Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days

She squeezed in between mother and son, as Kent said afterward, taking up more room then any little person that he ever saw.

“Noah he did build an ark, one wide river to cross.Built it out of hickory bark, one wide river to cross.One wide river, and that wide river was Jordan,One wide river, and that wide river to cross.”

“All join in the chorus,” demanded Jimmy.

There were many verses to the time-honored song, and before they got all the animals in the ark the moon suddenly came out from behind a very black cloud, and the rain was over, but not the flood.

“It took many days and nights for the water to subside for old Noah, and we may expect the same delay in our case,” said the happy and irrepressible Jimmy.

Kent was glad indeed for the light of the moon. He had really had to leave it to President to take the proper road, or, rather, channel. That brave old horse had gone sturdily on, and, when one of the younger horses had begun to struggle and pull back, he had turned solemnly around and given him a soft little bite.

“Mother, did you see that? And look at that off horse now! I bet he will behave after this.”

Sure enough, the admonished animal was pulling as steadily as President himself, and they had no more trouble with him.

There were many large holes in the creek bed, and, of course, the wheels often went into them. Once it looked for a moment as though they might have a turnover to add to their disasters. The wagon toppled, but righted itself in a moment. Miss Hunt, as Judy had said, on the front seat was able to see the danger as she could not down in the wagon, and when the wheels went down that particularly deep hole she let out a piercing scream and tried to seize the reins from Kent.

Kent pulled up his horses as soon as the wagon was on a level and called to John, “John, will you please help Miss Hunt back into the seat she has just vacated? She finds she is not comfortable here.”

At that Miss Hunt very humbly crawled back, and, like the Heathen Chinee, “subsequent proceedings interested her no more.”

As dawn was breaking they drove into the avenue at Chatsworth, not really very much the worse for wear. The warm, dry wraps produced from under the seat after the moon came out had been wonderfully comforting. Edwin Green had made Mrs. Brown take his coat, and as he folded it around her he had whispered, “Kentucky women are very remarkable. They meet danger as though it were a partner at a ball.”

“Yes,” said Kent, who had overheard him, “I could never have come through the deep waters if it had not been for the brave women. You saw how the one scream unnerved me, to say nothing of that little vixen grabbing my reins. Here, Ernest, we are on the pike at last, and I am just about all in. I wouldn’t give up until we got through, but take the reins. Maybe Miss Hunt would like to drive,” he had slyly added, but a low moan from under the wet coats was all the proud beauty could utter.

Aunt Mary greeted them at Chatsworth with much delight.

“The sto’m here been somethin’ turrible. I ain’t seed sich a wind sence the chilluns’ castle blowed down. All of yer had better come back to the kitchen whar it’s warm and eat somethin’. I got a big pot er hot coffee and pitchers er hot milk an’ a pan er quick yeast biscuit. I done notice ef you eat somethin’ when you is cold an’ wet, somehow you fergits ter catch cold.”

They all came trooping back to the warm old kitchen, “ev’y spot in it as clean as a bisc’it board,” and there they ate the hot buttered biscuit and drank the coffee and milk. It was noticed that John let the “extras” take care of Miss Hunt, and he devoted himself to his mother. Just as they were separating for the morning he hugged his mother and whispered to her, “You need not have any more uneasiness about me, mumsy. I don’t believe there is a Brown living who could go on loving a woman who has no more sense than to grab the reins.”

CHAPTER IX. – JIMMY

“Judy, Mrs. Woodsmall has just ‘phoned over that her hated R. F. D. Woodsmall is bringing you a letter from your father. She says she could only make out it was from him, but could not decipher anything else. She has an idea he is on his way, as the postmark showed it was mailed on the train somewhere in Kansas. Isn’t she too funny? She makes some of the neighbors furious, but we always laugh at her little idiosyncrasy. After all, it is perfectly harmless. She really is as kind a little soul as there is in the county. Her life has been so narrow. If she could have been a real worker in a big city she might have grown into a very remarkable person. What a detective she would have made!”

Judy yawned and stretched and sat up as Molly came in bearing a tray of lunch for her tired friend as well as the news of a letter from Mr. Kean, somewhere on the road, and to be delivered some time that day if Bud Woodsmall’s automobile behaved.

“Oh, Molly, I am tired! Are you the only one of the crowd to be up and doing after last night?”

“I have persuaded mother to stay in bed and get a good rest. The boys took a late train into town, and Miss Hunt never did go to bed. Aunt Mary said she came down early this morning and ’phoned over to Aunt Clay’s coachman to come for her immediately, and off she went without saying ‘boo to a goose.’ I wish you could have heard Aunt Mary’s description of her!

