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diff --git a/36736-8.txt b/36736-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a33dae9 --- /dev/null +++ b/36736-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6749 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Molly Brown of Kentucky, by Nell Speed + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Molly Brown of Kentucky + + +Author: Nell Speed + + + +Release Date: July 15, 2011 [eBook #36736] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLY BROWN OF KENTUCKY*** + + +E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan, eagkw, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 36736-h.htm or 36736-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36736/36736-h/36736-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36736/36736-h.zip) + + + + + +[Illustration: One by one they emerged from their corner.--_Page 237._] + + +MOLLY BROWN OF KENTUCKY + +by + +NELL SPEED + +Author of +"The Tucker Twins Series," "The Carter +Girls Series," etc. + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +A. L. Burt Company +Publishers New York + +Printed in U. S. A. + +Copyright, 1917, +By +Hurst & Company, Inc. + +Printed in U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I A LETTER 5 + + II THE ORCHARD HOME 19 + + III KENT BROWN 37 + + IV AFTERNOON TEA 51 + + V LETTERS FROM PARIS AND BERLIN 61 + + VI AT THE TRICOTS' 80 + + VII A MOTHER'S FAITH 99 + + VIII DES HALLES 112 + + IX THE AMERICAN MAIL 123 + + X THE ZEPPELIN RAID 132 + + XI "L'HIRONDELLE DE MER" 138 + + XII TUTNO 147 + + XIII THE "SIGNY" 160 + + XIV THE CABLEGRAM 167 + + XV WELLINGTON AGAIN 185 + + XVI IRISHMAN'S CURTAINS 200 + + XVII HEROES AND HERO WORSHIPERS 221 + + XVIII CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 246 + + XIX WASTED DYE 263 + + XX A WAR BRIDE 270 + + XXI THE FLIGHT 283 + + XXII THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 296 + + XXIII THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 304 + + + + +Molly Brown of Kentucky. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A LETTER. + + +From Miss Julia Kean to Mrs. Edwin Green. + + Giverny, France, + August, 1914. + +Dearest old Molly Brown of Kentucky: + +You can marry a million Professor Edwin Greens, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., L.D. +(the last stands for lucky dog), and you can also have a million little +Green Olive Branches, but you will still be Molly Brown of Kentucky to +all of your old friends. + +I came up to Giverny last week with the Polly Perkinses. They are great +fun and, strange to say, get on rather better than most married folks. +Jo is much meeker than we ever thought she could be, now that she has +made Polly cut his hair and has let her own grow out. Polly is more +manly, too, I think and asserts himself occasionally, much to Jo's +delight. I should not be at all astonished if his falsetto voice turned +into a baritone, if not a deep bass. He walks with quite a swagger and +talks about my wife this and my wife that in such masculine pride that +you would not know him. + +Paris was rather excited when we came through last week. I have been at +Quimperle all summer and only stopped in Paris long enough to get some +paints and canvas. I had actually painted out. Jo had written me to join +her in this little housekeeping scheme at Giverny. I wish you could see +the house we have taken. It is too wonderful that it is ours! Such peace +and quiet! Especially so, after the turmoil in Paris. I have seen so few +papers that I hardly know what it is all about; no doubt you in Kentucky +with your _Courier Journal_ know more than I do. They talk of war, but +of course that is nonsense. Anyhow, if there is a war, I bet I am going +to be Johnny on the Spot. But of course there won't be one. + +I miss Kent,--but I need hardly tell you that. I almost gave in and +sailed with him, but it was much best for me to wait in France for my +mother and father. They are now in Berlin waiting for the powers that be +to give some kind of a permit for some kind of a road that Bobby is to +build from Constantinople to the interior; that is, he is to build it if +he can get the permission of the Imperial Government. What the Germans +have to do with Turkey, you can search me, but that is what Bobby writes +me. He has done a lot of work on it already in the way of preliminary +plans. I am to hang around until I hear from them, so I am going to hang +around with the Polly Perkinses. + +No doubt Kent is home by this time. I envy him, somehow. It is so +wonderful to have a home to go to. Now isn't that a silly line of talk +for Judy Kean to be getting off, I, who have always declared that a +Gypsy van was my idea of bliss? I never have had a home and I never +have wanted one until lately. I fancy that winter in Paris with your +mother in the Rue Brea was my undoing. Of course, if Bobby had been +anything but a civil engineer and Mamma had been anything but so much +married to Bobby that she had to trot around with him from one end of +the earth to the other, why then, I might have had a home. But Bobby is +Bobby and he wouldn't have been himself doing anything but building +roads, and I certainly would not have had Mamma let him build them all +by his lonesome. The truth of the matter is, I was a mistake. I +should either never have been born or I should have been born a boy. +Geewhillikins! What a boy I would have been! Somehow, I'm glad I'm not, +though. + +I am wild to see little Mildred. It seems so wonderful for you to be a +mother. I know you will make a great job of being one, too. Are you +going to have her be an old-fashioned baby with the foregone conclusion +that she must "eat her peck of dirt," or is she to be one of these +infants whose toys must be sterilized before she is allowed to play +with them, and who is too easily contaminated to be kissed unless the +kisser gargles first with corrosive sublimate? Please let me know about +this, because kiss her I must and will, and if I have to be aseptic +before I can do it, I fancy I had better begin right now. Here is Polly +with the mail and Paris papers. Will finish later. + +It has come! Actual war! We feel like fools to have rushed off here to +the country without knowing more about the state France was in. I can +hardly believe it even now. They are asking Americans to leave Paris, +but I can't leave. How can I, with Mamma and Papa in Berlin? I am going +to stay right where I am until things settle themselves a little. The +peasants even now do not believe it has come. We are not much more than +an hour from Paris, but there are many persons living in this village +who have never been to Paris. The old men stand in groups and talk +politics, disagreeing on every subject under the sun except the one +great subject and that is Germany. Hatred of Germany is the one thing +that there are no two minds about. The women look big-eyed and +awestruck. There are no young men--all gone to war. They went off +singing and joking. + + +What I long for most is news. We don't get any news to speak of. I am +filled with concern about Bobby and Mamma. It is foolish, as they are +able to take care of themselves, but Bobby is so sassy. I am so afraid +he might jaw back at the Emperor. He is fully capable of calling him to +account for his behavior. Some one should, but I hope it won't be Bobby. + + +Polly Perkins is going to drive a Red Cross Ambulance. He is quite +determined, so determined that he has actually produced a chin from +somewhere (you remember he boasted none to speak of). It is quite +becoming to him, this determination and chin, and Jo is beaming with +pride. I believe if Polly had wanted to run, it would have killed Jo. + + +Excuse the jerkiness of this, but I am so excited that I can only jot +down a little at a time. Things are moving fast! The artists and near +artists at Madame Gaston's Inn are piling out, making for Paris, some to +sail for United States and others to try to get into England. Jo and I +had determined to sit tight in our little house with its lovely walled +garden that seems a kind of protection to us--not that we are scared, +bless you no! We just felt we might as well be here as anywhere else. + +This morning Jo came to breakfast looking kind of different and yet kind +of familiar--she had cut off her hair! + +"I mean to follow Polly," she remarked simply. + +"Follow him where?" + +"Wherever he goes." And do you know, Molly, the redoubtable Jo burst +into tears? + +I was never more shocked in my life. If your Aunt Sarah Clay had +dissolved into tears, I would not have been more at a loss how to +conduct myself. I patted her heartily on the back but the poor girl +wanted a shoulder to weep on and I lent her one. I tell you when Jo gets +started she is some bawler. I fancy she made up for all the many years +that crying has been out of her ken. + +My neck is stiff from the wetting I got. Nothing short of the plumber +could have stopped her. When she finally went dry, she began to talk: + +"By I'b glad Bolly didn zee be bake zuch a vool ob byself!" + +"Well, you had better look after your p's and s's or you'll be taken up +as a German spy." That made her laugh and then she went on to tell me +what she meant to do, the p's still too much for her but her s's +improving. + +"What's the use of my brofession now? I'd like to know that. Miniature +painting will be no good for years to come. This war is going to be +something that'll make everybody baint on big canvasses. Who will want +to look at anything little? I tell you, Judy, the day of mastodons is at +hand! There'll be no more lap-dogs, no more pet canaries. The one time +lap-dogs will find themselves raging lions; and the pet canaries will +grow to great eagles and burst the silly wires of their cages with a +snap of their fingers----" + +"Whose fingers?" I demanded. + +"Never mind whose! Mixed metaphors are perfectly permissible in war +time." I was glad to see she could say such a word as permissible, which +meant that her storm of weeping had subsided. + +"Are you going as a Red Cross nurse?" I asked. + +"Nurse your grandmother! I'm going to drive an ambulance or maybe fly." + +"But they won't want a woman in the thick of the fight!" + +"Well, who's to know? When I get a good hair-cut and put on some of +Polly's togs, I bet I'll make as good a man as Pol--no, I won't say +that. I'll never be as good a man as he is. I'm going to try the +aviation racket first. If they won't take me, I'll get with the Red +Cross, somehow. I know I could fly like a bird. I have never yet seen +the wheels that I could not understand the turning of. I believe it is +not so easy to get aviators. It is so hazardous that men don't go in for +it. I am light weight but awfully strong." + +"But, Jo, what are you going to do about your feet?" You remember, +Molly, what pretty little feet Jo has. + +"Oh, I'll wear some of Polly's shoes and stuff out the toes. I bet I'll +walk like Charlie Chaplin, but when one is flying, it doesn't make much +difference about feet." + +Nothing is going to stop her. She is to start to Paris to-morrow, and I +will go, too. I know all of you think I should stay here in G---- until +I can get into communication with Bobby, but Molly Brown, I can't do it. +When history is being made, I simply can't stand aside and see it. I've +got to get in it by hook or crook. + +Don't be scared--I am not going to fly! I wish I could, but I promised +Kent Brown I would never fly with any man but him, and while it was done +in jest, in a way I still feel that a promise must be kept. I wish I +were not made that way. I'd like to dress up like Jo Bill Perkins and +pass as a man, and I could do it quite as well as Jo, in spite of her +having practiced being a boy all her life, but I can't help thinking +what Bobby has always said to me: "Just remember you are a lady and you +can't go far wrong." Somehow, I am afraid if I cut off my hair and +discarded skirts, I might forget I am a lady. It is an awful nuisance +being one, anyhow. + +I don't know just what I am going to do, but I certainly can't cross the +Atlantic, with Bobby and poor little Mamma somewhere in Germany, maybe +locked up in dungeons or something. I know it won't help them any for me +to be in France, but at least I will be nearer to them geographically. + +My letter of credit on the Paris bankers will put me on easy street +financially, so as far as money is concerned, Bobby will know I am all +right. I can't think the war will last very long. Surely all the neutral +countries will just step in and stop it. The French are looking to +United States. It is very amusing to hear the old peasants talk about +Lafayette. They seem to think tit for tat: if they helped us out more +than a century ago, we will have to help them out now. + +I can't tell what I think just yet. Everything is in too much of a +turmoil. I wish I knew what Bobby thinks. He is always so sane in his +political opinions. I get more and more uneasy about them, Bobby and +Mamma. Such terrible tales of the Germans are coming to us. I don't +believe them, at least not all of them. How could a kindly, rather +bovine race suddenly turn into raging tigers? Why should any one want +to do anything to Bobby? I comfort myself with that thought and then I +remember how hot-headed and impulsive he is, inherited directly from me, +his daughter, and I begin to tremble. + +Jo and I are settling up our affairs here. Madame Gaston is to take +charge of our few belongings. I have a hunch it will be best to lighten +our luggage all we can. Jo is not going to turn into a man until we get +to Paris. She is too funny in her envy of old Mère Gaspard because of +her big moustache. You know how many of the French peasant women have +quite mannish beards and moustaches. Mother Gaspard has the largest and +most formidable one I have ever seen, although she is a most motherly +old soul, not a bit fatherly. + +I will write from Paris again. I know Kent is in a state of grouch with +himself for sailing when he did. I believe he feels as I do about things +happening. I don't want houses to burn down, but if they do burn, I want +to see the fire; I don't want dogs to fight, but if there is a dog fight +going on, I am certainly going to stand on my tiptoes and look over the +crowd and see them tear each other up; I certainly don't want the +Nations to go to war, but if they will do it, I am going to have +experiences. + +Please give my best love to all the family and a thoroughly sterilized +kiss to that marvelous infant. I verily believe if it had not been for +Kent's overweening desire to behold that baby, he would have waited over +for another steamer and in that way found himself in the thick of the +fight. I am glad he went, however. If Polly Perkins developed a chin and +rushed off, what might Kent have done with an overdevelopment of chin +already there? + + Yours always, + JUDY. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE ORCHARD HOME. + + +"R. F. D., late as usual," laughed Molly, as Mr. Bud Woodsmall's very +ramshackle Ford runabout came careening through the lane and up the hill +to the yard gate. "I fancy he has had to stop and talk war at every mail +box on his route." + +"I think I'll go meet him," said Professor Edwin Green, rather +reluctantly arising from the chaise longue that seemed to have been +built to fit his lack of curves, he declared. He had been sitting on the +porch of the bungalow, eyes half closed to shut out everything from his +vision but the picture of Molly holding the sleeping baby in her arms. + +"You know you want to gossip with him--now 'fess up!" + +"Well, I do like to hear his views of the situation in Europe. They +are original, at least. He says Yankee capitalists are the cause of it +all. Don't you want me to put Mildred down? She has been asleep for +half an hour," and the young husband and father stood for a moment and +looked down on his treasures with what Judy Kean always called his +faithful-collie-dog eyes. + +"I know I oughtn't to hold her while she is asleep, but she seems so +wonderful I can't bear to let her go. I think she is growing more like +you, Edwin." + +"Like me! Nonsense! That would be a sad thing to have wished on the poor +innocent when there are so many handsome folks in the Carmichael and +Brown family from whom she could inherit real beauty." + +"But Edwin, you are handsome, I think. You are so noble looking." + +"All right, honey, have it your own way," and he stooped and kissed her. +"I will allow that the baby has inherited my bald head if you like--Hi +there!" he called to Mr. Woodsmall, who was preparing to unlock the +mail box, "I'll come get it," and he sprinted down the walk where the +garrulous postman held him enthralled for a good fifteen minutes. A blue +envelope with a foreign postmark told him there was a letter from Julia +Kean that would be eagerly welcomed by Molly, but there was no stopping +the flow of R. F. D.'s eloquence. The causes of the war being thoroughly +threshed out, he finally took his reluctant departure. + +"A letter from Judy Kean! Now you will have to put the baby down!" + +So little Mildred was tenderly placed in her basket on the porch and +Molly opened the voluminous epistle from the beloved Judy. + +"Oh, Edwin, she is not coming home! I was afraid she would want to do +something Judyesque. Only listen!" and Molly read the Giverny letter to +her husband. + +"What do you think Kent will say to this? I know he is very uneasy about +her anyhow since the war broke out, and now--well, I'm glad I'm not in +his shoes. She is not very considerate of him, I must say." + +"Oh, you men folks!" laughed Molly. "I can't see how she could leave +France until she knows something about her mother and father, and after +all, I don't believe Kent and Judy are engaged." + +"Not engaged! What do you think Kent has been doing this whole year in +Paris if he wasn't getting engaged?" + +"Studying Architecture at the Beaux Arts. Sometimes persons can know one +another a long time and be together a lot and not get engaged," she +teased. It was a very well-known fact that Professor Edwin Green had +been in love with Molly Brown for at least five years, and maybe longer, +before he put the all important question. + +"Yes, I know, but then----" + +"Then what? My brother Kent is certainly not able to support a wife yet, +and maybe they are opposed to long engagements." + +"Well, all the same I am sorry for Kent. It was bad enough when you went +abroad and the ocean was between us and I knew you were being well taken +care of by your dear mother,--but just suppose it had been war time and +you had been alone! The news from France is very grave. It looks as +though the Germans would eat Christmas dinner in Paris as they boast +they will." + +"Oh, Edwin, no!" and Molly turned pale. + +"Well, look at these head lines in to-day's paper. It looks very +ominous. When did you say you were expecting Kent home?" + +"By to-morrow at latest. He wrote Mother he was to stay some time in New +York to try to land a job that looked very promising." + +"Here she comes now!