TWO CHRISTMAS BREAKFASTS.
Early Christmas morning a slender figure in faded blue corduroy could be
seen hurrying up the road that led from the village to the college
grounds. The frosty wind nipped two spots of red on her cheeks and under
the drooping brim of her old blue felt hat her eyes shone like patches
of sky in the sunlight. Where was Molly bound for at this early hour?
The church bells were ringing out the glad Christmas tidings; the ground
sparkled with hoar frost; but not a moment did she linger to listen to
the cheerful clanging, or even to glance at the lonely vista of hill and
dale stretched around her. Hurrying across the campus, she skirted the
college buildings and presently gained the pebbled path that led to the
old campus in the rear, flanked by a number of old red brick houses,
formerly the homes of the professors. They were now used for various
purposes: the college laundry; homes for the employees about the
building and grounds and rooms for bachelor professors.
Hastening along the path to the house where Professor Green was
domiciled, Molly was thinking:
"Only a year ago I had to make the same apology to him. Oh, my wicked,
wicked temper! I am ashamed of myself."
And now she had reached the old brick house and sounded the brass
knocker with an eager rat-tat-tat. Presently she heard footsteps resound
along the empty hall and the Irish housekeeper flung open the door.
"Is Professor Green up yet?" Molly demanded.
"And shure I've not an idea whether he be up or slapin'."
"But can't you see?"
"I cannot. It wouldn't be an aisy thing to do, I'm thinkin'."
"And why not, pray? It must be his breakfast time. You have only to rap
on his door. And it's very important."
"And if it's so important, you'd better be after sendin' him a cable to
the Bahamas, where the Professor is sunnin' himself at prisint."
"Nonsense, Mrs. Brady, the Professor got back last night. I saw him
myself. He must be up in his room now. Do go and see. You haven't cooked
him a bit of breakfast, I suppose?"
Mrs. Brady turned without a word and tiptoed up the stairs. Molly heard
her breathing heavily as she moved along the hall and tapped on the
Professor's door. Then came a muffled voice through the closed door.
"I'll git ye some breakfast, sir," called Mrs. Brady, and down she came.
"Shure an' you wuz right an' I wuz wrong, an' I'm obliged to you for the
information. But he'll not be ready for seein' people for an hour yet,
maybe longer."
"Mrs. Brady," said Molly, moved by a sudden inspiration. "Let me get his
breakfast."
"But----" objected the Irish woman.
"I'm a splendid cook and I'll give you no trouble at all. Please." Molly
put her hands on the Irish woman's shoulders and looked into her face
appealingly.
"Shure, thim eyes is like the gals' in the old countree, Miss," remarked
Mrs. Brady, visibly melting under that telling gaze. "Ye can do as you
like, but if the Professor don't like his breakfast the blame be on
you."
"He'll like it, I'm perfectly certain," said Molly, following Mrs. Brady
back to the kitchen.
"It's a very, very funny world," said Mrs. Brady, displaying the
contents of her larder to the volunteer cook.
Her resources were limited, to be sure, but Molly improvised a breakfast
out of them that a king would not have scorned. There were pop-overs
done to a golden brown, a perfect little omelet, bacon crisp enough to
please the most fastidious palate and an old champagne glass, the spoils
of some festive occasion, filled with iced orange juice. The coffee was
strong and fragrant.
"He's very particular about it, Miss, an' he buys his own brand."
Then Molly set the tray. Mrs. Brady's best white linen cover she
snatched from the shelf without asking leave. In a twinkling she had
polished and heated the blue china dishes, placed the breakfast on them
and covered them tight with hot soup plates, since there were no other
covers. Then she snipped off the top of a red geranium blooming in the
window sill and dropped it into a finger bowl.
"Lord love ye, Miss, but that's a beautiful tray," exclaimed Mrs. Brady,
hypnotized by Molly's swift movements and skillful workmanship. "If I
did not know ye wuz a lady from your looks I should say ye wuz a born
cook. But Mrs. Murphy be afther tellin' me how you used to make things
in her kitchen. Ye must be the same one, since it's red hair and blue
eyes ye have----"
Molly had disappeared into the pantry to replace the flour sifter while
Mrs. Brady was holding forth, and now through a crack in the pantry door
she saw the kitchen door open and Professor Green, in a long dressing
gown, stalk in.
"Don't bother about breakfast for me, Mrs. Brady," he said. "A cup of
coffee quite strong--stronger than you usually make it, please--that's
all I want."
Mrs. Brady, glancing at Molly hidden in the pantry, saw her shake her
head and place a finger on her lips.
The Irish woman smiled broadly. It was a situation in which she saw many
humorous possibilities and an amusing story to tell over the tea cups to
Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. O'Reilly.
"Shure an' ye needn't eat it, sir," she said, in an injured tone, "but
it's all prepared an' of the very best."
The Professor glanced at the tray.
"Why," he exclaimed, in amazement, "this is something really fine, Mrs.
Brady. I didn't know you were getting up a holiday breakfast."
Visions of slopped-over trays, weak coffee and hard toast passed before
him, for Mrs. Brady was not a cook to boast of.
"I'll eat it down here, if you've no objection," he continued kindly,
lifting the covers and glancing curiously underneath. "By Jove, this is
something like. Omelet, and what are those luscious looking things?"
"They be pop-overs, sir, if I'm not misthaken."
"Pop-overs, ahem! I've heard the name before." He sniffed the small
coffee pot. "Good and strong; you've anticipated my wants this morning,
Mrs. Brady."
"Why doesn't he go on and eat?" thought the red-haired cook. "The omelet
will be ruined."