“‘Yo’ Aunt Clay’s comp’ny sho ain’t no wet weather beauty. Her ha’r was so flat her haid looked jes’ like a buckeye; and her dress ‘min’ me of a las’ year’s crow’s nes’. She was so shamefaced like she resem’led that ole peacock when Shep done pull out his tail.’”

Judy laughed. “Oh, I do love Aunt Mary! But, Molly, won’t it be fine to see mamma and papa? Do you suppose they are really on their way?”

“It will be fine to see them, but it will be pretty sad to have them take off my Judy. I am mighty afraid that is what they are going to do. Go back to sleep now and I will bring you your letter as soon as Bud puts in his appearance. I am going to have a hard game of tennis with Jimmy Lufton against Ernest and that nice Miss Rogers. Weren’t those girls spunky last night? An experience like that will make you know people better than years of plain, everyday life. Professor Green has struck up quite an acquaintance with Miss Ormsby. It seems they have many mutual friends, both of them having summered many times at ‘Sconset.’”

Molly spoke quietly, but there was a slight tremor of lip and a deepening of color that the sharp Judy saw and noted, but nothing would have made her let Molly know that she had betrayed herself in the least.

“Molly was perfectly unconscious of what she was doing last night,” thought Judy, “but all the same she was making poor Professor Green live up to his name with jealousy. I don’t know but it might make Molly open her childlike old eyes if the patient professor should kick up his staid heels and jump the fence and go grazing in another paddock for a while.” And then aloud she said, “All right, honey, I’ll take forty winks and then get up and come down to the tennis court.”

Mr. Kean’s letter arrived in due time and, sure enough, Mrs. Woodsmall’s surmises were correct. He was on the way to Kentucky with Mrs. Kean, and expected to be in Louisville the next day at a hotel, and would motor out to Chatsworth in the afternoon.

“Your father and mother must not think of stopping at a hotel, Judy,” declared Mrs. Brown. “We have an abundance of room. Miss Rogers and Miss Ormsby are going in town after supper to-night with Ernest and Professor Green. Mr. Lufton expects to go back to Lexington to-morrow, and Professor Green is only waiting for some mail and will take his departure, too. We shall be forlorn, indeed, when all of them go. I’ll make Kent look up what train Mr. Kean will come in on and he will meet it and send them both right out here.”

“Oh, Mrs. Brown, you are so good. I would love for mamma and papa to be here and to know all of you and have you know them. They are as wonderful in their way as you are in yours, and your meeting would be a grand combination.”

Molly rather dreaded the coming of evening. She had promised Jimmy to take a walk with him by moonlight, and she had a terrible feeling that he might bring up the subject of “lemons” again. She was not prepared for the question that she felt almost sure he was going to ask her.

“I am nothing but a kid, after all,” moaned Molly to herself. “Professor Green was right in calling me ‘dear child.’ Mother was married when she was my age, but somehow I can’t seem to grow up. Jimmy is so nice, and I do like him so much, but as for spending the rest of my life with him – oh, I just simply can’t contemplate it. Why, why doesn’t he see how it is without having to talk it over? I wish none of them would ever get sentimental over me.” And then she blushed and told herself that she was a big story teller and sentimentality from some one who should be nameless would not be so trying, after all.

Supper was over, Professor Green and Ernest had gone gaily off, driving Miss Rogers and Miss Ormsby to Louisville, Judy and Kent were making a long-talked-of duty call on Aunt Clay, “just to show Miss Hunt there is no hard feeling,” laughed Judy. And now it was time to take the promised walk with Jimmy Lufton.

“You look a little tired, Miss Molly. Maybe you would rather not go. You must not let me bore you,” said Jimmy, a little wistfully.

“Oh, no, I’m all right. I fancy it will take all of us a few days to get over last night. I have wanted to tell you how fine you were and what it meant to all of us to have you so cheerful and tactful. The boys can’t say enough in your praise. We had to have some safety valve, and if we had not been laughing we might have been crying.”

“Oh, I’m a cheerful idiot, all right, all right. I have such a short upper lip and such an eternal grin on me that no one ever seems to think I have any feelings. I get no more sympathy than a fat man. I wish I could make people understand that I am as serious as the next, but somehow me Irish grandmither comes popping out in me and I have to joke if I am to die the next minute.”

