Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days Part 10

"Where is your baggage? Surely Kent gave you my message and you are going to visit us?"

"You have been so kind to my girl that I see no way but to let you be kind to us, too, and if we will not inconvenience you we will accept your invitation," said Mr. Kean. "As for baggage: Mrs. Kean is a dressy soul, but she only carries a doll trunk which holds all of her little frocks and fixings and even leaves a tiny tray for my belongings."

He a.s.sisted his smiling wife to alight and then from the bottom of the car produced a wicker trunk that was really no bigger than a large suitcase, but much more dignified looking.

"She says a trunk gives her a little more permanent feeling than a bag and makes a hotel room seem more homelike," went on Mr. Kean. Mrs. Brown thought that she had never heard such a pleasant voice and jolly laugh.

"Judy, show your mother and father their room. I know they are tired and will want to rest before dinner."

"Tired! Bless your soul, what have we done to be tired? We have been on a Pullman four nights, and that is when we get in rest enough for months to come. I know Julia will want to get at her doll trunk and change her traveling dress, but, if you will permit me, I shall stay down here with you. What a beautiful farm you have! How many acres in it?"

"I have three hundred acres in all; two hundred under cultivation and in gra.s.s, fifty in woodland, and fifty that are not worth anything. It is a strange barren strip of land that my father had to take as a bad debt and I inherited from him. We graze some forlorn sheep on it, but they won't drink the water, and it is almost more trouble than they are worth to drive them to water on another part of the place."

Mr. Kean listened intently. "I should like to see your farm, Mrs. Brown.

Did you ever have the water on the barren strip a.n.a.lyzed?"

"No, Mr. Brown thought of looking into it but never did, and I have had so many problems to solve and expenses to meet with my large and growing family that I have never thought of it any more."

Mrs. Kean and Judy came down to join the others in a very short time, considering that Mrs. Kean had unpacked her tiny trunk and shaken out her little frocks and changed into a dainty pink gingham that looked as though it had just come from the laundry, showing no signs of having been packed for weeks.

"What have you done to my Judy, Mrs. Brown? I have never seen her looking so well."

"Fried chicken and candied sweet potatoes are the chief of my diet, and who would have the ingrat.i.tude not to show such keep?" laughed the daughter, pulling the little mother down on her lap and holding her as tenderly as though their relationship were reversed. "Robert and Julia, are you aware of the fact that your lady daughter has been a perfect lady since she came to these parts, and has got herself into no bad sc.r.a.pes, and has not been saucy but once, and that was necessary? Wasn't it, Mrs. Brown?"

"It certainly was. My old mammy used to tell me, 'Don' sa.s.s ole folks 'til they fust sa.s.s you'; and Saint Paul says, 'Live peaceably with all men, as much as lieth in you.' When Judy felt called upon to speak out to Miss Hunt she had the grat.i.tude of almost every one present."

Professor Green joined them and, having made the Keans' acquaintance at Wellington, introductions were not necessary. That young man was in a very happy frame of mind as his hated rival that he had to like in spite of himself had taken an early train to Lexington; and there had been a dejected look to his back as he got into the buggy that Edwin Green decided could not belong to an accepted lover. Molly had a soft, sad look about her blue eyes, but certainly none of the elation of the newly engaged. He had held a cryptic conversation with Mrs. Brown that morning on the porch, in which he had gathered that the dear lady considered Molly singularly undeveloped for a girl her age; that any thought of her becoming engaged for at least a year was very distasteful to her mother; that her mind should be left free for the postgraduate course she was so soon to enter upon. But she very delicately gave him to understand that she liked him and that Molly also liked him more than any friend she had. The conversation left him slightly dazed, but also very calm and happy, liking Mrs. Brown even better than before and admiring her for her delicate tact and frankness that does not often combine with such diplomacy. His mail had come and he had no excuse for further delay, and had determined to go home on the following day.

"Professor Green, I have been so long on the train that I feel the need of stretching my legs. Could you tear yourself away from these ladies long enough to show me around the farm?"

"Indeed, I could; but maybe the ladies would like to come."

"No, indeed," answered Mrs. Kean. "I know Bobbie's leg-stretching walks too well to have any desire to try to keep up with him. It is so pleasant and restful here, and Mrs. Brown, Molly, Judy and I can have a nice talk."

The two gentlemen started off at a good pace.

"Professor, I should like to see this barren strip of land Mrs. Brown tells me of. It sounds rather interesting to me. You know where it is, do you not?"

"Yes; and, do you know, I was going to ask you to look at it and give your opinion about it. It has the look to me of possible oil fields. I haven't said anything to any of the family about it, as they are such a sanguine lot I was afraid of raising their hopes when nothing might come of it, but I had determined to have a talk with Kent before I left. He is the most level-headed member of the family, and would not fly off half-c.o.c.ked. Miss Molly tells me they are contemplating selling this wonderful bit of beech woods. They have a good offer for it, but it is like selling members of the family to part with these trees."

The two men walked on, discovering many things to talk about and finding each other vastly agreeable. Their walk led them through the beech woods, then through a growth of scrub pines and stunted oaks and blackberry bushes, until they gradually emerged into a hard stony valley spa.r.s.ely covered with gra.s.s and broomsedge.

