Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days

This little conversation was held one morning as the girls were getting their materials ready for some experimental bread-making. A tremendously interesting lecture on yeast had preceded it, and now was to be followed by various chemical experiments. The lecturer had not arrived, but had appointed certain students to get the materials in order.

Anne White was one of the monitors, and was moving around in a demure way, daintily setting out the little bowls of flour and portions of yeast. Anne White was a small, mousy-looking, brown-haired young woman who looked as though butter would not melt in her mouth, but who was in reality often the ring-leader in many foolish escapades. She was a great practical joker, and when all is told a practical joker is a very trying person, and very often a person lacking in true humor. As she placed the bowls of yeast, she sang the following song with many sly looks at Molly and her friend:

“The first time I saw Melissa,She was sitting in the cellar,Sitting in the cellar shelling peas.And when I stooped to kiss her,She said she’d tell her mother,For she was such an awful little tease.Oh, wasn’t she sweet? You bet she was,She couldn’t have been any sweeter.Oh, wasn’t she cute? You bet she was,She couldn’t have been any cuter.For when I stooped to kiss her,She said she’d tell her mother,For she was such an awful little tease.”

The singing was so evidently done for Melissa’s benefit that Molly felt indignant.

“I can’t stand teasing, and certainly not such silly teasing as Anne White delights in. She is a slippery little thing, and I have an idea means mischief for my Melissa. I wish Judy were here to circumvent her, but since she is not I shall have to keep my eye open.” So thought Molly, and accordingly opened her eyes just in time to see Anne White raise the cover of Melissa’s bowl of flour and drop in something. The instructor came in just then and the class came to order.

“It can’t do any real harm,” thought Molly, “because we don’t have to eat our messes, but if it is something to embarrass Melissa I shall have a talk with Anne White that she will remember all her days. She knows Melissa and I are not the kind to blab on her, the reason she is presuming in this way.”

Miss Morse, the Domestic Science teacher, was so exactly like the advertisements in the magazines of various foodstuffs that one was forced to smile. She was always dressed in immaculate linen, and, as she would stand at her desk and hold out a sample of material with which she was going to demonstrate, her smile and expression were always those of the lady who says, “Use this and no other.” She was thoroughly in earnest, however, and scientific, and her lectures on Domestic Economy were really thrilling to Molly, who always took an interest in household affairs and was astonished to find out what a waste was going on in all American homes. Melissa listened to every word, and felt that the knowledge she was gaining in this branch of college work was perhaps the most necessary of all to take back to her mountain people.

Miss Morse had the most wonderful and capable hands that were ever seen. She was never known to spill anything or slop over; she used her scales and measures with the precision of an analytical chemist; and, no matter how complicated the experiment, there were no extra, useless utensils. This in itself is worth coming to college to learn, as I have never known a girl make a plate of fudge without getting every pan in the kitchen dirty. Later on in the course of lectures this wonderful woman actually killed a fowl and picked and dressed it right before the eyes of the astonished girls, without making a spot on her dress or on the cloth spread on her desk, and she did not even turn back her linen cuffs.

“I wish Ca’line could see that,” thought Molly on that occasion, a picture of the chicken pickin’ in the back yard at Chatsworth coming before her mind’s eye, with feathers flying hither and yon and Ca’line herself covered with gore.

“Now, young ladies,” said the precise Miss Morse, “enough flour is given each one for a small loaf of bread; the right amount of water is measured out; salt and sugar; lard and yeast. You have the correct material for a perfect loaf. This is a demonstration of yesterday’s lecture. Remember, salt retards the action of yeast and must not be put in until the yeast plant has begun to grow. Sugar promotes the growth and can be placed in the warm water with the yeast.”

The students went eagerly to work like so many children with their mud pies. In due course of time each little loaf was made out and put at exactly the right temperature to rise. Miss Morse explained to them the different methods of bread-making and the fallacy of thinking that good bread-making is due to luck. Molly smiled in remembering what dear old Aunt Mary had said about remembering to put the gumption in.

