Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days Part 14

Christmas was upon our girls almost before they had unpacked and settled down to work. Mid-year exams. had no terrors for our two post-graduates, but they were working just as hard as they ever had in their collegiate course.

"I don't know what it is that drives us so, Nance, unless it is that we are getting ready for the final examination at Judgment Day," said Molly. "I am so interested, I never seem to get tired these days; and I don't even mind the tutoring that has been thrust upon me. Now that I shall not have to teach for a living, I really believe I should not mind it very much."

Otoyo Sen was safely sailing under Molly's tutelage through her senior year. She spoke the most correct and precise English unless she was embarra.s.sed or upset in some way, and then, like Melissa Hathaway, she spoke from the heart, and little Otoyo's heart seemed to beat in adverbs and participles. She and Melissa had struck up the closest friendship.

"We might have known they would," said the a.n.a.lytical Nance. "They are strangely alike to be so different."

"Now, Nance, how Bostonesque we are becoming! I have never asked a Bostonian a question that I have not been answered in this way, 'It is and it isn't,'" teased Molly.

"Well, they are alike in being foreign, for Melissa is as foreign from us as is Otoyo. Then they are both scrupulously courteous until their amour propre is stepped on, and then you realize that they are both medieval. They are certainly alike in pride and in fort.i.tude and perseverance and family feeling. You know perfectly well that the real Melissa that is so covered up by this educated Melissa would take a gun and shoot every living Sydney she could get at if her grandmother told her to! I hope to goodness modernism will never get to the old woman and she will learn that women can do anything men can, or she will make Melissa take the place of the sons she mourns. On the other hand, little Otoyo would commit hara-kiri without winking an eyelash if honorable-father told her to."

"You have so convinced me of their similarity that I see no room for difference. They will look to me exactly like twins after this," laughed Molly; and both the girls could hardly restrain their merriment, for at that moment the so-called twins came in to call: Melissa, tall and stately as "the lonesome pine," with all doubts as to her fine figure removed now, thanks to Nance's skillful reformation of the blue homespun; and little Otoyo looking more like a mechanical toy than ever, since she had taken on a little more of the desirable flesh, according to the taste of her countrymen.

"Melissa and I have determined to move into a suite together," said Otoyo, as they entered. "Miss Walker said it is not usually for a Freshman and Senior to be so intimately, but since there is a suite vacant in the Quadrangle and more visits for singletons than suites, she is willing."

"You are excited over it, I know, you dear little Otoyo," said her tutor, "or you would not be so adverbial, and you must mean 'calls for singletons' instead of 'visits.'"

"Oh, you English and your language, made for what you call puns!"

"I am glad you call them puns instead of visiting them on us," said Nance, dodging a soft cushion hurled by Molly. "Did you girls hear the news? I am to stay at Wellington for Christmas and my father is coming down here to spend it with me. I can't think when father has taken a holiday before, and I am as excited about it as can be. He needs a rest, and he needs some fun. I wish he could have come last year before the old guard disbanded."

"But listen to me," put in Molly. "I have some news, too, that I was trying to keep for a surprise, but I am a sieve where news is concerned: Judy Kean is to be here for Christmas, too. She writes that as her mother and father are in Turkey she will have to have some turkey in her, and she can think of no place that she would rather have that turkey than at Wellington with us. Dear old Judy, won't it be fun? And she will help to whoop things up for your father, Nance. She expected to be studying art in Paris by now, but Mr. Kean insisted on a year of drawing in New York before Paris, and that makes her in easy reach of us. We shall have to stop work and go to playing. I declare I have grown so used to work-I don't believe I know how to play."

"Mees Grace Green is going to have an astonishment party for her brother, the young student medical," said Otoyo, the ever-ready news monger.

"A surprise party for Dodo," shrieked the girls with delight. "Otoyo, Otoyo, you are too delicious."

"Also, Mr. Andy McLean will be home with his honorable parents for making holiday, having done much proud work in the law school at Harvard University."