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up with joy as it +always did when his mother-in-law appeared on the scene. + +Mrs. Brown was coming through the orchard from Chatsworth. Her hair had +turned a little greyer since Molly's marriage, but not much; her step +was still light and active; her grey eyes as full of life; and in her +heart the same eternal youth. + +"Well, children! Did you get any mail? How is my precious little +granddaughter? I've a letter from Kent. It just did beat him home. Paul +'phoned from Louisville that he is in town now, just arrived and will +be here with him this afternoon. I am so excited!" + +Dear Mrs. Brown's life was made up of such excitements now: her children +always going and returning. Mildred, Mrs. Crittenden Rutledge, had left +for Iowa only two days before, having spent two months with her little +family at Chatsworth; now Kent was almost home; and in less than a month +the Greens would make their annual move to Wellington. Sue, the eldest +daughter, married to young Cyrus Clay, lived within a few miles of +Chatsworth and seemed the only one who was a fixture. Paul's newspaper +work kept him in Louisville most of the time and John, the doctor, made +flying visits to his home but had to make his headquarters in the city +for fear of missing patients. Ernest, the eldest son, was threatening to +come home and settle at Chatsworth, but that was still an uncertainty. + +"I must read you Judy's letter, Mother. I know you will feel as uneasy +as we do about her. Edwin thinks she should come home, but I think she +could hardly leave, not knowing something more definite about her +mother and father, who may be bottled up in Germany indefinitely." + +"Only think of the sizzle Mr. Kean will make when they finally draw the +cork," laughed Mrs. Brown; but when Molly read the whole of Judy's +letter to her, the laughter left her countenance and she looked very +solemn and disturbed. + +"Poor Kent!" she sighed. + +"I wonder what he will do," from Molly. + +"Do? Why, he will do what the men of his blood should do!" Mrs. Brown +held her head very high and her delicate nostrils quivered in the way +her family knew meant either anger or high resolve. "He will go to +France and either stay and protect Judy or bring her back to his +mother." + +"But, Mother, are you going to ask this of him? Maybe he won't think it +is the right thing to do." + +"Of course, I am not going to ask it of him. I just know the 'mettle of +his pasture.'" + +"But the expense!" + +"Expense! Molly, you don't sound like yourself. What is expense when +your loved ones are in danger?" + +"But I can't think that Judy could be in real danger." + +"I can't think anything else. You surely have not read the morning +paper. The Germans are advancing so rapidly.... The atrocities in +Belgium! Ugh! I can't contemplate our Judy being anywhere in their +reach." + +"But, Mother, they must be exaggerated! People could not do what they +say they have done, not good, kind German soldiers." + +"Molly! Molly! Your goodness will even let you love the Germans. I am +not made that way. The Anglo Saxon in me is so uppermost and I feel such +a boiling and bubbling in my veins that nothing but my grey hairs keeps +me from joining the Red Cross myself and helping the Allies!" + +"Well, then you don't blame Miss Judy Kean," laughed Professor Green, +who never loved his mother-in-law more than when, as old Aunt Mary +expressed it, "her nose was a-wuckin'." + +"Blame her! No, indeed! If I were her age, I'd do exactly what she is +doing, but I should certainly have expected Molly's father to come over +and protect me while I was being so foolhardy." + +"Judy doesn't say she is going as a nurse," said Molly, referring to the +letter. "Jo Williams is to fly and Judy seems uncertain what she is +going to do,--just see the fight, as far as I can make out. I know Judy +so well I just can't feel uneasy about her. You mustn't think I am +mercenary, Mother, or careless of my friend. Judy always lands on her +feet and is as much of an adept in getting out of scrapes as she is in +getting in them." + +"My darling, of course I didn't mean you were mercenary," cried Mrs. +Brown, seeing in Molly's blue eyes a little hurt look at the vigorous +tone she had taken when Molly merely suggested expense. "I just think in +your desire to think well of every one, nations as well as individuals, +that you are blind to the terrors of this war. If Judy will only go to +Sally Bolling, she will be taken care of. I fancy Sally is at La Roche +Craie now." + +"Oh, I had forgotten to think of what this must mean to Cousin Sally!" +exclaimed Molly. "The truth of the matter is that it is so peaceful here +my imagination cannot picture what it is over there. I am growing +selfish with contentment. Of course Philippe d'Ochtè will join his +regiment and poor Cousin Sally and the Marquis will suffer agonies over +him." + +"Yes and over France!" said Edwin solemnly. "I remember so well a +conversation I had with the Marquis d'Ochtè on the subject of his +country. I believe he really and truly puts his country above even his +adored wife and son. That is more patriotism than I could be capable +of----" + +"Not a bit of it, my dear Edwin," broke in Mrs. Brown. + + "'I could not love thee half so well + Loved I not honour more.' + +"Molly and your little baby Mildred are but a part of your country, and +if the time should come and your country called you, you would answer +the call just as I hope my own sons would." + +"Oh, Mother, you are a Spartan! I am not so brave, I am afraid," said +Molly. "Even now at the thought of war, I am thanking God my Mildred +baby is a girl." + +Little Mildred, at mention of her name, although it would be many a day +before she would know what her name was, awakened and gave an +inarticulate gurgle. Mrs. Brown dropped the rôle of Spartan Mother and +turned into a doting grandmother in the twinkling of an eye. + +"And was um little tootsie wootsies cold? Come to your Granny and let +her warm them. Molly, this baby has grown a foot, I do believe, and look +what a fine, strong, straight back she has! And does oo want your Granny +to rub your back? Only look, her eyes have brown lights in them! I said +all the time she would have brown eyes." + +"And not Molly's blue eyes! Oh, Mother, that is very bad news to me. +Why, the baby's eyes are as blue as the sea now. They could not change," +and Edwin Green peered into his offspring's face with such intentness +that the little thing began to whimper. + +The proper indignation being expressed by the females and the baby +dangled until smiles came and a crow, Mrs. Brown informed the ignorant +father that all young animals have blue eyes and there is no determining +the actual colour of a baby's eyes until it is several months old, but +that the minute brown or golden lights begin to appear in blue eyes, you +can get ready to declare for a brown-eyed youngster. + +"Well, she will surely have Molly's hair," he insisted. + +"That we can't tell, either," said the all-knowing grandmother. "You +see, she is almost bald now except for this tiny fringe that is rapidly +being worn off in the back. That does seem a little pinkish." + +"Pinkish! Oh, Mother-in-law, what a word to express my Molly's hair!" + +"Can't you see she is getting even with you for making Mildred almost +cry?" laughed Molly. "I know she is going to have my hair because when +you slip a little bit of blue under that little lock that is on the +side, where it hasn't rubbed off, the 'pink' comes out quite plainly. My +Mildred will be a belle. I have always heard it said that a girl with +brown eyes and golden hair is born to be a belle. Oh, yes, I will call +the baby's hair golden although I have always called my own red." + +"I don't know whether I want her to be a belle or not," objected Edwin. +"She might be frivolous." + +"Frivolous with your eyes! Heavens, Daddy, she couldn't be!" + +Mrs. Brown contentedly smiled and rocked the baby, who crowed and cooed +and kicked her pretty pink tootsies. The sun shone on the orchard home +and a particularly obliging mocking bird burst into song from one of the +gnarled old apple trees, heavy with its luscious fruit. Mocking birds +are supposed not to sing in August, but sometimes they do, and when +they do, their song is as wonderful and welcome as an unlooked-for +legacy. + +Molly looked over the fields of waving blue grass to the dark beech +woods that bordered the pasture, a feeling of great happiness and +contentment in her heart. How peaceful and sweet was life! She leaned +against her husband, who put an ever-ready arm around her, and together +they gazed on the fruitful landscape. Mrs. Brown crooned to the baby a +song ever dear to her own children and one that had been sung to her by +her own negro mammy. + + "Mammy went away--she tol' me ter stay, + An' tek good keer er de baby, + She tol' me ter stay an' sing dis away: + Oh, go ter sleepy, little baby! + + Oh, go ter sleep! sleepy little baby, + Oh, go ter sleepy, little baby, + Kaze when yer wake, yo'll git some cake, + An' ride a little white horsey! + + We'll stop up de cracks an' sew up de seams-- + De Booger Man never shall ketch you! + Oh, go ter sleep an' dream sweet dreams-- + De Booger Man never shall ketch you! + + Oh, go ter sleep! sleepy little baby, + Oh, go ter sleepy, little baby, + Kaze when you wake, you'll git some cake, + An' lots er nice sugar candy!" + +How could whole countries be at war and such peace reign in any spot on +the globe? + +The whirr of an approaching motor awoke them from their musings and +stopped the delightful song before one-third of the stanzas had been +sung. It was Kent with John in the doctor's little runabout. + +"My boy! my boy!" and Mrs. Brown dropped the baby in her basket and flew +across the grass to greet the long-absent Kent. + +"I couldn't wait for Paul but had to get old Dr. John to bring me out. +Mumsy, how plump and pink you are. I declare you look almost as young as +the new baby," said Kent after the first raptures of greeting were over. +"And Molly, you look great! And 'Fessor Green, I declare you are getting +fat. I bet you have gained at least three-quarters of a pound since you +got married. Positively obese!" + +"You haven't said much about the baby," objected Molly. + +"Well, there's not much to say, is there? She is an omnivorous biped, I +gather, from the two feet I can see and her evident endeavor to eat +them, at least, I fancy that is why she is kicking so high. She has got +Edwin's er--er--well--his high forehead----" + +"She is not nearly so bald-headed as you were yourself," declared his +mother. "You were such a lovely baby, Kent, the loveliest of all my +babies, I believe. I always adored a bald-headed baby and you had a head +like a little billiard ball." + +They all laughed at this and Kent confessed that if he had been +bald-headed himself, he believed the little Mildred must be, after all, +very charming. + +"Any letters for me?" he asked, and Molly thought she detected a note of +anxiety below all the nonsense he had been talking. + +"No, I have not seen any." + +"Well, have you heard from--from Judy Kean?" + +"Yes," confessed Molly. "I got a letter to-day." + +"Please may I see it?" + +"Yes, of course you may." + +But Molly felt a great reluctance to show Julia Kean's letter to her +brother. She knew very well he was uneasy already about their friend +and was certain this letter would only heighten his concern. Kent was +looking brown and sturdy; he seemed to her to have grown even taller +than the six feet one he already measured when he went abroad. His +boyish countenance had taken on more purpose and his jaw had an added +squareness. His deep set grey eyes had a slight cloud in them that Molly +and her mother hated to see. + +"It is Judy, of course," they said to themselves. + +"I landed my job in New York," he said, as he opened the little blue +envelope. + +"Splendid!" exclaimed Molly. + +Mrs. Brown tried to say splendid, too, but the thought came to her: +"Another one going away from home!" and she could only put her arm +around her boy's neck and press a kiss on his brown head. + +They were all very quiet while Kent read the letter. Dr. John, alone, +seemed disinterested. He very professionally poked the infant in the +ribs to see how fat she had grown and, also, much to the indignation of +Molly, went through some tests for idiocy, which, of course, the tiny +baby could not pass. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +KENT BROWN. + + +"Mother, will you come and take a little walk with me?" asked Kent as he +finished Judy's letter. With his hand trembling, although his eyes were +very steady and his mouth very firm, he tucked the many thin blue sheets +back in their envelope. + +"Yes, my son!" Mrs. Brown held her head very high and in her expression +one could very well read: "I told you so! Did I not know the 'mettle of +his pasture'?" + +"Mother," he said, as he drew her arm in his and they took their way +through the orchard to the garden of Chatsworth, "I must go get Judy!" + +"Yes, my son, of course you must." + +"Oh, Mother, you think it is the only thing to do?" + +"Of course, I know it is the only thing to do. I told Molly and Edwin +only a few minutes ago that you would want to do it." + +"And what a mother! I--well, you know, Mother, I am not engaged to +Judy--not exactly, that is. She knows how I feel about her and +somehow--I can't say for sure--but I almost know she feels the same way +about me, at least, feels somehow about me." + +"Of course she does! How could she help it?" + +"You see, I knew it would be some time before I could make a decent +living, and it did not seem fair to Judy to tie her down when maybe she +might strike some fellow who would be so much more worth while than I +am----" + +"Impossible!" + +"I used to think maybe Pierce Kinsella would be her choice, when they +painted together so much." + +"That boy! Why, Kent, how could you?" + +"Well, he was a very handsome and brilliant boy and is pretty well fixed +by his uncle's generosity and bids fair to make one of the leading +portrait painters of the day. His portrait of you has made every lady +who has seen it want him to do one of her. Of course, he can't make all +of 'em look like you, but he does his best." + +"It may have been wise of you not to settle this little matter with +Judy, son, but somehow--I wish you had." + +"It was hard not to, but I felt she was so far away from her parents. I +thought she would be back in America in a month, at least. I wanted her +to come with me, but she felt she must wait for them, and of course, I +had to hurry back because of the possible job in New York. I am afraid +that I will lose that now, but there will be others, and I just can't +think of the things that might happen to my Judy--she is my Judy, +whether we are engaged or not." + +"When will you start, son?" + +"Why, to-night, if you don't mind." + +"Certainly to-night! I have money for you." + +"Oh, Mother, the money part is the only thing worrying me. I have a +little left, but not enough to get me over and back. I must have enough +to bring Judy back, too. You see, a letter of credit now in Paris is +not worth the paper it is on." + +"No, I did not know. That is the one part of Judy's letter that put me +at ease about her. I thought she had plenty of money, and money +certainly does help out." + +"Well, that is the part of her letter that made me know I must go get +her. The Americans who are abroad simply can't get checks cashed. She +might even be hungry, poor little Judy." + +"Thank goodness, I have some money--all owing to Judy's father, too! If +he had not seen the bubbles on that puddle in the rocky pasture, we +would never have known there was oil there. What better could we do with +the money that Mr. Kean got for us than use it to succor his daughter?" + +"Oh, Mother, you are so--so--bully! I know no other word to express what +you are. I am going to pay back every cent I borrow from you. Thank +goodness, I saved a little from the money I made on the architectural +sketches I did for the article Dickson wrote on the French country +homes. I'm going over steerage." + +"You are going over in the first class cabin! Steerage, indeed! I lend +no money for such a trip." + +"All right, Mother! You are the boss. And now, don't you think I'll have +time to go see Aunt Mary a few minutes?" + +"Of course you must go see the poor old woman. She has been afraid she +would not live until you got home. She is very feeble. Dear old Aunt +Mary!" + +They had reached the Chatsworth garden and Kent noticed with delight the +hollyhocks that had flourished wonderfully since he had dug them up that +moonlight night more than three years ago and transplanted them from the +chicken yard, where no one ever saw them, to the beds in the garden, and +all because Miss Julia Kean had regretted that they were not there to +make a background for the bridal party, after they had determined to +have Mildred's wedding out of doors. + +"Haven't they come on wonderfully? I know Judy would like to see how +well they have done. I think hollyhocks are the most decorative of all +flowers. I wonder we never had them in the garden before, Mother." + +Both of them were thinking of Mildred's wedding on that rare day in +June. Kent remembered with some satisfaction that in the general +confusion that ensued after Mildred and Crit were pronounced, by Dr. +Peters, to be man and wife, and everybody was kissing everybody else, he +had had presence of mind to take advantage of the license accorded on +the occasion of a family wedding and had kissed his sister Molly's +college friend, Miss Julia Kean. + +"By Jove! I think war ought to give a fellow some privilege, too," he +declared to himself. "I think I'll do the same when I see the young lady +in France." + +They found Aunt Mary lying in state in a great four poster bed, while +her meek half-sister, Sukey Jourdan, administered to her wants, which +were many and frequent. + +"Lawsamussy, if that ain't that there Kent! Whar you come from, son? I +done got so old an' feeble I can't say mister ter nobody. You alls is +all Ernest and Sue and Paul and John and Mildred and Kent and Molly ter +me. Cepn Molly is Molly Baby. I still got strenth fer that. Law, Miss +Milly, ain't he growed?" + +"Yes, Aunt Mary, he is looking so well, and now he is going to turn +right around and go back to France to-night." + +"Don't say it! Lawsamussy, Miss Milly, did he fergit somethin'?" + +"Well, not exactly," laughed Kent, "but I didn't bring something with me +that I should have." + +"Well, you be sho ter make a cross an' spit in it. If'n you fergits +somethin' er fin's you has ter tu'n aroun' an' go back 'thout res'in' a +piece, if'n you makes a cross an' spits in it, you is sho ter have good +luck. Here you, Sukey, set a better cheer for Miss Milly. Wherfo' you +done give her sich a straight up'n down cheer?" + +"Oh, this will do very well, Sukey," said Mrs. Brown. + +"You bring another, Sukey. I don' see what makes you so keerless. I low +if'n 'twar that no count Buck Jourdan, you'd be drawin' up the sofy fer +his triflin' bones." + +Poor Sukey had no easy job to keep Aunt Mary satisfied. The old woman, +having been a most energetic and tireless person in her day, could not +understand that the whole world of darkeys could not be as she had been. +Sukey's son Buck, the apple of her mild eye, was the bane of Aunt Mary's +existence. She never missed a chance to make her younger half-sister +miserable on his account. Indeed, Sukey, mild as she was, would not have +stayed with Aunt Mary except for the fact that Aunt Mary had insured her +life for her with the understanding that she was to minister to her to +the end. It was dearly paid for, this service, as the old woman was most +exacting. Lenient to a degree of softness with white folks, she was +adamant with those of her own race. + +"How do you feel, Aunt Mary?" asked Kent, looking with sorrow on the +wasted features of the beloved old woman. + +"Well, I'm a feelin' tolerable peart this mornin' although endurin' of +the night I thought my hour had struck. I got ter dreamin' 'bout my +fun'ral, an' I got so mad cause Sis Ria Bowles done brought a fun'ral +zine like one she done tuck ter Brer Jackson's orgies! An' dead or not, +I wa'nt gonter stan' fer no sich monkey shines over me." + +"Why, what did she take to Brother Jackson's funeral?" laughed Kent. + +"Ain't you heard tel er that? She cut a cross outn that there sticky +tangle yo' foot fly paper en' she kivered it all over with daisy haids +an' call herse'f bringing a zine. I riz up an' spoke my mind in my dream +an' I let all these here niggers in Jeff'son County know that if they +don't see that I gits a fust class fun'ral, I gonter rise up when I +ain't a dreamin' an' speak my min'." + +Sukey Jourdan listened to this tirade with her eyes bulging out of her +head, much to Aunt Mary's satisfaction, as she very well knew that the +way to manage her race was to intimidate them. + +"I done been carryin' insuriance in two clubs an' a comp'ny, an' betwixt +'em I's entitled ter seventeen hacks. I'm a trustin' ter Miss Milly an' +that there Paul ter make 'em treat me proper. Paul done say he will +black list 'em in his newspaper if'n they leave off one tit or jottle +from the 'greement. I sho would like ter see my fun'ral. I low it's a +goin' ter be pretty stylish. I done pinted my pall buriers an' bought +they gloves an' I low ter be laid out myself in my best black silk what +Miss Milly done gimme goin' on sixteen year, come nex' Christmas. I +ain't a wo' it much, as I had in min' ter save it fer my buryin'. Some +of the mimbers gits buried in palls made er white silk. They do look +right han'some laid out in 'em, but then palls is made 'thout a piece er +back an' I has a notion that when Gabrel blows his trump on that great +an' turrerble day that ole Mary Morton ain't a goin' ter be caught +without no back ter her grabe clothes. It mought make no diffrunce if'n +Peter will let me pass on in, 'cause I low that the shining robes will +be a waitin' fer me--but sposin'--jes' sposin'----" and the dear old +woman's face clouded over with anguish, "jes' sposin' Peter'll say: +'You, Mary Morton, g'long from this here portcullis. You blongs in the +tother d'rection,' an' I'll hab ter tun 'roun' an' take the broad road +ter hell! What'll I feel like, if'n I ain't got no back ter my frock? +No, sir! I's a goin' ter have on a dress complete. It mought be that +Peter'll think better er me if I shows him sech a spectful back." + +"You not get in Heaven!" exclaimed Kent. "Why, Aunt Mary, there wouldn't +be any Heaven for all of us bad Brown boys if you weren't there." + +"Well, now them is words of comfort what beats the preacher's. I done +always been b'lievin' in 'fluence an' I mought er knowed my white folks +would look arfter me on the las' day jes as much as ever. I kin git in +as Miss Milly's cook if'n th'aint no other way. I been a 'lowing whin I +gits ter Heaven I wouldn't have ter work no more, but sence I been a +laid up in the baid so long I gin ter think that work would tas'e right +sweet. Cookin' in Heaven wouldn't be so hard with plenty of 'gredients +ter han' and no scrimpin' and scrougin' of 'terials. A lan' flowin' with +milk an' honey mus' have aigs an' butter. Here you, Sukey Jourdan! Whar +you hidin'?" + +"Here I is, Sis Ma'y, I jes' stepped in the shed room ter men' the fire +ginst 'twas time ter knock up a bite er dinner fer you." + +"Well, while I's a thinkin' of it, I want you to git my bes' linen apron +outn the chist--the one with the insertioning let in 'bove the hem, an' +put it in the highboy drawer with my bes' black silk. I low I'll be laid +out in a apron, 'cause if'n I can't git inter Heaven no other way, I am +a thinkin' with a clean white apron on I kin slip in as a good cook." + +"Dear Aunt Mary, you have been as good as gold all your life," declared +Mrs. Brown, wiping a tear from her eye, but smiling in spite of herself +at Aunt Mary's quaint idea of a way to gain an entrance through the +pearly gates. + +Aunt Mary had had many doubts about her being saved and had spent many +weary nights, terrified at the thought of dying and perhaps not being +fit for Heaven, but now that she had thought of wearing the apron, all +doubts of her desirability were set at rest; indeed, her last days were +filled with peace since she felt now that even Peter could not turn back +a good cook. + +"I must be going, Aunt Mary," said Kent, taking the old woman's withered +hand in his strong grasp. "I'll be home again in a few weeks, I fancy, +maybe sooner." + +"They's one thing I ain't arsked you yit: whar's that there Judy gal? +I been a dreamin' you would bring her back with you." + +"She is the thing I am going back to France for, Aunt Mary." + +"Sho nuf? Well, well! They do tell me they's fightin' goin' on in some +er them furren parts. Sholy Miss Judy ain't nigh the fightin' an' +fussin'?" + +"Yes, I am afraid she is. That's the reason I must go for her." + +"Oh, Kent son! Don't you git into no scrap yo'sef. It's moughty hard +fer young folks ter look on at a scrap 'thout gittin' mixed up in it. +Don't you git too clost, whin you is lookin', either. Them what looks +on sometimes gits the deepes' razor cuts with the back han' licks. You +pick up that gal an' bring her back ter you' maw jes' as fas' as yo' +legs kin carry you." + +"I'll try to," laughed Kent. + +"Don't try! Jes' do it! That there Judy gal is sho nice an' +'ristocratic, considerin' she ain't never had no home. She done tell +me whin she was here to little Miss Milly's weddin' that she an' her +folks ain't never lived in nothin' but rented houses. That's moughty +queer to me, but 'cose niggers don't understan' ev'y thing. Well, you +tell her that ole Mary Morton say she better pick up an' come back to +Chatswuth." + +"I certainly will, Aunt Mary, and good-by!" + +The old woman put her hand on his bowed head for a moment, and while she +said nothing, Kent took it for a benediction. