JUDY DEFIANT.
When Judy Kean appeared at Chapel next morning she seemed serenely
unconscious of the sensation she was creating. Her usual black dress and
widow's bands had always made her conspicuous and those who only knew
her by sight, yet carried with them a vivid impression of her face: the
large gray eyes swimming with visions, the oval creamy face, the mouth
rather large, the lips a little too full, perhaps, and framing all this,
her fluffy bright hair.
The Quadrangle dining-room had already buzzed with the news of Judy's
reckless act, and now, as the seniors marched two by two up the aisle
after the faculty, a ripple of laughter swept over the chapel. Necks
were craned all over the room to see Judy's mop of blue-black hair
arranged in a loose knot on the back of her neck, drawn well down over
the forehead in a heavy dark mantle, carefully concealing the ears.
But Miss Walker was not pleased with the liberties Judy had taken with
her appearance. She had heard the ripple of laughter, stifled almost as
soon as it had commenced, and having reached her chair and faced the
audience while the procession was still on its way up the aisle she
noticed the amused glances directed toward Judy's head. It took only a
second glance to assure herself of what Judy had done and she frowned
and compressed her lips. When the service was over, she made a little
impromptu address to the students. College, she said, was a place for
serious work and not for frivolity. Of course there were no objections
to innocent fun, but absurdities would not be tolerated. All the time
she was speaking she was looking straight at Judy, who, with chin
resting on her hand and eyelids drooped, apparently read a hymn book.
That afternoon Miss Julia Kean received a summons to appear at Miss
Walker's office immediately. From this interview Judy emerged in a
stubborn, angry humor. Miss Walker was a wise woman in her generation,
but she had never had a girl of Judy's temperament to deal with before.
Judy's rather contemptuous indifference had inflamed the President into
saying some rather harsh things.
If one girl dyed her hair a great many others might. Such things often
struck a college in waves and she was not going to tolerate it.
Therefore, Judy, unreasonably angry, as she always was under reproof,
had no word to say to her anxious friends awaiting her at No. 5,
Quadrangle.
"Was it very bad, Judy, dear?" Nance asked, when Judy walked into the
room, white and silent.
"It was worse than that," replied Judy in a steady even voice. "If she
had given me twenty lashes on my bare shoulders I should have liked it
better. What business is it of hers what color I turn my hair? This is
not a boarding school. I detest her!" Whereupon, she slammed her door
and the girls did not see her again for several hours.
When she did finally emerge, she was calm and smiling, but the girls
felt instinctively that her dangerous mood had not passed, only
deepened, and Molly felt she would give a great deal to win her friend
away from the malign influence of Adele Windsor.
It seemed to her sometimes that Judy was cherishing a secret grievance
against her as well as against Miss Walker. But Molly had little time
for brooding over such things in the daytime and at night sleep overtook
her as soon as her tired head dropped on the pillow.
A great many things were in the air at Wellington just now. A prize had
been offered for the best suggestion for a jubilee entertainment. It
was only ten dollars, but every girl in college competed except Judy.
One morning Adele Windsor's name was posted on the bulletin board as
winner of the prize, and not long afterward they learned that it was
Judy's scheme, unfolded on the opening night of college, that Adele had
appropriated, no doubt with Judy's full consent.
Molly's exchange of brief notes with Jimmy Lufton had ripened into a
correspondence, and she was prepared therefore for the enormous package
containing at least a dozen Sunday newspapers that came to her one
morning--also a check for fifteen dollars. With eager fingers she tore
wrappers from the papers, and began to search through multitudinous
columns for her article about Wellington.
At last, with Nance's and Judy's help, she found it, not tucked away in
a corner as she had half expected, but spread out over the page. It is
true the pictures were rather blurred, but there were the columns of
writing, all hers, so she fondly believed, so skillfully had Mr. Lufton
wrought the changes he had been obliged to make.
The article was signed "M. W. C. B." and a framed copy of it hangs to
this day on the crowded walls of the _Commune_ office. There was not
much doubt who "M. W. C. B." was and Molly was deluged with calls and
congratulations all day. It was glorious to have been the means of
refuting Miss Beatrice Slammer's criticisms, and she could not help
feeling very proud as she hurried down the avenue to the infirmary, one
of the papers tucked under her arm, devoutly hoping that Alice Fern had
gone home by now. It was reported that the Professor was walking about
and in a few days was to go to Bermuda to stay until after the Christmas
holidays. The Professor himself, and not Miss Fern, opened the door for
Molly before Miss Grace Green, reading aloud by the window, could
remonstrate with him. He was a mere ghost of his former self, pale,
emaciated. His clothes seemed three sizes too big for his wasted frame
and he had grown quite bald around the temples. Molly thought him very
old that afternoon.
"I've brought something to show you," she said, after she had shaken
hands with the brother and sister and the three had drawn up their
chairs by the window. Then Miss Grace Green read the article aloud and
Molly explained that it was Mr. Lufton, to whom they were already so
deeply indebted, who had arranged to get it published.
"I took him over to the _Commune_ office," said Molly, "and that started
it."
Miss Green smiled and the Professor shifted uneasily in his chair.
Presently Miss Green rose.
"It's time for your buttermilk, Edwin, and you and I shall have some
tea, Miss Molly," she added as she slipped out of the room.
"Tell me a little about yourself, Miss Molly," observed the Professor,
when they were left alone. "Did you have a pleasant summer and how is
the old orchard?"
