Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days Part 4

"I p.r.o.nounce you man and wife."

All is over. Molly can let the tears fall now if she wants to, but, strange to say, she does not seem to want to any more. Such a rejoicing is going on. Everybody seems to be kissing everybody else. Aren't they all more or less kin? Mildred and Kent, the center of a gay crowd, are fondly kissing the ones they should merely shake hands with, and formally shaking hands with their nearest and dearest, just as in a fire people have been known to carry carefully the pillows downstairs and throw the bowls and pitchers out of the window. Kent has his wits about him, however, and kisses Judy, declaring it is all in the day's work.

A stranger standing on the outskirts of the crowd during the whole ceremony seemed much more interested in the bridesmaid dressed in blue than in the bride herself, and when this same bridesmaid felt herself swaying a little as though her emotion might get the better of her, if one had not been so taken up with the central figures on the stage he might have noticed the stranger start forward as though to go to her a.s.sistance. But he, too, was brought to his senses by the calm voice of Dr. Peters in the opening words of the service, and saw with evident relief that the bridesmaid had gained control of herself. He was a tall young man with kind brown eyes and light hair, a little thin at the temples, giving him more years perhaps than he was ent.i.tled to.

When the service was over and the general confusion ensued, he made his way swiftly to where Molly stood, and without saying one word of greeting he put his arm around her and tenderly kissed her. Molly was so overcome with astonishment that she could only gasp, "Professor Green!

What are you doing here?"

"I am having a very pleasant time, thank you, Miss Molly. I got your mother's kind invitation to attend your sister's wedding, and-here I am.

Didn't your brother Paul tell you that I had come?"

"No, we have been so occupied, I believe I have not seen Paul to-day."

"I went to his newspaper office in Louisville to find out something about how to get here, and he asked me to drive out with him. Are you sorry I came, Miss Molly?"

"Sorry? Oh, Professor Green, you must know how glad I am to see you!

But, you see, I was a little startled, not expecting you and thinking of you as still at Wellington."

"If you were thinking of me as being anywhere at all, I feel better.

Were you really thinking of me?"

"Yes," said the candid Molly, "and wasn't it strange that I was thinking of you just as you came up-and-and--" but, remembering his manner of greeting her, she blushed painfully.

"You are not angry with me, are you, my dear child? I felt so lonesome.

You see everybody seemed to know everybody else, and there was such a handshaking and so forth going on that before I knew it I was in the swim."

"Almost every one here is kin or near-kin, and weddings in Kentucky seem to give a great deal of license," said Molly, recovering her equanimity.

"Of course I am not angry with you. I could not get angry with any one on Mildred's wedding day."

But Molly felt that in a way Edwin Green had paid her back for the hug she had given him. She had hugged him because he was so old that she could do so with impunity, and he in turn had kissed her because he felt lonesome, forsooth, and she was so young that it made no great difference. His "My dear child" had been a kind of humiliation to Molly.

What is the use of being a senior and graduating at college if a man very little over thirty thinks you are nothing but a kid?

"Professor Green is not so very much older than Ernest," thought Molly, "and I wager he will not treat Judy with that old-enough-to-be-your-father air! Here am I getting mad on Mildred's wedding day when I just said I could not! And, after all, Professor Green has been very kind to me and means to be now, I know." Turning to him with one of "Molly's own," as Edith Williams termed her smile, she said, "Now you must meet my mother and all the rest of them."

Mrs. Brown looked keenly and rather sadly at the young professor. This coming of men for her daughters was growing wearisome, so the poor lady thought; but she liked Edwin Green's expression and found herself trusting him before he got through explaining his sudden appearance in Kentucky.

"After all, maybe he is only thinking of Molly as one of his pupils. His buying the orchard meant an interest in her college course and nothing else."

Mrs. Brown introduced him to the relatives and friends near her, and Molly had to leave him and make herself useful, as usual, in seeing that the refreshments were forthcoming.

When they had decided to have the wedding out of doors, it had seemed best to have the supper al fresco, and now brisk and very polite colored waiters were busy bringing tables and chairs from a side porch and placing them on the lawn. An odor of coffee and broiled sweetbreads, mingling with that of chicken salad and hot beaten biscuit, began to rival the fragrance of the orange flowers and roses.