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +AFTERNOON TEA. + + +Molly had established the custom of afternoon tea in her orchard home, +and while she had been greatly teased by her brothers for introducing +this English custom into Kentucky country life, they one and all turned +up on her porch for tea if they were in the neighborhood. + +"It is one place where a fellow can always find some talk and a place to +air his views," declared John, as he reached for another slice of bread +and butter. "It isn't the food so much as the being gathered together." + +"Well, you are gathering a good deal of food together in spite of your +contempt for it," put in Paul. "That's the sixth slice! I have kept tab +on you." + +"Why not? I always think plain bread and butter is about the best thing +there is." + +"Yes, why not?" asked Molly, calling her little cook Kizzie to prepare +another plate of the desirable article. "Aunt Clay, you had better +change your mind and have some tea and bread and butter." + +Mrs. Sarah Clay had driven over in state from her home when she heard +Kent had arrived. She wanted to hear the latest news, also to tender +her advice as to what he was to do now. She presented the same +uncompromising front as of yore, although her back had given way +somewhat to the weight of years. Judy Kean always said she had a hard +face and a soft figure. This soft figure she poured into tight basques, +evidently determined to try to make it live up to her face. + +"Tea!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I never eat between meals." + +"But this is a meal, in a way," said Molly hospitably bent, as was her +wont, on feeding people. + +"A meal! Whoever heard of tea and bread and butter comprising a meal?" +and the stern aunt stalked to the end of the porch where the baby lay in +her basket, kicking her pink heels in the air in an ecstasy of joy over +being in the world. + +"Molly, this baby has on too few clothes. What can you be thinking of, +having the child barefooted and nothing on but this muslin slip over her +arms? She is positively blue with cold." + +Molly flew to her darling but found her glowing and warm. "Why, Aunt +Clay, only feel her hands and feet! She is as warm as toast. The doctor +cautioned me against wrapping her up too much. He says little babies are +much warmer than we are." + +"Well, have your own way! Of course, although I am older than your +mother, I know nothing at all." + +"But, Aunt Clay----" + +"Never mind!" + +Poor Molly! She could never do or say anything to suit her Aunt Clay. +She looked regretfully at the old lady's indignant back as she left her +and joined Kent, who was sitting on a settle with his mother, holding +her hand, both of them very quiet amidst the chatter around the tea +table. They made room for their relative, who immediately began her +catechism of Kent. + +"Why did you not come home sooner?" + +"Because I had some work to do, sketches illustrating an article on +French country houses." + +"Humph! Did you get paid for them?" + +"Yes, Aunt Clay!" + +"Now, what are your plans?" + +"I have landed a job in New York with a firm of architects, that is, I +had landed it, but I am not so sure now since----" + +"Good! You feel that you had better stay at home and look after +Chatsworth." + +"Oh, no! I am sure I could not be much of a farmer." + +"Could not because you would not! If I were your mother, I would insist +on one of you staying at home and running the place." + +"Ernest is thinking of coming back, giving up engineering and trying +intensive farming on Chatsworth." + +"Ernest, indeed! And why should he have wasted all these years in some +other profession if he means to farm?" + +"Well, you see," said Kent very patiently because of the pressure he +felt from his mother's gentle hand, "farming takes money and there +wasn't any money. Ernest always did want to farm, but it was necessary +for him to make some money first. Now he has saved and invested and has +something to put in the land, and he is devoutly hoping to get out more +than he puts in." + +"If putting something in the land means expensive machinery, I can tell +him now that he will waste money buying it. But there is no use in +telling Ernest anything--he is exactly like Sue: very quiet, does not +answer back when his elders and betters address him, but, like Sue, goes +his own way. Sue is very headstrong and simply twists my husband's +nephew around her finger. I was very much disappointed in Cyrus Clay. I +thought he had more backbone." + +Sue Brown, now Mrs. Cyrus Clay, had been the one member of the Brown +family who always got on with the stern Aunt Clay; and Kent and his +mother were sorry to hear the old lady express any criticism of Sue. It +seemed that Sue had done nothing more serious than to persuade Cyrus to +join the Country Club, but it was against Mrs. Sarah Clay's wishes, and +anything that opposed her was headstrong and consequently wicked. + +"But to return to you----" Kent let a sigh escape him as he had hoped he +had eluded further catechism, "what are you going to do now?" + +"Well, to-night I go back to New York, and day after to-morrow I take a +French steamer for Havre." + +"Havre! Are you crazy?" + +"I don't know." + +"What are you going to do in France with this war going on?" + +"I am not quite sure." + +This was too much for the irate old lady, so without making any adieux, +she took her departure, scorning the polite assistance of her three +nephews. Professor Green called her coachman and helped her into the +great carriage she still held to, the kind seen now-a-days only in +museums. + +"Kent, how could you?" laughed Mrs. Brown, in spite of her attempt to +look shocked. + +"I think Kent was right," declared Molly. "How could he tell Aunt Clay +he was going to France to get Judy? She would never have let up on it. +I'm glad she has gone, anyhow! We were having a very nice time without +her." + +"Molly!" and Mrs. Brown looked shocked. She always exacted a show of +respect from her children to this very difficult elder sister Sarah. + +"Oh, Mumsy, we have to break loose sometimes!" exclaimed Molly. "The +idea of her saying Mildred was blue with cold! Criticising poor Sue, +too! Goodness, I'd hate to be the one that Aunt Clay had taken a shine +to. I'd almost rather have her despise me as she does." + +"Not despise you, Molly,--you don't understand your Aunt Clay." + +"Well, perhaps not, but she puts up a mighty good imitation of +despising. I think it is because I look so like Cousin Sally Bolling +and she never forgave the present Marquise d'Ochtè for making fun of +her long years ago. And then to crown it all, Cousin Sally got the +inheritance from Greataunt Sarah Carmichael and married the Marquis, at +least she married the Marquis and then got the inheritance. It was too +much for Aunt Clay." + +Mrs. Brown looked so pained that Molly stopped her tirade. Aunt Clay was +the one person whom Molly could not love. She had a heart as big as all +out doors but it was not big enough to hold Aunt Clay. + +"Here comes Sue! How glad I am! She 'phoned she would be here before so +very long. What a blessing she missed Aunt Clay! See, she is running the +car herself and isn't it a beauty? Cyrus just got it for her and Sue +runs it wonderfully well already. I forgot to write you about it, Kent. +But best of all! What do you think? Cyrus has had the muddy lane that +was the cause of Sue's hesitating whether to take him or not all +drained and macadamized. The approach to Maxton is simply perfect now." + +"Good for Cyrus!" said Kent, jumping up to meet his sister, who drove +her big car through the gate and up the driveway as though she had been +running an automobile all her life. + +"Only think, five Browns together again!" exclaimed Paul, as they seated +themselves on the porch of the bungalow after duly admiring the new car. +Molly had Kizzie brew a fresh pot of tea and John was persuaded to eat +some more thin slices of bread and butter. + +"Yes, five of you together again," said Mrs. Brown wistfully. "Ah, me! I +wish I could get all seven of you at Chatsworth once more. Indeed, I +wish I had all of you back in the nursery again." + +"But where would I come in then?" said Edwin Green whimsically. + +"And little Mildred?" from Molly, hugging her infant. + +"And Sue's new car, not to mention Cyrus?" teased Kent. + +"You are right, children. I should be more of a philosopher. + + "'The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit + Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, + Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.'" + +Molly stood over Kent with a cup of steaming tea and taking her cue from +her mother's quotation from the Rubaiyat and prompted by his knownothing +attitude with his Aunt Clay, she got off the stanza: + + "Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare; + To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair: + Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: + Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +LETTERS FROM PARIS AND BERLIN. + + +From Miss Julia Kean to Mrs. Edwin Green. + + Paris, and no idea of the date. + No fixed address, but the American + Club might reach me. + +Molly darling: + +Things are moving so fast that even I can't quite catch on, and you know +I am some mover myself. Jo and I came to Paris as I wrote you we would, +but I haven't seen her since. She told me in as polite words as she +could command that she couldn't be bothered with me any more. At least +that was the trend of her remarks. She has the business before her of +making up to look as much like a man as possible and then of being taken +into the aviation school. + +I met an art student from Carlo Rossi's on the street and he told +me Polly was already the proud driver of an ambulance. Lots of the +American art students have enlisted or joined the Red Cross. If I liked +sick folks or nursing, I think I'd join myself. I feel that I should be +doing something while I wait to hear from Bobby. I hope to see the +American Ambassador next week. He is simply floored under with duties +just now. I don't want any help from him, but just to find out something +about Bobby and Mamma. + +If you could see Paris now! Oh, Molly, our gay, beautiful, eternally +youthful city has grown suddenly sad and middle-aged. There is no gaiety +or frivolity now. Her step has changed from a dance to a march. Her +laughter has turned to weeping, but silent weeping--she makes no outcry +but one knows the tears are there. Her beautiful festive clothes are +laid away and now there is nothing but khaki and mourning. The gallant +little soldier is to discard his flaming red trousers and blue coat for +khaki. The German finds him too easy a mark. + +I begin to tremble for Paris, but strange to say I have no fear for +myself. + +I have seen the Ambassador! He was very grave when I told him about +Bobby. There was some English capital involved in the railroad that +Bobby was to build in Turkey, and for that reason there may be some +complication. He is to communicate with Gerard immediately. In the +meantime, he advises me to go home. I told him I had no home, but would +wait here until I found out something. He asked me if I had plenty of +money and I told him yes, indeed, my letter of credit was good for +almost any amount. I had not had to draw on it as I had stocked up +before I went to G---- to keep house with the Polly Perkinses. The +Ambassador actually laughed at me. Do you know, I can't get any more +money? What a fool I have been! I have been so taken up with Paris and +the sights and sounds that money has never entered my head. I have quite +a little left, though, and I intend to live on next to nothing. + +The Bents have left for America and have given me their key to use their +studio as I see fit. Mrs. Bent wanted me to go with them, but I can't +go until we hear from Gerard. Now I am back in the Rue Brea! It seems +strange to be there again where we had such a glorious winter. The +studio where Kent and Pierce Kinsella lived all last year is vacant. I +don't know where Pierce is. Gone to war, perhaps! + +I spend the days on the streets, walking up and down, listening to the +talk and watching the regiments as they move away. I ran across some old +friends yesterday. You remember a wedding party I butted in on at St. +Cloud that day I scared all of you so when I took the wrong train from +Versailles and landed at Chartres? Well, I ran plump against the bride +on Montparnasse (only she is no longer a bride but had a rosy infant +over her shoulder). She came out of a little delicatessen shop and her +husband in war togs followed her, and there I witnessed their parting. I +seem fated to be present at every crisis in their lives. The girl did +not recognize me but the young man did. I had danced with him in too mad +a whirl for him to forget me. Then came the old father and his wife who +looked like a member of the Commune. They keep the little shop, it +seems. I shook hands with them and together we waited for the young +man's regiment to come swinging down the street. With another embrace +all around, even me, he caught step with his comrades and was gone. The +bonnemère clasped her daughter-in-law to her grenadier-like bosom and +they mingled their tears, the rosy baby gasping for breath between the +two. The old father turned to me: + +"This is different from the last time we met, ma'mselle!" + +"Yes, so different!" + +"Come in and have a bite and sup with us. There is still something to +eat in Paris besides horse flesh." His wife and daughter-in-law joined +him in the invitation and so I went in. I enjoyed the meal more than +I can tell you. The grenadier is some cook and although the fare was +simple, it was so well seasoned and appetizing that I ate as I have not +done since I got back to Paris. The truth of the matter is, I am living +so cheap for fear of getting out of money and I am afraid I have been +neglecting my inner man. I can't cook a thing myself, which is certainly +trifling of me, and so have depended on restaurants for sustenance. I +dressed the salad (you remember it is my one accomplishment) and it met +with the approval of host and hostess. + +I told them of my trouble and how I felt I must wait until I heard +something definite of my mother and father, and they were all sympathy. +I have promised to come to them if I get into difficulty, and you don't +know the comfortable feeling I have now that I have some adopted folks. + +I might go to the Marquise d'Ochtè, but I know she has all on her hands +and mind that she can attend to. I don't need anything but just +companionship. I am such a gregarious animal that I must have folks. + +I am dying to hear from you and to know if Kent landed his job. Is +he--well, angry with me for staying over? I would not have missed +staying for anything, even if he should be put out. I can't believe he +is, though. I had rather hoped for letters when the American mail came +in this morning, but the man at the bank was very unfeeling and had +nothing. Nobody seems to be getting any mail. I wonder if they are +stopping it for some reason or other. I have a great mind to take this +to some American who is fleeing and have it mailed in New York. I will +do that very thing. Good by, Molly--don't be uneasy about me. You know +my catlike nature of lighting on my feet. + + Your own, + Judy. + + +From Mr. Robert Kean to his Daughter Julia. + + Berlin. + +My dear Judy: + +I know you are intensely uneasy about us, but down in your heart you +also know that we never get into scrapes we can't get out of, and we +will get out of this. This letter will probably be postmarked Sweden +but that does not mean I am there. In fact, I am in durance vile here +in Berlin. I am allowed to walk around the streets and to pay my own +living expenses but leave Berlin I cannot. Your mother can't leave, +either--not that she would. You know how she thinks that she protects me +and so she insists that she will stay. I am allowed to write no letters +and can receive none. I am getting this off to you by a clever device of +your mother's, which I shall not divulge now for fear it might be seized +and thus get an innocent person in bad with this remarkable Government. + +I am kept here all because I know too much about the geography and +topography of Turkey. Of course I have made careful maps of the proposed +railroad from Constantinople, the one we have been trying to get the +concessions for. Well, they have naturally seized the maps. But before I +dreamed of the possibility of this war, for, like all of us fool Anglo +Saxons, I have been nosing along like a mole, I had a talk with a high +Prussian Muckamuck at dinner one evening about this proposed road and I +drew the blame thing on the table cloth, and with bits of bread and salt +cellars and what not I explained the whole topography of the country and +the benefit it would be to mankind to have this particular railroad +built, financed by my particular company. That was where I "broke my +'lasses pitcher." Of course, having surveyed the country and made the +maps, at least, having had a finger in the pie from the beginning, I can +reproduce those maps from memory, if not very accurately, at least, +accurately enough to get the Germans going if that particular +information should be needed by the Allies. + +Do you know what I see in this? Why, Turkey will be in this war before +so very long. + +I am hungry for news. I feel that I will go mad if I can't get some +information besides what is printed in these boot licking newspapers +of Berlin. They speak of their soldiers as though they were avenging +angels--avenging what? Avenging the insult Belgium offered them for +not lying down and making a road of herself for them to walk over. +Avenging France for not opening wide her gates and getting ready the +Christmas dinner the Kaiser meant to eat in Paris. I'd like to prepare +his Christmas dinner, and surely I would serve a hors-d'oeuvre of +rough-on-rats, an entrée of ptomaines, and finish off with a dessert +of hanging, which would be too sweet for him. Now just suppose this +letter is seized and they see this above remark--what then? I must not +be allowed to write my opinion of their ruler to my own daughter, but +these Prussians who go to United States and get all they can from our +country, feel at perfect liberty to publish newspapers vilifying our +President and to burst into print at any moment about our men who are +high in authority. + +Berlin is wild with enthusiasm and joy over her victories. Every Belgian +village that is razed to the ground makes them think it is cause for a +torch-light procession. I can't understand them. They can hardly be the +same kindly folk we have so often stayed among. They are still kind, +kind to each other and kind in a way to us and to all the strangers +within their gates, but how they can rejoice over the reports of their +victories I cannot see. + +They one and all believe that they were forced to fight. They say +France was marching to Berlin for the President to eat Christmas dinner +here, and that Belgium had promised they should go straight through her +gates unmolested and did not regard the agreement of neutrality. I say +nonsense to such statements. At least I think nonsense. I really say +very little for one who has so much to say. I am bubbling over to talk +politics with some one. Your poor little mumsy listens to me but she +never jaws back. I want some one to jaw back. I have promised her to +keep off the subject with these Prussians. They are so violent and so +on the lookout for treason. There is one thing I am sure of and that is +that no Frenchman would want to eat Christmas dinner or any other kind +of dinner here if he could eat it in Paris. I am sick of raw goose and +blood pudding and Limburger cheese. + +As I write this tirade, I am wondering, my dear daughter, where you are. +Did you go back to America with Kent Brown, who, you wrote me in your +last letter, was sailing in a week, or are you in Paris? I hope not +there! Since I see the transports of joy these law-abiding, home-loving +citizens, women and men, can get in over an account of what seems to me +mere massacre, I tremble to think what the soldiers are capable of in +the lust of bloodshed. + +From the last bulletin, the Germans are certainly