"About as forlorn a spot as you can find in the whole of Kentucky, I fancy," said the younger man. "Its contrast with the beech woods we have just pa.s.sed is about as great as that between Mrs. Brown and her sister, Mrs. Clay, who, with all due respect, is as rocky as this strip of barren land and as unattractive. She is the only person of whom I have ever heard Miss Molly and her brother Kent say anything unkind, and they cannot conceal their feeling against her. It seems that Mrs. Clay had the settling of her father's estate, and arranged matters so well for herself that Mrs. Brown's share turned out to be this stony strip. Mrs.

Brown accepted it and refused to make a row, declaring that she would never have a disagreement with any member of her family about 'things.'

She is a wonderful woman," added the professor, thinking of his talk of the morning.

Mr. Kean stopped at the banks of a lonesome tarn, filled with black water with a greasy looking slime over it.

"Look at those bubbles over there! Could they be caused by turtles? No, turtles could not live in this Dead Sea. Look, look! More and more of them. Watch that big one break! See the greasy ring he made!"

He was so excited that Edwin Green smiled to see how alike father and daughter were, and was amused at himself for speaking of the Browns as being people who went off half-c.o.c.ked to this man who was a hair trigger if ever there was one.

Mr. Kean stooped over and scooped up some of the water in his hand. "'If my old nose don't tell no lies, seems like I smell custard pies.' Why, Green, smell this! It's simply reeking of petroleum! I bet that old Mrs.

Clay will come to wish she had made a different division of her father's estate. Come on, let's go break the news to the Browns."

"But are you certain enough? They may be disappointed," said the more cautious Edwin.

"I am sure enough to want to send to Louisville immediately for a drill to test it. I have had a lot of experience with oil in various places and I am a regular oil wizard. You have heard of a water witch? My friends say that my nose has never played me false, and I can smell out oil lands that they would buy on the say-so of my scent as quickly as with the proof of a drill and pump. My, I'm glad for this good luck to come to these people who have been so good to my little girl."

The two men were very much excited as they made their way back to the house.

"It is funny the way oil crops up in unexpected places," said Mr. Kean.

"There is very little of it in this belt, and for that reason Mrs. Brown should get a very good price for her land. I think it best for her to sell to the Trust as soon as possible. There is no use in fighting them.

They are obliged to win out. They will be pretty square with her if she does not try to fight them. What a fine young fellow that Kent is! And as for Miss Molly, she is a corker! She has got my poor little wild Indian of a Judy out of dozens of sc.r.a.pes at college. Judy always ends by telling us all about the terrible things that almost happened to her.

She seems to me to be a little tamer, but maybe it is a strangeness from not seeing us for so long."

Edwin Green had his own opinion about the reason for that seeming tameness, but he held his peace. He could not help seeing Kent's partiality for Miss Julia Kean, and had no reason to believe otherwise than that the young lady reciprocated. Love, or the possibility of loving, might be a great tamer for Judy. He was really not far from the mark. Judy was interested in Kent, very much so, but it was ambition that was steadying her and a determination to do something with the artistic talent that she was almost sure she possessed. Paris was her Mecca, and she was preparing herself to talk it out with her parents.

They, poor grown-up children that they were, had no plans for their daughter's future. College had solved the problem for four years, but, now that that was over, what to do with her next? They loved to have her with them and had looked forward eagerly to the time when she could be with them, but after all was a railway camp the best place for a girl of Judy's stamp?

"Mrs. Brown, what will you take for that barren strip of land over there?" said Mr. Kean, sinking into a chair on the porch where the ladies were still having their quiet talk.

"Well, Mr. Kean, since it is not worth anything, and I have to pay taxes on it, I think I would give it away to any one who would promise to keep up the fences."

"Can you get right-of-way through the adjoining place to the road behind you, where I see that a narrow-gauge railroad runs?"

Mrs. Brown flushed and hesitated. "There is a lane connecting these two turnpikes older than the turnpikes themselves. My place does not go through to this narrow-gauge railroad that you saw this morning, but my father's old place, the Carmichael farm, now owned by my sister, Mrs.

Clay, borders on both roads. This lane divides the two places as far as mine goes and then cuts through her place to the road behind. She has lately closed that lane, fenced it off and put it in corn."

"Rather high-handed proceedings," growled Mr. Kean. "Did you protest?"

"The boys went to see her about it, as it blocks their short cut to the Ohio River, where they go swimming, but she was so insulted at what she called their interference that I insisted upon their letting the matter drop. Paul, who always has insisted on his rights, went so far as to see a lawyer about it. His opinion was that Sister Sarah had no more right to fence off that lane than she would have to build a house in the middle of Main Street. But, if you knew my Sister Sarah, you would understand that if she decided to build a house in the middle of Main Street she would do it."

"Perhaps she would if the Law were as ladylike as you are, Mrs. Brown,"

laughed Mr. Kean, "but the Law happens to be not even much of a gentleman. What I wanted to get at was whether or not you had right-of-way, not way. You have the right if not the way. Now I am going to come to business with you. Did you know, my dear lady, that that despised strip of land is worth more than all of your fruitful acres put together, beech woods and apple orchard thrown in?" He jumped up from his chair, able to contain himself no longer, and in clarion tones literally shouted, "Lady, lady, you've struck oil, you've struck oil!"

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.-WELLINGTON AGAIN.

"Wellington! Wellington!"