A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT.
"Do you think those little feet of yours will be able to carry you so
far, Otoyo?" asked Molly anxiously, one Saturday morning.
Otoyo gave one of her delightfully ingenuous smiles.
"My body is smally, too," she said. "The weight is not grandly."
"Not smally; just small, Otoyo," admonished Molly, who was now well
launched in her tutoring of the little Japanese, and had almost broken
her of her participial habits. But the adverbial habit appeared to grow
as the participial habit vanished.
"And you won't get too tired?" asked Judy.
"No, no, no," protested Otoyo, her voice rising with each no until it
ended in a sweet high note like a bird's. "You not know the Japanese
when you say that. I have received training. You have heard of jiu
jitsu? Some day Otoyo will teach beautiful young American lady some
things."
"Yes, but the jiu jitsu doesn't help you when you're tired, does it?"
"Ah, but I shall not be tired. You will see. Otoyo's feet great bigly."
She stuck out her funny stubby little feet for inspection and the girls
all laughed. As a matter of fact, she was a sturdy little body and knew
the secret of keeping her strength. She achieved marvels in her studies;
was up with the dawn and the last person in the house to tumble into
bed, but she was never tired, never cross and out of humor, and was
always a model of cheerful politeness.
"Art ready?" asked Katherine Williams, appearing at the door in a natty
brown corduroy walking suit.
"Can'st have the face to ask the question when we've been waiting for
you ten minutes?" replied Judy.
It was a glorious September day when the walking club from Queen's
started on its first expedition. The rules of the club were few, very
elastic and susceptible to changes. It met when it could, walked until
it was tired and had no fixed object except that of resting the eyes
from the printed page, relaxing the mind from its arduous labors and
accelerating the circulation. Anyone who wanted to invite a guest could,
and those who wished to remain at home were not bound to go.
"Did anybody decide where we were going?" asked Molly.
"Yes, I did," announced Margaret. "Knob Ledge is our destination. It's
the highest point in Wellington County and commands a most wonderful
view of the surrounding country-side----"
"Dear me, you sound like a guide book, Margaret," put in Judy.
"Professor Green is the guide book," answered Margaret. "He told me
about it. You know he is the only real walker at Wellington. Twenty
miles is nothing to him and Knob Ledge is one of his favorite trips."
"I hope that isn't twenty miles," said Jessie anxiously.
"Oh, no, it's barely six by the short way and ten by the road. We shall
go by the short way."
"Isn't Molly lovely to-day?" whispered Nance to Judy, after the walking
expedition had crossed the campus and started on its way in good
earnest.
Molly was a picture in an old gray skirt and a long sweater and tam of
"Wellington blue," knitted by one of her devoted sisters during the
summer.
"She's a dream," exclaimed Judy with loyal enthusiasm. "She glorifies
everything she wears. Just an ordinary blue tam o'shanter, exactly the
same shape and color that a hundred other Wellington girls wear, looks
like a halo on a saint's head when she wears it."
"It's her auburn hair that's the halo," said Nance.
"And her heavenly blue eyes that are saint's eyes," finished Judy.
Molly, all unconscious of the admiration of her friends, walked steadily
along between Otoyo and Jessie, a package of sandwiches in one hand and
a long staff, picked up on the road, in the other.
They were not exactly out for adventure that day, being simply a jolly
party of girls off in the woods to enjoy the last sunny days in
September, and they were not prepared for all the excitements which
greeted them on the way.
Scarcely had they left the path along the bank of the lake and skirted
the foot of "Round Head," at the top of which Molly and her two chums
had once met Professor Green and his brother, when Margaret Wakefield,
well in advance of the others, gave a wild scream and rushed madly back
into their midst. Trotting sedately after her came an amiable looking
cow. The creature paused when she saw the girls, emitted the bovine call
of the cow-mother separated from her only child, turned and trotted
slowly back.
"Why, Margaret, I didn't know you were such a coward," began Jessie
reproachfully.
