CHRISTMAS--MID-YEARS--AND THE WANDERTHIRST.
There are few lonelier and more dismal experiences in life than
Christmas away from home for the first time. Molly felt her heart sink
as the great day approached. One morning a trainload of chattering,
laughing girls pulled out of the Wellington station. Judy hanging
recklessly to the last step, waved her handkerchief until Molly's figure
grew indistinct in the distance, and Nance on the crowded platform
called out again and again, "Good-bye, Molly, dear. Good-bye!"
Molly almost regretted that she had ever left Kentucky, as the Christmas
train became a point of black on the horizon.
"I might have ended my days as a teacher in a country school-house and
been happier than this," she thought desperately, starting back to
college.
Some one came running up behind her. It was Mary Stewart who had been
down to see some classmates off. She was to take the night train to New
York.
"When do you get off?" she asked, slipping her arm through Molly's like
the good comrade she was. "I'm surprised you didn't leave yesterday,
with such a long journey before you."
"I'm not going home this Christmas," replied Molly.
"Not going?" began Mary. "You're to be left at Queen's by yourself?"
Molly nodded, vainly endeavoring to smile cheerfully.
"Then you're to go with me. I'll come right along now and help you
pack," announced Mary decisively.
"But, Mary, I can't. I haven't anything--money or clothes----"
"Don't say 'but' to me! I've got everything. I've even got the
drawing-room to myself on the night train to New York. You shall go
with me. I don't know why I never thought of it before. We'll have a
beautiful Christmas together. Since mother's death, five years ago,
Christmas has been a dismal time at our house. You'll be just the
person to cheer us up. It will be like having a child in the house.
You shall have a Christmas tree and hang up your stocking. Father will
be delighted and so will Brother Willie."
Thus overruled, Molly was borne triumphantly to New York that same
evening, and spent one of the most wonderful Christmases of her life in
Mary's beautiful home on Riverside Drive. As her mother and godmother
both wisely sent her checks for Christmas gifts, she was not embarrassed
by any lack of ready money. She was even rich enough to purchase a new
evening dress and a pretty blouse which Mary had ordered to be sent up
on approval, and not for many a year afterward did she guess why those
charming things happened to be such bargains. But Molly was a very
inexperienced young person, and knew little concerning prices at that
time.
Mary's father was a fine man, quiet and self-contained, with a splendid
rugged face. He treated his only daughter with indescribable tenderness,
and called her "Little Mary." They did not see much of "Brother Willie,"
a sophomore at Yale, and very busy enjoying his holiday. He regarded
Molly as a child and his sister as an old maid, but condescended to take
them to the theatre twice.
But all good things must come to an end, and it seemed just a little
while before Molly found herself back at her old desk in her room at
Queen's, writing a "bread-and-butter" letter to Mr. Stewart, which
pleased him mightily, since Mary's guests had never before taken that
trouble.
Judy came back radiantly happy. She had had a glorious time in
Washington with her "vagabond" parents, as she called them. Nance, too,
had enjoyed her Christmas with her father and busy mother, who had come
home to rest during the holidays. Only one of Queen's girls did not join
the jolly circle that now congregated in the most hospitable room in the
house to "swap" holiday experiences. But a letter had arrived from the
missing member addressed to "Miss M. C. W. Brown," and beginning: "My
Dear Molly Brown."
"Good-bye," the letter ran. "I'm off for Europe and Grandmamma, by
the _Kismet_, sailing the eighteenth. I am afraid I was too much
like a bull in a china shop at college. I was always breaking
something, mostly rules. I've done lots of foolish things, and I am
sorry. They were jokes, of course, most of them, and intended to
frighten silly self-important people. I've learned a great deal from
you and your friends, but I'd rather practice my new wisdom on other
people. If you ever see me again you'll find me changed. I may enter
a convent for a few years in France and learn to keep quiet. You did
what you could for me, and so did the others. You are a first rate
lot and you make a jolly good freshman class. I shall miss you, and
I shall miss old Wellington. I wouldn't have come back this year if
I hadn't felt the call of its two gray towers. Somehow, it's been
more of a home to me than most places, and when I'm quite old and
forgotten I shall go back and see it again some day. Good-bye again,
and good luck. I've told Mrs. Murphy to give you my Persian prayer
rug. It's just your color of blue.
"F. ANDREWS."