While the bread was rising and baking the girls were allowed to work on their Domestic Science problem, a pretty difficult one requiring all their faculties: it was how to feed a family consisting of five, mother and father and three children, on ten dollars for one week. The market price of food was given and their menus were to be worked out with regard to the amount of nourishment to be gained as well as the suitability of food. Miss Morse told them they would have to study pretty hard to do it, but it was splendid practice. Poor Melissa was having a hard time. In the first place, she knew so little about food, having been brought up so very simply, and then, she confided to Molly, she was very much worried about her loaf of bread because it didn’t do just right.

Finally the time was up, and the bread, too, according to science, should have been up and ready to bake. The monitors were requested to place the loaves in the gas ovens, already tested and proved to be of proper temperature. The problems, meantime, must be completed at once and handed in.

A wail from Melissa on the aside to Molly: “Oh, Molly, Molly, I have got my family all fed for six days, and I forgot Sunday. Not a cent of money left from all of that ten dollars, and I have known whole families live for a month on less in the mountains! What shall I do?”

“I tell you,” said Molly, stopping a minute to think, “have them all invited out to Sunday dinner and let them eat no breakfast in anticipation of the good things they are expecting; and let the dinner be so delicious and plentiful that they can’t possibly want any supper.”

“Good,” said Melissa, ever appreciative of Molly’s suggestions, “I’ll do that very thing.” And so she did; and Miss Morse was so amused that she let it pass as a very good paper, as indeed it was.

All of the little loaves were baked and placed in front of the girls, the pans being numbered so that each loaf returned to its trembling maker. It was strange that in spite of science the loaves did not look exactly alike. Molly’s was beautiful, but had she not had her hand in Aunt Mary’s dough ever since she could climb up to the table and cut out little “bis’it wif a thimble”? Some of them looked bumpy and some stringy, but poor Melissa’s was a strange dark color and had not risen.

“Miss Hathaway, did you follow the directions in your experiment?”

“Yes, Miss Morse, to the best of my ability,” answered Melissa. And, then flushing and becoming excited, she dropped into her familiar mountain speech. “Some low-down sneak has drapped some sody in we’un’s pannikin. I mean, oh, I mean, some ill-bred person has put saleratus in my little bowl. I have been raised on too much saleratus in the bread, and I know it.” And the proud mountain girl, who had not minded the laughter caused by her appearance, burst into tears over the failure of her bread-making and fled from the room.

Miss Morse was shocked and sorry that such a scene should have occurred in her class, but was determined to investigate the matter. She dismissed the class without a word; but, as Molly was leaving the room, she requested her to stop a moment.

“Miss Brown, this is a very unfortunate thing to have occurred in this class. Domestic Science seems to be an easy prey to the practical joke, and when once it is started it is a difficult matter to weed out. I am particularly sorry for it to have been played on Miss Hathaway, who is so earnest and anxious to learn. Miss Walker has told me much about her, and the girl’s appearance alone is fine enough to interest one. I could not help seeing by your countenance, which is a very speaking one, my dear, that you knew something about this so-called joke. Now, Miss Brown, I ask you as a friend to tell me what you know, and, if you are not willing, I demand it of you as an instructor and member of the faculty of Wellington.”

Molly, who had been as pale as death ever since Melissa’s mortification and outbreak, now flushed crimson, held her breath a minute to get control of her voice, and then answered with as much composure as she could muster: “Miss Morse, I have gone through four years at Wellington and have happened to know of a great many scrapes the different students have got themselves in, but never yet have I been known to tell tales, and I could hardly start now. I do know who did the dastardly trick, and am glad that Melissa had recourse to her native dialect to express her feelings about the person who was mean enough to do it; ‘low-down sneak’ is exactly what she was.”

“Very well, Miss Brown, if you refuse to divulge the name of the joker, I shall be forced to take the matter up with the president. I hoped we could settle it in the class. This department being a new one at Wellington, and also my first experience at teaching, I naturally have some feeling about making it go as smoothly as possible.” This time Miss Morse was flushed and her lip trembling.

Molly felt truly sorry for her, and suddenly realized that Miss Morse, with all of her assurance, was little more than a girl herself. As for taking it up with the president, Molly smiled when she remembered the time Miss Walker had tried to make her tell, and when she had refused how Miss Walker had hugged her.

