IN THE GARDEN.
"Who would have thought this place could ever blossom like the rose,"
exclaimed Margaret Wakefield, settling comfortably in a long steamer
chair and looking about her with an expression of extreme contentment.
"It's the early summer that did it," remarked Judy Kean. "It came to
console us after that brutal winter."
"It's Mrs. O'Reilly's labors chiefly," put in Katherine Williams. "She
told me that this garden had been the comfort of her life."
"It's the comfort of mine," said Margaret lazily. "Watching you girls
there hoeing and raking and pulling up weeds reminds me of a scene from
the opera of 'The Juggler of Notre Dame,'--the monks in the cloister
working among their flowers."
Molly paused in her operation of the lawn mower.
"It is a peaceful occupation," she said. "It's the nicest thing that
ever happened to us, this garden, because it was such a surprise. I
never suspected it was anything but a desert until one day I looked down
and saw Mrs. O'Reilly digging up the earth around some little green
points sticking out of the ground, and then it only seemed a few days
before the points were daffodils and everything had burst into bloom at
once. This apple tree was like a bride's bouquet."
"That's stretching your imagination a bit," interrupted Judy, reclining
at full length on a steamer rug on the ground. "Think of the gigantic
bride who could carry an apple tree for a bouquet."
"Get up from there and go to work," cried Molly, poking her friend in
the side with her foot. "Here's company coming this afternoon, and you
at your ease on the ground!"
"I don't notice that Margaret W. is bestirring herself," answered Judy.
"A President never should work," answered Molly. "It's her office to
look on and direct."
Judy pulled herself lazily from the ground.
"I'll be official lemon squeezer, then," she said. "I will not weed; I
refuse to cut grass, or to pick up sticks with the Williamses. You look
like a pair of peasant fagot gatherers," she called to the two sisters
who were clearing away a small pile of brush gathered by the industrious
hands of Mrs. O'Reilly.
"And what do you think you are? A bloomin' aristocrat?" demanded Edith.
"If I am," answered Judy, "my noblesse has obleeged me to squeeze lemons
for the party. It's a lowly job, but I'd rather do it than pick up
sticks."
"Anything like work is lowly to you, Miss Judy," said Katherine.
Summer had really come on the heels of spring with such breathless haste
that before they knew it they were plunged into warm weather. And nobody
rejoiced more than Molly over the passing of the long cold winter. When
at last the sun's rays broke through the crust of the frost-bound earth
and wakened the sleeping things underneath, it had seemed to the young
girl that her cup of happiness was overflowing. Not even to Judy and
Nance could she explain how much she loved the spring. One day, seizing
a trowel from some tools on the porch, she rushed into the garden and
began digging in the flower beds.
"You don't mind, do you, Mrs. O'Reilly?" she apologized. "I'm so glad
spring is here at last that I've got to take it out in something besides
book-learning."
"I'm only too happy, Miss," said the widow. "Young ladies ain't often so
fond of the smell of the earth."
It was Molly who had introduced the cult of the garden to the other
girls, and it was she who had first induced Mrs. O'Reilly to resurrect
some garden seats from the cellar and a rustic table. Even as early as
the first of May they had tea under the apple trees, and as the days
grew warmer their friends found them reading and studying in the sunny
enclosure.
They had no idea of the charming picture they made grouped about in
their garden; nor did they dream that Mrs. O'Reilly had occasionally
allowed a visitor or two to peer at them through a crack in the dining
room shutters. Mrs. McLean and Professor Green were two such privileged
characters one afternoon when they called at O'Reilly's to leave notes
of acceptance to a tea to which they had been invited by the old Queen's
circle. The invitations in themselves were rather unusual. They were
little water-color sketches done by Judy and Otoyo on oblong cards. Each
sketch showed a bit of the garden, and the invitations stated that on
the afternoon of June second there would be tea in the Garden of
O'Reilly's.
"Where is this garden, Mrs. O'Reilly?" Mrs. McLean had demanded, and the
Irish woman, beckoning mysteriously, had shown them the scene through
the crack in the shutter.
"Why, bless the bairns," exclaimed Mrs. McLean, gazing through the
opening, while Professor Green impatiently awaited his turn. "They
might be a lot of wood nymphs disporting themselves under the trees."
