Nell Speed

“ Molly had learned the great secret of young motherhood from her first born: not to take parenthood too solemnly and seriously, and to realize that Mother Nature is the very best mother of all and babies thrive most when left as much as possible to her all-wise and tender care.
Nance Oldham, Molly’s old friend and roommate at college, was coming at last to make her long promised visit to the Greens. Little wonder that Molly feared she would be changed! [10] Nance’s path in life had not been strewn with roses. ”

“ Then I can get back to Nance.”
“Get back to me, indeed! If you think you are going without me, Andy McLean, you are vastly mistaken. If it is your duty to go help, it is my duty, too. Oh, I know I am no trained nurse, but I can do lots of other things. Dr. Flint says I am better than most trained nurses——”
Nance stopped short. She should not have mentioned Dr. Flint. Only suppose it had hurt Andy’s feelings! Not a bit of it!
“Bully for Flint!” cried the accepted lover. “Oh, Nance, would you go with me?”
“I can scrub and cook and take care of babies.” ”

“ The modern shears had but followed the lines of the original ones and the armchairs were still there although somewhat lopsided and hazy in drawing. There was the sun-dial and a snub-nosed stone Hebe who held aloft her little pitcher with a cup in the other hand ready to serve the Gods with imperceptible nectar.
Our girls’ eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and they peeped over the hedge (at least Katherine and Judy did, poor little Otoyo [170] was too short) , plainly discerning the charming ensemble of the little formal garden. ”

“ McLean had sent over her two maids.
“All they need is a boss,” sighed poor Molly. “If I only could be two places at one time!”
But whose familiar figure was that seen through the scullery door? The maids were all in a broad grin and Kizzie, as she expressed it, “was fittin’ to bust.”
“Mother! Mother! Where on earth did you come from?” and Molly had that dear lady clasped in her arms. “What are you doing in the back? Come on and hurry and get dressed! It is almost time!” Molly felt like little Cho-Cho when she cried out: “I’m so ’appee! I’m so ’appee!” ”

“ I reckon a nurse falls in love with her patient because he seems so like a little boy. She loves him first because of the maternal instinct. Be that as it may, I am in love with one of my patients. I tell you this fearing you may be wounded and you may fall in the hands of a cap and apron, and from a feeling of noblesse oblige you may not grasp the happiness within your reach. ”

“ The small home wedding that Nance and Molly had originally planned grew to be quite large. Little by little it seemed impossible to get married without first one person and then the other. Andy had many friends at Exmoor and Wellington; Dr. and Mrs. McLean knew half the country and had a long list to be invited; Nance wanted the whole faculty and some of the girls who were favorites of Molly’s; Kent Brown arrived from New York bringing with him Mr. Matsuki, frankly delighted to be included in so honorable an assemblage. ”

“ The fresh curtains hung as straight as a learned professor of English could hang them, the bureau scarf and table cover were smooth and spotless, and on the window sill blossomed a pot of sweet violets sent by Mrs. McLean from her own greenhouse.
“I wonder about Nance and Andy McLean,” said Molly, as she and her husband were walking to the station to meet their guest. [12]
“Wonder what about them?”
“Wonder if they will ever marry!”
“Pooh! I fancy it was just a schoolgirl affair. They don’t often amount to much.” ”

“ I will knit you a sweater maybe, but I am not very fond of knitting.
This business of being a Fairy Godmother is a very serious one, more serious than being a real mother, I believe. A real mother can at least do something towards forming the character of her child, but a Fairy Godmother has her child presented to her and takes it as the husband used to take his bride in the old English prayer book: “With all her debts and scandals upon her.” The worst of it is that she is ignorant what those debts and scandals are. ”

“ Green and can come to our literary club this evening,” said Billie with a straight face.
“But I am no scribbler,” declared Nance.
“But you are a wonderful critic,” said Molly. “Among so many scribblers it is well to have one sane person willing to compose the audience. It is my turn to read to-night and I want your criticism.”
“If I can come in that capacity, I am more than willing,” smiled Nance as she settled herself to her knitting.
“I remember many times you saved me from making a bombastic goose of myself on my college themes,” laughed Molly. ”