“Oh, Miss Morse, I am so sorry for you, and wish, almost wish, some one had seen the offence besides myself, some one who would not mind telling; but I truly can’t tell, somehow I am not made that way. There is something I can do, though, and that is, go call on the person myself and put it up to her to refrain from any more jokes in your class. I meant to see her, anyhow, and warn her to let my Melissa alone.”

“Would you do that? I think that would be all that is necessary, and I need not inform the president. I thank you, Miss Brown. You do not know how this has disturbed me.”

“Too much ‘sody’ in the bread is a very disturbing thing,” laughed Molly. “I remember a story they tell on my grandfather. He had an old cook who was very fond of making buttermilk biscuit, and equally fond of putting too much soda in them. He stood it for some time, but one morning when they were brought to breakfast as green as poor Melissa’s loaf, grandpa sent for the cook and made her eat the whole panful. Needless to add, she was cured of the soda habit. It would be a great way to cure the would-be joker if we made her eat Melissa’s sad loaf.”

Molly did see Anne White that very afternoon, making a formal call on her and giving that mousy young woman a talk that made her cry and promise to play no more jokes in Domestic Science class, and to apologize to Melissa for the mortification she had caused her. Molly told her something about Melissa and the struggle and sacrifices she had made to get her education, and before she had finished Anne White was as much interested in the mountain girl and as anxious for her to succeed as Molly herself. She promised to help her all she could, and a Junior can do a great deal to help a Freshman. Molly was astonished to find that Anne White was really rather likable. She had a mistaken sense of fun, but was not really unkind.

Melissa had too much to do to brood long over her outbreak, and laughed and let the matter drop out of her mind when the following apology was poked under her door:

“MY DEAR MISS HATHAWAY: I am truly sorry to have caused you so much mortification in the Domestic Science class. It was a very foolish, thoughtless act, and I hope you will accept my apology. I wish I had found such a friend in my freshman year as you have in Molly Brown.

“Sincerely yours,“‘A LOW-DOWN SNEAK.’”

CHAPTER III. – HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Molly and Nance were very busy with their special courses, Nance working at French literature as though she had no other interest in the world, and Molly at English and Domestic Science.

“Thank goodness, I shall not have to tutor! Since we ‘struck ile’ I am saved that,” said Molly one day to her roommate, who was as usual occupied, in spite of its being “blind man’s holiday,” too early to light the gas and too late to see without it. “Nance, you will put out your eyes with that mending. I never saw such a busy bee as you are. Melissa tells me you are going to help her with a dress, too.”

“Yes, I am so glad she will let me. I told her how we made the Empire gown for you in your Freshman year, and she seemed to feel that if her dear Molly allowed that much to be done for her, it was not for her to object to a similar favor. I know you will laugh when I tell you that I am going to get a one-piece dress and an extra skirt for shirtwaists out of the blue homespun. It is beautiful material, spun with an old-fashioned spinning wheel and woven on a hand loom by Melissa’s grandmother. Did you ever see so much goods in one dress? It seems that the dear woman who has taught her everything she knows has not had any new clothes herself for ten years, and could not give her much idea of the prevailing fashion; and Melissa made this dress herself from a pattern her mother had used for her wedding dress. I hate to cut it up. It seems a kind of desecration, but Melissa has a splendid figure and if her clothes were not quite so voluminous she would be as stylish as any one. She improves every day in many ways and seems to be less shy.”

“She has an instinct for good literature. Professor Green tells me her taste is unerring. He says it is because her preference is for the simple, and the simple is always the best. Little Otoyo has the same feeling for the best in poetry. Haven’t we missed that little Jap, though? I’ll be so glad to have her back. I fancy I shall have some tutoring to do in spite of myself to get Otoyo Sen up with her class.”

Otoyo Sen, the little Japanese girl who had played such a close part in the college life of our girls, had been back in Japan, and had not been able to reach America in time for the opening weeks of college, due to some business engagements of her father. But she was trusting to Molly and her own industry to catch up with her class, and was hurrying back to Wellington as fast as the San Francisco Limited could bring her.

