THE GREAT SLEET OF 19--.
Many a fall and many a bruise they got that night as they crept along
the frozen path. At last they reached a point where the creek had been
turned abruptly from its bed and passed through a culvert under the
embankment. Here the path also changed its course and headed for the
golf links of the college.
"They can never get down the embankment and we can never get up,"
remarked Judith, who appeared to have forgotten that she had lately been
a human volcano. "Why can't we take the short cut back? It couldn't be
any worse than this."
"Why not?" answered Molly politely, although it must be confessed she
was still tingling under the lash of Judith's flaying tongue, and not
one word had she spoken since they left the others.
"Mrs. McLean," called Judith, making a trumpet of her hands, "we're
going to cut across the golf links. It will be easier."
"But I'm afraid for you to go alone at this time of night," answered
Mrs. McLean.
"What could harm them a night like this?" expostulated her husband.
"Very well, then. I suppose it's all right," said the distracted and
wearied lady.
"Don't be uneasy, Mrs. McLean. You'll tak' the high road and we'll tak'
the low, but we'll gang to Wellington afore ye," called Molly laughing.
After all, wasn't it absurd enough to make a body laugh--one man, eight
helpless women slipping and sliding after him, and she herself making
off in the darkness with the only enemy she had ever known! She wished
it had been Judy or Nance. She was sure they would have giggled all the
way. But who ever wanted to laugh in the presence of this black-browed,
fierce-tempered Judith?
They walked silently on for some time, until they came to a little hill.
"I guess we'll have to crawl it," sighed Molly.
Long before this, they had pinned their long skirts up around their
waists, and now, on hands and knees, they began the difficult ascent.
Just as they reached the top, Molly's slipper bag somehow got away from
her and went sliding to the bottom. Suddenly both girls began to laugh.
They laughed until the echoes rang, and Molly, losing her grasp on a
bush, went sliding after the bag.
"Oh," laughed Judith, "oh, Molly, I shall----" and then the twigs she
had been clutching pulled out of the ice and down she went on top of
Molly.
The two girls sat up and looked at each other. They felt warmer and
happier from the laugh.
"Judith," exclaimed Molly, suddenly, "I could never laugh with any one
like that and not be friends. It's almost like accepting hospitality.
Shall we be friends again?"
"Oh, yes," replied Judith eagerly. "I am sorry I was rude to-night about
the coffee, Molly. You know it's my terrible temper. Once it gets a
start, I can't seem to hold it in, and I've had a great deal to try me
lately. I apologize to you now. Will you accept my apology?"
"Yes, indeed," Molly assured her. "Come along, let's try again. Once we
get to the top of this little 'dis-incline,' as an old colored man at
home would call it, we'll be on the links."
The girls both reached the summit at the same moment, and as they
scanned the white expanse before them, they exclaimed in frightened
whispers:
"There comes a man."
Instantly they slid back to the bottom again and lay in a heap, gasping
and giggling.
"Where shall we go? What shall we do?" exclaimed Judith.
"Nothing," answered Molly. "We can hardly crawl, much less run, but I
suppose he can't either, so perhaps we are as safe here as anywhere."
"But what man except a burglar could be prowling around Wellington at
this hour?" whispered Judith.
"I can't think of anyone, but I should think no sensible burglar would
come out a night like this. Besides, do burglars ever come to
Wellington?"
"Once there was one, only he wasn't a real burglar. He was a lunatic who
had escaped from an asylum near Exmoor."
"Oh, heavens, Judith, a lunatic? I'd rather meet ten burglars. After
all, only a lunatic would come out on such a night. Can't we run?"
Molly had a fear of crazy people that she had never been able to
conquer.
They rose unsteadily on their frozen feet and began hurrying back in the
direction of the trolley embankment. As they ran, they heard a long,
sliding, scraping sound. Evidently the man had slid down the little
hill. They could hear the sound of his footsteps on the ice. He was
running after them. At last he called:
"Wait, wait, whoever you are. I'm not going to hurt you."
In another moment he had caught up with them. Oh, joy of joys, it was
Professor Green, wearing a thick gray sweater and a cap with ear muffs.
With a cry of relief, Judith flung herself on her cousin's neck while
Molly rather timidly clasped his arm. She felt she could have hugged
him, too, if he had only been a relation.
"We thought you were an escaped lunatic," she exclaimed.
