Molly Brown's Sophomore Days Part 19

The two girls were on their way to a cla.s.s and there was no time to linger for discussions about Nance's unforgiving nature. But there was nothing Judy enjoyed more than making what she learnedly termed "psychological speculations" concerning her friends' sentiments.

"Do stop tearing along, Molly, while I talk. I have something interesting to say."

"Judy Kean, there must be a depression on your head where there should be a perfectly good b.u.mp of duty. Don't you know we have only five minutes to get to the cla.s.s? I'd rather be late to almost anything that Lit. II."

"And why, pray?" demanded Judy, rushing to keep up with Molly's long steps.

"Oh, well, because it's interesting."

"Is that the only reason?"

"Why don't you turn into a period occasionally, Juliana? You are every other variety of punctuation mark,--dashes, exclamations, interrogations. Sometimes you're a comma and I've known you to be a semicolon, but when, oh, when have you come to a full stop?"

"All this long peroration----"

"Pero--what?"

"Means that you are avoiding the real question."

"Here we are," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Molly with a sigh of relief as she ran upstairs and entered the cla.s.s room at the same moment that Professor Green appeared from another door.

Molly freely admitted to her friends that English Literature was the most interesting study she had. She took more pains over the preparation for this cla.s.s than for any of her other lessons. She was always careful not to be late, but then sat timidly and modestly in the back row with the girls who wished to avoid being called upon to recite. The Professor's lectures, however, led her into an enchanted country, the land of poetry and romance. Perhaps, at first, he thought she really wished to avoid being questioned and that her spellbound expression was only indifference. Certainly he had seldom tested her interest until one day during a lecture on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and poets he calmly requested her to stand up before the entire cla.s.s and read Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Blushing hotly, she began the reading in a thin, frightened voice, but presently the amused faces of her friends faded away; her voice regained its full measure of strength and beauty, and when she had finished, she became aware that somewhere hidden within the wellsprings of her mind was a power she had not known of before. Molly's cla.s.smates were much impressed by her performance, but there was a faint smile on the Professor's face that seemed to imply that he was not in the least surprised.

Among all the little happenings that infest our daily lives it is often the least and most accidental that wields the strongest influence. This chance discovery by Molly that she could read poetry aloud gave her infinite secret pleasure. She began to memorize and repeat to herself all her favorite poems. Sometimes her pulses beat time to the rhythm in her head; even her speech at such times became unconsciously metrical, and as she walked she felt her body swing to the music of the verse.

With a strange shyness she hid this secret from her friends, who never guessed when she sat quietly with them that she was chanting poetry to herself.

Molly had planned to do several errands that afternoon, after the cla.s.s in Lit. II. The first one took her to the village to see Madeleine Pet.i.t, the little Southern girl, who was willing to do almost any kind of work to earn money. Molly had never returned the magazine clippings of prize offers, and she had also another reason for wanting to see Madeleine. She wished to find out just how different life in a room over the post-office was from life at Queen's. She was thankful when the lesson was over, that Judy was engaged for basket-ball practice in the gym., for she wished to be alone when she made this call.

Only a few days before, Miss Walker had called to her after chapel and suggested that she look over the rooms the postmistress rented to students, and make her choice so that lodgings could be spoken for before Christmas.

Molly paused at Madeleine's door and read the sign carefully.

"I suppose I shall have to be fixing up something like that," she thought, "only I never could do up jabots and I'd rather scrub floors than shampoo people's heads."

"Come in," called the liquid, melting voice of the Southern girl in answer to Molly's tap. "Oh, how do you do? What a delightful, welcome surprise," cried the hospitable little person. "Put your feet over the register. That's where I spend most of my time now. I'm not used to this awful climate. Now, give me your hat and coat. You're to have tea with me, you know. You won't mind if I go on working, will you? I'm doing up some jabots and things for that sweet Miss Stewart. She has given me a lot of work. Such a lady, if she is a Yankee! I can safely say that to you because you aren't one, you know. But, really, I'm beginning to like these Northern girls so much. They are quite as nice as the girls from home, only quieter," rattled on Miss Pet.i.t.

Molly groaned inwardly.

"If she only didn't talk so much," she thought. "I'm always putting up milestones during her ramblings to remind me of something I wanted to say, but there's never any chance to go back, even if I could remember where I put them."

"I wanted to return these clippings," she managed to edge in at last, producing the slips of papers.

"Oh, you needn't have bothered. I shall never use any of them. I told you there was nothing but mathematics in my soul. I can't write at all.

The themes are the horror of my life. But you tried, I am sure. Was it the short story or one of the advertising ones? They are all of them terribly unsatisfactory because you never know where you stand until months and months afterwards when you read that somebody has won the prize. But, of course, I never expect to win prizes. I could never make a _coup de tete_ like that."

