BY THE FIRELIGHT
The only home Nance Oldham had ever known she had made herself after
she left college. Her childhood and girlhood had been spent in boarding
houses with her patient father, while her brilliant mother made
occasional hurried and preoccupied visits to them. There had been a
time when Nance had felt bitterly towards her mother because she was
not as other mothers were, but the realization had finally come to her
that her mother could no more be as other mothers than other mothers
could be as Mrs. Oldham was. She had decided that instead of her
mother's being a mistake, that she, Nance, was the mistake. She should
never have been born; but now that she was born she intended to make
the best of it. The fact that she had never had a home made a home
just that much more precious and desirable in her eyes.
What a lovely home this square old brick house on the campus made!
Nance remembered well in her college days that it was not such a very
attractive place, rather bleak, in fact. It needed a mistress, the soul
of a house; and now in place of the blank uncurtained windows of old
days, Molly's genial hospitality and kindness seemed to look out from
every pane of glass. The college girls named Mrs. Edwin Green "The Fairy
Godmother of Wellington." She was called into consultation on every
occasion. The President of Wellington wondered if it were not incumbent
upon her to offer Molly a salary for her services.
"I don't know what we would do without her. I believe the college would
simply go to pieces without Mrs. Edwin Green."
The students, old and young, rich and poor, flocked to the brick house
which they dubbed "The Square Deal." There Molly administered advice
and love and sympathy with absolute impartiality, also with perfect
unconsciousness that she was the guiding star of the student body.
"She is the only really truly democratic person I ever knew,--of
course, besides O. Henry, and I didn't exactly know him," Billie McKym
declared. "She and O. Henry simply don't regard money one way or the
other in their judgment of persons. Now most social workers think of the
rich as necessary evils in the way of pocketbooks and such. They really
take no interest in anyone who does not need financial or moral help,
but Molly and O. Henry are just as good to the rich as the poor."
Billie was back at Wellington taking extra courses that she wasn't
certain what she was to do with, but she felt anything was preferable to
coming out into society in New York, which was the inevitable sequence
the moment she was through with college.
Billie rather resented the guest at the Square Deal as did many of
Molly's youthful friends.
"There's never any seeing Molly alone now," she grumbled.
"Never!" agreed Mary Neil, a red-headed junior who had what she termed
a "mash" on Mrs. Green. Molly, being totally unaware of this, was ever
causing the poor girl to turn green with jealousy.
"To think of her stopping the 'Would-be's' just because Miss Oldham's
mother died, and she didn't even think enough of her to put on
mourning," asserted Lilian Swift as she peeped in the mirror over the
mantel to adjust her own very becoming black and white hat, worn as
second mourning for a great-aunt who had left her a legacy.
These girls were assembled in the library at the Greens', waiting to see
their friend. That evening the "Would-be Authors' Club" was to have met,
but Molly, their president, had felt it best to postpone it because of
Nance's recent bereavement. The "Would-be Authors" was now a flourishing
organization with a waiting list that almost stretched around the
campus. They met together for mutual benefit and encouragement and
sometimes for discouragement. The only requisite for membership was to
scribble at fiction. On coming into this club it was necessary to pledge
oneself to take a criticism like a man. No matter how severe a drubbing
your story called forth, you must smile and smile.
"Girls, I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, but Mildred had got
chewing-gum in her hair and I simply had to get it out before her whole
wig stuck together," said Molly as she came in with Dodo in her arms and
Mildred trotting after her like a veritable little colt following its
dam. "My friend, Miss Oldham, will be down in a moment."
The girls looked at one another meaningly.
"I want all of you to like my friend," continued Molly, as though she
could divine their thoughts. "She has had a hard time and she needs the
companionship of young people more than anyone I know."
Molly then told them of Nance's devotion to her mother and father, of
her thwarted ambition, of her unselfishness and cleverness.
"It seems strange for her not to wear mourning for her mother," said
Lilian.
"Perhaps it does, but when you think of it, what you wear has nothing to
do with your feelings. It is in a way part of Nance's unselfishness
that she did not put on mourning. Her father disliked it, her mother
could not abide it, and as she said, it meant a new outfit which she
could ill afford. It is a great deal easier just to give up to grief and
exude gloom than it is to be cheerful and radiate light and happiness."