Molly read the letter aloud and the girls were half sorry and half
relieved over its contents. After all, Frances was a very disturbing
element, but as Margaret Wakefield announced later at a meeting of the
G. F. Society, she had responded to kind treatment, and she, Margaret,
moved that they send her a combination steamer letter of farewell and
a bunch of violets to cheer her on her lonely voyage. The movement was
promptly seconded by Molly, carried by universal acclaim, and the
resolution put into effect immediately.
After Christmas comes the terror of every freshman's heart--the mid-year
examinations. As the dreaded week approached, lights burned late in
every house on the campus and nobody offered any interference. Behind
closed doors sat scores of weary maidens with pale concentrated faces
bent over text-books.
Judy Kean made a record at Queen's. She crammed history for thirty-six
hours at a stretch, only stopping for food occasionally or to snatch a
half hour's nap.
It was Saturday and bitter cold. Examinations were to begin on Monday,
and there yet remained two more blessed days of respite. Molly, in a
long, gray dressing gown, with a towel wrapped around her head, had
been cramming mathematics since six in the morning, and now at eleven
o'clock, she lifted her eyes from the hated volume and looked about her
with a dazed expression as if she had suddenly awakened from a black
dream. Nance had hurried into the room.
"Molly, for heaven's sake, go to Judy. I think she's losing her mind.
She has overstudied and it has affected her brain. I can't do anything
with her at all."
"What?" cried Molly, rushing down the hall, her long, gray wrapper
trailing after her in voluminous folds.
She opened Judy's door unceremoniously and marched in.
The room looked as if a cyclone had struck it. The contents of the
bureau drawers were dumped onto the floor; the closet was emptied,
clothes and books piled about on the bed and chairs, and Judy's two
trunks filled up what floor space remained.
Judy herself was working feverishly. She had packed a layer of books in
one of the trunks and was now folding up her best dresses.
"Julia Kean, what are you doing?" cried Molly in a stern voice.
Judy gave her a constrained nod.
"Don't bother me now. There's a dear. I'm in a dreadful hurry."
Molly shook her violently by the shoulder. She had a feeling that Judy
was asleep and must be waked up.
"Get up from there this minute and answer my question," she commanded.
"What was your question?" asked Judy with an embarrassed little laugh.
"Oh, yes, you asked what I was doing. I should think you could see I
wasn't gathering cowslips on the campus."
"Are you running away, Judy?" asked Molly, trying another tack.
"Yes, my Mariucci," cried Judy, quoting a popular song, "'_I'm gona
packa my trunk and taka my monk and sail for sunny It._'"
Molly refused even to smile at this witticism.
"I know what you're doing," she exclaimed. "You are running away from
examinations. You're a coward. You are no better than a deserter from
the army in time of war. It's bad enough in time of peace, but just
before the battle--I'm so ashamed and disappointed in you that I can
hardly understand how I ever could have loved you so much."
Judy went on stolidly packing, rolling her clothes into little bundles
and stuffing them in anywhere she could find a place between her
numerous books.
"Have you lost your nerve, Judy, dear?" said Molly, after a minute,
kneeling down beside her friend and seizing her hands.
"I suppose so," said Judy, extricating her hands, and speaking in a
hard, strained voice in an effort to keep from breaking down. "I'd
rather not stay here and be disgraced by flunking, but there's another
reason beside that, Molly. I know I look like a deserter and deserve to
be shot, but there's another reason," she wailed; "there's another good
reason."
"Why, Judy, dearest, what can it be?" asked Molly gently.
"They're going to Italy," she burst out. "They're sailing on Monday. I
got the letter to-day, and, oh, I can't stand it--I can't endure it.
They'll be in Sicily in a few weeks--and without me! Mamma hates the
cold. So do I. I'm numb now with it. Oh, Molly, they'll be sailing
without me, and I want to go. You can't understand what the feeling
is. There is something in me that is calling all the time, and I can't
help hearing it and answering. In my mind I can live through every bit
of the voyage. At first it's cold, bitter cold, and then after a few
days we get into the Gulf Stream and gradually it grows warmer. Even
in the winter time the air is soft and smells of the south. At last
the Azores come--cunning little islands snuggling down out there in
the Atlantic--and finally you see a long line of coast--it's Africa;
then Gibraltar and the Mediterranean--oh, Molly--and Algiers, lovely
Algiers, nestling down between the hills and looking across such a
harbor! You can see the domes of the mosques as you sail in and Arab
boys come out in funny little boats and offer to row you to shore.