Then the Professor had looked and had discovered Molly Brown, in her
usual blue linen--which was probably only an imitation linen--raking
grass. Judy was softly twanging her guitar. Nance on her knees beside a
bed of lilies was digging in the earth, and the others were variously
engaged while Edith read aloud.
The Professor looked long at the charming scene and then observed:
"It is a pretty picture. Wherever these girls go they create an
atmosphere."
But he was thinking of only one girl.
Someone else had called at O'Reilly's privately and asked to see the
garden.
It was Judith Blount who stood like a dark shadow against the window and
peered through the crack in the green shutter. She had come on the
pretext of looking at rooms for next year, but after watching the scene
in the garden had hurried away.
"And I might have been with them now," she thought bitterly, "if it
hadn't been for my vile temper that Christmas Eve."
Judith had learned a good many hard lessons during the winter. She had
found out that friends in prosperity are not always friends in
adversity. Her old-time rich associates at the Beta Phi House had paid
her one or two perfunctory calls in the room over the post-office, but
the days of her leadership were over forever. Mary Stewart came often to
see her and Jenny Wren was faithful, but there was great bitterness in
Judith's heart and she chose frequently to hang a "Busy" sign on her
door so that she might brood over her troubles alone. She grew very
sallow and thin, and sat up late at night reading, there being no ten
o'clock rules at the post-office. Many times Madeleine Petit, her
neighbor, was wakened by the fragrant aroma of coffee floating down the
hall into her little bedroom.
"If she was my daughter," Madeleine observed to Molly one day, "I'd
first put her through a course of broken doses of calomel, and then I'd
put her to work on something besides lessons. Even laundry is good to
keep people from brooding. If I stopped to think about all my troubles
and all that is before me in the way of work and struggles to get on,"
she rattled along, "I wouldn't have time to study, much less do up
jabots and things. But I just trust to luck and go ahead. I find it
comes out all right. Mighty few people seem to understand that it makes
a thing much bigger to think and think about it. I'd rather enlarge
something more worth while than my misfortunes."
Molly smiled over Madeleine's philosophy.
"I mean to make friends with her next year," went on Madeleine. "She was
rude to me once, but I am sorry for her because we are both going
through the same struggle and I think I can give her some ideas. You may
not believe me, but I always succeed in doing the thing I set out to do.
College was as far off from me two years ago as Judith seems to be
now----"
"It will be a fine thing for Judith if she gains a friend like you,
Madeleine," interrupted Molly warmly. "See if you can't start it by
bringing her to our garden party with you next Saturday."
Molly delivered the invitations with which she had called, and giving
Madeleine a friendly kiss, she hastened on her way.
But Madeleine's words were prophetic, as we shall show you in the story
of "Molly Brown's Junior Days." Judith Blount was to learn much from
this energetic little person and to listen with the patience of a tried
friend to her stream of conversation.
Molly felt very much like embracing all her friends that day and kissing
both hands to the entire world besides. A letter had come from her
mother which settled the one great question in Molly's mind just then:
Should she be able to return to college for her junior year and share
with Judy and Nance a little three-roomed apartment in the Quadrangle
near their other friends, who were all engaging rooms in that same
corridor? And that very morning all doubt had been dispelled. Her
mother had written her the wonderful news:
"The stockholders of the Square Deal Mine will get back their money,
after all. It seems that Mrs. Blount had some property which she was
induced to hand over. I am sorry that they should be impoverished, but
it seems just, nevertheless. It will be some time before matters are
arranged, however. In the meantime, I have had the most extraordinary
piece of luck in connection with the two acres of orchard on which I
borrowed the money for your college expenses. I have just sold it for a
splendid amount--enough to cover all debts on the land, including the
one to the President of Wellington University, and to furnish your
tuition and board for the next two years. Scarcely anything in all my
life has pleased me more than this. I don't even know the name of the
buyer. The land was purchased through an agent. But whoever the person
was, he must have been charmed with our old orchard. It is a pretty bit
of property. Your father used to call it 'his lucky two acres,' because
it always yielded a little income."
Therefore, it was with a light heart that Molly delivered invitations
that afternoon to the garden party at O'Reilly's.