coming closer and +closer to Paris. I hope they are lying in their report. They are capable +of falsifying anything. + +I am trying to get hold of our Ambassador to get me out of this mess, +but he is so busy it is hard to see him. I think he is doing excellent +work and I feel it is best for me to wait and let the Americans who are +in more urgent need get first aid. I have enough money to tide us over +for a few weeks with very careful expenditure. Of course I can get no +more, just like all the rest of, the Americans who are stranded here. + +I feel terribly restless for work. I don't know how to loaf, never +did. I'd go to work here at something, but I feel if I did, it would +just mean that these Prussians could then spare one more man for +their butchery, and I will at least not help them that much. Your +mother and I are on the street a great deal. We walk up and down and +go in and out of shops and sit in the parks. I keep moving as much as +possible, not only because I am so restless but because I like to keep +the stupid spy who is set to watch over me as busy as possible. He has +some weird notion that I do not know he is ever near me. I keep up the +farce and I give him many anxious moments. Yesterday I wrote limericks +and nonsense verses on letter paper and made little boats of them and +sent them sailing on the lake in the park. If you could have seen this +man's excitement. He called in an accomplice and they fished out the +boats and carefully concealing them, they got hold of a third spy to +take them to the chief. I wonder what they made of: + + "The Window has Four little Panes: + But One have I. + The Window Panes are in its Sash,-- + I wonder why!" + +or this: + + "I wish that my Room had a Floor-- + I don't so much care for a Door, + But this walking around + Without touching the ground + Is getting to be quite a bore!" + +I only wish I could see the translations of these foolish rhymes that +must have been made before they could decide whether or not I had a bomb +up my sleeve to put the Kaiser out with. Fancy this in German: + + "The poor benighted Hindoo, + He does the best he kindo; + He sticks to caste + From first to last; + For pants he makes his skindo." + +Some of the ships sank and they had to get a boat hook and raise them. +My nonsense seems to have had its effect. I saw in this morning's paper +that some of the foreigners held in Berlin have gone crazy. I believe +they mean me. I must think up some more foolishness. I feel that the +more I occupy this spy who has me in charge, the better it is for the +Allies. I try to be neutral but my stomach is rebelling at German food, +and who can be neutral with a prejudiced stomach? + +We are trying to cook in our room. You know what a wonder your little +mumsy is at knocking up an omelette and making coffee and what not, and +we also find it is much more economical to eat there all we can. When we +are there, we are out of sight of the spy, who, of course, can't help +his job, but neither can I help wanting to kick his broad bean. He is +such a block-head. He reminds me of the Mechanician Man, in our comic +papers: "Brains he has nix." He is evidently doing just exactly what he +has been wound up and set to do. I can't quite see why I should be such +an important person that I should need a whole spy to myself. I can't +get out of Berlin unless I fly out and I see no chance of that. + + * * * * * + +I have had my interview with the Ambassador. He sent for me, and the +wonderful thing was that it was because of the ball you had set rolling +in Paris. When one Ambassador gets in communication with another +Ambassador, even when it is about as unimportant a thing as I am, there +is something doing immediately. You must have made a hit, honey, with +the powers in France, they got busy so fast. It seems that the Imperial +Government is very leary about me. My being an American is the only +thing that keeps me out of prison. They are kind of scared to put me +there, but they won't let me go. I had to wait an hour even after I got +sent for, and I enjoyed it thoroughly because it was raining hard and +blowing like blazes and I knew that my bodyguard was having to take it. +Indeed I could see him all the time across the strasse looking anxiously +at the door where he had seen me disappear. I also had the delight of +reading a two weeks old American newspaper that a very nice young clerk +slipped to me. I suppose the American Legation gets its newspaper, war +or no. + +Nothing can be done for me as yet. I have been very imprudent in my +behaviour, reprehensible, in fact. The paper boats were most ill +advised, especially the one that goes: "My Window has Four little +Panes." That is something to do with maps and a signal, it seems. "The +Window Panes are in its Sash," is most suggestive of information. Ah, +well! They can't do more than just keep us here, and if our money gives +out, it will be up to them to feed us. The time may come when I will be +glad to get even blood pudding, but I can't think it. + +Your poor little mumsy, in spite of the years she has spent with me +roughing it, still has a dainty appetite, and I believe she would as +soon eat a live rat, as blood pudding or raw goose. She makes out with +eggs and salad and coffee and toast. So far, provisions are plentiful. +It is only our small purse that makes us go easy on everything. But if +the war goes on (which, God willing, it will do, as a short war will +mean the Germans are victorious), I can't see how provisions will remain +plentiful. What is England doing, anyhow? She must be doing something, +but she is doing it very slowly. + +Your being in Paris is a source of much uneasiness to us, but I can't +say that I blame you. You are too much like me to want to get out of +excitement. I feel sure you will take care of yourself and now that the +French are waltzing in at such a rate, I have no idea that the Germans +will ever reach Paris. After all, this letter is to be taken by a lady +who is at the American Legation and mailed to Mrs. Edwin Green and +through her sent to you. They could not get it directly to you in +France, but no doubt it will finally reach you through your friend, +Molly. I am trusting her to do it and I know she will do it if any one +can, because she is certainly to be depended on to get her friends out +of trouble. In the meantime, the Ambassador here is to communicate +formally with the Ambassador in Paris, and he is to let you know that +all is well with your innocent if imprudent parents. Of course, your +mother could go home if she would, but you know her well enough to know +she won't. In fact, there is some talk of making her go home, and she +says if they start any such thing she is going to swear she can draw +any map of Turkey that ever was known to man, and can do it with her +eyes shut and her hands tied behind her. + +We both of us wish you were safe in Kentucky with your friends. We spend +many nights talking of you and reproaching ourselves that we have left +you so much to yourself. I don't see how we could help it in a way, but +maybe I should have given up engineering and taken up preaching or been +a tailor or something. Then I might have made a settled habitation for +all of us. Your mumsy is writing you a long letter, too, so I must stop. +She is quite disappointed not to use her clever scheme for getting the +letter to you, and rather resents the lady at the Legation. + + Yours, + BOBBY. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AT THE TRICOTS'. + + +It took one month and three days for Judy to get the above letter, +but her mind was set somewhat at rest long before that time by the +Ambassador himself, who had learned through his confrère in Berlin that +Mr. and Mrs. Kean were safe and at large, although not allowed to leave +Berlin. + +The daughter was so accustomed to her parents being in dangerous places +that she did not feel so concerned about them as an ordinary girl would +have felt for ordinary parents. Ever since she could remember, they had +been camping in out-of-the-way places and making hair-breadth escapes +from mountain wild cats and native uprisings and what not. She could not +believe the Germans, whom she had always thought of as rather bovine, +could turn into raging lions so completely. + +"Bobby will light on his feet!" she kept saying to herself until it +became almost like a prayer. "No one could hurt Mamma. She will be +protected just as children will be!" And then came terrible, exaggerated +accounts of the murder in cold blood of little children, and then the +grim truth of the destruction of Louvain and Rheims, and anything seemed +possible. + +"A nation that could glory in the destruction of such beautiful things +as these cathedrals will stop at nothing." But still she kept on saying: +"Bobby will light on his feet! Bobby will light on his feet!" She no +longer trusted the Germans, but she had infinite faith in the sagacity +and cleverness of her father. He always had got himself out of difficult +and tight places and he always would. + +In the meantime, money was getting very low. Try as she would to +economize, excitement made her hungry and she must eat and eat three +times a day. + +"If I only had Molly Brown's skill and could cook for myself!" she would +groan as she tried to choke down the muddy concoction that she had just +succeeded in brewing and was endeavoring to persuade herself tasted a +little like coffee. She remembered with swimming eyes the beautiful +little repasts they had had in the Bents' studio during that memorable +winter. + +"Judy Kean, you big boob! I believe my soul you are going to bawl about +a small matter of food. If the destruction of Louvain did not make you +weep, surely muddy coffee ought not to bring tears to your eyes, unless +maybe they are tears of shame." + +The truth of the matter was, Judy was lonesome and idle. She could not +make up her mind to paint. Things were moving too fast and there was too +much reality in the air. Art seemed unreal and unnecessary, somehow. +"Great things will be painted after the war but not now," she would say. +She carried her camera with her wherever she went and snapped up groups +of women and children, soldiers kissing their old fathers, great ladies +stopping to converse with the gamin of the street; anything and +everything went into her camera. She spent more money on films than on +food, in spite of her healthy hunger. + +On that morning in September as she cleared away the scraps from her +meager breakfast, her eyes swimming from lonesomeness, appetite +unappeased and a kind of nameless longing, she almost determined to +throw herself on the mercy of the American Legation for funds to return +to New York. The Americans had cleared out of Paris until there were +very few left. Judy would occasionally see the familiar face of some art +student she had known in the class, but those familiar faces grew less +and less frequent. + +"There's the Marquise! I can always go to her, but I know she is taken +up with her grief over Philippe's going a soldiering," she thought as +she put her plate and cup back on the shelf where the Bents kept their +assortment of china. + +A knock at the door! Who could it be? No mail came to her and no +friends were left to come. + +"Mam'selle!" and bowing low before her was the lean old partner of St. +Cloud, Père Tricot. "Mam'selle, my good wife and I, as well as our poor +little daughter-in-law, we all want you to come and make one of our +humble menage." + +"Want me!" exclaimed Judy, her eyes shining. + +"Yes, Mam'selle," he said simply. "We have talked it over and we think +you are too young to be so much alone and then if--the--the--well, I +have too much respect for Mam'selle to call their name,--if they do get +in Paris, I can protect you with my own women. I am not so old that I +cannot hit many a lick yet--indeed, I would enlist again if they would +have me; but my good wife says they may need me more here in Paris and I +must rest tranquilly here and do the work for France that I can best do. +Will you come, Mam'selle?" + +"Come! Oh, Père Tricot, I'll be too glad to come. When?" + +"Immediately!" + +Judy's valise was soon packed and the studio carefully locked, the key +handed over to the concierge, and she was arm in arm with her old +friend on her way to her new home in the little shop on the Boulevarde +Montparnasse. + +Mère Tricot, who looked like a member of the Commune but acted like a +dear, kindly old Granny, took the girl to her bosom. + +"What did I tell you? I knew she would come," she cried to her husband, +who had hurried into the shop to wait on a customer. It was a +delicatessen shop and very appetizing did the food look to poor Judy, +who felt as though she had never eaten in her life. + +"Tell me!" he exclaimed as he weighed out cooked spinach to a small +child who wanted two sous' worth. "Tell me, indeed! You said Mam'selle +would not walk on the street with an old peasant in a faded blouse if +she would come at all, and I--I said Mam'selle was what the Americans +call a good sport and would walk on the street with an old peasant, if +she liked him, in any kind of clothes he happened to be in, rags even. +Bah! You were wrong and I was right." + +The old Tricots were forever wrangling but it was always in a +semi-humorous manner, and their great devotion to each other was always +apparent. Judy found it was better never to take sides with either one +as the moment she did both of them were against her. + +How homelike the little apartment was behind the shops! It consisted of +two bed rooms, a living room which opened into the shop and a tiny tiled +kitchen about the size of a kitchen on a dining car--so tiny that it +seemed a miracle that all the food displayed so appetizingly in the +windows and glass cases of the shop should have been prepared there. + +"It is so good of you to have me and I want to come more than I can say, +but you must let me board with you. I couldn't stay unless you do." + +"That is as you choose, Mam'selle," said the old woman. "We do not want +to make money on you, but you can pay for your keep if you want to." + +"All right, Mother, but I must help some, help in the shop or mind the +baby, clean up the apartment, anything! I can't cook a little bit, but I +can do other things." + +"No woman can cook," asserted old Tricot. "They lack the touch." + +"Ah! Braggart! If I lay thee out with this pastry board, I'll not lack +the touch," laughed the wife. She was making wonderful little tarts with +crimped edges to be filled with assortments of confiture. + +"Let me mind the shop, then. I know I can do that." + +"Well, that will not be bad," agreed old Tricot. "While Marie (the +daughter-in-law) washes the linen and you make the tarts, Mam'selle can +keep the shop, but no board must she pay. I'll be bound new customers +will flock to us to buy of the pretty face." Judy blushed with pleasure +at the old peasant's compliment. + +"And thou, laggard and sloth! What will thou do while the women slave?" + +"I--Oh, I will go to the Tabac's to see what news there is, and later +to see if Jean is to the front." + +"Well, we cannot hear from Jean to-day and Paris can still stand without +thy political opinion," but she laughed and shoved him from the shop, a +very tender expression on her lined old face. + +"These men! They think themselves of much importance," she said as she +resumed her pastry making. + +Having tied a great linen apron around Judy's slender waist (much +slenderer in the last month from her economical living), and having +instructed her in the prices of the cooked food displayed in the show +cases, Mère Tricot turned over the shop to her care. The rosy baby was +lying in a wooden cradle in the back of the little shop and the +grandmother was in plain view in the tiny kitchen to be seen beyond the +living room. + +"Well, I fancy I am almost domesticated," thought Judy. "What an +interior this would make--baby in foreground and old Mother Tricot on +through with her rolling pin. Light fine! I've a great mind to paint +while I am keeping shop, sketch, anyhow." + +She whipped out her sketch book and sketched in her motive with sure and +clever strokes, but art is long and shops must be kept. Customers began +to pile in. The spinach was very popular and Judy became quite an adept +in dishing it out and weighing it. Potato salad was next in demand and +cooked tongue and rosbif disappeared rapidly. Many soldiers lounged in, +eating their sandwiches in the shop. Judy enjoyed her morning greatly +but she could not remember ever in her life having worked harder. + +When the tarts were finished and displayed temptingly in the window, +swarms of children arrived. It seemed that Mère Tricot's tarts were +famous in the Quarter. More soldiers came, too. Among them was a face +strangely familiar to the amateur shop girl. Who could it be? It was the +face of a typical Boulevardier: dissipated, ogling eyes; black moustache +and beard waxed until they looked like sharp spikes; a face not homely +but rather handsome, except for its expression of infinite conceit and +impertinence. + +"I have never seen him before, I fancy. It is just the type that is +familiar to me," she thought. "_Mais quel type!_" + +Judy was looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed from the +excitement of weighing out spinach and salad, making change where sous +were thought of as though they were gold and following the patois of the +peasants that came to buy and the argot of the gamin. She had donned a +white cap of Marie's which was most becoming. Judy, always ready to act +a part, with an instinctive dramatic spirit had entered into the rôle of +shop keeper with a vim that bade fair to make the Tricots' the most +popular place on Boulevarde Montparnasse. Her French had fortunately +improved greatly since her arrival in Paris more than two years before +and now she flattered herself that one could not tell she was not +Parisienne. + +The soldier with the ogling eyes and waxed moustache lingered in the +shop when his companions had made their purchases and departed. He +insisted upon knowing the price of every ware displayed. He asked her to +name the various confitures in the tarts, which she did rather wearily +as his persistence was most annoying. She went through the test, +however, with as good a grace as possible. Shop girls must not be +squeamish, she realized. + +One particularly inviting gooseberry tart was left on the tray. Judy had +had her eye on it from the first and trembled every time a purchaser +came for tarts. She meant to ask Mère Tricot for it, if only no one +bought it. And now this particularly objectionable customer with his +rolling black eyes and waxed moustache was asking her what kind it was! +Why did he not buy what he wanted and leave? + +"_Eh? Qu'est-ce que c'est?_" he demanded with an amused leer as he +pointed a much manicured forefinger at that particularly desirable tart. + +Judy was tired and the French for gooseberry left her as is the way with +an acquired language. Instead of _groseille_ which was the word she +wanted, she blurted out in plain English: + +"Gooseberry jam!" + +"Ah, I have bean pensè so mooch. You may spick ze Eengleesh with me, +Mees. Gueseberry jaam! Ha, ha! An' now, Mees, there iss wan question I +should lak a demandè of the so beootifool demoiselle: what iss the prize +of wan leetle kees made in a so lufly tart?" He leaned over the counter, +his eyes rolling in a fine frenzy. + +Where was Mère Tricot now? What a fine time to brandish her pastry +board! Gone to the innermost recesses of the apartment with the rosy +baby! Suddenly Judy remembered exactly where she had seen that silly +face before. + +"At Versailles, the day I got on the wrong train!" flashed through her +mind. She remembered well the hateful creature who had sat on the bench +by her and insulted her with his attentions. She remembered how she had +jumped up from the bench and hurried off, forgetting her package of +gingerbread, bought at St. Cloud, and how the would-be masher had run +after her with it, saying in his insinuating manner: "You have forgot +your _gouter, cherie_. Do you like puddeen very much, my dear?" + +It was certainly the same man. His soldier's uniform made him somewhat +less of a dandy than his patent leather boots and lemon coloured gloves +had done on that occasion, but the dude was there in spite of the change +of clothes. On that day at Versailles she had seized the gingerbread and +jammed it in her mouth, thereby disgusting the fastidious Frenchman. She +had often told the story and her amused hearers had always declared that +her presence of mind was much to be commended. + +The soldier leaned farther and farther over the counter still demanding: +"A leetle kees made in so lufly a tart." + +Ha! An inspiration! Judy grasped the desired gooseberry tart and thrust +the whole thing into her mouth. There was no time to ask the leave of +Mère Tricot. + +"_Ah quelle betise!