Molly had been writing every moment that she could spare from her hard reading, and now she had two things she really wanted to show Professor Green – a story she had worked on for weeks until it seemed to be part of her, and a poem. She had sent the poem to a magazine and it had been rejected, accompanied by a letter which she could not understand. At all times in earlier days she had gone frankly to the professor’s study to ask him for advice, but this year she could hardly make up her mind to do it.

“He is as kind as ever to me, but somehow I can’t make up my mind to run in on him as I used to,” said Molly to herself. “I know I am a silly goose – or is it perhaps because I am so grown up? It is only five o’clock this minute, it gets dark so early in November, and I have half a mind to go now.” The temperament that goes with Molly’s coloring usually means quick action following the thought, so in a moment Molly had on her jacket and hat. “Nance, I am going to see Professor Green about some things I have been writing. I won’t be late, but don’t wait tea for me. Melissa may be in to see us, but you will take care of her, I know.”

There was a rather tired-sounding, “Come in,” at Molly’s knock on Professor Green’s study door.

“Oh, dear, now I am going to bore him!” thought the girl. “I have half a mind to run back through the passage and get out into the Cloister before he has a chance to open the door and see who was knocking. But that would be too foolish for a postgraduate! I’d better run the risk of boring him rather than have him think I am some one playing a foolish Sophomore joke, or even a timid little Freshman, afraid to call her soul her own.”

“Come in, come in. Is any one there?” called the voice rather briskly for the usually gentle professor. And before Molly could open the door it was actually jerked open. “Dearest Molly! – I mean, Miss Molly – I thought you were going to be some one else. The fact is, I have had a regular visitation from would-be poets this afternoon, and, as it never rains but it pours, I had a terrible feeling that it was another one. I am so glad to see you; not just because you are not what I feared you were, but because you are you.”

Molly blushed crimson and tried to hide the little roll of manuscript behind her, but the young man saw it and kicked himself mentally for a rash, talking idiot.

“I can’t come in, thank you. I just stopped by to – to – I just thought I’d ask you when your sister was coming.”

“Oh, Molly Brown, what a poor prevaricator you do make! You know perfectly well you have written something you want me to see; and you also know, or ought to know, that I want to see what you have written above everything; and what I said about would-be poets had nothing to do with you and me. The fact is, I am a would-be myself and have been working on a sonnet this afternoon instead of looking over the thousand themes that I must have finished before to-morrow’s lecture. I had just got the eighth line completed when you knocked, and the six others will be easy. Please come in and take off your hat, and I’ll get Mrs. Brady to make us some tea; and while the kettle is boiling you can show me what you have been doing, and when I get my other six lines to my sonnet done I’ll show it to you.”

Molly of course had to comply with a request made with so much kindliness and sincerity. Mrs. Brady came, in answer to the professor’s bell which connected his study with his house, and was delighted to see Molly, remembering with great pleasure the Christmas breakfast the young girl had cooked for Professor Green the year before. Molly had a way with her that appealed to old people as well as young, and she had won Mrs. Brady’s heart on that memorable morning by telling her that she, too, boasted of Irish blood.

“And I might have known it, from the sweet tongue in your head,” Mrs. Brady had replied.

The old woman hastened off to make the tea, and Molly reluctantly unrolled her manuscript.

“Professor Green, I want you to think of me as some one you do not know or like when you read my stuff.”

“That is a very difficult task you have set me, and I am afraid one that I am unequal to; but I do promise to be unbiased and to give you my real opinion, and you must not be discouraged if it is not favorable, because, after all, it is worth very little.”

“I think it is worth a lot. This first thing is something I have been working on very hard. It is called ‘The Basket Funeral.’ I remembered what you told me about trying to write about familiar things, and then, on reading the ‘Life and Letters of Jane Austen,’ I came on her advice to a niece who was contemplating a literary career. It was, ‘Send your characters where you have never been yourself, but never take them.’ I had never been out of Kentucky, except to row across the Ohio River to Indiana, when I came to Wellington, and so I put my story in Kentucky with Aunt Mary as my heroine. Now be as hard on me as you want to. I can stand it.”

