Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days. Speed Nell
mingling with that of chicken salad and hot beaten biscuit, began to rival the fragrance of the orange flowers and roses.
The crowd around the bride thinning out a little to find seats at the tables, Professor Green was able to make his way to Mildred and Crittenden. After greeting them, he espied Judy talking sweetly to a stern-looking woman with a hard face and a soft figure, who was dressed severely in a stiff black silk, with most uncompromising linen collar and cuffs. Her iron-gray hair was tightly coiled in a fashion that emphasized her hawk-like expression, but with all she looked enough like Mrs. Brown to establish an undeniable claim to relationship with that charming lady. Mrs. Brown herself, in a soft black crêpe de Chine and old lace collar and cuffs, with her wavy chestnut hair, was more beautiful than any of her daughters, the bride herself having to take a second place.
Judy was delighted to see the professor, and not nearly so astonished as Molly had been, the truth being that Paul had told that young lady of Edwin Green’s arrival, with the expectation that she would inform Molly. But Judy, realizing the state of excitement that Molly was in, determined to keep the news to herself and not give Molly anything more to feel just then, even if in doing so she, Judy, would appear to be careless and forgetful. Judy understood the regard that Molly had for Professor Green – better than Molly herself did. She remembered Molly’s expression and misery when little Otoyo, their Japanese friend at Wellington, had told them of his being so dangerously ill with typhoid, and how Molly had lost weight and could neither sleep nor eat until the crisis had passed.
“Did you ever see such a beautiful wedding in your life?” said Judy.
“Never, and I am told it was all your plan, even to the holly-hock background.”
“Well, you see the idea was floating around in the air, and I was just the one who had her idea-net ready and caught it. Ideas are like butterflies, anyhow – all flying around waiting to be pounced on – but the thing is to have your net ready.”
“Yes, and another thing, not to handle the butterfly idea too roughly. Many an idea, beautiful in itself, is ruined in the working out,” said her companion.
“That is where taste comes in.”
Judy would have liked to chase the metaphor much farther with the agreeable young man, but she remembered that she had set out to fascinate Aunt Clay, and it was Aunt Sarah Clay to whom she had been talking when Professor Green had come up. She introduced him, and Mrs. Clay immediately pounced on him with a tirade against innovations of all kinds.
Looking very much as we are led by the cartoonists to expect a suffragist to look, Mrs. Clay was the most ardent “anti.” Opposed to all progress and innovations, and constantly at war on the subject of higher education of women, she carried her conservatism even to the point of having her grain cut with a scythe instead of using the up-to-date machinery. Professor Green was her natural enemy, for was he not instructor in a girls’ school where, she was led to understand, belief in equal suffrage was as necessary for entrance as the knowledge of Latin or mathematics?
Professor Green, ignorant of the antagonism she felt for him and his calling, endeavored to make himself as agreeable as possible to Molly’s aunt. He listened with seeming respect to her attack on modernism and then turned the subject to the wedding, her pretty nieces and fine-looking nephews.
“I never heard of any one getting married out of doors before in my life, and had I known they were contemplating such a thing I certainly should not have set my foot on the place, nor would I have sent them the handsome wedding present I did. I shall not be at all astonished if the bishop reprimands that sentimental old Dr. Peters for allowing anything so undignified in connection with the church ritual. They had much better jump over a broomstick like Gypsies and not desecrate our prayer book in such a manner. Mildred Carmichael has brought all her children up to have their own way. The idea of none of those boys being willing to stay on the farm where their forefathers managed to make a living, and a very good one! They, forsooth, must go as clerks or reporters or what not into cities and let their farm go to rack and ruin, already mortgaged until it is top-heavy. Then when they do make a little, they must squander it in this absurd new-fangled machinery, labor-saving devices that I have no use for in the world. And now Molly, not content with four years wasted at college, to say nothing of the money, says she wants to go back to fit herself more thoroughly for making her living. Living, indeed! Where are her brothers that she need feel the necessity of making her living?”
“But, Mrs. Clay,” Judy here broke in, “my father says that there are only three male relatives that a woman should expect to support her: her father, her husband and her son. Since Molly has none of these, she, of course, wants to do something for herself. Even with a father, unless the father is very well off, it seems to me a girl ought to help after a lot has been spent on her education. I certainly mean to do something, but the trouble is, the only thing I can do will mean more money spent before I can accomplish anything.”
“And what does such a charming person as Miss Kean expect to do?” asked the irascible old lady.
“I want to go to Paris and study to become a decorator.” This was too much for Mrs. Clay. Without saying a word, she turned and stalked across the lawn where the waiters were carrying trays of food.
“Hateful old thing! I hope food will improve her temper. It would certainly be acceptable to me. See, here comes Kent with a table! I’ll find Molly and we can have a fine foursome, and you shall taste Aunt Mary’s beaten biscuit, hot from the oven. No wonder Molly is such an angel. If, as the cereal ads. say, we are what our food makes us, any one raised on Aunt Mary’s cooking would have to be good. Goodness knows what Aunt Clay eats! It must be thistles and green persimmons!”
CHAPTER VI. – BUTTERMILK TACT
Mildred, dressed in her pretty brown traveling suit, off to Iowa; the last slipper and handful of rice thrown; the last lingering guest departed; daylight passed and the moon well up; and at last Mrs. Brown and Judy and Molly were free to sink on a settle on the porch, realizing for the first time how tired and footsore they were.
“Oh, my dears, I feel as though I could never get up again! It is a good thing I am so tired, for now I shall have to sleep and can’t grieve for Mildred all night. I begged Professor Green to stay, but he had to go back to Louisville. However, he is coming out to Chatsworth to-morrow to pay us the promised visit. We shall have to pack the presents in the morning to send to Iowa, and glad I’ll be to get them out of the house. Did I tell you, Molly, that Aunt Mary, Ca’line and Lewis are all going off to-morrow to Jim Jourdan’s basket funeral? We shall be alone, you and Judy and I. Sue goes to your Aunt Clay’s for a few days, and Kent starts back to work, the dear boy. Such a comfort as he has been! Ernest has to look up some friends in town, but will be out in time for supper. I fancy he will drive Professor Green out from Louisville. Good night, my dear girls, I know you are dead tired.”
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