The crowd around the bride thinning out a little to find seats at the tables, Professor Green was able to make his way to Mildred and Crittenden. After greeting them, he espied Judy talking sweetly to a stern-looking woman with a hard face and a soft figure, who was dressed severely in a stiff black silk, with most uncompromising linen collar and cuffs. Her iron-gray hair was tightly coiled in a fashion that emphasized her hawk-like expression, but with all she looked enough like Mrs. Brown to establish an undeniable claim to relationship with that charming lady. Mrs. Brown herself, in a soft black crepe de Chine and old lace collar and cuffs, with her wavy chestnut hair, was more beautiful than any of her daughters, the bride herself having to take a second place.

Judy was delighted to see the professor, and not nearly so astonished as Molly had been, the truth being that Paul had told that young lady of Edwin Green's arrival, with the expectation that she would inform Molly.

But Judy, realizing the state of excitement that Molly was in, determined to keep the news to herself and not give Molly anything more to feel just then, even if in doing so she, Judy, would appear to be careless and forgetful. Judy understood the regard that Molly had for Professor Green-better than Molly herself did. She remembered Molly's expression and misery when little Otoyo, their j.a.panese friend at Wellington, had told them of his being so dangerously ill with typhoid, and how Molly had lost weight and could neither sleep nor eat until the crisis had pa.s.sed.

"Did you ever see such a beautiful wedding in your life?" said Judy.

"Never, and I am told it was all your plan, even to the holly-hock background."

"Well, you see the idea was floating around in the air, and I was just the one who had her idea-net ready and caught it. Ideas are like b.u.t.terflies, anyhow-all flying around waiting to be pounced on-but the thing is to have your net ready."

"Yes, and another thing, not to handle the b.u.t.terfly idea too roughly.

Many an idea, beautiful in itself, is ruined in the working out," said her companion.

"That is where taste comes in."

Judy would have liked to chase the metaphor much farther with the agreeable young man, but she remembered that she had set out to fascinate Aunt Clay, and it was Aunt Sarah Clay to whom she had been talking when Professor Green had come up. She introduced him, and Mrs.

Clay immediately pounced on him with a tirade against innovations of all kinds.

Looking very much as we are led by the cartoonists to expect a suffragist to look, Mrs. Clay was the most ardent "anti." Opposed to all progress and innovations, and constantly at war on the subject of higher education of women, she carried her conservatism even to the point of having her grain cut with a scythe instead of using the up-to-date machinery. Professor Green was her natural enemy, for was he not instructor in a girls' school where, she was led to understand, belief in equal suffrage was as necessary for entrance as the knowledge of Latin or mathematics?

Professor Green, ignorant of the antagonism she felt for him and his calling, endeavored to make himself as agreeable as possible to Molly's aunt. He listened with seeming respect to her attack on modernism and then turned the subject to the wedding, her pretty nieces and fine-looking nephews.

"I never heard of any one getting married out of doors before in my life, and had I known they were contemplating such a thing I certainly should not have set my foot on the place, nor would I have sent them the handsome wedding present I did. I shall not be at all astonished if the bishop reprimands that sentimental old Dr. Peters for allowing anything so undignified in connection with the church ritual. They had much better jump over a broomstick like Gypsies and not desecrate our prayer book in such a manner. Mildred Carmichael has brought all her children up to have their own way. The idea of none of those boys being willing to stay on the farm where their forefathers managed to make a living, and a very good one! They, forsooth, must go as clerks or reporters or what not into cities and let their farm go to rack and ruin, already mortgaged until it is top-heavy. Then when they do make a little, they must squander it in this absurd new-fangled machinery, labor-saving devices that I have no use for in the world. And now Molly, not content with four years wasted at college, to say nothing of the money, says she wants to go back to fit herself more thoroughly for making her living.

Living, indeed! Where are her brothers that she need feel the necessity of making her living?"

