THE DROP OF POISON.
Molly was very proud of her first newspaper article and exultant at
being able to answer the unjust libels of Miss Slammer. She could
scarcely wait to tell Nance and Judy about it, but decided to drop in at
the infirmary and relate her triumph to the Professor if it was possible
to see him. Alice Fern was on guard that morning, however, and the Swiss
Guards at the Vatican could not have been more formidable.
"I'm sure the Pope of Rome doesn't live a more secluded life," thought
Molly as she departed.
Glancing at the tower clock, Molly saw that she still had three quarters
of an hour before the lecture on early Victorian Poets by the Professor
of English Literature from Exmoor, who came over several times a week
to substitute for Professor Green.
"I think I'll run in and see Otoyo a few minutes," Molly said to
herself. "The girls can wait. There's been something queer about Otoyo
lately. She keeps to herself like a little sick animal. I can't make her
out at all."
There was no response to Molly's knock on Otoyo's door a few minutes
later, and, after a pause, she opened the door and peeped in.
The blinds had been drawn, an unwonted thing with the little Japanese,
who usually let the sunlight flood her room through unshaded windows.
But a shaft of light from the open door disclosed her seated
cross-legged on the floor in front of a beautiful screen showing
Fujiyama, the sacred Japanese mountain. At the foot of the screen she
had placed two statues, one of Saint Anthony of Padua and one of Saint
Francis of Assisi, presents from Mr. and Mrs. Murphy on two successive
Christmases. And still another graven image caught Molly's eye as she
tiptoed into the room: a small figure of Buddha seated cross-legged. He
was placed at a little distance from the two saints and his antique,
blurred countenance contrasted strangely with the delicately molded and
tinted faces of the new statues.
If Molly had come unannounced upon Nance on her knees or Judy at her
devotions, she would have beat a hasty retreat, but it came to her that
Otoyo, sitting there cross-legged before the images of strange gods,
needed help of some sort.
"You aren't angry with me for coming in, Otoyo?" she began. "I knocked
and you didn't hear. I'm afraid something is the matter. Won't you let
me help you? I have not forgotten how you helped me once when I was
unhappy. Don't you remember how you let me sit in your room and think
over my troubles that Sunday afternoon at Queen's?"
Otoyo rose quickly, flushing a little under her dark skin. She seemed
very foreign to Molly at that moment, in her beautiful embroidered
kimono of black and gold. Also she seemed very formal in her manner and
distant, like an exiled princess who still clings to the dignity of her
former position.
First she made a low Japanese bow, quite different from the little
smiling nods she had learned to give her friends at Wellington.
"I feel much honored, Mees Brown. Will you be seated and I will bring
refreshments."
"Why, Otoyo," exclaimed Molly, filled with wonder at this new phase in
her friend, "I don't want any refreshments. I thought I'd drop in for
half an hour before English V. and find out what has happened to you.
You never come to see me any more," she added reproachfully. "You
haven't been since that Sunday afternoon with your father, and you
always have a 'Busy' sign on your door. Are you really so busy or are
you trying to avoid us?"
Otoyo drew up her one chair she used for visitors and sat down again on
the floor.
"I have been much engaged," she said, avoiding Molly's eye. Molly
noticed that her English was perfect. She spoke with great precision and
avoided adverbial mistakes with painful care.
She had had a great deal to think about lately, Otoyo continued, and she
was reading a book of Charles Dickens, the English novelist. It was very
difficult.
With an impetuous gesture, Molly rose and pushed the chair out of the
way. Then she sat flat on the floor beside Otoyo, and took one of the
little plump brown hands in hers.
"Otoyo, you're unhappy. Something has happened and you're praying to
Catholic saints and Fuji and Buddha all at once. Isn't it so?"
"The saints are very honorable gentlemen," answered Otoyo quickly. "Mrs.
Murphy has told me many things of their goodness. And Fuji is the
mountain that brings comfort to all Japanese people. Holy men dwell on
Fuji and pilgrims climb to the summit each year to worship. And Buddha,
he is a great god," she added. "He is kind to lonely little Japanese
girl."