But the Professor had drawn up a chair to the kitchen table and was
draining the orange juice at a gulp.
"You're getting very festive, Mrs. Brady. Have you been taking lessons
in my absence? That orange juice was just the appetizer I needed this
morning." Then he fell to on the breakfast and never stopped until he
had eaten every crumb and drained the coffee pot to the dregs.
In the meantime Molly had taken a seat on the pantry floor. A weakness
had invaded her knees and her head swam dizzily, since she had had no
breakfast that morning.
"I suppose Judy will think I'm dead," she thought, "but it won't do her
any harm to be guessing about me for once."
She hoped the Professor would leave in a moment and go to his rooms. He
had filled a short briar wood pipe and was leaning back in his chair
musing, but he couldn't stay forever in Mrs. Brady's kitchen.
"Mrs. Brady, that was a very dainty and delicious little meal you
prepared for me," she heard him say. "I was a bit low in my mind but I
feel cheered up. A cup of coffee--if it's good--as this was--is often
enough to restore a man's ambition." And now the kitchen was filled with
the fragrance of tobacco smoke while the Professor mused in his chair,
blowing out great clouds at intervals.
"A bachelor is a poor pitiful soul, sir," answered the woman; "now, if
ye had a wife to look after ye, you'd be afther havin' the like
breakfasts ivery mornin'."
The Professor blew out a ring of purple smoke and watched it float
lazily in the air and gradually dissipate.
"Didn't you know I was a woman hater, Mrs. Brady?"
"Indade, I should think ye might be, seein' so many of them every day
and all the time," answered the housekeeper sympathetically. "Too much
of a good thing, sir. But, whin old age comes to ye, you'll miss 'em,
sir. You'll miss a good wife to look after your comforts then."
"I've got something better than that for my old age, Mrs. Brady. I've
got a bit of land; it's an orchard on the side of a hill sloping down to
a brook----"
Molly, sitting on the pantry floor, felt a sudden jolt as if some one
had shaken her by the shoulder. Faintness came over her and her heart
beat so fast and loud she wondered that the two in the kitchen did not
hear its palpitations.
"The trees bear plenty of apples; I'll have lots of fruit in my old age.
I've only to hobble out and knock them down with my cane when I get too
old to climb up and shake the limbs, and where once swung a hammock in
my orchard I may build a little hut."
"It's a pretty picture, sir, but lonely, I should say."
"Ah, well, Mrs. Brady, there'll be four walls to my hut and every inch
of those walls will be covered with books," announced the Professor, as
he strolled out of the kitchen, leaving the door ajar.
Molly, now thoroughly exhausted, amazed, and quite faint from her
emotions, was pulling herself to her knees when the Professor marched
swiftly back into the room and walked into the pantry.
"I wanted to see how much coffee you had left----" he began. "I'll be
writing for more----" His foot encountered something soft on the floor
and glancing quickly down he caught a glimpse in the shadow of a figure
huddled up in the corner. The face was hidden in the curve of the elbow,
but he saw the red hair, and a beam through a crack in the door cast a
slanting light across the blue silk blouse.
"Why, Molly Brown, my little friend," he exclaimed. And he lifted her to
her feet and half carried her to a chair near the fire. "So it was you
who cooked me that delicious Christmas breakfast, and now you're half
dead from fatigue and hunger. You've had no breakfast, confess?"
Molly lifted her eyes to his and shook her head. Then she lowered her
gaze and blushed.
"I'm too ashamed to think of breakfast," she said.
"Mrs. Brady, put the kettle on," ordered the Professor. "Get out the
eggs. Where's the bacon?"
"In the jar, sliced, sir."
"But," protested Molly.
"Don't say a word, child. Be perfectly quiet."
Then the Professor began to fly about the room, tearing into the pantry,
rushing from the table to the stove and back again, rummaging in the
refrigerator for oranges and butter, and upsetting two chairs that stood
in his way.
All this time Mrs. Brady quietly toasted bread and broiled bacon while
there hovered on her lips an enigmatic smile. Then she scrambled two
eggs while the Professor tested the coffee and squeezed an orange
alternately. Molly watched him in dazed silence.
"He bought the apple orchard and that is how I happen to be at
Wellington this minute," she kept thinking mechanically. "He worked all
summer and got into debt and caught typhoid fever in order to furnish
me"--she choked--"and I spoke to him like that. No wonder he's a woman
hater--no wonder he wants books----"
"Ready," announced Mrs. Brady, and the next thing Molly knew she was
sitting at the table drinking orange juice while the Professor buttered
toast and poured out the coffee.
Presently it was all over. Two Christmas breakfasts had been prepared in
Mrs. Brady's kitchen that morning where none had been expected.
"'Twas lucky I'd laid in supplies," exclaimed the genial Irish woman. "A
body can never tell what starvin' crayture's comin' to the door beggin'
for a crust."
And now Molly Brown found herself, almost without realizing it, walking
across the college grounds beside her Professor.
"I can never, never thank you," she was saying. "I couldn't even try."
"Don't try," he answered. "Indeed, I ought to thank you for introducing
me to that lovely bit of orchard. As for the money, it was fairly crying
out to be invested. I think I made a great bargain."
"But Dodo said----"
"Dodo talks too much," said the Professor, frowning. "He knows nothing
about me and my affairs."
"Anyhow, you'll let me apologize for the way I answered you last night,"
said Molly, giving him a heavenly smile.
The Professor looked away quickly.
"The apology is accepted," he said gravely.
"And now we are friends once more, Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky, are we
not?"
"Yes, indeed," cried Molly joyfully, feeling happy enough to dance at
that moment.