It's delightfully warm and you smell flowers everywhere. The sky is a
deep blue. It's like June. And then, after Algiers, comes Italy----"
Judy had risen to her feet now, and her eyes had an uncanny expression
in them. She appeared to have lost sight entirely of the little room at
Queen's, and through the chaos of books and clothing, she was seeing a
vision of the South.
"Come back to earth, Judy," said Molly, gently pulling her sleeve.
"Wouldn't your mother and father be angry with you for giving up college
and joining them uninvited?"
"Angry?" cried Judy. "Of course not. Even if I just caught the steamer,
it would be all right, they would fix it up somehow, and they would be
glad--oh, so glad! What a glorious time we will have together. Perhaps
we shall spend a few weeks in Capri. I shall try and make them stay a
while in Capri. Such a view there is at Capri across the Bay. Papa loves
Naples. He even loves its dirtiness and calls it 'local color.' We'll
have to stay there a week to satisfy him, and then mamma will make us
go to Ravello. She's mad about it; and then I'll have my choice--it's
Venice, of course; but we'll wait until it's warmer for Venice. April is
perfect there, and then Rome after Easter. Oh, Molly, Molly, help me
pack! I'm off--I'm off--isn't it glorious, Italy, when the spring
begins, the roses and the violets and the fresias----"
Judy began running about the room, snatching her things from the bed and
chairs and tossing them into the trunks helter-skelter. Molly watched
her in silence for a while. She must collect her ideas, and think of
something to say. But not now. It was like arguing with a lunatic to say
anything now.
At last Judy's feverish energy burned itself out and she sat down on the
bed exhausted.
"So you're going to give up four splendid years at college and all the
friends you've made--Nance and me and Margaret and Jessie, and nice old
Sallie Marks and Mabel, all the fun and the jolly times, the delightful,
glorious life we have here--and for what? For a three months' trip you
have taken before, and will take again often, no doubt. Just for three
short, paltry little months' pleasure, you're going to give up things
that will be precious to you for the rest of your life. It's not only
the book learning, it's the associations and the friends----"
"I don't see why I should lose my friends," broke in Judy sullenly.
"They'll never be the same again. They couldn't after such a
disappointment as this. You see, you'll always be remembered as a coward
who turned and ran when examinations came--you lost your nerve and
dropped out and even pretty little Jessie has the courage to face it.
Oh, Judy, but I'm disappointed in you. It's a hard blow to come now
when we're all fighting to save ourselves and pull through safely. And
you--one of the cleverest and brightest girls in the class. Don't tell
me your father will be pleased. He'll be mortified, I'm certain of it.
He's much too fine a man to admire a cowardly act, no matter whose act
it is. You'll see. He'll be shocked and hurt. If he had thought it was
right for you to give up college on the eve of examinations, he would
have written for you to come. It will be a crushing blow to him, Judy."
Judy lay on her bed, her hands clasped back of her head. There was a
defiant look on her face, and she kicked the quilt up and down with one
foot, like an impatient horse pawing the ground. Then, suddenly, she
collapsed like a pricked balloon. Burying her face in the pillows, she
began sobbing bitterly, her body shaking convulsively with every sob.
It was a terrible sight to see Judy cry, and Molly hoped she would be
spared such another experience.
Without saying another word, Molly began quietly unpacking the trunks
and putting the things back in their places. Then she pulled the
empty trunks into the hall. This done, she filled a basin with water,
recklessly poured in an ample quantity of Judy's German cologne, and
sitting on the side of the bed, began bathing her friend's convulsed
and swollen face. Gradually Judy's sobs subsided, her weary eyelids
drooped and presently she dropped off into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Nance crept into the room.
"She's all right now," whispered Molly. "She's had an attack of the
'wanderthirst,' but it's passed."
All day and all night Judy slept, and on Sunday morning she was her old
self once more, gay and laughing and full of fun. That afternoon she was
an usher at Vespers in Wellington Chapel, with Molly and Nance, and wore
her best suit and a big black velvet hat.
She never alluded again to her attack of wanderthirst, but her devotion
to Molly deepened and strengthened as the days flew by until it became
as real to her as her love for her mother and father.
Once in the midst of the dreaded examinations they did not seem so
dreadful after all. The girls at Queen's came out of the fight with
"some wounds, but still breathing," as Margaret Wakefield had put it.
Molly had a condition in mathematics.
"I got it because I expected it," she said.
But Judy came through with flying colors--not a single black mark
against her. Jessie barely pulled through, and her friends rejoiced that
the prettiest, most frivolous member of the freshman class had made such
a valiant fight and won.