"Coward, indeed," answered the other indignantly. "I don't believe Queen
Boadicea herself in a red sweater would have passed that animal. Listen
to the creature. She's begun mooing like a foghorn. I suppose she held
me personally responsible for her loss. Anyhow, she began chasing me and
I wasn't going to be gored to death in the flower of my youth."
There was no arguing this fact, and several daring spirits, creeping
along the path until it curved around the hill, hid behind a clump of
trees and took in the prospect. There stood the cow with ears erect and
quivering nostrils. She had a suspicious look in her lustrous eyes and
at intervals she let out a deep bellow that had a hint of disaster in it
for all who passed that way.
The brave spirits went back again.
"What are we to do?" exclaimed Katherine. "If it got out in college that
an old cow kept ten sophomores from having a picnic, we'd never hear the
last of it."
"Unless we behave like Indian scouts and creep along one at a time, I
don't see what we are to do," said Molly. "If we went further up the
hill, she'd see us just the same and if we crossed the brook and took to
the meadow, we'd get stuck in the swamp."
"Suppose we make a run for it," suggested Judy with high courage. "Just
dash past until we reach that group of trees over there."
"Not me," exclaimed Jessie, shaking her head vigorously. "Excuse me, if
you please."
There was another conference in low voices behind the protecting clump
of alder bushes. At last the cow began to ease her mental suffering by
nibbling at the damp green turf on the bank of the little brook.
"She's forgotten all about us. Let's make a break for it," cried Molly.
There was a certain stubbornness in her nature that made her want to
finish anything she began no matter whether it was a task or a pleasure.
The cow flicked a fly from her flank with her tail and went on placidly
cropping grass. Apparently, creature comforts had restored her
equanimity.
"One, two, three, run!" shouted Judy, and the ten students began the
race of their lives.
Not once did the flower and wit of 19-- pause to look back, and so
closely did they stick together, the strong helping the weak, that to
the watchers on the hill--and, alas! there were several of them--they
resembled all together an enormous animal of the imagination with ten
pairs of legs and a coat of many colors. At last they fell down, one on
top of the other, in a laughing, tumbling heap, in the protecting grove
of pine trees, and pausing to look back beheld the ferocious cow amiably
swishing her tail as she cropped the luscious turf on the bank of the
little stream.
"Asinine old thing," cried Margaret. "She's just an alarmist of the
worst kind."
"Who was the alarmist, did you say, Margaret?" asked Edith, with a
wicked smile. But Margaret made no answer, because, as her close
friends well knew, she never could stand being teased.
And now the watchers on the hill, having witnessed the entire episode
from behind a granite boulder and enjoyed it to the limit of their
natures, proceeded to return to Wellington with the story that was too
good to keep, and Queen's girls went on their way rejoicing as the
strong man who runs a race and wins.
At two o'clock, after a long, hard climb, they reached the ledges. To
Molly and Judy, the leading spirits of the expedition, the beautiful
view amply repaid their efforts, but there were those who were too weary
to enjoy the scenery. Jessie was one of these.
"I'm not meant for hard work," she groaned, as she reposed on one of the
flat rocks which gave the place its name and pillowed her head on
Margaret's lap.
They opened the packages of luncheon and ate with ravenous appetites,
finishing off with fudge and cheese sticks. Then they spread themselves
on the table rocks and regarded the scenery pensively. Having climbed
up at great expense of strength and effort, it was now necessary to
retrace their footsteps. The thought was disconcerting.
Edith, who never moved without a book, pulled a small edition of Keats
from her pocket and began to read aloud:
"My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk--"
A short laugh interrupted this scene of intellectual repose. Edith
paused and looked up, annoyed.
"I see nothing to laugh at," she said. But the faces of her classmates
were quite serious.
"No one laughed," said Molly.
"A rudely person did laugh," announced Otoyo decisively. "But not of us.
Another hidden behind the rock."
