THE THAW.
Next day began the thaw and in a week the whole earth appeared to have
melted into an unpleasant muddy-colored liquid. An icy dampness
permeated the air. It chilled the warmth of the soul and changed the hue
of existence to a sad gray.
Judy and Molly were prepared to see Nance thaw with the great sleet and
melt into little rivulets of feeling and remorse. She had seemed rather
hard on Andy, junior, that night; but Nance remained implacable and had
no word to say on the subject.
"She's as ice-bound as ever," exclaimed Judy, shaking her head ruefully.
"I am afraid she still belongs to the glacial period. Don't you think
you can warm her up a little and make her forgive poor Andy?"
"Perhaps the sun will do it," said Molly, lifting her skirts as she
waded through the slush on the campus.
The two girls were on their way to a class and there was no time to
linger for discussions about Nance's unforgiving nature. But there was
nothing Judy enjoyed more than making what she learnedly termed
"psychological speculations" concerning her friends' sentiments.
"Do stop tearing along, Molly, while I talk. I have something
interesting to say."
"Judy Kean, there must be a depression on your head where there should
be a perfectly good bump of duty. Don't you know we have only five
minutes to get to the class? I'd rather be late to almost anything that
Lit. II."
"And why, pray?" demanded Judy, rushing to keep up with Molly's long
steps.
"Oh, well, because it's interesting."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Why don't you turn into a period occasionally, Juliana? You are
every other variety of punctuation mark,--dashes, exclamations,
interrogations. Sometimes you're a comma and I've known you to be
a semicolon, but when, oh, when have you come to a full stop?"
"All this long peroration----"
"Pero--what?"
"Means that you are avoiding the real question."
"Here we are," ejaculated Molly with a sigh of relief as she ran
upstairs and entered the class room at the same moment that Professor
Green appeared from another door.
Molly freely admitted to her friends that English Literature was the
most interesting study she had. She took more pains over the preparation
for this class than for any of her other lessons. She was always careful
not to be late, but then sat timidly and modestly in the back row with
the girls who wished to avoid being called upon to recite. The
Professor's lectures, however, led her into an enchanted country, the
land of poetry and romance. Perhaps, at first, he thought she really
wished to avoid being questioned and that her spellbound expression was
only indifference. Certainly he had seldom tested her interest until one
day during a lecture on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and poets he calmly
requested her to stand up before the entire class and read Rossetti's
"Blessed Damozel." Blushing hotly, she began the reading in a thin,
frightened voice, but presently the amused faces of her friends faded
away; her voice regained its full measure of strength and beauty, and
when she had finished, she became aware that somewhere hidden within the
wellsprings of her mind was a power she had not known of before. Molly's
classmates were much impressed by her performance, but there was a faint
smile on the Professor's face that seemed to imply that he was not in
the least surprised.
Among all the little happenings that infest our daily lives it is often
the least and most accidental that wields the strongest influence. This
chance discovery by Molly that she could read poetry aloud gave her
infinite secret pleasure. She began to memorize and repeat to herself
all her favorite poems. Sometimes her pulses beat time to the rhythm in
her head; even her speech at such times became unconsciously metrical,
and as she walked she felt her body swing to the music of the verse.
With a strange shyness she hid this secret from her friends, who never
guessed when she sat quietly with them that she was chanting poetry to
herself.
Molly had planned to do several errands that afternoon, after the class
in Lit. II. The first one took her to the village to see Madeleine
Petit, the little Southern girl, who was willing to do almost any kind
of work to earn money. Molly had never returned the magazine clippings
of prize offers, and she had also another reason for wanting to see
Madeleine. She wished to find out just how different life in a room over
the post-office was from life at Queen's. She was thankful when the
lesson was over, that Judy was engaged for basket-ball practice in the
gym., for she wished to be alone when she made this call.
Only a few days before, Miss Walker had called to her after chapel and
suggested that she look over the rooms the postmistress rented to
students, and make her choice so that lodgings could be spoken for
before Christmas.
Molly paused at Madeleine's door and read the sign carefully.
"I suppose I shall have to be fixing up something like that," she
thought, "only I never could do up jabots and I'd rather scrub floors
than shampoo people's heads."
"Come in," called the liquid, melting voice of the Southern girl in
answer to Molly's tap. "Oh, how do you do? What a delightful, welcome
surprise," cried the hospitable little person. "Put your feet over the
register. That's where I spend most of my time now. I'm not used to this
awful climate. Now, give me your hat and coat. You're to have tea with
me, you know. You won't mind if I go on working, will you? I'm doing up
some jabots and things for that sweet Miss Stewart. She has given me a
lot of work. Such a lady, if she is a Yankee! I can safely say that to
you because you aren't one, you know. But, really, I'm beginning to like
these Northern girls so much. They are quite as nice as the girls from
home, only quieter," rattled on Miss Petit.
Molly groaned inwardly.
"If she only didn't talk so much," she thought. "I'm always putting up
milestones during her ramblings to remind me of something I wanted to
say, but there's never any chance to go back, even if I could remember
where I put them."
"I wanted to return these clippings," she managed to edge in at last,
producing the slips of papers.
"Oh, you needn't have bothered. I shall never use any of them. I told
you there was nothing but mathematics in my soul. I can't write at all.