"I am," he answered, "at least I've been nearly crazy trying to get news
of you." He took her hand and drew it firmly through his arm, while
Judith appropriated his other arm. "They telephoned over from Exmoor to
know if you had reached Wellington safely. We found at the village that
the car had not arrived. Then about twenty minutes ago they called us
from the car station to say that the conductor and motorman had walked
but that you had decided to remain in the car all night. I thought I had
better go over and persuade you not to freeze to death by degrees. I am
glad you decided to walk. Where are the others?"
"They have gone on by the track," answered Molly. "We slipped down the
embankment and couldn't crawl up again. Perhaps you could catch them, if
you branched off here and took the other road."
"Never mind," answered the Professor, tucking her arm more tightly
through his. "Dr. McLean can look after the others, now that his burdens
are lightened by two. I'd better see you across this skating rink. Mrs.
Murphy is up waiting for you. I stopped and told her to get hot soup and
water bottles and things ready."
"You're a dear, Cousin Edwin," exclaimed Judith. "You are always
thinking of other people."
"I expect the old doctor will be a good deal knocked up by this little
jaunt," went on the Professor, not taking the slightest notice of
Judith's expressions of gratitude, the first Molly had ever heard her
make about anything.
It was half-past two o'clock when they reached Queen's Cottage, just ten
minutes before the others arrived.
"It's a good thing you found us," Molly said to the Professor as he
helped them up the steps. "I believe we'd have been crawling over those
links another hour or so if you hadn't."
"I can never explain what made me cut across the links," he answered. "I
had my face turned toward the other road when something urged me to go
that way."
Dr. McLean always insisted that it was continuous giggling that kept
them all from freezing that bitter night. Judith Blount was the only one
in the party who suffered from the experience. She spent a week in the
Infirmary with a deep cold and sore throat.
"You see," explained Judy Kean sagely to her two friends, "her system
was weakened by that awful fit of temper; she lost all mental and bodily
poise and took the first disease that came her way."
"She certainly lost all bodily poise," laughed Molly. "I didn't have any
more than she did. We slipped around like two helpless infants."
"But you didn't take cold," said Judy.
"I've made up my mind not to have any colds this winter," announced
Molly seriously. "After all, there's a good deal in just declining to
entertain them. I think the grip is a sort of bully who attacks people
who are afraid of him and keeps away from the ones who are not cowards."
The three girls spent half a day in bed sleeping off their weariness,
and on Friday afternoon they were able to call on Mrs. McLean, who,
being a hardy Scotchwoman, was none the worse from the walk. The doctor,
she said, had been up since seven o'clock attending to his patients.
"The truth is," she added, "he would not have missed the sight for
anything--the whole world turned into a skating rink and the campus the
centre of it."
Everybody in Wellington who could wear skates was out that afternoon.
The campus and golf links, as well as the lake, were covered with
circling, gliding figures. The best skaters coasted down hill on their
skates, as men do on snow shoes. They went with incredible speed and
the impetus carried them up the next hill without any effort.
Molly had seen very little skating at home. She had learned as a child,
but as she grew up the sport had not appealed to her, because somebody
was always falling in and the ice never lasted longer than a day or so.
Now, however, the picture of the circling, swaying crowd of skaters
thrilled her with a new desire to see if she had forgotten how to
balance herself on steel runners.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she cried. "I never saw anything so graceful. They
are like birds. First they soar. Then they flap their wings and soar
again."
"Flap their feet, you mean," interrupted Judy, "and woe to her who flops
instead of flaps."
Mary Stewart came sailing up to them, gave a beautiful curving turn and
then stopped.
"Isn't this glorious sport?" she cried, her cheeks glowing with
exercise. "Has your President told you about the skating carnival? It's
just been decided, and I suppose you haven't seen her yet. It's to take
place to-morrow night. Won't it be beautiful?"
"What fun!" cried Molly. "What a wonderful sight!"
"Now, Molly, you are to wrap up very warm," continued Mary, "no matter
what kind of a costume you decide to wear. No cheesecloth Liberty
masquerades will go, remember."
"Oh, but I can't be in the carnival. I haven't any skates," said Molly.
"I have another pair," answered Mary quickly. "I'll bring them over to
you later."
Molly never guessed that this loving friend skated straight down to the
village that very instant and bought a pair of skates screwed onto stout
shoes at the general store. Tossing away the wrapping paper and smearing
the shoes with snow and ashes to take off the new look, she delivered
them at Queen's before supper.
"It's lucky I knew what number Molly wore," she said to herself, as she
sailed up the campus on her Canadian skates, with strokes as sweepingly
broad and generous as her own fine nature.