ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
"Will somebody please inform me how they can get up a lunch for this
crowd in an hour's time?" asked Nance, who, having spent her life in the
narrow quarters of a boarding house, was not accustomed to avalanches of
unexpected guests.
"Oh, I don't think it will be very difficult," Molly replied. "Major
Fern is a farmer. He probably has lots of hams in the smoke house and
plenty of eggs in the hen house and milk in the dairy and preserves and
pickles in the pantry, and if there isn't enough bread the cook can make
up some hot biscuits or corn bread."
"I know it couldn't embarrass you, Molly, dear. You'd be sure to find
plenty of food for company," laughed Nance.
But Molly was not far wrong in her suppositions of the lunch that Major
Fern unexpectedly called upon his wife and daughters and servants to
prepare. Alice was the only member of his family who was not entirely
cordial when the senior class of Wellington at last descended upon the
big old farmhouse at lunch time. She had buttered and sliced bread until
her back ached, and she cast many angry glances at her ruddy-faced
father tranquilly slicing ham in the pantry.
"There are times when Papa is a real nuisance," she thought angrily.
While Mrs. Fern pointed out piles of plates on the pantry shelf to a
maid, her husband told her the history of the morning.
"So you see, my dear," he finished, "that this party is really Charlie's
party. We are doing it for his sake. It would be just the sort of thing
he would have done himself. I remember he brought his entire class home
once to Sunday morning breakfast. He had invited them and forgotten to
mention it to Mother."
"And they made a wreath for him?" asked Mrs. Fern irrelevantly, as she
wiped a tear from her eye.
The Major blinked and went on slicing ham industriously.
"It's as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday," he said
presently in a low voice.
"How handsome and gay he was," added his wife, sighing, as she counted
out a pile of napkins.
And now there came the sound of singing in front of the house. The
seniors had arrived and were serenading the Major and his family.
"Wellington, my Wellington," they sang, and Mrs. Fern paused in her
counting to listen to the song she herself had sung as a girl.
"Listen to the children, they are serenading us, Major. Do come out with
me and meet them."
The Major laid down his carving knife and fork and followed his wife to
the front door, and presently the girls found themselves in the
comfortable, sunny parlor of the big old house that seemed to ramble
off at each side into wings and meander back into other additions in the
rear. They forgot their grievances in the fun of that lunch party. By
the miracle which always provides for generosity to give, there was
plenty of lunch, just as Molly had predicted.
"It wasn't a very difficult guess," she observed to Nance. "If you had
lived in the country and were subject to unexpected arrivals, you'd know
just how to go about getting up an impromptu meal for a lot of people."
As for the good old Major, he was quite determined to enjoy himself. He
wanted to hear all the college jokes and songs. He even told some Exmoor
jokes, and after each joke he laughed until his face turned an
apoplectic red and the tears rolled down his cheeks. Mrs. Fern laughed,
too. She was an old Wellington girl and her eldest daughter, Natalie,
had graduated from the college a year before Molly had entered. It had
been a great disappointment to Mrs. Fern that Alice, the youngest
daughter, was not inclined to college and had gone to a fashionable
boarding school.
After the senior stunts, when Judy had succeeded in throwing the Major
into another apoplectic fit of laughing by playing "Birdie's Dead" on
the piano, it was time to go back to Fern Woods where they were to meet
the wagons. While the girls were pinning on their hats the Major, in a
voice husky from much laughing, asked Nance, as it happened to be, which
girl had suggested the wreath he had seen at the foot of the oak tree.
Nance pointed out Molly and the Major presently beckoned her to follow
him into his library. Unlocking one of the desk drawers, he drew out a
faded photograph. The picture showed a laughing, handsome boy not more
than eighteen. His curly hair was ruffled all over his head as if he had
just come in out of the wind, and his merry eyes looked straight into
Molly's.
"That is Charlie," said the Major, looking over Molly's shoulder at the
picture. "My younger brother, Charlie. His death was the greatest sorrow
I have ever known. Poor Charlie! Poor boy!"