"You could make a _coup de_ tongue," thought Molly, sighing helplessly.

"But did you try?" asked Madeleine, now actually pausing for a reply to her question.

"I did try one of them, a little poem that came into my head, but it was weeks ago and I know nothing will come of it. I felt when I sent it off that it wasn't the kind of thing they wanted, wasn't advertisey enough.

I had really almost forgotten I wrote it, so many other things have happened since. Can you keep a secret, Miss Pet.i.t?"

"I certainly can," replied the busy little creature, pausing in her labors to test the iron. "Dear me, I must be careful not to scorch any of these pretty things. But the tea kettle is boiling. Suppose we have some refreshment and you can tell me the secret in comfort."

Molly smiled at her own Southern peculiarities cropping out in this little friend.

"Mommer sent me this caramel cake yesterday. It's made from a very old recipe. I hope you'll like the tea. I'm sorry I can't offer you any real cream. I would just as soon eat cold cream for the complexion as condensed cream. It's all right for cooking with, but it doesn't go well with tea and coffee, which I always make in my own rooms, especially coffee. It's never strong enough at the place I take my meals. But you said something about a secret?"

Somehow Molly's affairs seemed to dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this great tidal wave of conversation, and she resolved not to take Madeleine into her confidence after all. It occurred to her that she would soon become a raving maniac if she lived next door to anyone who talked as much as that.

"It's really not much of a secret," answered Molly lightly. "Miss Walker asked me to come down and look over some empty rooms here for someone, and I thought, maybe, if you could spare the time you would come with me."

"I can always spare the time to be of service to you," exclaimed Madeleine. "You have done so much for me. You really gave me my start here, you know."

"Nonsense!" put in Molly.

"Yes, you did. You sent Miss Stewart to me and introduced me to some of the older girls, who have all been very nice. They would probably never have heard of me but for you."

When they had finished the tea and cake, which were delicious, they inspected the vacant rooms, to a steady accompaniment of Madeleine's conversation. Molly wondered how the capable, clever, industrious little creature could accomplish so much when her tongue went like a clap-hammer most of the time. But there was no doubt that she achieved marvels and was already well up in her cla.s.ses. Poor Molly's temples ached with the steady hum. Her tongue was dry and she had a wild impulse to jump out the window. How could she explain to kind Miss Walker that she could not live over the post-office? Would it not be an unfriendly act to tell the real reason?

"It's bad enough as it is," she thought, "leaving my sweet old Queen's, but this would be beyond human endurance. It will have to be a room over the general store or at Mrs. O'Reilly's. Anything but this."

The post-office rooms were bare and crude, and poor Molly was sick at heart when at last she took her leave of the little friend, who was still babbling unceasingly when the door closed.

Molly breathed a deep sigh of relief as she waded through the slush on the sidewalk.

"It will be a good deal like being banished from the promised land," she said to herself, "wherever it is."

Pausing at the door of the general store, she noticed a big, black, funereal-looking vehicle coming up the street at a slow pace. Pa.s.sers-by paused to look at it, with a kind of morbid curiosity, as it drew nearer.

"Oh, heavens, I hope that isn't an undertaker's wagon," Molly thought, preparing to flee from the dread sight which always filled her with the horrors. The big vehicle pa.s.sed slowly by. On the front seat with the driver sat Dr. McLean. He bowed to her gravely, barely lifting his hat.

"One of his patients," her thoughts continued, "but it's strange for him to ride on the same wagon. I don't think I can possibly look at those other rooms today."

She turned her face away from the general store and hastened back to the University, which seemed to be the only thing that retained its dignity and beauty under the disenchanting influences of this muggy, damp day.

As she walked up the avenue, there some distance ahead was the gruesome equipage.

"Heavens! Heavens! I haven't heard about anything," she exclaimed.

The wagon did not pause at the Infirmary as she expected, but pursued its way until it reached the McLean house. Molly began to run, and just as she arrived breathless and excited, the vehicle had backed up to the steps, two doors swung open, and Mrs. McLean, accompanied by a trained nurse, stepped out. The doctor climbed down from one side of the vehicle and the driver from the other. Professor Green sprung up from somewhere,--he had probably been waiting in the McLeans' hall--and the three men gently lifted out a stretcher on which lay the almost unrecognizable form of Andy, junior. A large bandage encircled his head and one arm was done up in splints.

"Oh, Mrs. McLean," whispered Molly, "I didn't know----"

But Mrs. McLean only shook her head and hurried after the stretcher.

Molly sat down on the muddy steps and waited. After what seemed an age, Professor Green emerged from the house.

"You are a reckless girl to sit there in all that dampness," he exclaimed.

"Never mind me. What about Andy?"