"But, Mrs. Clay," Judy here broke in, "my father says that there are only three male relatives that a woman should expect to support her: her father, her husband and her son. Since Molly has none of these, she, of course, wants to do something for herself. Even with a father, unless the father is very well off, it seems to me a girl ought to help after a lot has been spent on her education. I certainly mean to do something, but the trouble is, the only thing I can do will mean more money spent before I can accomplish anything."

"And what does such a charming person as Miss Kean expect to do?" asked the irascible old lady.

"I want to go to Paris and study to become a decorator." This was too much for Mrs. Clay. Without saying a word, she turned and stalked across the lawn where the waiters were carrying trays of food.

"Hateful old thing! I hope food will improve her temper. It would certainly be acceptable to me. See, here comes Kent with a table! I'll find Molly and we can have a fine foursome, and you shall taste Aunt Mary's beaten biscuit, hot from the oven. No wonder Molly is such an angel. If, as the cereal ads. say, we are what our food makes us, any one raised on Aunt Mary's cooking would have to be good. Goodness knows what Aunt Clay eats! It must be thistles and green persimmons!"

CHAPTER VI.-b.u.t.tERMILK TACT.

Mildred, dressed in her pretty brown traveling suit, off to Iowa; the last slipper and handful of rice thrown; the last lingering guest departed; daylight pa.s.sed and the moon well up; and at last Mrs. Brown and Judy and Molly were free to sink on a settle on the porch, realizing for the first time how tired and footsore they were.

"Oh, my dears, I feel as though I could never get up again! It is a good thing I am so tired, for now I shall have to sleep and can't grieve for Mildred all night. I begged Professor Green to stay, but he had to go back to Louisville. However, he is coming out to Chatsworth to-morrow to pay us the promised visit. We shall have to pack the presents in the morning to send to Iowa, and glad I'll be to get them out of the house.

Did I tell you, Molly, that Aunt Mary, Ca'line and Lewis are all going off to-morrow to Jim Jourdan's basket funeral? We shall be alone, you and Judy and I. Sue goes to your Aunt Clay's for a few days, and Kent starts back to work, the dear boy. Such a comfort as he has been! Ernest has to look up some friends in town, but will be out in time for supper.

I fancy he will drive Professor Green out from Louisville. Good night, my dear girls, I know you are dead tired."

So they were, so tired that Judy overslept in the morning, but Molly was up betimes to help the servants get off on their gruesome spree.

"Now ain't that jes' like my Molly baby? She don' never fergit to be he'pful. Th' ain't no cookin' fer you to do to-day, honey; they's plenty of bis'it lef' from the jamboree las' night; they's a ham bone wif 'nuf on it fer you and yo' ma an' Miss Judy to pick on; they's a big bowl er chick'n salid in the 'frigerater that I jes' bodaciously tuck away from that black Lewis. I done tol' him that awlive ile my'naise ain't no eatin's fer n.i.g.g.e.rs. If his insides needs a greasin' he kin take a good swaller er castor ile. Tell yo' ma I made that lazy Ca'line churn fo'

sun-up 'cause they wa'nt a drap er b.u.t.ter in the house, an' the b.u.t.termilk is in the big jar in the da'ry. They's a pot er cabbage simperin' on the back er the stove, but that ain't meant fer the white folks, but jes' in case we needs some comfort when we gits back from the funeral. I tried to save some ice cream fer my honey baby from las'

night an' had it all packed good fer keepin', but looked like in the night I took sech a cravin' fer some mo' I couldn' sleep 'thout I had some, an' by the time I opened up the freezer an' et some, it looked like the res' of it jes' melted away somehow."

"Well, Aunt Mary, I am so glad you got some more. Have a good time and don't worry about us. We shall get along all right. You see there are no men on the place to-day, and women can eat anything the day after a party. You know my teacher, Professor Green, is going to be here for a visit. He is coming this evening in time for supper, and I do hope you won't be too tired after the basket funeral to make him some waffles."

"What, me tired? I ain't a-goin' to be doin' nothin' all day but enjyin'

of myself; and if I won't have the stren'th myself to stir up a few waffles fer my baby's frien's, I's still survigerous 'nuf to make that Ca'line do it. I allus has a good time at funerals an' a basket funeral is the mos' enjyble of all entertainments."