_" exclaimed the dandy, and at the same moment he, +too, remembered the young English demoiselle at Versailles. He +straightened up and into his ogling eyes came a spark of shame. With a +smile that changed his whole countenance he saluted Judy. + +"Pardon, Mademoiselle!" + +Judy's mouth was too full to attempt French but she managed to say in +her mother tongue: + +"Why do you come in a respectable place like this and behave just like +a Prussian?" + +"Prussian! Ah, Mademoiselle, excuse, excuse. I--the beauty of the +_boutiquier_ made me forget _la Patrie_. I have been a roué, a fool. I +am henceforth a Frenchman. Mademoiselle iss wan noble ladee. She efen +mar her so great beauty to protec her dignitee. I remember ze _pain +d'epice_ at Versailles and _la grande bouchée_. Mademoiselle has _le bel +esprit_, what you call Mericanhumor. _Au revoir, Mademoiselle_," and +with a very humble bow he departed, without buying anything at all. + +The Tricots laughed very heartily when Judy told them her experience. + +"I see you can take care of yourself," said Père Tricot with a nod of +approval. "If the Prussians come, they had better look out." + +"Do you forgive me for eating the last gooseberry tart?" she asked of +Mère Tricot. "I was very glad of the excuse to get it before some one +bought it from under my very nose." + +Mother Tricot not only forgave her but produced another one for her that +she had kept back for the guest she seemed to delight to honour. + +"Our _boutiquier_ has sold out the shop," declared the old man. "I shall +have to go to market very early in the morning to get more provisions +cooked." + +"Ah, another excuse for absenting thyself!" + +"Oh, please, may I go with you?" begged Judy. + +"It will mean very early rising, but I shall be so pleased," said the +delighted old man, and his wife smiled approval. + +It was arranged that Judy was to sleep on a couch in the living room. +This suited her exactly, as she was able after the family had retired to +rise stealthily and open a window. The French peasant and even the +middle class Parisian is as afraid of air in a bedroom as we would be +of a rattlesnake. They sleep as a rule in hermetically sealed chambers +and there is a superstition even among the enlightened of that city that +night air will give one some peculiar affection of the eyes. How they +keep as healthy as they do is a wonder to those brought up on fresh air. +Judy had feared that her sleeping would have to be done in the great bed +with Marie and the baby and welcomed the proposition of the couch in the +living room with joy. There was a smell of delicatessen wares but it was +not unpleasing to one who had been economizing in food for so many days. + +"I'd rather smell spinach than American Beauties," she said to herself, +"and potato salad beats potpourri." + +Her couch was clean and the sheets smelled of lavender. Marie, the +little daughter-in-law, had been a _blanchisseuse de fin_ before she +became the bride of Jean Tricot. She still plied her trade on the family +linen and everything she touched was snow white and beautifully ironed. +The clothes were carried by her to the public laundry; there she washed +them and then brought them home to iron. + +As Judy lay on the soft, clean couch, sniffing the mingled smells of +shop and kitchen and fresh sheets, she thanked her stars that she was +not alone in the Bents' studio, wondering what she was to do about +breakfast and a little nervous at every sound heard during the night. + +Even the bravest feels a little squeamish when absolutely alone through +the long night. Judy was brave, her father's own daughter, but those +nights alone in the studio in Rue Brea had got on her nerves. It was +just so much harder because of the gay, jolly winter spent in the place. + + "I feel like one who treads alone + Some banquet hall, deserted," + +expressed her sentiments exactly. Once she dreamed that Molly Brown was +standing over her with a cup of hot coffee, which was one of Molly's +ways. She was always spoiling people and often would appear at the +bed side with matutinal coffee. The dream came after a particularly +lonesome evening. She thought that as Molly stood over her, her hand +shook and some of the coffee splashed on her face. She awoke with a +start to find her face wet with hot tears. + +Here at the Tricots, life was quite different. Mère and Père Tricot were +playing a happy duet through the night with comfortable snores. Marie +could be heard cooing to her baby as she nursed it and the baby making +inarticulate gurgles of joy at being nourished. The feeling of having +human beings near by was most soothing. Judy did not mind the snores, +but rejoiced in them. Even when the baby cried, as it did once in the +night, she smiled happily. + +"I am one of a family!" she exclaimed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A MOTHER'S FAITH. + + +"Edwin, Kent has been gone over two weeks now and not one word from +him," announced Molly when Mr. Bud Woodsmall had come and gone, leaving +no mail of any great importance. "I can see Mother is very uneasy, +although she doesn't say a word." + +"What was the name of his steamer?" asked the professor as he opened his +newspaper. "I wouldn't worry. Mail is pretty slow and it would take a +very fast boat to land him at Havre and have a letter back this soon." + +Edwin spoke a little absent-mindedly for the Greens were very busy +getting ready for their yearly move to Wellington College and time for +newspaper reading was at a premium. + +"But he was to cable." + +"Oh! And what was the name of the steamer?" + +"_L'Hirondelle de Mer_, swallow of the sea. I fancy it must mean flying +fish. Paul says it is a small merchantman, carrying a few passengers." + +"_L'Hirondelle de Mer?_" Edwin's voice sounded so faint that Molly +stopped packing books and looked up, startled. + +"What is it?" + +"It may be a mistake," he faltered. + +Molly jumped up from the box of books and read over her husband's +shoulder the terrible headlines announcing the sinking of the small +merchantman _L'Hirondelle de Mer_ by a German submarine. No warning +was given and it was not known how many of the crew or passengers had +escaped. The news was got from a boat-load of half-drowned seamen picked +up by an English fishing smack. The cargo was composed of pork and beef. + +Molly read as long as her filling eyes would permit, and then she sank +on her knees by her husband's chair and gave way to the grief that +overcame her. + +"Oh, Molly darling! It may be all right. Kent is not the kind to get +lost if there is any way out of it." + +"But he would be saving others and forget himself." + +"Yes, but see--or let me see for you--it says no women or children on +board." + +"Thank God for that!--And now I must go to Mother." + +"Yes, and I will go with you--but we must go with the idea of making +your mother feel it is all right--that Kent is saved." + +"Yes--and I truly believe he is! I couldn't have been as happy for the +last few days as I have been if--if--Kent----" She could say no more. + +Edwin held her for a moment in his arms and then called to Kizzie to +look after little Mildred, who lay peacefully sleeping in her basket, +blissfully ignorant of the trouble in the atmosphere. + +"Look! There's Mother coming through the garden! She knows! I can tell +by the way she holds her head." + +"My children! You were coming to me. You know, then?" + +"Yes, Mother! But Edwin and I think Kent is too strong and active +to--to----" + +"I know he is safe," declared the intrepid mother. "I am as sure of it +as though he were here in the garden of Chatsworth standing by me. One +of my children could not have passed away without my being conscious of +it." She spoke in an even, clear tone and her countenance was as one +inspired. + +"Oh, Mother! That is what I felt, too. I could not have been so--so +happy if anything awful had happened to Kent." + +Edwin Green was very thankful that the women in his family could take +this view of the matter, but not feeling himself to be gifted with +second sight, he determined to find out for sure as soon as possible +what had become of his favorite brother-in-law. He accordingly +telegraphed a night letter to Jimmy Lufton in New York to get busy as +quickly as possible, sparing no expense, and find out if the Americans +on board the vessel were saved. + +No doubt my readers will remember that Jimmy Lufton was the young +newspaper man whom Edwin Green had feared as a rival, and now that he +had won the prize himself, his feeling for that young man was one of +kindliness and pity. + +Answer came: a stray sailor had reported that he had seen the submarine +take on board two of the passengers who were battling with the heavy +sea. Whether Kent was one of them, he could not tell. + +There were days of anxious waiting. Molly and Edwin went on with the +preparations for their flitting, but could not leave Mrs. Brown until +she had assurance of the safety of her beloved son. That lady continued +in the belief that all was well with him, in spite of no news. + +Aunt Clay came over to Chatsworth to remonstrate with her younger sister +over what she called her obstinacy. + +"Why should you persist in the assertion that you would know if anything +had happened to your son? We all know that things happen all the time +and persons near to them go on in ignorance of the accidents. For my +part, I think it is indecent for you and your daughters to be flaunting +colours as you are. You should order your mourning and have services for +those lost at sea." + +As Mrs. Brown's flaunting of colors consisted of one lavender scarf that +Nance Oldham had knitted for her, this was, to say the least, +unnecessary of Sister Clay. + +Molly, who was present when the above unfeeling remarks were made, +trembled with rage and wept with misery; but not so Mrs. Brown. + +"I don't agree with you," she said with a calmness that astonished her +daughter. + +"Well, if Kent is alive, why does he not communicate with you? He is +certainly careless of you to leave you in ignorance for all of this +time." + +Molly noticed with a kind of fierce joy that her mother's head was now +held very high and her sensitive nostrils were a-quiver. "Her nose was +a-wuckin'," as Aunt Mary put it. + +"Careless of _me_! Kent! Sister Sarah, you are simply speaking with +neither sense nor feeling. It has been your own fault that you have not +obtained the love and affection of my children and so you wish to +insinuate that they are careless of me. My son will let me know where he +is as soon as he can. I already know he is alive and safe. You ask me +how I know it! I can only say I know it." This was said with so much +fire that Aunt Clay actually seemed to shrink up. She bullied Mrs. Brown +up to a certain point, but when that point reached criticism of one of +her children, woe betide Aunt Clay. + +Molly, whose certainty of Kent's being alive was beginning to grow weak +and dim with the weary days, felt new strength from her mother's brave +words. Edwin Green was forced to leave for the opening of Wellington, +but Molly closed the bungalow and brought little Mildred over to +Chatsworth, there to wait with her mother for some definite news. + +Old Aunt Mary was a great comfort to them. She shared in their belief +that their dear boy was alive. + +"Cose nothin' ain't happened ter that there Kent. Didn't he tell me he +was a goin' ter Parus ter bring home that Judy gal? The Dutch ain't a +goin' ter do nothin' ter a kind faceded pusson like our Kent. As fer +drowndin'! Shoo! I done hear Lewis say that Kent kin outswim de whole er +Jeff'son County. He kin swim to Indiany an' back thout ever touchin' +lan', right over yander by the water wucks whar the riber is mo'n a +mile. An' waves! Why, Lewis say whin the big stern wheelers is a jes' +churnin' up the riber till it looks like the yawnin' er grabes at +Jedgement Day that Kent would jes' laff at them an' plunge right through +jes' lak a feesh. An' I do hear tell that the waters er the mighty deep +is salty an' that makes me know that Kent ain't goin' ter sink. Don't we +tes' the brine fer pickles wif a aig? An' don't the aig float? An' if'n +the mighty deep is called the briny deep don't that mean it kin float a +aig? What kin float a aig kin float a young man what already knows how +ter swim crost an' back on the 'Hier Riber." + +Julia Kean's second letter came, also the one from her father in Molly's +care. Molly immediately sent it to the American Club in Paris. Judy's +letter certainly had nothing in it to reassure them as to her safety, +except the meeting with the old man with whom she had danced at St. +Cloud. + +"It means that Judy is able to make friends wherever she goes, and as +she says, she can always light on her feet, somehow," sighed Molly. She +did not add what was in her mind: "If she had only come home with Kent!" + +"Mother, I must write to Judy now that I have some kind of address. Must +I tell her?" + +"Yes, my dear, tell her all we know, but tell her of our conviction that +all is well. I will write to her myself, on second thought." + +John and Paul both spent every night at Chatsworth now, although it +meant very early rising for both of them and often a midnight arrival +or departure for Dr. John, whose practice was growing but seemed to +be restricted to persons who persisted in being taken very ill in the +night. + +"It is because so many of them are charity patients or semi-charity and +they always want to get all they can," he would declare. "Of course, a +doctor's night rates are higher than day rates, and when they are +getting something for nothing, if they call me up at two a. m. they are +getting more for nothing than they would be if they had their toe aches +in the day time." + +Ten days had passed since the half-drowned sailors had been picked up by +the English fishing smack, and still no message from Kent. + +Mrs. Brown wrote and dispatched her letter to Judy Kean. It was a hard +letter to write, much harder than it would have been had there been an +engagement between the two. The good lady felt that Judy was almost like +a daughter and still it required something more than existed to address +her as one. She must convey to Judy the news that Kent was shipwrecked, +and still she wanted to put in the girl's heart the faith she had in his +safety. + +"Poor Judy! If she is alone in Paris, think what it will mean for this +news to reach her!" Molly agonized to herself. "She may and may not care +for Kent enough to marry him, but she certainly is devoted to him as a +friend. She will feel it just so much more keenly because he was on his +way to her." + +Molly could not sleep in her great anxiety, and her faith and the +certainty of Kent's safety left her. "I must keep up for Mildred's +sake," she would cry as she tried to choke down food. Her every endeavor +was to hide this loss of faith from her mother, whose belief in her +son's being alive and well never seemed to falter. + +Daily letters from Edwin were Molly's one comfort. He was back in the +grind of lectures at Wellington and was missing sorely his wife and +child. + +"Molly darling, you mustn't wait any longer in Kentucky," her mother +said at breakfast one morning. Molly was trying to dispose of a glass of +milk and a soft boiled egg, although her throat seemed to close at the +thought of food. + +"But, Mother, I wouldn't leave you for anything in the world," she +declared, making a successful gulp which got rid of the milk, at least. + +"Your husband needs you, child, and I know it would be best for you. +There is no use in waiting." + +Molly looked up, startled. Had her mother, too, lost heart? Her face had +grown thinner in those days of waiting and her hair was quite grey, in +fact, silvery about the temples; but her eyes still held the light of +faith and high resolve. + +"She still has faith! And you, Molly Brown Green! Oh, ye of little +faith! What right have you to be a clog and burden? Take another glass +of milk this minute and keep up your health and your baby's health." +This to herself, and aloud: "Why, Mumsy, I want to stay right here. +Little Mildred is thriving and Edwin is doing very well at Wellington. +Every one is asking him out to dine, now that he is untrammelled with a +wife. He reports a big gain in attendance on last semestre and is as +cheerful as can be. Caroline, please bring me another glass of milk, and +I think I'll get you to soft boil another egg for me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +DES HALLES. + + +Mère Tricot called Judy just at dawn. The kindly old grenadier stood +over her, and this was no dream--she held a real cup of coffee. + +"The good man is ready. I hate to wake you, but if you want to go to +market with him, it is time." + +"Oh, yes! It won't take me a minute." + +Judy gulped the coffee and dived into her clothes. There seemed to +be no question of baths with the good Tricots, and Judy made a mental +note that she would go every day to the Bents' studio for her cold +plunge. A bathroom is the exception and not the rule in the poorer +class of apartments in Paris. In New York, any apartment worthy of the +name boasts a bathroom, but not so in the French city. + +Père Tricot was waiting for her with his little green push cart to +bring home the purchases to be made in market. He was dressed in a +stiff, clean, blue blouse and his kindly, lank old face was freshly +shaven. + +"Ah, Mam'selle! So you will go with the old man?" + +"Go with you! Of course I will! I love the early morning, and the market +will be beautiful." + +The streets were very quiet and misty. Paris never gets up very early, +and as the cold weather comes, she lies abed later and later. The +Gardens of the Luxembourg were showing signs of frost, or was it heavy +dew? The leaves had begun to drop and some of them had turned. + +There was a delightful nip in the air and as Judy and the old man +trudged along, the girl felt really happy, happier than she had for many +a day. "It must be having a home that is doing it," she thought. "Maybe +I am a domestic person, after all. + +"Père Tricot, don't you love your home?" + +"My home! You don't think that that shop in Boulevard Montparnasse is my +home, eh?" + +"But where is your home then?" + +"Ah, in Normandy, near Roche Craie! That is where I was born and hope to +die. We are saving for our old age now and will go back home some day, +the good wife and I. Jean and Marie can run the shop, that is, if----" + +Judy knew he meant if Jean came through the war alive. + +"The city is not for me, but it seemed best to bring Jean here when he +was little. There seemed no chance to do more than exist in the country, +and here we have prospered." + +"I have visited at Roche Craie. I think it is beautiful country. No +wonder you want to go back. The d'Ochtès were my friends there." + +"The Marquis d'Ochtè! Oh, Mam'selle, and to think of your being their +guest and then mine!" Judy could have bitten out her tongue for saying +she had visited those great folk. She could see now that the dear old +man had lost his ease in her presence. "They are the greatest +landowners of the whole department." + +"Yes, but they are quite simple and very kind. I got to know them +through some friends of mine who were related to the Marquise. She, you +know, was an American." + +"Yes, and a kind, great lady she is. Why, it was only day before +yesterday she was in our shop. She makes a rule to get what she can from +us for her household. She has a chef who can make every known sauce, but +he cannot make a tart like my good wife's. We furnish all the tarts of +the d'Ochtès when they are in Paris. Madame, the Marquise, is also +pleased to say that my _pouree d'epinard_ is smoother and better than +Gaston's, and only yesterday she bought a tray of it for their _déjeuner +a la fourchette_. Her son Philippe is flying. The Marquis, too, is with +his regiment." + +"How I wish I could have seen her!" + +"Ah, then, Mam'selle would not be ashamed for the Marquise to see her +waiting in the shop of poor Tricot?" + +"Ashamed! Why, Père Tricot, what do you take me for? I am only too glad +to help some and to feel that I can do something besides look on," and +Judy, who had been walking on the sidewalk while her companion pushed +his _petite voiture_ along the street, stepped down into the gutter and +with her hand on the shaft went the rest of the way, helping to push the +cart. + +As they approached the market, they were joined by more and more +pedestrians, many of them with little carts, similar to Père Tricot's +and many of them with huge baskets. War seemed to be forgotten for the +time being, so bent were all of them on the business of feeding and +being fed. + +"One must eat!" declared a pleasant fat woman in a high stiff white cap. +"If Paris is to be entered to-morrow by the Prussians, I say we must be +fed and full. There is no more pleasure in dying for your country empty +than full." + +"Listen to the voice of the Halles, Mam'selle. Can't you hear it +roaring? Ah! and there is the bell of St. Eustache." + +The peal of bells rose above the hum of the market. + +"St. Eustache! Can't we go into the church a little while first?" + +And so, hand in hand with the old Normandy peasant, Judy Kean walked +into the great old church, and together they knelt on the flagged floor +and prayed. Judy never did anything by halves, not even praying. When +she prayed, she did it with a fervor and earnestness St. Anthony himself +would have envied. When they rose from their knees, they both looked +happier. Old Tricot had prayed for his boy, so soon to be in the +trenches, and Judy offered an impassioned petition for the safety of her +beloved parents. + +When they emerged from the church, the sun was up and the market was +almost like a carnival, except for the fact that the color was subdued +somewhat by the mourning that many of the women wore. + +"Already so many in mourning!" thought the girl. "What will it be +later?" + +"First the butter and eggs and cheese! This way, Mam'selle!" + +They wormed their way between the great yellow wagons unloading huge +crates of eggs and giant cheeses. The smell of butter made Judy think +of Chatsworth and the dairy where she had helped Caroline churn on her +memorable visit to the Browns. Ah me! How glad she would be to see them +again. And Kent! She had not let herself think of Kent lately. He must +be angry with her for not taking his advice and listening to his +entreaties to go back to the United States with him. He had not written +at all and he must have been home several weeks. Maybe the letter had +miscarried, but other letters had come lately; and he might even have +cabled her. He certainly