Molly Brown's Senior Days

CHAPTER I.. Good News and Bad.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD.

Summer still lingered in the land when Wellington College opened her gates one morning in September. Frequent heavy rains had freshened the thirsty fields and meadows, and autumn had not yet touched the foliage with scarlet and gold. The breeze that fluttered the curtains at the windows of No. 5 Quadrangle was as soft and humid as a breath of May. It was as if spring was in the air and the note of things awakening, pushing up through the damp earth to catch the warm rays of the sun. It was Nature's last effort before she entered into her long sleep.

Molly Brown, standing by the open window, gazed thoughtfully across the campus. Snatches of song and laughter, fragments of conversation and the tinkle of the mandolin floated up to her from the darkness. It was like an oft-told but ever delightful story to her now.

"Shall I ever be glad to leave it all?" she asked herself. "Wellington and the girls and the hard work and the play?"

How were they to bear parting, the old crowd, after four years of intimate association? Did Judy love it as she did, or would she not rather feel like a bird loosed from a cage when at last the gates were opened and she could fly away. But Molly felt sure that Nance would feel the pangs of homesickness for Wellington when the good old days were over.

All these half-melancholy thoughts crowded through Molly's mind while Judy thrummed the guitar and Nance, busy soul, arranged the books on the new white book shelves.

Presently the other girls would come trailing in, the "old guard," to talk over the events of that busy first day: Margaret Wakefield, bursting with opinions about politics and woman's suffrage; pretty Jessie Lynch, and the Williams sisters whose dark lustrous eyes seemed to see beyond the outer crust of things. Last of all, after a discreet interval, would come a soft, deprecating tap at the door, and Otoyo Sen, most charming of little Japanese ladies, with a beaming, apologetic smile, would glide into the room on her marshmallow soled slippers.

"Everybody's late," exclaimed Judy, unexpectedly breaking in on her friend's preoccupation. "I do wish my trunk were unpacked. I can't bear to be unsettled. It's the most disagreeable thing about the first day of college."

"Why don't you go unpack it, then, lazybones?" asked Nance, a trifle sternly. As much as she loved her care-free Judy, she never quite approved of her.

"How little you understand my nature, Nance," answered Judy, reproachfully.

"I know that people who pride themselves on having the artistic temperament never like to unpack trunks or do any kind of so-called menial work, for that matter. But there can be just as much art in unpacking a trunk as in a painting a picture----"

"Ho, ho!" interrupted Judy, who loved these discussions with her serious-minded friend. "How would you like to engage for all your life in the immortal work of unpacking trunks?"

"I never said anything about doing it always--" broke in Nance, when the argument was brought to a sudden end by the arrival of the other girls.

There was a great noise of talk and laughter while they draped themselves about the room.

College girls in kimonos never sit in straight-backed chairs. They usually curl themselves up on divans or in Morris chairs, or sit, Turkish fashion, on cushions on the floor.

"Well, and what's the news?" they asked. Most of them had caught only flying glimpses of each other during the day.

"Wait until I make my annual inspection," ordered Judy, carefully examining the fourth finger of the left hand of every girl. "No rings or marks of rings," she said at each inspection until she came to Jessie, who was endeavoring to sit on her left hand while she pushed Judy away with her right. "Now, Jessica, no concealments," cried Judy, "and from your seven bosom friends! It's not fair. Are you actually wearing a solitaire?"

"I assure you it's my mother's engagement ring," Jessie protested, but Judy had extricated the pretty little hand on the fourth finger of which sparkled not one, but two, rings.

"Caught! Caught, the first of all!" they cried in a chorus.

"Honestly and truly I'm not."

"It looks to me as if you had been caught twice, Jessie," said Molly laughing.

"No, no, one of them is really Mama's and the other--well, it was lent to me. It's not mine. I simply promised to wear it for a few months."

Jeers and incredulous laughter followed this statement.

"We only hope you'll hold out to the end, Jessie," remarked Katherine in tones of reproach.