The girls looked around them uneasily. There was no one in sight,
apparently, and yet there had been a laugh from somewhere close by.
Coming to think of it, they had all heard it.
"I think we'd better be going," said Margaret, rising hastily. "We can
see the view on the other side some other day."
Twice that day Margaret, the coming suffragette, had proved herself
lacking in a certain courage generally attributed to the new and
independent woman.
"Come on," she continued, irritably. "Don't stop to gather up those
sandwiches. We must hurry."
Perhaps they were all of them a little frightened, but nobody was quite
so openly and shamelessly scared as President Wakefield. They had seized
their sweaters and were about to follow her down the steep path, when
another laugh was heard, and suddenly a strange man rushed from behind
one of the large boulders and seized Margaret by the arm.
The President gave one long, despairing shriek that waked the echoes,
while the other girls, too frightened to move, crouched together in a
trembling group.
Then the little Japanese bounded from their midst with the most
surprising agility, seized the man by his thumb and with a lightning
movement of the arm struck him under the chin.
With a cry of intense pain, the tramp, for such he appeared to be, fell
back against the rock, his black slouch hat fell off, and a quantity of
dark hair tumbled down on his shoulders. Judith Blount, looking
exceedingly ludicrous in a heavy black mustache, stood before them.
"Oh, how you hurt me," she cried, turning angrily on Otoyo.
Otoyo shrank back in amazement.
"Pardon," she said timidly. "I did not know the rudely man was a woman."
The girls were now treated to the rare spectacle of Margaret Wakefield
in a rage. The Goddess of War herself could not have been more majestic
in her anger, and her choice of words was wonderful as she emptied the
vials of her wrath on the head of the luckless Judith. The Williams
sisters sat down on a rock, prepared to enjoy the splendid exhibition
and the discomfiture of Judith Blount, who for once had gone too far in
her practical joking. Molly withdrew somewhat from the scene. Anger
always frightened her, but she felt that Margaret was quite justified in
what she said.
"How dare you masquerade in those disreputable clothes and frighten us?"
Margaret thundered out. "Do you think such behavior will be tolerated
for a moment at a college of the standing of Wellington University? Are
you aware that some of us might have been seriously injured by what you
would call, I suppose, a practical joke? Is this your idea of amusement?
It is not mine. Do you get any enjoyment from such a farce?"
At last Margaret paused for breath, but for once Judith had nothing to
say. She hung her head shamefacedly and the girls who were with her,
whoever they were, hung back as if they would feign have their share in
the affair kept secret.
"I'm sorry," said Judith with unusual humility. "I didn't realize it was
going to frighten you so much. You see, I don't look much like a man in
my gymnasium suit. Of course the mackintosh and hat did look rather
realistic, I'll admit. When we saw you run from the cow this morning, it
was so perfectly ludicrous, we decided to have some fun. I put on these
togs and we got a vehicle and drove around by the Exmoor road. I'm sorry
if you were scared, but I think I came out the worst. My thumb is
sprained and I know my neck will be black and blue by to-morrow."
"I advise you to give up playing practical jokes hereafter," said the
unrelenting Goddess of War. "If your thumb is sprained, it's your own
fault."
Judith flashed a black glance at her.
"When I lower myself to make you an apology," she ejaculated, "I should
think you'd have the courtesy to accept it," and with that she walked
swiftly around the edge of the rock, where she joined her confederates,
while the Queen's girls demurely took their way down the side of the
hill.
"Was my deed wrongly, then?" asked Otoyo, innocently, feeling somehow
that she had been the cause of the great outburst.
"No, indeed, child, your deed was rightly," laughed Margaret. "And I'm
going to take jiu jitsu lessons from you right away. If I could twirl a
robber around the thumb like that and hit a cow under her chin, I don't
think I'd be such a coward."
Everybody burst out laughing and Molly felt greatly relieved that
harmony was once more established. The walk ended happily, and by the
time they had reached home, Judith Blount had been relegated to an
unimportant place in their minds.