“I think your disposition is most enviable,” said Molly kindly, “and, as for the dash of Irish, I always think that is what makes our mother so charming. It was almost a fad with our professor of English at college to find the Irish mother or grandmother for almost all of the great poets or essayists.” Molly could not quite trust herself to say Professor Green’s name, the picture of the seemingly ecstatic Edwin driving off with Miss Ormsby was too fresh in her mind, and she could not help smiling at herself for her formal “our professor of English.”

Their footsteps led them into the garden and then through the apple orchard down by the little stream, and on to the beech woods.

“I wonder why we are coming this way,” thought Molly, trying to keep her mind off another walk she had taken over that same ground not so long ago.

“Let’s sit down here,” said Jimmy, stopping under the great beech tree where Molly and Edwin had sat on that memorable day when he had spoken of his vision of the white-haired Molly, and then had stopped himself so suddenly with a joke about his own possible baldness.

“Oh, not right here,” said Molly hurriedly. “I know a nice rock a little farther on.”

“Molly, Miss Molly, Miss Brown! – Oh, Molly, darling, there is no use in going any farther because I know you know that I have brought you out here to tell you that I – ”

“Jimmy, please don’t say anything more. It ’most kills me to hurt you.”

“Is there no hope for me? I’ll wait a week, oh, I don’t mean a week, I’ll wait forever if there is a chance for me. I know this is a low question to ask you, but is there any one else?”

Honest Molly hung her head. “Not exactly.”

That “not exactly” was enough for Jimmy. He smiled a wan little smile that would have put his Irish grandmother to shame.

“Well, don’t you mind, Miss Molly. I wouldn’t have you feel blue about me for a million. You never did lead me on one little bit, and I was almost sure when I came to Kentucky that there would be nothing doing for yours truly; but somehow men are made so they have to make sure about such things. You and I have too much sense of the ridiculous to do any spiel about the brother and sister business, but I’ll tell you one thing, I am your friend forever, and you must know that, and understand that as long as I live I’ll hold myself in readiness to do your bidding.”

“Oh, Jimmy, you are so good and generous,” holding out her hand to him, “I am your friend forever, and I hope we shall always see a lot of each other.”

Jimmy took her hand and for a moment bowed his curly black head over it. Molly put her other hand on his head, feeling somehow that it was like comforting Kent.

“You are sure, Molly?”

“Yes, Jimmy.”

“Well, le’s go home. I know you are tired.

“‘If no one ever marries meI sha’n’t mind very much;I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,And a little rabbit-hutch,’”

sang the irrepressible.

When Judy got back to Chatsworth she found Molly weeping her soul out on the pillow, and she had noticed as they passed the office porch that for once Jimmy Lufton was whistling in the minor.

CHAPTER X. – AUNT CLAY MAKES A MISTAKE

“Sister Ann, do you see any dust arising?” called Molly to Judy, who had actually climbed up on the gate post, hoping to see a little farther up the road, expecting the automobile from Louisville with her beloveds in it.

“I see a little cloud and I hear a little buzzing. Oh, Molly, I believe it’s them.”

“Is it, oh, Wellington graduate? Get your cases straight before they come or your father will think that diploma is a fake.”

“Grammar go hang,” said Judy, performing a dangerous pas seul on the gate post and then jumping lightly down and racing up the avenue to meet the incoming automobile. Molly followed more slowly, never having been the sprinter that Judy was. Mr. Kean sprang from the car and lifted Judy off her feet in a regular bear hug.

“Save a little for me, Bobby,” piped the little lady mother. “Judy, Judy, it is too good to be true that we have got you at last, and I mean to keep you forever now, you slippery thing.” And then they all of them got into the car and had a three-cornered hug. Molly came up with only enough breath to give them a cordial greeting, welcoming them to Chatsworth.

“That is a very fine young man, your brother, who met us at the station, Miss Molly. Kent is his name? He recognized us by my likeness to you, Judy, so make your best bow and look pleased.” In looking pleased, Judy did a great deal of unnecessary blushing which her mother noticed, but, mothers being different from fathers, said nothing about it.

Mrs. Brown came hurrying down the walk to meet her guests. She was amused to see how much Judy resembled both her parents, although Mrs. Kean was so small and Mr. Kean so large. Mother and daughter were alike in their quick, extravagant speech, and a certain bird-like poise of the head, but father and daughter had eyes that might have been cut out of the same piece of gray and by the same pattern.

“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 assisted 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 grass, 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 analyzed?”

“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 ingratitude 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 scrapes, 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’ sass ole folks ‘til they fust sass 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 gratitude 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-cocked. 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 sparsely covered with grass 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 passed 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-cocked 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 scrapes 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?