Nance smiled. Her private opinion was that Mr. Andrew McLean and his proud work were the cause of Otoyo's very mixed English.

"Also," continued Otoyo, "Mr. Andrew McLean will bring with him honorable young j.a.panese gentleman, who has hugged the Christian faith and is muchly studying to live in this country, whereas his honorable father has a wonderful shop of beautiful j.a.panese prints in Boston. My honorable father is familiar with his honorable father, namely, Mr.

Seshu."

"Oh ho, and that is the reason of the many mistakes," said Molly, in an aside to Nance. "I thought at first it was Andy's return, but I bet the little thing is contemplating something in connection with the honorable Mr. Seshu. I wonder if her father has written her about this young j.a.p."

During all this chit-chat Melissa had sat perfectly quiet, but her quiet was never heavy nor depressing. She looked calmly and interestedly on and listened and smiled and sometimes gave a low laugh, showing that her humor was keen and ready. Otoyo was a never-failing source of delight to her, and when the little thing spoke of hugging the Christian faith a real hearty laugh came bubbling up. But she put her arm affectionately around her little friend and smothered her laugh in Otoyo's smooth black hair, that always had a look of having just been brushed, no matter how modern and American was the arrangement.

And very modern and American were all of Otoyo's arrangements now. Her clothes bore the stamp of the best New York shops, with the most up-to-date shoes and hats, and she endeavored in every way to be as American as possible. She even tried to use the slang she heard around her, but her attempts in that direction were very laughable.

In due time the holidays arrived, and with them came our own Judy full of enthusiasm for her work at the art school; came young Andy with his j.a.panese friend from the law school. Andy looking older and broader and more robust, not half so raw-boned as he used to be, and the young j.a.panese gentleman, on first sight, so like Otoyo that it was funny-but, on further acquaintance, it proved to be a racial likeness only; came Nance's father, a staid, quiet gentleman with his daughter's merry brown eyes and a general look of one to be depended on; came George Theodore Green, familiarly known as Dodo, no longer so shy, but with much more a.s.surance of manner, as befitted a medical student from Johns Hopkins.

Miss Grace Green had secretly sent out invitations for the surprise party for Christmas Eve, and all the girls were very busy getting their best bibs and tuckers in order to do honor to the occasion. Molly had seen a good deal of Miss Green since she came to Wellington to keep house for her brother, and they had become fast friends. Miss Green often asked her to come in to afternoon tea, and then they would have the most delightful talks in the professor's study, and he would read to them. Sometimes Molly would be prevailed upon to read some of her sketches, always of Kentucky and the familiar things of her childhood.

She lost her shyness in doing this, and felt that it rather helped her and gave her new ideas for more things to write about.

"Judy, please help me unpack this barrel from home," called Molly the day before Christmas. "I know you will want to help carry some of the things to the Greens for me. I almost wish I had sent the barrel there, as so many of the things are to go to them. We shall be laden down, I am sure."

Judy, all excitement, began to knock off the top hoop and then with much hacking and prying they finally got off the head of the formidable-looking barrel and began to unpack the goodies: a ham for the professor of English cooked by Aunt Mary; a fruit cake for Molly, black and rich, with an odor to it that Judy said reminded her of the feast in St. Agnes Eve; a jar of Rosemary pickles; one of brandy peaches; a box of beaten biscuit; a roasted turkey, stuffed with chestnuts, and a wonderful bunch of mistletoe full of berries, growing to a k.n.o.bby stunted branch of a walnut tree, which Kent had sawed off with great care and then packed so well with tissue paper that not one berry or leaf was misplaced.

"This is for Miss Green's party. I asked Kent to get it for me. You know her party is to be an old English one, and it would not be complete without mistletoe. What is this little note hitched to it?

"'Dearest Molly:

"'I almost broke my neck getting this, and hope it is what you want.

Tell Miss Judy Kean, who, I hear, is to spend Christmas with you, not to get under this until I get there.

"'Kent.'

"What can he mean? Judy Kean, is Kent coming here for Christmas? Answer me."

