Molly Brown's Freshman Days Part 21

If she had mentioned death itself, she could not have used a more tragic tone.

"Judy," cried Molly, slipping her arms around her friend's neck, "I'm not going to let you go at mid-years if I have to study for two."

CHAPTER XIV.

AN INSPIRATION.

"This is like having a bedroom _salon_," exclaimed Molly with a hospitable smile to some dozen guests who adorned the divans and easy chairs, the floor and window sills of her room.

Surely there was nothing Molly liked better than to entertain, and when she had callers, she always entertained them with refreshments of some kind. Often it had to be crackers and sweet chocolate, and she had even been reduced to tea. But usually her family kept her supplied with good things and her larder was generally well stocked.

She lay in bed, propped up with pillows, and scattered about the bed were text-books and papers.

"You've been studying again, you naughty child," exclaimed Mary Stewart, shaking her finger. "Didn't Dr. McLean tell you to go easy for the next week?"

"Go easy, indeed," laughed Molly. "You might as well tell a trapeze actor to do the giant-swing and hold on tight at the same time. But it's worth losing a few days to find out what loving friends I have. Your pink roses are the loveliest of all," she added, squeezing her friend's hand.

"Tell us exactly who sent you each bunch?" demanded Jessie, pa.s.sing a box of ginger-snaps, while Judy performed miracles with a tea ball, a small kettle and a varied a.s.sortment of cups and saucers. "I have a right to ask you," continued Jessica, "because you asked the same question of me last Tuesday when two boxes came."

"No suitor sent me any of these, Mistress Jessica," answered Molly, "because I haven't any. Miss Stewart sent the pink ones, and the President of the senior cla.s.s sent the red ones. Judy brought me the double violets and Nance the lilies of the valley, bless them both, and another senior the pot of pansies. The seniors have certainly been sweet and lovely."

"There's one you haven't accounted for," interrupted Jessie.

"The violets?" asked Molly, blushing slightly.

"Oh, ho!" cried Jessie in her high, musical voice, "trying to crawl, were you? You can't deceive old Grandmamma Sharp-eyes. Honor bright, who sent the violets?"

"To tell you the truth, I don't know. I suspected Frances Andrews, but when I thanked her for them, she looked horribly embarra.s.sed and said she hadn't sent them. I was afraid she would go down and get some after my break, but thank goodness, she had the good taste not to."

"You mean to say they were anonymous?" demanded Jessie.

"I mean to say that thing, but I suppose some of the seniors who preferred to remain unknown sent them."

"It's just possible," put in Mary, and the subject was dropped.

"Let's talk about the only thing worth talking about just now," broke in Judy. "The Flopping of Flora; or, Who Cut the Wires?"

"Why talk about it?" said Molly. "You could never reach any conclusion, and guessing doesn't help."

"Oh, just as a matter of interest," replied Judy. "For instance, if we were detectives and put on the case, how would we go about finding the criminal?"

"I should look for a silly mischief-maker," said Mary Stewart. "Some foolish girl who wanted to do a clever thing. Freshmen at boys' colleges are often like that."

"You don't think it was a freshman, do you, Miss Stewart?" cried Mabel Hinton, turning her round spectacles on Mary like a large, serious owl.

"Oh, no, indeed. I was only joking. I haven't the remotest notion who it is."

"If I were a detective on the case," said Mabel Hinton, "I should look for a junior who was jealous of the seniors. Some one who had a grudge, perhaps."

"If I were a detective," announced Margaret Wakefield, in her most judicial manner, "I should look for some one who had a grudge against Molly."

"Of course; I never thought of that. It did happen just as Molly was about to give the encore, didn't it?"

"It did," answered Margaret.

The girls had all stopped chattering in duets and trios to listen.

"Has any one in the world the heart to have a grudge against you, you sweet child?" exclaimed Mary Stewart, placing her rather large, strong hand over Molly's.

The young freshman looked uncomfortable.

"I hope not," she said, smiling faintly. "I never meant to give offence to any one."

Pretty soon the company dispersed and Molly was left alone with her two best friends.

"Judy," she said, "will you please settle down to work this instant? You know you have to write your theme and get it in by to-morrow noon, and you haven't touched it so far."

Nance was already deep in her English. Molly turned her face to the wall and sighed.

"I can't do it," she whispered to herself; "I simply cannot do it." But what she referred to only she herself knew.

In the meantime Judy chewed the end of her pencil and looked absently at her friend's back. Presently she gave the pad on her lap an impatient toss in one direction and the pencil in another, and flung herself on the foot of Molly's couch.

"Don't scold me, Molly. I never compose, except under inspiration, and inspiration doesn't seem to be on very good terms with me just now. She hasn't visited me in an age."

"Nonsense! You know perfectly well you can write that theme if you set your mind to it, Judy Kean. You are just too lazy. You haven't even chosen a subject, I'll wager anything."

"No," said Judy sadly.

"Why don't you write a short story? You have plenty of material with all your travel----"

"I know what I'll write," Judy interrupted her excitedly, "The Motives of Crime."

"How absurd," objected Molly. "Besides, don't you think that's a little personal just now, when the whole school is talking about the wire-cutter?"

"Not at all. We are all trying to run down the criminal, anyhow. I shall take the five great motives which lead to crime: anger, jealousy, hatred, envy and greed. It will make an interesting discourse. You'll see if it doesn't."

"The idea of your writing on such a subject," laughed Molly. "You're not a criminal lawyer or a prosecuting attorney."

"I admit it," answered Judy, "and I suppose Lawyer Margaret Wakefield ought to be the one to handle the subject. But, nevertheless, I am fired with inspiration, and I intend to write it myself. I shall not see you again until the deed is done, if it takes all night. By the way, lend me some coffee, will you? I'm all out, and I always make some on the samovar for keeping-awake purposes when I'm going to work at night."

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Judy," sighed Molly, as the incorrigible girl sailed out of the room, a jar of coffee under one arm and her writing pad under the other.

At first she wrote intermittently, rumpling up her hair with both hands and chewing her pencil savagely; but gradually her thoughts took form and the pencil moved steadily along, almost like "spirit-writing" it seemed to her, until the essay was done. It was half-past three o'clock and rain and hail beat a dismal tattoo on her window pane. She had not even noticed the storm, having hung a bed quilt over her window and tacked a dressing gown across the transom to conceal the light of the student's lamp from the watchful matron. Putting out her light and removing all signs of disobedience, she now cheerfully went to bed.