As she neared the end of her speech her voice was as faint and thin as a
sick child's, but she steadily repressed all emotion, for no well-bred
Japanese lady is ever seen to weep.
"Otoyo, my dear, my dear, what can have happened?" cried Molly,
turning the averted face toward her so that she might look into
the almond-shaped eyes. "I can't bear to see you so miserable.
It makes me unhappy, too. Don't you know that you are one of the
dearest friends I have in the world and that we all love you?"
"It is not easy to believe that is true," said Otoyo, looking at her
with an expression of mingled reproach and incredulity. "I cannot
believe it is so, Mees Brown."
A look of utter amazement came into Molly's face. It had never entered
her head that Otoyo was angry with her.
"What is that? Say it again, Otoyo. I can't believe my own ears."
"I say it is not easy to believe that is true," said Otoyo, repeating
her words with the precision of a Japanese.
Molly rose to her feet, and grasping Otoyo's hands pulled her up.
"I can't talk sitting on the floor, Otoyo. Come over here and sit on the
bed where I can look at you. Now, tell me exactly what you meant by that
speech."
The two girls now sat face to face on the bed and there was a look of
sternness in Molly's eyes that Otoyo had never seen there before.
Otoyo's eyes dropped before her gaze and she began plucking at the
Japanese crepe of her kimono.
"You must speak, Otoyo," Molly insisted.
There was a long silence and then Otoyo looked up again.
"It was my father, my honorable good father. I am too humble to care.
But my noble father!"
She rose quickly and walked across to the window. If there were tears in
her eyes Molly should not see them. Having drawn the blind, she drew a
deep breath and came back to the bed. But Molly was doing some rapid
thinking during that brief interval. Some one had been telling Otoyo
that they had made game of her father--and that some one----
But Molly was too angry to think coherently.
"Otoyo," she began, "you know how much all the Queen's girls think of
you. You are really our property, child. If any of us felt that we had
hurt or grieved you, we would really never forgive ourselves."
"But my father, he was mock-ed. Of me it was of not much matter."
"Child, what we did was in innocent fun. It was only that we repeated
his funny English, even funnier than yours, and we have often teased you
about your adverbs, haven't we?"
"Yes," admitted Otoyo, "but this was made to be so cruel. It cut me----"
she choked.
"Who repeated it to you, Otoyo?" asked Molly with sudden calmness,
afraid to give rein to her indignation for fear of doing rash things.
"People who tell things like that are quite capable of inventing them or
at least making them much worse."
"I have given my word not to speak the name," answered Otoyo.
It was almost time for the lecture now and Molly slipped down on her
knees beside the bed and put her arms around Otoyo's waist.
"Dear little Otoyo, before I go, I want you to tell me that you have
forgiven us. None of us meant to be cruel or unkind. We are too fond of
you for that. I shall tell all the other girls what has happened and
to-night they will come in and make you an apology themselves. We will
all come. As for the girl who made the trouble, she is a wicked mischief
maker and I wish she had never come to Wellington. And now, will you say
'Molly, I forgive you?'"
"I do, I do," cried Otoyo, her face transformed with happiness. "I
should not have listened to her ugly speeches, but it was the way she
did it. She told me my father had been mock-ed and ridiculed. I was
veree unhappee."
"Never, never let her get her clutches on you again," said Molly,
opening the door.
"Never, never, never," repeated the Japanese girl.
It was a real reconciliation surprise party that took place in Otoyo's
room that evening. All the Queen's girls were there except Judy, who had
been absent for a whole day, having cut two lectures and taken supper
with Adele Windsor at Beta Phi House. It had been agreed among them that
Adele should never be welcomed in their circle again; for they were
morally certain that it was Adele who had done the mischief, although
Otoyo loyally kept her word not to tell the name.
Otoyo, bewildered and happy over this avalanche of company, toddled
about the room in her soft house slippers looking for refreshments.
From strange foreign looking packing boxes in the closet she produced
tin cases of candied ginger and pineapple, boxes of rice cakes, nuts and
American chocolate creams which Otoyo liked better than the daintiest
American dish that could be devised.