“ Is not my mother giving God-speed to her sons? Is not Judy encouraging Kent? Is not Nance not only sending Andy but going with him? Who am I that I should say you shall and you shan’t do things for your country? ”

“ And now we must leave Molly Brown and her College Friends at the momentous hour when their country is plunged in a great and righteous war. What the future holds for them is as much [301] a mystery as what it holds for any of us. One thing is sure: Molly is doing her duty,—doing it cheerfully and bravely. Around her are college girls and more college girls, each one doing her bit. And so the fields are ploughed, the crops are planted and gathered. Fruit and vegetables are preserved and canned. The men and boys are training for the trenches, but the women and girls are in training, too. ”

“ This spirit of adventure seizes her every now and then and nothing will stop her.”
“It is well it struck her here at Wellington instead of in New York. She can’t get into very much mischief here,” laughed Edith.
“She could in the old days,” put in Margaret, “but now that she is not compelled to keep rules I fancy she will not care to break them. What a Judy she is! It must be great to have her in the family, Molly.”
“Indeed it is! She is the favorite in-law with the whole lot of Browns. Mother adores her and all the boys think she is just about perfect. Even Aunt Clay can’t help liking her.” ”

“ Adventure comes stalkingly in!” cried Otoyo.
“Leaping was more like it!” from Katherine.
“Yes! Who should come springing from the side door, totally oblivious of us, but Misel, stripped for running and looking like a detail from a Greek frieze!”
“Monsieur Misel! Why, Judy, you are mad! Misel is so lame he can’t stand alone without crutch and cane!” cried Molly.
“Lame your grandmother! He is a perfect circus actor. I have never seen a private citizen with such control of his muscles. ”

“ The fact that the water was shallow and Mildred could have walked out of it was no comfort to Nance, nor did it allay her suffering and self-reproaches in the least to know that almost every baby that has grown to manhood has at one time or another fallen out of his carriage or bed, down the steps or even out of the window. ”

“ Andy told me afterwards that he could not understand the case, and if the man wasn’t shamming, it was the most peculiar thing he had ever seen: the way he jumped up out of his chair when he was so lame.”
“Now I remember that very night that I heard Madame Misel call her husband a fool on the way into the dining-room. I had forgotten all about it until this minute. I kept wondering what she meant,” said Molly.
“I tell you they are deep ones,” put in Katherine.
“Not a bit of it!” stormed Judy. “They are the worst of all fools because they think no one else has any sense. ”

“ But don’t you want to hear what my scheme is?”
“Dying to!”
“I am going to try to get the old Queen’s girls, that is our ’special crowd, to come to Nance’s wedding. Katherine and Edith Williams are both in New York; Judy is there; Otoyo Sen is in Boston; Margaret Wakefield is in Washington; Jessie Lynch is in Philadelphia——”
“Are there no husbands?”
“Oh, yes, plenty of them, but I’m not going to invite husbands! The babies can come if the mothers can’t leave them, but the husbands are not invited. Katherine Williams and Jessie Lynch are the only ones who are still in single blessedness.” ”

“ Adventure is always just around the corner. Step up to him and tap him on the shoulder,” suggested Katherine.
“It is very comfortable in here,” purred Jessie.
“Infirm of purpose!” cried Judy. [157]
“Well, I’m not infirm of purpose,” said Molly. “I’ve been purposing all along to have a Welsh rarebit and make some cloudbursts and I’m still going to do it. If you Don Quixotes want to go off and hunt trouble in the meantime, though, you are welcome, only don’t stay too long.”
“Ain’t Molly the broad-minded guy, though? Live and let live was always Molly. Aren’t you coming, Nance?” ”

“ What will the girls think when we tell them of what has happened to us?” panted Katherine.
“Do you realize we have run against a tremendous thing?” said Judy soberly. “Almost international importance! I fancy we must keep kind of quiet about it. Of course we will tell Molly and Edwin and the girls, but I have an idea this thing will have to be worked up slowly and cautiously. I bet you it will be a case of secret service men and enemy aliens and what not. Why should Misel have pretended to be lame? Why should they come to live at Wellington? ”