She had intended to shove an envelope under the door of Professor
Green's office in the cloisters and hurry on, not wishing to disturb
that busy and important personage, but he had opened the door himself
while she was in the very act of slipping the invitation through the
crack between the door and the sill.
"Oh," she exclaimed, blushing with embarrassment. "Please excuse me. I
only wanted to give you this. We hope you'll come. We shall feel it a
great honor if you will accept."
"I accept without even knowing what it is, if that's the way you feel,"
replied the Professor, smiling. "I would go to a fudge party or a picnic
or anything in the nature of an entertainment, if I felt--er--that
is----" the Professor was getting decidedly mixed, and Molly saw with
surprise that he was blushing. "That is, if the fire refugees wished it
so much," he finished.
"You look a little tired, Professor," she remarked, noticing for the
first time that he was hollow-eyed and his face was thin and worn, as if
he had been working at night.
"My pallor is due entirely to disappointment," he answered laughing,
"our little opera passed into oblivion the other night. Perhaps you
would have brought it better luck if you had been with us."
"I would have clapped and cheered the loudest of all," exclaimed Molly.
"But I'm so sorry. I am sure it must have been splendid. What was the
reason?"
"It was just one of those unfortunate infants destined to die young,"
said the Professor. "I thought it was quite a neat little thing, myself,
but Richard believes that the plot had too much story and it was a
little--well--too refined, if I may put it that way. It needed more
buffoonery of a lighter vein. It was a joke, my writing it in the first
place. However, I haven't lost anything but time over it, and I've
gained a good deal of experience."
"I am so sorry," exclaimed Molly with real sympathy, giving him her
hand. "It seems rather tactless," she said starting to leave and turning
back, "to tell you about our good luck just now, but of course you knew
about the Square Deal. Mine, anyway."
"Oh, yes," he answered. "They are going to pay off all the creditors. An
old cousin of Mrs. Blount's in Switzerland died the other day without
leaving a will, and she inherits his property. It's pretty hard on her
to give it up just now when she needs it dreadfully, but Richard has
induced her to do it and I suppose it is right. It will take a year at
least to straighten out the affair though. There is so much red tape
about American heirs getting European property."
"Then, _I've_ had some luck, too," said Molly, making an effort to keep
the Professor from seeing how really joyously happy she was. "Some
perfectly delightful and charming person has bought my two acres of
apple orchard at last, and I shall not be down at O'Reilly's next
winter. I'm going to be in the Quadrangle with the others. Isn't it
wonderful?"
The Professor looked at her with his quizzical brown eyes; then he shook
hands with her again.
"Does it really make you very happy?" he asked.
"Oh, you can't think!" she cried. "You can never know how relieved and
happy I am. I've been walking on air all day. I shall always feel that
the man who bought that orchard did it just for me, although of course
he has never heard of me. Some day I am going to thank him, myself."
"You are?" he asked, "and how will you thank him?"
"Why," she replied, "why, I think I'll just give him a hug. I have a
feeling that he's an old gentleman."
The Professor sat down in his chair very suddenly and began to laugh,
and he was still laughing when Molly sped down the corridor to the door
into the court. She did not see him again until the day of the farewell
tea in the garden of O'Reilly's.
* * * And it is in the garden that we will leave our girls now, at the
close of their sophomore year.
They look very charming in their long white dresses, dispensing tea and
lemonade and sandwiches to the small company of guests. It is the last
time we shall see the old Queen's circle as a separate group. O'Reilly's
had filled the need of the moment, but the friends agreed that nothing
could ever take the place of Queen's unless it were the long-coveted
quarters in the dormitories behind the twin gray towers of Wellington.
There we shall find them during "MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS," living
broader and less secluded lives in the fine old Quadrangle which had
always been the center of interest and influence at Wellington College
and now promised to add a unique chapter to her history.
* * * * *
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Transcriber's Note:
Spelling, alternative hyphenation, and abbreviations have been retained
as they appear in the original publication.
Changes have been made to punctuation as follows:
Page 262: Removed quotation mark--shed on her account."
Page 213: Added fullstop--were to shake hands.
End of Project Gutenberg's Molly Brown's Sophomore Days, by Nell Speed