Every guest had brought Otoyo a gift of flowers. They made her sit in
the armchair while they circled around her, singing:
"Old friends are the best friends,
The friends that are tried and true."
Then they made her dress up in her finest kimono and sit cross-legged at
the foot of the bed while one by one they filed before her and each made
an humble apology.
"Oh, it is too much," Otoyo cried. "I implore you forgeeve _me_. It was
madlee of me to listen to so much weekedness. Humble little Japanese
girl is bad to entertain such meanly thoughts."
At last when all the rites and ceremonies were over and they had
settled down to refreshments in good earnest, Edith began the tale of
"The Fall of the House of Usher," which she recited in thrilling
fashion. The girls always huddled together in a frightened group at this
performance. At the most dramatic moment, as if it had been timed
purposely, the door was flung open and a tall lady in black stood on the
threshold. She hesitated a moment and then sailed in, her black chiffon
draperies floating about her like a dark cloud. Then she flung a lace
mantilla from her head and stood before them revealed as Judy, in a
black wig apparently.
"Judy Kean, what have you been up to?" asked Nance suspiciously.
"Where did you get your black wig?" demanded Molly.
"Don't you think it becoming?" asked Judy. "Don't you think it enhances
the whiteness of my skin and the brightness of my eye?"
"All very well for a fancy dress party, but you don't look yourself,
Judy. Do take it off."
"Now, don't say that," answered Judy, "because I can't take it off
without cutting it. I've changed the color. That's where I've been all
day. It's awfully exciting. You've no idea how many things you have to
do to change your hair dark. Of course, it's perfectly ladylike to make
it dark. It's only bad form to dye it light."
"Judy, you haven't?" they cried.
"I certainly have," she answered carelessly, and she proceeded to take
out all the hair pins from her fluffy thick hair and let it down. "It's
raven black."
It was, in fact, an unnatural blue-black, something the color of shoe
blacking.
"Oh, Judy, Judy, what will you do next?" cried Molly in real distress.
"What will that girl make her do next?" put in Nance, in a disgusted
tone.
"Now, Nance, I knew you'd say just that, but it's not true. I did it of
my own free will. I always loved black and I've wanted black hair all my
life."
"What will Miss Walker say?" asked some one.
"She probably won't know anything about it. I doubt if she remembers the
original color of my hair, anyhow. I'm sorry you don't think it's
becoming to me. Adele thought it suited me perfectly. Much better than
the original mousy-brown shade."
"I recognize Adele's fine touch in that expression, 'mousy-brown,'" put
in Edith.
"Did Adele do anything to change her appearance?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, no, she is just right as she is. Her hair is a perfect shade,
'Titian Brown,' it's called. But, girls, I must tell you about the
marvelous face cream, 'Cucumber Velvet'; it bleaches and heals at the
same time."
"Oh, go to," cried Katherine. "Judy, you are so benighted, I don't know
what's coming to you. Don't you know that Adele Windsor made Otoyo,
here----"
"No, no," broke in Otoyo. "I have never told the name. I gave my
honorable promise not to. I beg you not to mention it."
"What's all this?" Judy began when the ten o'clock bell boomed and the
girls scattered to their various rooms.
That night, undressing in the dark, Nance and Molly explained to Judy
what had happened.
"But are you sure she did it?" Judy demanded. "Otoyo never said so, did
she?"
"No, but we are sure, anyway."
"I don't believe it," exclaimed Judy hotly. "Adele is the soul of honor.
I shall never believe it unless Otoyo really tells the name."
And so Judy went off to bed entirely unreasonable about this new and
fascinating friend.
"All I can say for you, Judy," said Molly, standing in Judy's bedroom
doorway, "is that I hate your black hair, but do you remember that old
poem we used to sing as children? I'm sure you must have known it. Most
children have."
Then Molly recited in her musical clear voice:
"'I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world,
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played on the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
But I never could find where she lay.
"'I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet for old sake's sake, she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world.'"
"Humph!" said Judy. "Is that the way you feel about it?"
"Yes."
"Thanks, awfully," and with a defiant fling of the covers, Judy turned
her face to the wall.