But Judy only buried her crimson face in the big turkey's bosom and giggled.

"Answer me, Judy Kean."

"How do I know? Am I your brother's keeper?"

"He couldn't be coming or mother would have written me! I see he means for you to wait for him until he 'arrives' in his profession. Oh, Judy, Judy, I do hope you will! But come on now, we must take these things to the Greens. Miss Grace is very busy with her preparations, while Dodo is off for the day with young Andy and his j.a.p friend, revisiting their old college, Exmoor. We must get the mistletoe hung; and the ham is to be part of the party, I fancy. I am going to take them some of these pickles, too, and half of my fruit cake. It is so big that it will take us months to devour it, besides ruining our complexions."

The girls, weighed down with their heavy contributions-ham, pickle, fruit cake and mistletoe-rang the bell at Professor Green's house, fronting on the campus. The door was quickly opened by Miss Alice Fern.

She eyed them haughtily and coldly, hardly responding to Molly's greeting and barely acknowledging the introduction to Judy, whom she already knew, but refused to remember.

"My cousin, Miss Green, is very busy and regrets she cannot speak to you just now."

"Oh, I am sorry not to see her! I have some mistletoe that my brother sent her from Kentucky, and Miss Kean and I were going to ask her to let us hang it for her."

"You are very kind, but I am decorating the house for my cousins, and can do it very well without any a.s.sistance from outside."

"Molly, we had better leave our packages and make a chastened departure," said Judy, the irrepressible. "We have some interior decorations besides the mistletoe, Miss Fern, in the way of an old ham and a fruit cake, and some Rosemary pickles. Are you also chairman of the committee on that kind of interior decorations? If you are not, I should think it were best for us to interview the secretary of the interior, if we are not allowed to see the head of the department."

At that moment who should come bounding up the steps but Edwin Green himself.

"Good morning to both of you! I am so glad to see you back in Wellington, Miss Kean. I have just come from the Quadrangle, where I went to call on you, but saw Miss Oldham, who told me you and Miss Molly were on your way to see my sister. Why don't you come in? Grace is in the pantry, preparing for the 'astonishment party,' as I am told Miss Sen calls it. I will call her directly."

"Grace has asked to be excused to callers, Edwin," said the stately Miss Fern.

"Nonsense, Alice, she was expecting Miss Brown to decorate the parlors, and Miss Kean is not a stranger to any of us. Come in, come in," and the indignant professor ushered them into the parlor and went to call his sister, confiding to her, as she hastened to greet the girls, that if Alice Fern did not stop trying to run their affairs he was going to do something desperate.

"I am afraid you brought it on us by being too nice to her two years ago when she first came home from abroad," teased his sister; and he remembered that he had been rather attentive to his fair cousin at a time when Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky had had a little misunderstanding with him.

"How good of you, you dear, sweet girl, to have this mistletoe sent all the way from Kentucky for our party, and what a wonderful piece of walnut it is growing to, this great, knotted, k.n.o.bby branch! But, Alice, don't break any of it off! You will ruin it." Miss Green stopped Alice just in time, as she had begun with rapid tugs to pull the mistletoe from the branch that Kent had sawed off with such care, and to stick it in vases among the holly, where it did not show to any advantage. "Of course, it must be hung from the chandelier just as it is."

"Oh, very well, Cousin Grace; but it seems to me to be a very heavy looking decoration." And the young woman flounced off, leaving Molly and Judy feeling very much mystified, to say the least.

"Aunt Mary sent you a ham, Professor Green. I brought it to-day, thinking maybe your sister would like it for part of the night's festivities."

"Not a bit of it. That ham is to be brought out when there are not so many to devour it. I am not usually a greedy glutton, but beech-nut fed, home-cured ham is too good for the rabble, and I am going to hide it before Grace casts her eagle eye on it." He accordingly picked it up and pretended to conceal it from his smiling sister.

"Well, anyhow, Miss Green, you will use my fruit cake for the party, will you not?" begged Molly.