“ They are crying out for more and more dressings.”
“Let’s all of us go help! We can turn out oodlums of work if we try,” cried Judy.
“Not Nance!” insisted Molly. “I know she has a lot of little stitches to put in before to-morrow.”
“If you will excuse me, I will beg off,” blushed Nance. “Andy is coming in this morning for a few moments, besides.”
“I tell you, you must stay at home to take care of poor dear Edwin,” laughed Judy. “It would look terribly heartless for all of us to go leave him.”
“Oh, I forgot Edwin!” declared Molly, just as Kizzie came in with a stack of waffles. ”

“ The only trouble about Mother is that there is only one of her. I need her more than anything right now. If she were here she would take hold of this wedding breakfast and I would know it would come off right,” sighed Molly, who, true to her character, had planned to do enough for two persons. “Thank goodness, Judy is here!”
The ceremony was to be at twelve and then a wedding breakfast served. This meant Molly was to be very busy. The girls were helping, but at the same time they were more or less flustered trying to get themselves dressed all in one room. ”

“ I know you, Molly! You always act like triplets when there is any work on hand, and I know you, too, Nance! Your New England conscience will [128] make you neglect Andy rather than seem to shirk work. I am here to sweep and dust and cook, take care of babies, or even to flirt with Andy if Nance does not look after him. I am going to dress the bride; find Edwin’s collar buttons and studs for his dress shirt; see that the best man has the ring safe in his pocket ”

“ Just before Judy said good-night, she paused and exclaimed, “I must tell you, Molly, how much I enjoy the dear little Virginia girls you have passed on to me. The Tucker twins and Page Allison are just about the nicest girls I know, and Mary Flannagan is a duck. I used to be an awful snob about college girls,—somehow, I thought girls who did not go to college were not worth knowing, but I have changed my mind since I have met these girls. They are an interesting [137] lot and as far as I can see know as much as we do.” ”

“ I am bored to death with it all and am even now preparing a bomb to throw in this camp of overzealous kin. But I’ll tell you about that later,—that is, if you want to hear about it. I may be boring you stiff. If I am, it is an easy matter for you to repudiate me and tell Mrs. Johnson to get you a more agreeable Godmother.
My numerous family does not at all approve of my being a Godmother. They think I am too young for the responsibility and have entered upon it too lightly. I even heard Aunt Sally whisper to Cousin Maria: “Just like her mother!” ”

“ It would be obliged to go off without a hitch now. Dear, dear Mother! How like her to come quietly slipping in the back way just in the nick of time!
One could have heard a pin drop in the old square house on the campus as the first strains of the wedding march arose and the rustle of skirts on the stairway announced the approach of the wedding procession. ”

“ Fern was very fond of Molly and admired her greatly in spite of the fact that she could not help bearing her a tiny secret grudge for marrying Edwin Green. That good lady had in her heart of hearts hoped that Alice was to bear off the professional prize. Perfect persons are not always very pleasant to live with and Alice Fern was no exception to the rule. ”

“ It is good to see you,” gasped Molly when the chorus, in which all of them joined, had been sung over twice. “What a Judy you are, anyhow!”
“Let me take your suitcase up-stairs,” suggested Edwin.
“And I will carry your parcels,” insisted Nance, who was happy indeed over seeing her old college friend again.
“There is not a bit of use in taking a thing up-stairs. All of my clothes are in the knitting bag. Those parcels are wedding presents and the suitcase is full of all kinds of plunder. This big bundle is a tea basket from Kent and me. You and Andy can go to housekeeping in it. ”

“ I must not let my prejudices get away with me. If my dear Godson likes “eatin’ tobacco,” he shall have it. If you don’t indulge in it, give it to some soldier less dainty. For my part, I should think the trenches would be dirty enough without adding to them.
I want to tell you that I like your name. I think Stephen Scott sounds very manly and upstanding, somehow. I am hoping for a letter from you just to give me an inkling of your tastes. Of course I know one of the duties of a Fairy Godmother is not to worry her charge, and I don’t want to worry you but to help you. ”