"Oh, the orchard was most shamefully neglected," replied Molly. "Simply
a mass of weeds and the apples left rotting on the ground all this fall,
so mother writes. William, our colored man, cut down the worst of the
weeds with a scythe last summer and I kept the ground cleared where the
hammock hangs. It's been such a rainy summer, I suppose that's why
things grew so rank, but I'm sorry the old gentleman is neglecting his
property after making such a noble start."
The Professor laughed.
"You have made the acquaintance of the owner, then?" he asked.
"Oh no, we have never even learned his name, but I feel quite sure he is
very old. Sometimes I seem to see him in the orchard, an old, old man
leaning on a stick. I think he is old and eccentric because a young man
would never have bought property he had never seen."
"Can't a young man be eccentric?"
"Oh, yes, but mother and my brothers and sisters, all of us believe
this man is old from something the agent said. He told mother that the
new owner of the orchard had bought it because he was looking for a
retired spot in which to spend his old age."
Again the Professor laughed and the color rose in his face and spread
over his cheeks and forehead.
Presently Miss Green returned with the tea things and the buttermilk.
"Has Miss Fern gone?" asked Molly.
"Oh yes, we finally prevailed on her to go home," answered Miss Green.
"She really need not have been here at all. The infirmary nurse would
have looked after Edwin, but she seemed to think she was indispensable."
"Grace, my dear sister," remonstrated the Professor.
From Miss Fern the talk drifted to many things. Molly told them more of
Jimmy Lufton: how he had charmed everybody and what a wonderful life he
led in New York.
"I should like to be on a newspaper," she said suddenly. "It would be
lots more exciting than teaching school."
The Professor looked up quickly.
"I should be sorry to see you take that step, Miss Molly."
"Well, I haven't taken it yet, but I was only thinking that Mr. Lufton
might be a great deal of help to me."
"You must not," said the Professor sternly. "Don't think of it for a
moment. The _Commune_ is putting ideas into your head, or this Mr.
Lufton."
Molly felt uncomfortable for some reason and Miss Green changed the
subject.
"By the way," she said, "I heard the other day what had become of some
of the luncheon you seniors lost the day the Major took you in and fed
you. The thieves probably took all they could carry with them and dumped
the rest in a field between Exmoor and Round Head. Like as not they
picnicked on top of Round Head. Some of the Exmoor boys found a pile of
desiccated sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and cake one day when they
were out walking, and Dodo and Andy brought the story to me."
"Think of the waste of it," exclaimed Molly. "They might at least have
given what they didn't want to the poor."
"There aren't any poor people around there, child."
"Well, to Mrs. Murphy, then. She's poor and we wouldn't have minded
having worked so hard to feed Mrs. Murphy."
"I wonder who did it," put in the Professor.
"None of the Exmoor boys, I'm sure," said his sister, who had a very
soft spot for the boys of her younger brother's college.
"Some day it will come out," announced Molly. "Things always do sooner
or later and we needn't bother about playing detective. It's a horrible
role to act, anyway."
"I remember when I was a boy at college," began the Professor, "some
fellows played rather a nasty practical joke on some of us and they were
caught by a trick of fate. On the night of the senior class elections,
which always take place just before a banquet at the Exmoor Inn, some of
the students broke into the inn kitchen, masked, overpowered the cook
and the waiter and stole all the food they conveniently could carry
away. One of the saucepans contained lobster, and the next morning there
were six very ill young men at the infirmary with ptomaine poisoning and
it was not hard to guess who were the thieves of our supper."
"Were they punished?" asked Molly.
"Oh, yes. Exmoor never permits escapades like that. They were suspended
for six weeks, although they had saved the entire senior class from a
pretty severe illness."
"At least, you might have felt some gratitude for that," observed Miss
Green.
"We did, but the President took only a one-sided view of the matter."
"I'm afraid it's too late for attacks of indigestion from our lunch,"
observed Molly. "The only thing out of common we had at the lunch were
'snakey-noodles.'"
"What in the world?" asked the brother and sister together.
"It doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? But they are awfully good.
Our old cook makes them at home. They are coils of very rich pastry with
raisins and cinnamon all through."
"Don't mention it," exclaimed the Professor, whose appetite was greater
than his official allowance of food. "I would give anything for a hot
snakey-noodle with a glass of milk."
"When you come back from Bermuda, I'll see that your wish is gratified,"
replied Molly, laughing, as she rose to go.
"Miss Molly," said the Professor, as he bade her good-bye at the door,
"I wish you would promise me three things: don't overwork; don't make
plans to work on a newspaper instead of teaching school, and--don't
forget me."
"I'm not likely to do that, Professor. I'm always wanting to go to your
office and ask you questions and advice. The last time we were there,
Dodo and I, I found two old rotten apples. I took the liberty of
throwing them away."
"It's too bad for good apples to be left rotting on the ground or
anywhere," said the Professor, and he closed the door softly. While this
surely was a very simple statement, somehow he seemed to mean more than
he said.
Just why Molly's thoughts were on the lost snakey-noodles as she walked
up the campus, she could not say. She recalled that they had been
carefully done up in a box marked on top in large print, "Snakey-noodles
from Aunt Ma'y Morton." That was the Browns' cook.
"I wonder if they were left with the half of the lunch in Exmoor
meadow," she thought with fond regret for this wasted gift of their old
colored cook, who had taken unusual pains to make the snakey-noodles as
crusty and delicious as possible.
"So passeth snakey-noodles and all good things," she said to herself as
she entered the Quadrangle.