There was perfect silence in the pleasant study while Edwin Green carefully perused the well-written manuscript. An occasional involuntary chuckle was all that broke the quiet when one of Aunt Mary’s witticisms brought back the figure of the old darkey to his mind. When he had finished, which was in a very few minutes, as the sketch was a short one, he carefully rolled the paper and remained silent. Molly felt as though she would scream if he did not say something, but not a word did he utter, only sat and rolled the manuscript and smiled an inscrutable smile. Finally she could stand it no longer.

“I am sorry to have bothered you, Professor Green. I know it is hard for you to have to tell me the truth, so I won’t ask you.” She reached for the roll of paper, her hand shaking a little with excitement.

“Oh, please excuse me. Do you know, I took you at your word and forgot I knew you, and forgot how much I liked you; forgot everything in fact but Aunt Mary and the ‘Basket Funeral.’ My dear girl, you have done a wonderful little bit of writing, simple, natural, sincere. I congratulate you and envy you.”

And what should Molly do, great, big, grown-up postgraduate that she was, but behave exactly as the little Freshman had four years before when this same august professor had rescued her from the locked Cloisters: she burst into tears. At that crucial moment the rattle of tea cups was heard as Mrs. Brady came lumbering down the hall, and Molly had to compose herself and make out she had a bad cold.

“Have some hot soup,” said the young man, and both of them laughed.

“It was natural for me to blubber, after all,” said Molly, after Mrs. Brady had taken her departure. “When you sat there so still, with your lips so tightly closed, I felt exactly as I did four years ago, shut out in the cold with all the doors locked; and when you finally spoke it was like coming into your warm pleasant study again with you being kind to me just as you were to the little scared Freshman. Do you know, I like my picture of Aunt Mary, too, and when I thought you didn’t like it I felt forlorn indeed.”

“I notice one thing, Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky doesn’t cry until everything is over. The little Freshman didn’t blubber while she was locked out, but waited until she got into the pleasant study, and now the ancient postgrad is able to restrain her tears until the awful ogre of a critic praises her work. Now let’s have another cup of tea all around and show me what else you have brought.”

“I hesitate to show you this more than the other thing, after your cutting remarks about would-bes. But I want you to read this so you can tell me what this letter means that I got from the editor of a magazine, when he politely returned my rejected poem.”

“Read me the poem yourself. Would you mind? Poetry should always be read aloud, I think; and afterward I will see what I think the editor meant.”

“All right, but I am afraid it is getting late and Nance will worry about me.”

The study was cosy indeed with its rows and rows of books, its comfortable chairs and the cheerful open grate. This was his one extravagance in a land of furnace heat and drum stoves, so Edwin Green declared. “But somehow the glow of the fire makes me think better,” he said in self-defence.

Molly read any poetry well, her voice with its musical quality being peculiarly adapted to it. This was her poem:

“My thoughts like gentle steeds to-dayRest quiet in the paddock fold,Munching their food contentedly.Was it last night? When up – away!Through spaces limitless, untold,Like storm clouds lashed before the wind,Nor strength, nor will could check nor hold,Manes flying – through the night they dashed‘Til the first glimmering sun’s ray flashedIts blessed light; ‘til the first sighOf dawn’s awak’ning stirred the leaves.Then back to quiet fold – the night was done —Bend patient necks – the yoke – and day’s begun.”

“Let me see it. Your voice would make ‘Eany, meany, miney, mo’ sound like music. I should have read it first to myself to be able to pass on it without prejudice.”

He took the poem and read it very carefully. “Miss Molly, you are aware of the fact that you may become a real writer? How old are you?”

“Almost twenty.”

“Well, I consider that a pretty good poem for almost twenty. I bet I know what that saphead of an editor had to say without reading his letter. Didn’t he say something about your having only thirteen lines?”

“Oh, is that what he meant? I have puzzled my brains out over his note. I didn’t even know I had only thirteen lines. Of course I knew it wasn’t exactly sonnet form, but somehow I started out to make fourteen lines and thought I had done it. Here is his cryptic note.”