The themes are the horror of my life. But you tried, I am sure. Was it
the short story or one of the advertising ones? They are all of them
terribly unsatisfactory because you never know where you stand until
months and months afterwards when you read that somebody has won the
prize. But, of course, I never expect to win prizes. I could never make
a _coup de tete_ like that."
"You could make a _coup de_ tongue," thought Molly, sighing helplessly.
"But did you try?" asked Madeleine, now actually pausing for a reply to
her question.
"I did try one of them, a little poem that came into my head, but it was
weeks ago and I know nothing will come of it. I felt when I sent it off
that it wasn't the kind of thing they wanted, wasn't advertisey enough.
I had really almost forgotten I wrote it, so many other things have
happened since. Can you keep a secret, Miss Petit?"
"I certainly can," replied the busy little creature, pausing in her
labors to test the iron. "Dear me, I must be careful not to scorch any
of these pretty things. But the tea kettle is boiling. Suppose we have
some refreshment and you can tell me the secret in comfort."
Molly smiled at her own Southern peculiarities cropping out in this
little friend.
"Mommer sent me this caramel cake yesterday. It's made from a very old
recipe. I hope you'll like the tea. I'm sorry I can't offer you any
real cream. I would just as soon eat cold cream for the complexion as
condensed cream. It's all right for cooking with, but it doesn't go well
with tea and coffee, which I always make in my own rooms, especially
coffee. It's never strong enough at the place I take my meals. But you
said something about a secret?"
Somehow Molly's affairs seemed to dwindle into insignificance in
comparison with this great tidal wave of conversation, and she resolved
not to take Madeleine into her confidence after all. It occurred to her
that she would soon become a raving maniac if she lived next door to
anyone who talked as much as that.
"It's really not much of a secret," answered Molly lightly. "Miss Walker
asked me to come down and look over some empty rooms here for someone,
and I thought, maybe, if you could spare the time you would come with
me."
"I can always spare the time to be of service to you," exclaimed
Madeleine. "You have done so much for me. You really gave me my start
here, you know."
"Nonsense!" put in Molly.
"Yes, you did. You sent Miss Stewart to me and introduced me to some of
the older girls, who have all been very nice. They would probably never
have heard of me but for you."
When they had finished the tea and cake, which were delicious, they
inspected the vacant rooms, to a steady accompaniment of Madeleine's
conversation. Molly wondered how the capable, clever, industrious little
creature could accomplish so much when her tongue went like a
clap-hammer most of the time. But there was no doubt that she achieved
marvels and was already well up in her classes. Poor Molly's temples
ached with the steady hum. Her tongue was dry and she had a wild impulse
to jump out the window. How could she explain to kind Miss Walker that
she could not live over the post-office? Would it not be an unfriendly
act to tell the real reason?
"It's bad enough as it is," she thought, "leaving my sweet old Queen's,
but this would be beyond human endurance. It will have to be a room
over the general store or at Mrs. O'Reilly's. Anything but this."
The post-office rooms were bare and crude, and poor Molly was sick at
heart when at last she took her leave of the little friend, who was
still babbling unceasingly when the door closed.
Molly breathed a deep sigh of relief as she waded through the slush on
the sidewalk.
"It will be a good deal like being banished from the promised land," she
said to herself, "wherever it is."
Pausing at the door of the general store, she noticed a big, black,
funereal-looking vehicle coming up the street at a slow pace. Passers-by
paused to look at it, with a kind of morbid curiosity, as it drew
nearer.
"Oh, heavens, I hope that isn't an undertaker's wagon," Molly thought,
preparing to flee from the dread sight which always filled her with the
horrors. The big vehicle passed slowly by. On the front seat with the
driver sat Dr. McLean. He bowed to her gravely, barely lifting his hat.
"One of his patients," her thoughts continued, "but it's strange for
him to ride on the same wagon. I don't think I can possibly look at
those other rooms today."
She turned her face away from the general store and hastened back to the
University, which seemed to be the only thing that retained its dignity
and beauty under the disenchanting influences of this muggy, damp day.
As she walked up the avenue, there some distance ahead was the gruesome
equipage.
"Heavens! Heavens! I haven't heard about anything," she exclaimed.
The wagon did not pause at the Infirmary as she expected, but pursued
its way until it reached the McLean house. Molly began to run, and just
as she arrived breathless and excited, the vehicle had backed up to the
steps, two doors swung open, and Mrs. McLean, accompanied by a trained
nurse, stepped out. The doctor climbed down from one side of the vehicle
and the driver from the other. Professor Green sprung up from
somewhere,--he had probably been waiting in the McLeans' hall--and the
three men gently lifted out a stretcher on which lay the almost
unrecognizable form of Andy, junior. A large bandage encircled his head
and one arm was done up in splints.
"Oh, Mrs. McLean," whispered Molly, "I didn't know----"
But Mrs. McLean only shook her head and hurried after the stretcher.
Molly sat down on the muddy steps and waited. After what seemed an age,
Professor Green emerged from the house.
"You are a reckless girl to sit there in all that dampness," he
exclaimed.
"Never mind me. What about Andy?"
"He's in pretty bad shape, I am afraid," answered the Professor. "He was
hurt the night of the carnival in some way. I don't know just how it
happened that he lost the others. At any rate, they found him after a
long hunt half frozen to death, a gash in his head, and several broken
bones. They thought they had better bring him home, where the doctor
could look after him, but he hasn't stood the journey as well as they
hoped."
"Poor Nance!" said Molly, as she hastened back to Queen's.