Molly was in a measure irritated by Lilian's criticism of her beloved
Nance, but Lilian was a person who always spoke her mind no matter what
was involved, and she had a certain sturdiness and honesty of opinion
that disarmed one.
"Well, that's all right," she answered bluntly, "but while she is being
so unselfish about her clothes, why doesn't she spunk up a bit about the
'Would-be Authors?'"
"What about them?"
"Why, postponing the meeting because she is in such deep grief."
"That wasn't Nance. I am responsible for that foolishness. She only
found out about it to-day and declares she will go back to Vermont if I
dare make a single change in my way of living. I want all of you to get
messages to the club to be sure and come this evening."
"Bully for Nance!" cried Billie McKym.
Nance came into the room just as Billie was cheering her.
"I'm mighty glad it's bully for me, if I'm the Nance. But why 'Bully for
Nance'?"
"Just because you are here with Mrs. Green and can come to our literary
club this evening," said Billie with a straight face.
"But I am no scribbler," declared Nance.
"But you are a wonderful critic," said Molly. "Among so many scribblers
it is well to have one sane person willing to compose the audience. It
is my turn to read to-night and I want your criticism."
"If I can come in that capacity, I am more than willing," smiled Nance
as she settled herself to her knitting.
"I remember many times you saved me from making a bombastic goose of
myself on my college themes," laughed Molly. "What I flattered myself
was pathos, under your cool judgment turned out often to be bathos."
Molly leaned over and gave her friend an affectionate pat. At this show
of love, Mary Neil jumped up so suddenly that she upset little Mildred,
who was sitting on the sofa by her, and without saying a word rushed
from the room.
"What on earth!" exclaimed Molly.
"The suddenness of Mary,--that's all," declared Billie.
"Good title for a story!" said Lilian, getting out a note-book.
"Oh, you scribblers!" laughed Nance.
Little Mildred was picked up and comforted and in a short while the
visitors took their departure.
"Molly, do you know what was the matter with that interesting looking
red-headed girl?" asked Nance as they settled to the delights of a
twilight chat, while Nance busily plied her knitting needles on the long
drab scarf that seemed to grow under her agile fingers like magic.
"I have no idea."
"She was jealous of me. I noticed how she looked at me when I came in
and she never said a single word while all of us were chatting. Then the
moment you gave me a little pat, she jumped up as though she had
received an electric shock and fled."
"Absurd! I hate to think it of Mary."
"It's true all the same. Didn't you know she was crazy about you?"
"No, and I don't want to know it. A girl had better be beau-crazy than
have these silly cases with other girls. I am going to put a stop to it
in some way."
"How, may I ask?"
"I might do like Peg Woffington and put my hair up in curl papers and
appear at my very worst."
"Well, dearie, your worst might be so much better than some person's
best that that might not work. But don't think I've got a case on you."
"Never! We were foolish enough college girls but we never were that
foolish. I can't remember anyone in our crowd having these silly
mashes. Can you?"
"Unless it was the affair Judy Kean had with Adele Windsor. Do you
remember when poor Judy turned up with her hair dyed a blue black?"
"Do I?" and the friends went off into peals of laughter just as Mrs.
McLean ushered herself into the firelit room.
"The door was open so I came right in," announced that dear woman. She
caught Nance's hands in a strong grasp and drew the girl towards her.
"I am glad to see you, my dear," she said simply. Her well-remembered
Scotch accent fell pleasingly on Nance's ear.
"The violets were lovely. I thank you so much," faltered Nance.
Molly wondered at the embarrassment of her friend. She had longed to
talk to Nance about Andy McLean but did not know how to begin. She
shrank from prying into her guest's affairs, but the eternal feminine
in her was on the alert for the romance she had no doubt was there.
"And now I must tell you all about Andy," said his fond mother. "I know
you want to hear about him,--eh?"
"Indeed we do," put in Molly quickly, while Nance tried to go on with
her knitting, but I am afraid dropped more stitches than she picked up.
"He has resigned from the hospital staff in New York where he was doing
so splendidly and is to go to France as an ambulance surgeon."
"Oh!" came involuntarily from Nance.
"Splendid!" cried Molly.