seemed indifferent to her welfare, as now that +the war had broken out, he had not even inquired as to her safety or her +whereabouts; not even let her know whether or not the job in New York +had materialized. + +She was awakened from her musings by her old friend, who had completed +his bargaining for cheese, butter and eggs and now was proceeding to +the fish market. + +"I must buy much fish. It is Friday, you remember, and since the war +started, religion has become the style again in France, and now fish, +and only fish, must be eaten on Friday. There are those that say that +the war will help the country by making us good again." + +And so, in a far corner of the cart, well away from the susceptible +butter and cheese, many fish were piled up, fenced off from the rest of +the produce by a wall of huge black mussels in a tangle of sea weed. + +"Well, there are fish enough in this market to regenerate the whole +world, I should think," laughed Judy. + +The stalls were laden with them and row after row of scaly monsters hung +from huge hooks in the walls. Men, women and boys were scaling and +cleaning fish all along the curbings. + +"Soon there will be only women and boys for the work," thought Judy +sadly, "and maybe it will not be so very long before there will be only +women." + +Cabbages and cauliflowers were bought next (cauliflowers that Puddenhead +Wilson says are only cabbages been to college); Brussels sprouts, too; +and spinach enough to furnish red blood for the whole army, Judy +thought; then chickens, turkeys and grouse; a great smoked beef tongue, +and a hog head for souse. The little green wagon was running over now +and its rather rickety wheels creaked complainingly. + +Old Tricot and Judy started homeward at as rapid a rate as the load +would allow. Judy insisted upon helping push, and indeed her services +were quite necessary over the rough cobbles. When they reached the +smooth asphalt, she told Père Tricot she would leave him for a moment +and stop at the American Club in the hope of letters awaiting there for +her. + +How sweet and fresh she looked as she waved her hand at the old man! Her +cheeks were rosy, her eyes shining, and her expression so naïve and +happy that she looked like a little child. + +"Ah, gentile, gentile!" he murmured. His old heart had gone out to this +brave, charming American girl. "And to think of her being friends with +Madame the Marquise!" he thought. "That will be a nut for the good wife +and Marie to crack." + +He pushed his cart slowly along the asphalt, rather missing the sturdy +strength that Judy had put into the work. Then he sat on a bench to rest +awhile, one of those nice benches that Paris dots her thoroughfares with +and one misses so on coming back to United States. + +Paris was well awake now and bustling. The streets were full of +soldiers. Old women with their carts laden with chrysanthemums were +trudging along to take their stands at the corners. The air was filled +with the pungent odors of their wares. Old Tricot stretched himself: + +"I must be moving! There is much food to be cooked to-day. It is time my +Mam'selle was coming along. Ah, there she is!" He recognized the jaunty +blue serge jacket and pretty little velour sport hat that Judy always +knew at which angle to place on her fluffy brown hair. "But how slowly +she is walking! And where are her roses? Her head is bent down like some +poor French woman who has bad news from the trenches." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE AMERICAN MAIL. + + +Judy had, clasped in her arms, a package of mail, unopened except for +the letter on top, which was the one that poor, brave Mrs. Brown had +written her. She had kept throughout the letter the same gallant spirit +of belief in her son's safety, but Judy could not take that view. + +"Gone! Gone! and all because of poor miserable, no-account me!" her +heart cried out in its anguish, but she shed no tear and made no sound. +Her face, glowing with health and spirits only a few minutes ago, was +now as pale as a ghost and her eyes had lost their sparkle. + +Père Tricot hastened towards her as she came slowly down the street. + +"My dear little girl, what is it?" + +"He is drowned and all for me--just my stubbornness!" + +"Who? Your father?" + +"No!" + +"Your brother, then?" + +"I have no brother." + +"Ah, then, your sweetheart? Your fiancé?" + +"I--I--sometime he might--that is, we were not fiancéd, not exactly." + +The old man drew her down on the bench beside him: + +"Now tell me all about it, _ma pauvre petite_." + +And Judy told him of her friends in Kentucky. Of Molly Brown and her +brother Kent; of her own stubbornness in not leaving France when the war +broke out; and then she translated Mrs. Brown's letter for him. + +"Ah, but the good lady does not think he is drowned!" + +"Yes, but she is so wonderful, so brave." + +"Well, are you not wonderful and brave, too? You must go on with your +courage. If a mother can write as she has done and have faith in _le bon +Dieu_, then you must try, too--that will make you worthy of such a +_belle mère_. Does she not say that two passengers were seen to be +saved by the enemy?" + +"Oh, Père Tricot, you are good, good! I will try--if Kent's own mother +can be so brave, why surely I must be calm, too, I, who am nothing to +him." + +"Nothing? Ah, my dear Mam'selle, one who is nothing does not have young +men take trips across the ocean for her. But look at the spinach wilting +in the sun! We must hasten to get the cooking done." + +Poor Judy! All zest had gone out of the morning for her. She put her +package of mail in the cart, not at all caring if it got at the fishy +end, and wearily began to push. Père Tricot, well knowing that work was +a panacea for sorrow, let her take her share of the burden, and together +the old peasant in his stiff blue blouse and the sad young American girl +trundled the provisions down the boulevard. + +"You have more letters, my daughter?" + +"Yes, I have not read them yet. I was afraid of more bad news." + +"Perhaps there is something from the mother and father." + +"No, the big one is from Molly and the others are just from various +friends." + +When they reached the shop, of course Mère Tricot started in with her +usual badinage directed against her life partner, but he soon tipped her +a wink to give her to understand that Judy was in distress, and the kind +old grenadier ceased her vituperation and went quietly to work washing +spinach and making ready the fowls for the spit. + +Judy took her letters to a green bench in the diminutive court behind +the apartment which passed for garden, with its one oleander tree and +pots of geraniums. Her heart seemed to be up in her throat; at least, +there was a strange pulsation there that must be heart. So this was +sorrow! Strange to have lived as long as she had and never to have known +what sorrow was before! The nearest she had ever come to sorrow was +telling her mother and father good-by when they started on some perilous +trip--but they had always come back, and she was used to parting with +them. + +But Kent--maybe he would never come back! It was all very well for Mrs. +Brown to refuse to believe in his being gone forever, but why should he +be the one to be saved, after all? No doubt the passengers who were lost +had mothers and--and what? Sweethearts--there she would say it! She was +his sweetheart even though they were not really engaged. She knew it now +for a certainty. Kent did not have to tell her what he felt for her, and +now that it was too late, she knew what she felt for him. She knew now +why she had been so lonesome. It was not merely the fact that war was +going on and her friends were out of Paris--it was that she was longing +for Kent. She understood now why she felt so homeless just at this time. +She was no more homeless than she had always been, but now she wanted a +home and she wanted it to be Kent's home, too. Fool! fool that she had +been! Why hadn't she gone home like all the sensible Americans when war +was declared? The Browns would never forgive her and she would never +forgive herself. She read again Mrs. Brown's letter. How good she was to +have been willing to have Kent turn right around and go back to Paris +for that worthless Julia Kean. And now he was gone, and it was all her +fault! Ah, me! Well, life must be lived, if all the color had gone out +of it. + +She wearily opened the letter addressed in Molly's handwriting. It was +from her father, and in it another from her mother, forwarded by Molly. +At last she had heard from them. They, too, hoped she had gone back to +America. Had taken for granted she had, since they had sent the letters +to Molly. She read them over and over. The love they had for her was to +be seen in every word. Never again would she part from them. How she +longed for them! They would understand about Kent, even though she was +not engaged to him. And now she knew what Bobby would advise her to do +were he there in Paris: "Work! Work until you drop from it, but work!" + +Already the great range, that stretched the entire length of the tiny +tiled kitchen, was filled with copper vessels, and appetizing odors were +permeating the living room and the little shop beyond. + +"Let me help," said Judy bravely. "Must I mind the shop or do you need +me here? I can't cook, but I can wash spinach and peel potatoes." + +"Marie can look after the shop this morning, my dear child, so you go +rest yourself," said the good wife. + +"I don't want to rest! I want to work!" + +"Let her work, Mother! Let her work! It is best so," and Judy's old +partner got the blue bowl, sacred to mayonnaise, and Judy sat on the +bench in the court and stirred and stirred as she dropped the oil into +the beaten egg. Her arm ached as the great smooth yellow mass grew +thicker and thicker, but the more her arm ached, the less her heart +ached. When the bowl was quite full, she started in on a great basket +of potatoes that must be peeled, some for Saratoga chips and some for +potato salad. Onions must be peeled, too, and then the spinach cleaned +and chopped in a colander until it was a purée. + +The Tricots worked with a precision and ease that delighted Judy. She +never tired of watching the grenadier turn out the wonderful little +tarts. On that morning a double quantity was to be made as Marie was to +carry a basket of them to "the regiment"; that, of course, meant Jean +Tricot's regiment. They had not yet been ordered to the front, but were +ready to go at any moment. + +The old woman put batch after batch in the great oven. They came out all +done to a turn and all exactly alike, as though made by machinery. Then +they were put in the show cases in the shop; and more were rolled out, +filled and baked. + +"Sometime may I try to do some?" + +The old woman smiled indulgently at Judy's pale face. + +"You may try right now." + +Judy made a rather deformed batch but Mère Tricot declared the children +would not know the difference, and they could be sold to them. "The +soldats must have the prettiest and another time you can make them well +enough for them." + +So far, Judy had not shed a tear. Her eyes felt dry and feverish and her +heart was still beating in her throat in some mysterious way. Suddenly +without a bit of warning the tears came. Splash! Splash! they dropped +right on the tarts. + +"Never mind the tarts!" exclaimed the kindly grenadier. "Those must go +to Jean's regiment. They will understand." + +"I could not help it," sobbed poor Judy. "I was thinking how proud Kent +would be of me when he knew I could make tarts and wondering how many +he could eat, when all of a sudden it came to me that he never would +know--and--and--Oh, Mother Tricot!" and she buried her face on the bosom +of the good old woman, who patted her with one hand and held her close +while she adroitly whisked a pan of tarts from the oven with the other. + +"Tarts must not burn, no matter if hearts are broken!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE ZEPPELIN RAID. + + +Judy's cry did her good, although it left her in such a swollen state +she was not fit to keep shop, which was what she had planned to do for +the afternoon. + +"I think I'll go round to the studio in Rue Brea for a little while. I +want to get some things." + +What she really wanted was to get a bath and to be alone for a few +hours. Her kind hosts thought it would be wise to let her do whatever +she wanted, so they gave her God-speed but begged her not to be out +late. + +Judy now longed for solitude with the same eagerness she had before +longed for companionship. She knew it would be unwise for her to give +up to this desire to any extent and determined to get back to her kind +friends before dark, but be alone she must for a while. She got the key +from the concierge and entered the studio. All was as she had left it. +Windows and doors opened wide soon dispelled the close odor. A cold bath +in the very attractive white porcelain tub, the pride of the Bents, made +poor Judy feel better in spite of herself. + +"I don't want to feel better. I've been brave and noble all morning and +now I want to be weak and miserable. I don't care whether school keeps +or not. I am a poor, forlorn, broken-hearted girl, without any friends +in all the world except some Normandy peasants. The Browns will all hate +me, and my mother and father I may never see again. Oh, Kent! Kent! Why +didn't you just pick me up and make me go with you? If you had been +very, very firm, I'd have gone." + +Judy remembered with a grim smile how in old days at college she had +longed to wear mourning and how absurd she had made herself by dyeing +her hair and draping herself in black. "I'm going into mourning now. It +is about all I can do for Kent. It won't cost much and somehow I'd feel +better." Judy, ever visualizing, pictured herself in black with organdy +collar and cuffs and a mournful, patient look. "I'll just go on selling +tarts. It will help the Tricots and give me my board." She counted out +her money, dwindled somewhat, but now that she was working she felt she +might indulge her grief to the extent of a black waist and some white +collars and cuffs. "I've got a black skirt and I'll get my blue suit +dyed to-morrow. I'll line my black sport hat with white crêpe. That will +make it do." In pity for herself, she wept again. + +She slipped out of the studio and made her few purchases at a little +shop around the corner. Madame, the proprietaire, was all sympathy. She +had laid in an especial stock of cheap mourning, she told Judy, as there +was much demand for it now. + +It took nimble fingers to turn the jaunty sport hat into a sad little +mourning bonnet, but Judy was ever clever at hat making, and when +she finished just before the sun set, she viewed her handiwork with +pardonable pride. She slipped into her cheap black silk waist and pinned +on the collar and cuffs. The hat was very becoming, so much so that +Judy had another burst of tears. + +"I can't bear for it to be becoming. I want to look as ugly and forlorn +as possible." + +She determined to leave her serge suit in the studio and come on the +following day to take it to a dye shop. As she was to do this, she +decided not to leave the key with the concierge but take it with her. + +Her kind friends looked sadly at the mourning. They realized when they +saw it that Judy had given up all hope of her friend. + +"Ah, the pity of it! The pity of it!" exclaimed the old grenadier. + +Marie, whose apple-like countenance was not very expressive of anything +but health, looked as sympathetic as the shape of her face would allow. +Round rosy cheeks, round black eyes, and a round red mouth are not easy +to mold into tragic lines, but Judy knew that Marie was feeling deeply +for her. She was thinking of her Jean and the possibility of turning her +bridal finery into mourning. There was so much mourning now and +according to the _Temps_, the war was hardly begun. + +"I'll have my serge suit dyed to-morrow," Judy confided to her. + +"Ah, no! Do not have it dyed! Mère Tricot and I can do it here and do it +beautifully. The butcher's wife over the way is dyeing to-morrow and she +will give us some of her mixture. It is her little brother who fell only +yesterday." + +That night there was great excitement in the Montparnasse quarter. A +fleet of air ships circled over the city, dropping bombs as they flew. +The explosions were terrific. The people cowered in their homes at first +and then came rushing out on the streets as the noise subsided. + +Père Tricot came back with the news that no great harm had been done, +but it was his opinion that the Prussians had been after the Luxembourg. + +"They know full well that our art treasures are much to us, and they +would take great pleasure in destroying them. The beasts!" + +"Where did the bombs strike?" asked Judy from her couch in the living +room. She had wept until her pillow had to be turned over and then had +at last sunk into a sleep of exhaustion only to be awakened by the +ear-splitting explosions. + +"I don't know exactly, but it was somewhere over towards the Gardens of +the Luxembourg. I thank the good God you were here with us, my child." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"L'HIRONDELLE DE MER." + + +Kent Brown, when he reached New York on his return trip to Paris in +quest of the rather wilful, very irritating, and wholly fascinating +Judy, got his money changed into gold, which he placed in a belt worn +under his shirt. + +"There is no telling what may happen," he said to the young Kentuckian, +Jim Castleman, with whom he had struck up an acquaintance on the train. +"Gold won't melt in the water if we do get torpedoed, and if I have it +next me, whoever wants it will have to do some tearing off of clothes to +get it. And what will I be doing while they are tearing off my clothes?" + +"Good idea! I reckon I'll do the same--not that I have enough to weigh +myself down with." Castleman was on his way to France to fight. + +"I don't give a hang whether I fight with the English, French, Serbs +or Russians, just so I get in a few licks on the Prussians." He was a +strapping youth of six feet three with no more idea of what he was going +up against than a baby. War was to him a huge football game and he +simply meant to get into the game. + +The _Hirondelle_ was a slow boat but sailing immediately, so Kent and +his new friend determined to take it, since its destination, Havre, +suited them. + +"I like the name, too," declared Kent, who shared with his mother and +Molly a certain poetic sentiment in spite of his disclaimer of any such +foolishness. + +There were very few passengers, the boat being a merchantman. Kent and +Jim were thrown more and more together and soon were as confidential as +two school girls. Kent had been rather noncommittal in his replies at +first to Jim's questions as to what his business was in the war zone at +such a time if it were not fighting. As their friendship grew and +deepened, as a friendship can on shipboard in an astonishingly short +time, Kent was glad enough to talk about Judy and his mission in Paris. + +"She sounds like a corker! When is it to be?" + +"I don't know that it is to be, at all," blushed Kent. "You see, we are +not what you might call engaged." + +"Your fault or hers?" + +"Why, we have just drifted along. Somehow I didn't like to tie her down +until I could make good--and she--well, I believe she felt the same way; +but of course I can't say. She knows perfectly well that I have never +looked at another girl since I saw her at Wellington when she and my +sister graduated there. She has--well,--browsed a little, but I don't +think she ever meant anything by it. We get along like a house +afire,--like the same things,--think the same way,--we have never talked +out yet." + +"Well, if you'll excuse me, I think you were an ass not to settle the +matter long before this." + +"Do you think so? Do you think it would have been fair? Why, man, I owed +some money to my mother for my education in Paris and did not even have +a job in sight!" + +"Pshaw! What difference does that make? Don't you reckon girls have as +much spunk about such things as men have? If I ever see the girl I want +bad enough to go all the way to Paris to get her, I'll tell her so and +have an answer if I haven't a coat to my back." + +"Perhaps you are right. I just didn't want to be selfish." + +"Selfish! Why, they like us selfish." + +Kent laughed at the wisdom of the young Hercules. No doubt they (whoever +"they" might be) did like Castleman selfish or any other way. He looked +like a young god as he sprawled on deck, his great muscular white arm +thrown over his head to keep the warm rays of the sun out of his eyes. +His features were large and well cut, his hair yellow and curly in spite +of the vigorous efforts he made to brush it straight. His eyes were blue +and childlike with long dark lashes, the kind of eyes girls always +resent having been portioned out to men. There was no great mentality +expressed in his countenance but absolute honesty and good nature. One +felt he was to be trusted. + +"Doesn't it seem strange to be loafing around here on this deck with no +thought of war and of the turmoil we shall soon be in?" said Jim one +evening at sunset when they were nearing their port. "We have only a +day, or two days at most, before we will be in Paris, and still it is so +quiet and peaceful out here that I can hardly believe there is any other +life." + +"Me, too! I feel as though I had been born and bred on this boat. All +the other things that have happened to me are like a dream and this life +here on the good old _Hirondelle de Mer_ is the only real thing. I +wonder if all the passengers feel this way." + +There were no women on board but the other passengers were Frenchmen, +mostly waiters from New York, going home to fight for _la France_. The +cargo was pork and beef, destined to feed the army of France. + +"What's that thing sticking up in the water out yonder?" exclaimed +Kent. "It looks like the top of a mast just disappearing." + +"A wreck, I reckon!" exclaimed Jim. + +Kent smiled at his countryman's "reckon." Having been away from the +South for many months, it sounded sweet to his ears. The "guess" of the +Northerner and "fancy" of the Englishman did not mean the same to him. + +The lookout saw the mast-like object at the same time they noted it, and +suddenly there was a hurrying and scurrying over the whole ship. + +"Look, it's sunk entirely out of sight! Jim Castleman, that's a German +submarine!" + +The shock that followed only a moment afterwards was indescribable. It +threw both of the Kentuckians down. They had hastened to the side of the +vessel, the better to view the strange "thing sticking up out of the +water." + +The boats were lowered very rapidly and filled by the crazed passengers +and crew. The poor waiters had not expected to serve their country by +drowning like rats. As for the crew,--they were noncombatants and +not employed to serve any country in any way. They were of various +nationality, many of them being Portuguese with a sprinkling of +Scandinavians. + +"Here's a life preserver, Brown! Better put it on. This ain't the Ohio." + +"Good! I'll take my chances in the water any day rather than in one of +those boats. Can you swim?" + +"Sure! I can do three miles without knowing it. And you?" + +"Hump! Brought up within a mile of the Ohio River and been going over to +Indiana and back without landing ever since I was in pants." + +"Well, let's dive now and get clear of the sinking boat. If anything +happens to me and you get clear, you write my sister in Lexington--she's +all I have left." + +"All right, Jim! Let's shake. If I give out and you get through, please +go get Judy and take her back to my mother." + +"That's a go! But see here, there is nothing going to happen to us if +endurance will count for anything. Have you got on your money belt?" + +"Yes; and you?" said Kent, feeling for the gold he carried around his +waist. + +"I'm all ready then." + +The boats, loaded to their guards, were putting off. Our young men felt +it was much safer to trust to themselves than to the crazy manning of +the already overloaded boats. They were singularly calm in their +preparations as they strapped on the life preservers. + +"Jim, throw away the papers you have, recommending you to that French +general. We may get picked up by the submarine, and as plain, +pleasure-seeking Americans we have a much better chance of being treated +properly than if one of us was going to join the Allies." Kent had +inherited from his mother the faculty of keeping his head in time of +peril. + +"Good eye, old man! They are in my grip and can just stay there. I +reckon I'm a--a--book agent. That won't compromise me any." + +"All right, stick to it! And here goes! We must stay together." + +The Kentuckians dived as well as the bulky life preservers would permit +and then they swam quietly along side by side. The ship was rapidly +settling. The last boat was off, so full that every little wave splashed +over its panic-stricken passengers. