time to come when she could scrub the nursery, was delighted to be relieved of her charge for the time being.

"Where shall we walk?" asked Nance.

"Down by the lake! My dolly ain't never seed the lake yet. They's a little blue boat down there what my papa, the 'fessor, done say he gonter set sail in some day. He say he gonter go way out in the middle of the lake where th' ain't no little girls with curls to come tickle his nose in the morning. My papa is kind and good, but he sho' do hate to have his nose tickled with curls early in the morning."

The lake! How many memories it brought back to Nance! The blue boat might be the same one in which Judy Kean had her memorable midnight jaunt, or was it a canoe? Nance smiled at the picture that arose in her mind's eye. It was their Junior year and Judy had gone off in a fit of jealousy and rage, and when she came to herself she was out in the middle of the lake while Molly and Nance rowed frantically after her.

What a time they had covering their tracks to keep Judy from being found out and perhaps even expelled! Nance laughed aloud.

The sun was warm on that day in late March, almost like a southern sun.

Dodo, lazy baby, had slipped from his sitting posture and lay flat on his back. He had the same characteristics as Mildred's doll baby: the moment he lay down his eyes closed.

"Oh, what a sleepy husband I have got!" cried Nance. "Let's camp out here, darling. I brought my knitting and while my little husband sleeps----"

"And my doll baby, too!"

"You can play in that nice clean sand. Don't go too close to the water."

There was a stretch of beach at that side of the lake where a small pier had been built for a boat-landing. The sand was fine and white, a most delectable medium for houses or pies, whatever the young sculptor wished to create.

Nance seated herself on a nice warm rock while her little companion busied herself collecting pebbles for the castle she contemplated building. The sock grew under the girl's skillful fingers while her thoughts were miles away from the poor soldier whose foot it was destined to cover. Dodo snoozed peacefully and no doubt the doll did, too.

"Look! Look! Aunt Nance, I've done found some kitty flowers!" cried Mildred, rushing to Nance with a switch of willow catkins she had found growing near the water's edge.

"'I had a little p.u.s.s.y Her coat was silver grey.

She lived down in the meadow, She never ran away.

"'Her name was always p.u.s.s.y, She never was a cat.

'Cause she was a p.u.s.s.y-Willow.

Now what do you think of that?'"

sang Nance. "Now let me teach you that nice verse so you can say it to your father."

Mildred obediently learned the poetry in so short a time that her teacher marveled at her cleverness and good memory.

"Now, darling, you mustn't go quite so close to the water again. Aunt Nance will gather a big armful of the p.u.s.s.y-willows to take back to Mother, but you might get your little tootsies wet if you go too close to the edge. Then I'll have to put you in the carriage with my husband and run home every step of the way."