The old man turned away to hide the tears in his eyes and Molly laid the
photograph back in the drawer.
"Charlie would have enjoyed all this even more than I have," went on the
Major. "It would have been just what he would have done under the
circumstances. I saw the wreath, you see, and it touched me very
deeply."
"The girls will appreciate your kindness all the more when I tell them,"
said Molly, not knowing how else to express the sympathy she felt.
"Ah, well, it all happened half a century ago," he said, shaking her
hand and patting it gently at the same time.
"He is a dear," thought Molly, following him into the hall.
She saw one other photograph in the Fern house that interested her. It
was a picture of Professor Edwin Green, very elaborately framed,
standing on a dressing table in one of the bedrooms.
Alice Fern kept well in the background while her mother and father and
elder sister entertained the senior class of Wellington. She had done
her duty by the lunch and she was not going to mingle in this crowd of
unknowns.
"I never could bear a college romp," she had said to her mother who had
remonstrated with her daughter.
"I trust you don't call your mother a college romp," answered the old
lady indignantly.
"Not at all, Mama. You belonged to the early days of Wellington before
romps came into existence," Alice replied sharply.
"I'm sure you may have to see a great deal of college, if----" began
Mrs. Fern, and broke off abruptly.
Alice shrugged her shoulders.
"If--if----" she thought. "How I detest that word."
On the way back that afternoon the old Queen's girls held a council of
war.
"I think we ought to make it our business to find out who played this
trick on us," cried Margaret, "if it takes detective work to do it. Our
dignity as seniors has been attacked and the standards of Wellington
lowered."
"I don't believe any juniors had a hand in it," put in Judy, "because we
are so friendly with them."
Nance nudged Molly.
"She's afraid somebody's going to blame that charming Adele," she
whispered.
"If it's any of the Wellington girls, it's more likely to be among the
sophomores," announced Edith decisively. "They were rather a wild lot
last year but we were too busy to notice them; a good deal like a gang
of bad boys in their own set; always playing practical jokes----"
"Yes, but would they dare play jokes on us?" interrupted Margaret.
"They'd dare do anything," answered Edith. "Anne White is the
ringleader. I only know her by sight so I can't judge of her character,
but I heard that Miss Walker had her on the grill several times last
winter."
"What does she look like?" some one asked.
"Why, she's as demure as anything; a petite, brown-haired, inconspicuous
little person. You'd never suspect her of being so daring, but I happen
to know of one reckless performance of hers that Prexy hasn't heard of."
"Do tell," they demanded with breathless curiosity.
"You'll let it go no farther? Word of honor, now?"
"Word of honor," they repeated in a chorus.
"One night last spring she let herself down from the dormitory with a
rope ladder and went--well, I don't know where she went, but she got
back safely enough----"
"Up the ladder?"
"No. That was the wonderful part. She simply waited till morning and
when the gates were open slipped in in time for chapel."
The girls were rather horrified at this story.
"It's shocking," the chorus exclaimed.
"It does sound so," went on Edith impressively, "if I didn't happen to
know that she spent the night with good old Mrs. Murphy, who told it to
me herself one day in a burst of tea-cup confidence, and I never let it
out to any one but Katherine until to-day. But it does seem the moment
for telling it, if she did play that dastardly trick----"
"But we aren't sure it was Anne White," put in Molly.
"No, but it's her style. She sent a girl a live mouse through the mail
and she broke up one of the sophomore class meetings by putting
ticktacks on the window."
"How silly," ejaculated Mabel Hinton.
"But what was she doing down on the campus and what did Mrs. Murphy
think of being waked up at midnight?" asked Judy.
"It wasn't midnight. It was only a little before eleven and Anne told
Mrs. Murphy she had done it for a lark. She was awfully frightened and
Mrs. Murphy began by being shocked and ended by being kind-hearted. The
ladder had slipped down and she couldn't get up and she didn't know what
to do."
So it happened, that without meaning to be unjust, the seniors secretly
blamed Anne White for the pillaging of their lunch hampers. But there
was no evidence and they could only wait and be watchful, as Margaret
expressed it.