"What, leave dear old Wellington and all of you for any ordinary, stupid man? I'd never think of it," cried Jessie.

"I'm not afraid," here put in Edith. "Fickle Jessica may change her mind and her ring half a dozen times before June. Who can tell?"

"I'm not fickle where all of you are concerned, anyhow," answered Jessie reproachfully.

"You're a dear, Jessie," broke in Molly. She never did quite enjoy seeing other people teased.

"Will some one kindlee make for me explanation of the word 'jubilee'?" asked Otoyo Sen, seated cross-legged on a cushion in the very center of the group, like an Oriental story-teller.

"Jubilee?" said Edith. By an unspoken arrangement, it was always left to her to answer such questions. "Why jubilee means a rejoicing, a celebration."

"There will be singing and dancing and feasting greatlee of many days enduring?" asked Otoyo.

"It depends on who's doing the enduring," Edith said, smiling.

"Wellington will be enduring of greatlee much rejoicing," went on the little Japanese. "For Wellington will give jubilee entertainment for fifty years of birthday, perhaps, maybe."

Here was news indeed for seven seniors at the very head and front of college affairs.

"And where did you get this interesting information, little one?" demanded Margaret.

Otoyo blushed and hesitated; then cocked her head on one side exactly like a little song sparrow and glancing timidly at Nance, replied:

"Mr. Andrew McLean, second, he told it to me."

Nance smiled unconcernedly. She never dreamed of being jealous of the funny little Japanese.

"And why, pray, didn't Miss Walker announce it this morning at chapel when she made her opening address?" asked Margaret.

"Ah, that is for another veree sadlee reason," answered Otoyo, her voice taking on a mournful note. "You have not heard?"

"No, what?" they demanded, bursting with curiosity.

"Professor Edwin Green, the noble, honorable gentleman of English Literature, he is veree ill. You have not heard such badlee news? Miss Walker, she will announce nothing of jubilee while this poor gentleman lies in his bed so veree, greatlee ill."

"Why, Otoyo," cried Molly, her voice rising above the excited chorus, "is it really true? You mean dangerously ill? What is the matter with him?"

"He has been two weeks in the infirmaree with a great fever."

"You mean typhoid?"

Otoyo nodded. It was a new name to her. She had not had much to do with illness during her two years in America, but she remembered the dread name of typhoid. It had a sad association to her, for she had been passing the infirmary at the very moment when a black, sinister looking ambulance had brought Professor Edwin Green from his rooms to the hospital.

Molly relapsed into silence. Somehow, the joy of reunion had been spoiled and she tasted the bitterness of dark forebodings. It came to her with unexpected vividness that Wellington would not be the same without the Professor of English Literature, whose kind assistance and advice had meant so much to her. Only a little while ago she had made a secret resolution to seek him in his office on the morrow for counsel on a very vital question. In plain words: how to avoid being a school teacher. And now this brilliant and learned man, by far the brightest star in the Wellington faculty, was dangerously ill. Molly felt suddenly the cold clutch of disappointment.

The other girls were sorry but not really shaken or unnerved by the news.

"The jubilee must be to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the new Wellington--" began Margaret, after an interval of silence. "Do you suppose--" she began again and then broke off.

"Suppose what?" asked the inquisitive Judy.

"Oh, nothing. It would seem rather unfeeling to put in words what I had in my mind. I think I'll leave it unsaid."

There was a silence and again came that cold clutch at Molly's heart. She felt pretty certain that Margaret had started to say:

"Do you suppose, if Professor Green dies, it will interfere with the jubilee?"

"If there is a jubilee," suddenly burst out Judy, who had been lying quite still with her eyes closed, "if they do give it, we shall be at the head and front of it being seniors, and I already have a wonderful suggestion to make. Would it not be splendid to have an old English pageant? The whole college could take part in it. Think of the beautiful costumes; the lovely colors; the rustic dances and open air plays on the campus."

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