"It is what he should do," declared his Spartan mother. "His father and
I would not have it otherwise. Of course, the States will be at war
before the month is out and Andy might wait and enlist with his own
country, but in the meantime he is needed, and sadly needed, by my
country, mine and his father's."
"He will come see you before he sails, will he not?" asked Molly.
"Of course! He may spend a month with us."
"That will be splendid indeed."
Nance said nothing, but the flames that sprang from the wood fire lit up
a very rosy countenance.
"I must be going now. I only ran in for a moment to bring the news of my
Andy and to see this little friend again. Come to see me, both of you,"
and the doctor's wife was gone.
"Molly! I should never have come to you!" said Nance the moment the door
closed on their visitor. Katy, the Irish nurse, had come for the baby.
Little Mildred had fallen asleep, her head in Nance's lap.
"My darling girl! Why?"
"I can't spoil Andy's visit to his mother. If I am here, it will be
spoiled."
"Nance, how can you say so?"
"Because it is the truth. He will have to see me, and he hates me."
"He couldn't!"
"He left me two years ago in a rage and swore it was over for good and
all; and he couldn't have said such things to me if he had not hated
me."
"And you--do you hate him?"
"Of course not!" and again the flickering fire showed off her blushes.
"Did you say nothing to him but nice things?"
"We-ll, not exactly,--but he said the things he said first."
"Were the things he said worse than the things you said?"
"No!" with a toss of her independent head, "I gave him back as good as
he sent."
"You shouldn't have done it. You knew how the things he said hurt, and
with your superior knowledge of what it meant to be wounded, you were
cruel to hurt him so."
"But he should have known! That kind of philosophy is above me. Suppose
the Allies conducted their warfare under those principles, what would
become of us? Germany hit first and France and Belgium knew how it hurt,
and so they should not have hit back. There is a big hole in your
reasoning, honey."
"But that is not the same. Germany and France didn't love one another,
while you and Andy----"
"Well, it is all over now!" and Nance composed herself and tried to go
on with her knitting. Molly thought in her heart perhaps it was not so
"over" as Nance thought.
"Why did you and Andy quarrel?"
"I had promised when Father no longer needed me that I
would--would--marry him. How could I tell that Mother would want to
come live with me when poor Father was gone? Andy came as soon as he
learned of Father's death and seemed to think I could pick right up
and marry him, and when I objected to such unseemly haste he said I
had been flirting with him. The idea of such a thing! He got it into
his head that Dr. Flint, the physician who had been with us through
poor Father's long illness, was the cause of my holding back."
"A young doctor?"
"Ye-es!"
"Was he--was he--attentive?"
"Perhaps--well, yes--he did propose to me but I had no idea of
accepting him. Andy should have known me well enough to realize that I
couldn't be so low as to jilt him. When Andy came, Mother had just told
me that she never expected to leave me again. I never did have a chance
to tell this to him, he was so angry and so jealous. He wanted me to
marry him immediately and leave Vermont,--and how could I when Mother
was home, sick and miserable and reproaching herself for having been
away from Father so much?"
"Did your mother not know of your engagement to Andy?"
"No-o! You see, poor Mother was not--was not the kind of mother one
confided in much. Afterwards, when I nursed her through all those
months, she was so softened if I had had anything to confide I should
have done so, but then there was nothing left to confide."
"Poor old Nance!" said Molly lovingly.
"Well, I'm not sorry for myself a bit. No doubt I might have gone
whining to Andy and made him take back all the things he said, but I am
no whiner. It was a good thing we found out in time we could say such
things to each other!"
"Maybe it was a good thing to find out in time how it hurt to say such
things and have such things said to one, and then it would never happen
again," said the hopeful Molly.
Nance divined that Molly was thinking how best she could bring these two
estranged lovers together, and determined to frustrate any matchmaking
plans the young matron might be hatching.
"Promise me, Molly, you will not say a thing to Andy or to anyone. It is
something that is hopelessly mixed up and my pride would never recover
if Andy should know that I cared."
"You do care then?"
"Of course I care! I never had very many friends and if I cared for Andy
enough to engage myself to him, I could not get over it ever, I am
afraid. But you have not promised yet."
"I promise," said Molly sadly. "But if you love Andy, it does seem so
foolish----"
"But remember you have promised!"