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +TUTNO. + + +The sea was comparatively calm and quite warm. If it had been anything +but a shipwreck, our young men would have enjoyed the experience. They +congratulated themselves that they had trusted to their own endurance +and the life preservers rather than to the crazy boats when they saw one +of the overloaded vessels come within an ace of turning turtle. + +The submarine was now on top of the water and was slowly steaming +towards the scene of disaster. The boats made for the opposite direction +as fast as the oarsmen could pull. They had not realized that all the +submarine wanted was to destroy the pork and beef cargo. The hungrier +the French army got the sooner they would be conquered by the Germans. + +"Well, my friend the book agent, what do you think about swimming in +the direction of the enemy? Remember we are Americans, just plain +Americans with no desire to do anything in the way of swatting +Prussians.--Neutral noncombatants!" said Kent, swimming easily, the +life preserver lifting him so far out of the water that he declared he +felt like a bell buoy. + +"Yes, I'll remember! My line is family albums and de luxe copies of +Ruskin. I hope those poor devils in the boats will make land or get +picked up or something." + +"Me, too! If the sea only stays so smooth they can make a port in less +than a day, if they don't come a cropper. We are almost in the English +Channel, I should say, due south of the Scilly Islands." + +"Well, I feel as though I belonged on them--here we are shipwrecked and +floating around like a beach party, conversing as quietly as though it +were the most ordinary occurrence to book agents and damsel seekers!" + +"There is no use in getting in a stew. I have a feeling that the Germans +are going to pick us up. They are heading this way and I don't reckon +they will let us sink before their eyes. If they don't pick us up, we +are good for many hours of this play. I feel as fresh as a daisy." + +"Same here!" + +"Thank God, there weren't any women and children on board!" said Kent +fervently. + +"Yes, I was feeling that all the time. I'd hate to think of their being +in those crazy boats." + +The German boat was quite close to them now. The deck was filled with +men, all of them evidently in great good humour with themselves and Fate +because of the terrible havoc they had played with the poor _Hirondelle +de Mer_, who was now at her last gasp, the waves washing over her upper +decks. + +"_Wei gehts?_" shouted Jim, raising himself up far in the water and +wigwagging violently at the death dealing vessel. + +It was only a short time before the efficient crew had Kent and Jim on +board, in dry clothes and before an officer. The fact that they were +Americans was beyond dispute, but their business on the other side was +evidently taken with a grain of salt by the very keen looking, alert +young man who questioned them in excellent English. + +Jim was quite glib with his book agent tale. He got off a line of talk +about the albums that almost convulsed Kent. + +"Why were you going to Paris to sell such things? Would a country at war +be a good field for such an industry?" + +"But the country will not be at war long. We expect the Germans to have +conquered in a short time, and then they will want many albums for the +snapshots they have taken during the campaign. I have been sent as an +especial favor by my company, who wish to honor me. I hate to think of +all my beautiful books being sunk in the _Hirondelle_." Jim looked so +sad and depressed that the young officer offered him a mug of beer and +urged him to try the Bologna sausage that was among the viands waiting +for them. + +Kent's reason for going to Paris was received with open doubt. It was +very amusing in a way that they should be completely taken in by Jim's +ingenuous tale of albums while Kent, telling the truth, the whole truth, +and nothing but the truth, should be doubted. + +"Going to Paris to bring home a young lady? Is she your sister?" + +"No, she is a friend of my sister," answered Kent, feeling very much as +though he were saying a lesson. + +"Do you know Paris?" + +"Yes, I studied architecture at the Beaux Arts last winter." + +"Ah, then your sympathies are with France!" + +"I am an American and my nation is remaining neutral on the war." + +"Yes, your nation but not the individuals! What were your intentions +after finding the young lady?" + +"To take her back to United States as fast as we could go." + +"Well, well! I am afraid the young lady will have to content herself in +Paris for some weeks yet, as we are bound for other ports now. Make +yourselves at home," and with a salute the officer left them to the +welcome meal which had immediately been furnished them after their +ducking. + +If the Kentuckians had had nothing to do but enjoy life on that +submarine, no doubt they could have done it. They were treated most +courteously by officers and men. The food was plentiful and wholesome, +the life was interesting and conversation with the sailors most +instructive, but Jim was eager to strike that blow against Prussia and +it was extremely irksome to him to have to keep up the farce of being a +book agent. Kent was more and more uneasy about Judy, realizing, from +the sample of Germans he now came in contact with, that ruthlessness was +the keynote of their character. They were fighting to win, and win they +would or die in the attempt; by fair means or foul, they meant to +conquer the whole world who did not side with them. + +"Gee, if I don't believe they can do it," sighed Jim, as he and his +friend were having one of their rare tete-a-tetes. "They have such +belief in their powers." + +"Yes, they seem much more stable, somehow, than the French. Did you ever +imagine anything like the clockwork precision with which this monster is +run?" + +"When do you reckon we will get off of her? We have been on a week now +and I see no signs of landing us. I am always asking that human question +mark, Captain von Husser, what he is going to do with us, and he just +smiles until his moustache ends stick into his eyes, and looks wise. I +feel like Hansel and Gretel and think maybe they are fattening us to eat +later on. I am getting terribly flabby and fat," and Jim felt his +muscles and patted his stomach with disapproval. + +"I'd certainly like to know where we are. You notice they never tell us +a thing, and since we are allowed only in the cabin and on a certain +part of the deck, we never have a chance at the chart. I wish they would +let us bunk alone and not have that fat head in with us. This is the +first time they have let us talk together since we got hauled in, and I +bet some one is to blame for this." + +Kent had hardly spoken before a flushed lieutenant came hurriedly up and +with ill-concealed perturbation entered into conversation with them. + +"Gee whiz!" thought Kent. "I wish Jim Castleman and I knew some kind of +a language that these butchers did not know. But the trouble is they are +so terribly well educated they know all we know and three times as much +besides." Suddenly there flashed into his mind a childish habit the +Browns used to have of speaking in a gibberish called Tutno. "I wonder +if Jim knows it! I've a great mind to try him." Putting his hand on his +friend's arm, he said quite solemnly: "Jug i mum, sank a nun tut, yack o +u, tut a lul kuk, Tutno." + +"Sus u rur e!" exclaimed Jim, delightedly. + +The lieutenant looked quite startled, wigwagged to a brother officer who +was passing and spoke hurriedly to him in German. As German was worse +than Greek to Kent and Jim (they had studied some Greek at school but +knew no German) they did not know for sure what they were saying, but +from the evident excitement of the two officers they gathered they had +quite upset the calculations of their under-sea hosts. + +"Gug o tot, 'e mum, gug o i nun gug, sus o mum e!" exclaimed Kent with +such a mischievous twinkle in his eye that the two officers bristled +their moustaches in a fury of curiosity. + +"Yack o u, bub e tut!" was Jim's cryptic rejoinder. + +For the benefit of my readers who have never whiled away the golden +hours of childhood with Tutno or who have perchance forgotten it, I +reckon (being a Southerner myself, I shall say reckon) I had better +explain the intricacies of the language. Tutno is a language which is +spoken by spelling and every letter sounds like a word. The vowels +remain the same as in English but the consonants are formed by adding u +and then the same consonant again. For instance: M is mum; N is nun; T +is tut; R is rur. There are a few exceptions which vary in different +localities making the language slightly different in the states. In +Kentucky, C is sank; Y is yack; J is jug. Now when Jim exclaimed: "Yack +o u bub e tut!" he conveyed the simple remark: "You bet!" to Kent's +knowing ears. + +Kent had opened the conversation by the brilliant remark: "Jim, can you +speak Tutno?" and Jim had answered: "Sure!" Then Kent had come back +with: "Got 'em going some!" + +The Kentuckians were in great distress when they realized that no doubt +the sinking of the _Hirondelle de Mer_ had been reported in the United +States and that their families must be in a state of doubt as to their +whereabouts. They had requested the Captain to let them send a message +if possible, and he had told them with great frankness that in war time +the women must expect to be uncertain. Two more ships had been sunk +since they had been taken on board, but they were kept in ignorance +as to what ships they were or what had been the fate of the crew or +passengers. They knew that some men had been added to the number of +prisoners on board, but as they were kept in a compartment to +themselves, they never saw them. + +Between operations, when the submarine came up on top of the water +and all on board swarmed on deck to smoke and enjoy the fresh air and +sunshine, Kent and Jim were politely conducted down into the cabin after +they were deemed to have had enough, and then the other prisoners, +whoever they were, were evidently given an airing. + +After our young men started their Tutno game they were never left alone +one minute. Such a powwowing as went on after it was reported was never +beheld. It was evidently considered of grave international importance. +Once they found their keeper taking furtive notes. Evidently they hoped +to gain something by finding out what the Americans were saying. + +The plentiful food that had at first been served to them was growing +more meagre and less choice. There was nothing but a small portion of +black bread with very bad butter and a cup of coffee for breakfast; a +stew of a nondescript canned meat and more black bread for dinner, and +for supper nothing but black bread with a smearing of marmalade. + +Jim's superfluous flesh began to go and Kent got as lean as a grey +hound. + +"Pup rur o vuv i sus i o nun sus, lul o wuv, I rur e sack kuk o nun!" +said Jim, tightening his belt. + +It had been more than two weeks since the sinking of the _Hirondelle_ +and the young men were growing very weary of the life. Their misery was +increasing because of the uncertainty they knew their families must be +in. No respite was in sight. They could tell by the balmy air when they +were allowed on deck that they were further south than they had been +when they were struck, but where, they had not the slightest idea. + +"The water looks as it does around Burmuda, but surely we are not over +there," said Kent in Tutno. + +"The Lord knows where we are!" answered Jim in the same language. + +"I wish the brutes would let us telegraph our folks, somehow. They could +do it if they chose. They can do anything, these Prussians." When Kent +said Prussians in Tutno: "Pup rur u sus sus i nun sus," the young +officer whose turn it was to guard them whipped out his note book and +examined it closely. + +"Sus often repeated!" he muttered. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE "SIGNY." + + +"The orders of the Commander are for the Americans to disembark!" + +A lieutenant clicked his heels in front of our friends and saluted. + +"Bub u lul lul yack!" shouted Jim. "Where? When?" + +"Immediately!" + +The submarine was on the surface of the water, but Jim and Kent had been +ushered below, evidently to give their mysterious fellow prisoners a +turn at the deck. They were never allowed to see them, and to this day +are absolutely ignorant as to who they were or how many or of what +nationality. + +It turned out that a Swedish vessel, the _Signy_, had been sighted +thirteen miles off the Spanish port of Camariñas. She was signaled and +ordered to take aboard the Kentuckians and land them. Explicit commands +were given the captain of the _Signy_ that she was to land the young men +immediately. + +Kent and Jim were too glad to get off the submarine to care where they +were being landed. They only hoped it was not in South America. + +"Gug o o dud bub yack!" shouted Jim to the grinning crew of the German +vessel. + +The young lieutenant of the inquisitive mind made another note in his +little book as the life boat from the Swedish ship bore the young men +away. + +They were very cordially received on board the _Signy_ but not allowed +to stay a moment longer than was necessary. The ship steamed to within a +few miles of the Spanish port, all the time being followed up by the +submarine, then the boats were lowered again and Kent and Jim rowed to +shore. They were given a good meal in the interim, however, one that +they were most pleased to get, too, as black bread and canned stew had +begun to pall on these favored sons of Kentucky. + +"Where in the thunder is Camariñas?" queried Kent. "I know it is Spain, +but is it north, south, east or west?" + +"Well, I reckon it isn't east and that's about all I know." + +It proved to be in the northwest corner and after some mix-ups, a person +was found who could speak English. The American Consul was tracked, +cablegrams were sent to Kentucky apprising their families of their +safety, and at last our friends were on the train en route for Paris. + +It was a long and circuitous journey, over and under and around +mountains. They would have enjoyed it at any other time, but Kent was +too uneasy about Judy to enjoy anything, and Jim was too eager to get in +line to swat the Prussians, as he expressed it, to be interested in +Spanish scenery. They traveled third class as they had no intention of +drawing too recklessly on their hoarded gold. + +After many hours of travel by day and night, they finally arrived in +Paris. It was eleven at night and our young men were weary, indeed. The +hard benches of the third class coaches had made their impression and +they longed for sheets and made-up beds. + +"A shave! A shave! My kingdom for a shave!" exclaimed Kent, as they +stretched their stiffened limbs after tumbling out of the coach in the +Gare de Sud. + +"Don't forget I am a stranger in a strange land, so put me wise," begged +Jim. + +"I know a terribly cheap little hotel on Montparnasse and Raspail where +we can put up, without even the comforts of a bum home, but we can make +out there and it is cheap. The _Haute Loire_ is its high sounding name, +but it is not high, I can tell you." + +"Well, let's do it. I hope there is some kind of a bath there." + +"I trust so, but if there isn't, we can go to a public bath." + +The Kentuckians were a very much dishevelled pair. They had purchased +the necessary toilet articles at Camariñas, but sleeping for nights in +suits in which they had already had quite a lengthy swim did not improve +their appearance. The submariners had pressed their clothes after their +ducking, but Jim's trousers had shrunk lengthways until he said he felt +like Buster Brown, and Kent's had dried up the other way, so that in +walking two splits had arrived across his knees. + +"We look like tramps, but the _Haute Loire_ is used to our type. I don't +believe we could get into a good hotel." + +"Are you going to look up your girl--excuse me, I mean Miss Kean, before +you replenish your wardrobe?" + +"Why, yes, I must not wait a minute. I would like to do it to-night." + +"To-night! Man, you are crazy! Get that alfalfa off your face first. One +night can't get her into much trouble." + +"Perhaps you are right. I am worn out, too, and a night's rest and a +shave will do wonders for both of us." + +Paris looked very changed to Kent. The streets were so dark and +everything looked so sad, very different from the gay city he had left +only a few weeks before. The _Haute Loire_ had not changed, though. It +was the same little hospitable fifth class joint. The madame received +the exceedingly doubtful looking guests with as much cordiality as she +would had they been the President of the Republic and General Joffre. + +There were no baths that night, but tumbling into bed, our Kentuckians +were lost to the world until the next day. What if the Prussians did fly +over the city, dropping bombs on helpless noncombatants? Two young men +who had been torpedoed; had floated around indefinitely in the Atlantic +Ocean; had been finally picked up by the submarine that had done the +damage; had remained in durance vile for several weeks on the submarine, +resorting to Tutno to have any private conversation at all; and at last +been transferred to a Swedish vessel and dumped by them on the northwest +coast of Spain--those young men cared little whether school kept or not. +The bombs that dropped that night were nothing more than pop crackers to +them. The excitement in the streets did not reach their tired ears. + +Kent dreamed of Chatsworth and of taking Judy down to Aunt Mary's cabin +so the old woman could see "that Judy gal" once more. Jim Castleman +dreamed he swatted ten thousand Prussians, which was a sweet and +peaceful dream to one who considered swatting the Prussians a +privilege. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE CABLEGRAM. + + +"Tingaling, aling, aling! Phome a ringin' agin! I bet that's Mr. Paul," +declared Caroline, the present queen of the Chatsworth kitchen. "I kin +tell his ring ev'y time. I'm a goin' ter answer it, Miss Molly." + +Molly, who was ironing the baby's cap strings and bibs (work she never +trusted any one to do), smiled. It was one of Caroline's notions that +each person had a particular way of ringing the telephone. She was +always on the alert to answer the "phome," and would stop anything she +was doing and tear to be first to take down the receiver, although it +always meant that some member of the family must come and receive the +message which usually was perfectly unintelligible to the willing girl. + +The telephone was in the great old dining room, because, as Mrs. Brown +said, every one would call up at meal time and if you were there, you +were there. Molly followed Caroline to the dining room, knowing full +well that she would be needed when once the preliminaries were over. She +gathered the cap strings and bibs, now neatly ironed and ready for the +trip to Wellington that she would sooner or later have to take. + +Still no news from the _Hirondelle de Mer_, that is, no news from Kent. +The last boat load of sailors and passengers had been taken up, but none +of them could say for sure whether the two Kentuckians had been saved or +not. One man insisted he had seen the submarine stop and take something +or some one on board, but when closely questioned he was quite hazy as +to his announcement. Jimmy Lufton had kept the cables hot trying to find +out something. The Browns and Jim Castleman's sister had communicated +with each other on the subject of the shipwrecked boys. + +"'Low!" she heard Caroline mutter with that peculiarly muffled tone that +members of her race always seem to think they must assume when speaking +through the telephone. "This here is Mrs. Brown's res-i-d-e-n-c-e! +Yessir! This here is Ca'line at the phome. Yessir! Miss Molly done made +yo' maw eat her breakfus' in the baid. No, sir, not to say sick in the +baid--yessir, kinder sick on the baid. Yessir! Miss Molly is a +launderin' of the cap ties fer the baby. We is all well, sir, yessir. +I'll call Miss Molly." + +Of course she hung up the receiver before Molly could drop her cap +strings and reach the telephone. + +"Oh, Caroline, why did you hang it up? Was it Mr. Paul?" + +"Yassum! It were him. I done tole you I could tell his ring. I hung up +the reception cause I didn't know you was so handy, an' I thought if I +kep it down, it might was'e the phome somehow, while I went out to fetch +you." + +Molly couldn't help laughing, although it was very irritating for +Caroline to be so intensely stupid about telephoning. Paul, knowing +Caroline's ways, rang up again in a moment and Molly was there ready to +get the message herself. + +"Molly, honey, are you well? Is Mother well? How is the baby?" + +"All well, Paul! Any news?" + +"Good news, Molly!" Molly dropped all the freshly ironed finery and +leaned against the wall for support. "A cablegram from Spain! Kent was +landed there by the German submarine." + +"Kent! Are you sure?" + +"As sure as shootin'! Let me read it to you--'Safe--well, Kent.' Tell +Mother as soon as you can, Molly, but go easy with it. Good news might +knock her out as much as bad news. I'll be out with John as fast as his +tin Lizzie can buzz us." + +"Safe! Kent alive and well!" + +Molly's knees were trembling so she could hardly get to her mother's +room, where that good lady had been pretending to eat her breakfast in +bed. Old Shep, standing by her bedside, had a suspiciously greasy +expression around his mouth and was very busy licking his lips, which +imparted the information to the knowing Molly that her mother's dainty +breakfast had disappeared to a spot to which it was not destined by the +two anxious cooks, Molly and Caroline. + +"Molly, what is it? I heard the 'phone ring. Was it Paul?" + +"Yes, Mother! Good news!" + +Mrs. Brown closed her eyes and lay back on her pillows, looking so pale +that Molly was scared. How fragile the good lady was! Her profile was +more cameo-like than ever. These few weeks of waiting, in spite of the +brave front she had shown to the world, had told on her. Could she stand +good news any better than she could bad? + +"Kent?" she murmured faintly. + +"Yes, Mother, a cablegram! 'Safe, well, Kent.'" + +"Where?" + +"Spain, I don't know what part." + +And then the long pent-up flood gates were opened and Mrs. Brown and +Molly had such a cry as was never seen or heard of. The cap strings that +Molly had dropped on the floor when she heard that there was news, she +had gathered up in one wild swoop on the way to her mother's room, and +these were first brought into requisition to weep on, and then the +sheets and the napkin from the breakfast tray, and at last even old Shep +had to get damp. + +"I bus' stop ad gall up Zue ad Ad Zarah. Oh, Bother, Bother, how good +God is!" + +"Yes, darling, He is good whether our Kent was spared to us or not," +said Mrs. Brown, showing much more command of her consonants than poor +Molly. + +Caroline appeared, one big grin, bearing little Mildred in her arms. + +"She done woke up an' say ter me: 'Ca'line, what all dis here rumpus +'bout?'" + +As Mildred had as yet said nothing more than "Goo! Goo!" that brought +the smiles to Molly and Mrs. Brown. + +"Lawd Gawd a mussy! Is Mr. Kent daid? Is that what Mr. Paul done phomed? +I mus' run tell Aunt Mary. I boun' ter be the fust one." + +"No, no, Caroline! Mr. Kent is alive and well." + +"'Live an' well! Well, Gawd be praised! When I come in an' foun' you +all a actin' lak what the preacher says will be in the las' day er +jedgment, a weepin' an' wailin' an' snatchin' er teeth, I say ter +myse'f: 'Ca'line, that there dream you had 'bout gittin' ma'id was sho' +sign er death, drownin' referred.' Well, Miss Molly, if'n you'll hol' +the baby, I'll go tell Aunt Mary the good news, too. Cose 'tain't quite +so scrumptious to be the fust ter carry good news as 'tis bad, but then +news is news." + +Sue was telephoned to immediately and joined in the general rejoicing. +Aunt Sarah Clay was quite nonplussed for a moment because of the +attitude she had taken about the family mourning, but her affection for +her sister, which was really very sincere in spite of her successful +manner of concealing it, came to the fore and she, too, rejoiced. Of +course she had to suggest, to keep in character, that Kent might have +communicated with his family sooner if he only would have exerted +himself, but Molly was too happy to get angry and only laughed. + +"Aunt Clay can no more help her ways than a chestnut can its burr." And +then she remembered how as children they would take sticks and beat the +chestnut burrs open and she wondered if a good beating administered on +Aunt Clay might not help matters. She voiced this sentiment to her +mother, who said: + +"My dear Molly, Life has administered the beating on your Aunt Clay long +ago. It is being childless that makes her so bitter. I know that and +that is the reason I am so patient, at least, I try to be patient with +her. Of course, she always asserts she is glad she has no children, that +my children have been a never ending anxiety to me and she is glad she +is spared a similar worry." + +"But, Mother, we are not a never-ending anxiety, are we?" + +"Yes, my darling, but an anxiety I would not be without for all the +wealth of the Indies. Aren't you a little bit anxious all the time about +your baby?" + +"Why, yes, just a teensy weensy bit, but then I haven't got used to her +yet." + +"Well, when you get used to her, she will be just that much more +precious." + +"But then I have just one, and you have seven." + +"Do you think you love her seven times as much as I love you, or Kent or +Milly or any of them?" + +"Oh, Mother, of course I don't. I know you love all of us just as much +as I love my little Mildred, only I just don't see how you can." + +"Maybe you will have to have seven children to understand how I can, but +when you realize what it means to have Mildred, maybe you can understand +what it has meant always to poor Sister Sarah never to have had any +children." + +"I suppose it is hard on her but, Mother dear, if she had had the seven +and you had never had any, do you think for a minute you would have been +as porcupinish and cactus-like in your attitude toward the world and +especially toward Aunt Clay's seven as she is toward yours? Never!" + +Molly's statement was not to be combatted, although Mrs. Brown was not +sure what she would have been like without her seven anxieties; but +Molly knew that she would have been the same lovely person, no matter +how many or how few children she had had. + +"I'm going to try to feel differently toward Aunt Clay," she whispered +into her baby's ear, as she cuddled her up to her after the great rite +of bathing her was completed that morning. "Just think what it must be +never to hold your own baby like this! Poor Aunt Clay! No wonder she is +hard and cold--but goodness me, I'm glad I did not draw her for a +parent." The baby looked up into her mother's eyes with a gurgle and +crow, as though she, too, were pleased that her Granny was as she was +and not as Aunt Clay was. + +"We are going to see Daddy soon, do you know that, honey baby?" And +Molly clasped her rosy infant to her breast with a heart full of +thanksgiving that now there was no dire reason for her remaining in +Kentucky longer. + +A farewell visit must be paid to Aunt Mary. The baby was dressed in +one of her very best slips and Molly put on her new blue suit for the +occasion, as she well knew how flattered the old woman was by such an +attention. + +"Well, bless Gawd, if here ain't my Molly baby and the little Miss Milly +all dressed up in they best bibantucker! I been a lyin' here a dreamin' +you was all back in the carstle, that there apple tree what you +youngsters done built a house up'n an' Miss Milly done sent me to say +you mus' come an wash yo' faceanhans fer dinner, jes' lak she done a +millium times, an' who should be up in the tree with you an' that there +Kent but yo' teacher an' that there Judy gal." + +Molly laughed as she always did when Aunt Mary called Professor Edwin +Green, her teacher. + +"Yes, chile, they was up there with you an' Kent up'n had the imprence +to tell me to go tell his maw that he warn't comin' ter no dinner, +'cause he an' that there Judy gal was a keepin' house up the tree." The +old woman chuckled with delight at Kent's "imprence." + +"I shouldn't be astonished if they did go to housekeeping soon, Aunt +Mary, but I don't fancy it will be up a tree." + +"An' what I done say all the time 'bout that there Kent not being +drownded? When the niggers came a whining 'roun' me a sayin' he was sho' +daid 'cause they done had signs an' omens, I say ter them I done had mo' +ter do with that there Kent than all of 'em put together an' I lak ter +know what they be havin' omens 'bout him when I ain't had none. If'n +they was any omens a floatin' 'roun' they would a lit on me an' not on +that triflin' Buck Jourdan. He say he dream er teeth an' 'twas sho sign +er death. I tell him mebbeso but 'twas mo'n likely he done overworked +his teeth a eatin' er my victuals, a settin' 'roun' here dayanight a +strummin' on his gittah, an' what's mo' I done tole him he better git +the blacksmith ter pull out one er his jaw teeth what ain't mo'n a +snaggle. Sukey low she goin' ter send him in ter Lou'ville ter one er +these here tooth dentists, but I say the blacksmith is jes' as good a +han' at drawin' teeth as they is, an' he chawge the same as ter shoe a +mule, an' that ain't much." + +"But Aunt Mary, I should think if there is anything serious the matter +with Buck's teeth he had better see a dentist. The blacksmith might +break his tooth off." + +"Who? This here blacksmith? Lawsamussy, honey, why he's that strong an' +survigorous that he would bust Buck's jaw long befo' he break his tooth. +He'll grab hol' the tooth and put his knee in Buck's chist an' he gonter +hol' on till either Buck or the tooth comes." + +A groan from the next room, the lean-to kitchen, gave evidence that Buck +was in there, an unwilling eavesdropper since the method of the +blacksmith on his suffering molar was the topic. + +"Don't you think the baby has grown, Aunt Mary?" asked Molly, mercifully +changing the subject. + +"Yes, she done growed some an' she done growed prettier. I seed all the +time she were gonter be pretty, an' when that there Paul came down here +an' give it to me that the new baby looked lak a pink mummy--I done +tol' him that I didn't know what a mummy were, but what ever it were, +the new baby didn't look no mo' lak one than he did when he was born, +'cause of all the wrinkly, scarlet little Injuns he would a fetched the +cake. That done dried that there Paul up an he ain't been so bombast +since bout the looks er no new babies." The old woman chuckled with +delight in remembrance of her repartee. + +"Aunt Mary, I think you are feeling better, aren't you? You seem much +more lively than when I saw you last." + +"'Cose I is feelin' better. Ain't we done heard good news from that +there Kent?" + +"But I thought you knew all the time he was all right." + +"Well now, so I did, so fur as I knew anything, but they was times when +I doubted, an' those times pulled me back right smart. Why, honey, I +used ter pray the Almighty if he lacked a soul ter jes' tak me. I is a +no 'count ole nigger on the outside but mebbe my soul is some good yit. +If I could give up my life fur one er Miss Milly's chillun, I'd be +proud ter do it!" + +"Oh, Aunt Mary, you have been so good to us always!" + +"Lawsamussy, chile! What I here fur but ter be good ter my white +folks? They's been good ter me--as good as gole. I ain't never wanted +fur nothin' an' I ain't never had a hard word from Carmichael or +Brown, savin', of cose, Miss Sary. She is spoke some hard words in her +day, but she didn' never mean nothin' by them words. I don't bear no +grudge against po' Miss Sary. The good Lord done made her a leetle +awry an' 'tain't fur me ter be the one ter try to straighten her out. +Sometimes whin I lies here a thinkin' it seems ter me mebbe some folks +is made lak Miss Sary jes' so they kin be angels on earth like yo' +maw. Miss Sary done sanctified yo' maw. She done tried her an' rubbed +aginst her, burnt her in de fire of renunciation and drinched her in +the waters of reproachment until yo maw is come out refimed gold." + +"Maybe you are right, Aunt Mary. I am trying to be nicer about the way +I feel about Aunt Clay myself. I think if I feel differently, maybe Aunt +Clay would feel differently toward me. She does not like me, and why +should she, since I don't really like her?" + +"I don't want ter take no Christian thoughts from yo' min' an' heart, +honey chile, but the good you'll git from thinkin' kin' things 'bout +Miss Sary will be all yo' own good. Miss Sary ain't gonter be no +diffrent. She done got too sot in her ways. The leper ain't gonter +change his spots now no mo'n it did in the time er Noah, certainly no +ole tough leper lak Miss Sary." + +It was hard to tell the old woman good-by. Every time Molly left +Chatsworth she feared it would be the last farewell to poor old Aunt +Mary. She had been bedridden now for many months, but she hung on to +life with a tenacity that was astonishing. + +"Cose, I is ready ter go whin the Marster calls," she would say, "but +I ain't a hurryin' of him. A creakin' do' hangs long on its hinges an' +the white folks done iled up my hinges so, what with good victuals +with plenty er suption in 'em an' a little dram now an' then 'cordin' +ter the doctor's subscription, that sometimes I don't creak at all. I +may git up out'n this here baid 'fo long an' be as spry as the nex'. I +wouldn't min' goin' so much if I jes' had mo' idee what Heaven is lak. +I'm so feard it will be strange ter me. I don't want ter walk on no +goldin' streets. Gold ain't no better ter walk on than bricks. Miss +Milly done read me the Psalm what say: 'He maketh me to lay down in +the green pastures.' Now that there piece sounds mighty pretty--jes' +lak singin', but I ain't never been no han' to set on the damp groun' +an' Heaven or no Heaven, I low it would give me a misery ter be a +doin' it now; an' as fer layin' on it, no'm! I wants a good rockin' +cheer, an' I wants it in the house, an' when I wants ter res' myse'f, +a baid is good enough fer me." + +The old woman's theology was a knotty problem for all of the Brown +family. They would read to her from the Bible and reason with her, but +her preconceived notion of Heaven was too much for them. She believed +firmly in the pearly gates and the golden streets, and freely announced +she would rather have her own cabin duplicated on the other side than +all the many mansions, and her own whitewashed gate with hinges made +from the soles of old shoes than the pearly gates. + +"What I want with a mansion? The cabin whar I been a livin' all my life +is plenty good enough for this old nigger. An' what's mo, blue grass a +growin' on each side of a shady lane is better'n golden streets. I ain't +a goin' ter be hard-headed bout Heaven, but I hope the Marster will let +me settle in some cottage an' let it be in the country where I kin raise +a few chickens an' mebbe keep a houndog." + +"I am sure the Master will let you have whatever you want, dear Aunt +Mary," Molly would say. + +"But if'n he does that, I'll get too rotten spiled ter stay in Heaven. +He better limit me some, or I'll feel too proudified even fer a angel." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +WELLINGTON AGAIN. + + +"Oh, it is nice to be back home," sighed Molly, settling herself +luxuriously in the sleepy-hollow chair that was supposed to be set +aside for the master of the house. With the girlish habit she had never +outgrown, she slipped off her pumps and stretched out her slender feet +to the wood fire, that felt very comfortable in the crisp autumn +weather. + +"That's what you said when we arrived in Kentucky in the spring," teased +her husband. + +"Well, so it was nice. The migratory birds have two homes and they are +always glad to get to whichever one is seasonable. I reckon I am with my +two homes as Mother is with her seven children. I love them just the +same. Thank goodness, I haven't seven of them, homes, I mean." + +"Yes, I think two are enough." + +"Which home do you love best, Wellington or the Orchard Home?" asked +Molly, smiling fondly at her husband, who was dandling little Mildred on +his knees with awkward eagerness. + +"Why, neither one of them is home to me unless you are there, and +whichever one you grace with your presence is for the time being the one +I like the better." + +"And the baby, too, whichever one she is in makes it home!" + +"Oh, certainly!" exclaimed Edwin Green with a whimsical expression on +his face. "I see that when I make love now it is to be to two ladies and +not to one." + +"Don't you think Mildred has grown a lot? And see, her eyes have really +turned brown, just as Mother said they would. Don't you think she looks +well?" + +"Yes, honey, I think she looks very well, but I don't think you do." + +"Me! Nonsense! I am as well as can be, just a little tired from the +trip." + +"Yes, I know. Of course that was fatiguing, but I think you are thinner +than you have any right to be. I am afraid you have been doing too +much." + +"Oh, not at all. I have had simply nothing to do but take care of the +baby, and that is just play, real play." + +"Humph, no doubt! But maybe you have played too hard and that is what +has tired you. I thought you were going to bring Kizzie along to nurse." + +"Oh, that was your and Mother's plan! I never had any idea of doing it. +'Deed and um's muvver is going to take care of 'ittle bits a baby +herself," and Molly reached out and snuggled the willing Mildred down in +the sleepy-hollow chair. Daddy's knee was not the most comfortable spot +in the world, and a back that has only been in the world about four +months cannot stand for much dandling. + +"But, Molly darling, Kizzie is a good girl and it would help you ever so +much to have her. You know we can well afford it now, so don't let the +financial side of it worry you." + +"But, Edwin, I can't give up taking care of the baby. I just love to do +it." + +"All right, my dear, but please don't wear yourself out." + +The fact was that the long strain of waiting for news from Kent had told +on Molly, and she was looking quite wan and tired. It was not just the +trip from Kentucky, which, of course, was no easy matter. Twenty-four +hours on the train with an infant that needed much attention and got +much more than it really needed was no joke, but the long hours and days +of waiting and uncertainty had taken Molly's strength. She did feel +tired and had no appetite, but she felt sure a night's rest would +restore her. She rather attributed her lack of appetite to the poor food +that the new Irish maid, whom Edwin had installed in her absence, was +serving. + +"I'll take hold of her to-morrow and see what can be done," she said +rather wearily to herself. "I wish Mother could train her for me. I +should much rather do the cooking myself than try to train some one who +is as hopelessly green as this girl." + +That night little Mildred decided was a good time to assert herself. +The trip had not tired her at all; on the contrary, it had spurred her +on to a state of hilarity, which was very amusing at first but as the +night wore on, ceased to be funny. She had come to the delightful +knowledge of the fact that she had feet and that each foot had five +toes. The cover did not stay on these little pigs one moment. Every +time Molly would settle her tired bones and begin to doze, there would +be a crow from Mildred, a gurgle, and straight in the air would go the +bed clothes, tucked in for the millionth time by the patient young +mother. Then the pink tootsies would leap into sight and soon find +their way to a determined little mouth. + +"Darling, you must go to sleepsumby!" Molly would remonstrate. "And you +will catch your death if you don't keep covered up!" + +But the four months' old baby had been too busy in her short life +learning other things to bother her head about a mere language. The +business of the night was feet and feet alone. There was too much to do +about those wonderful little feet for her to think of sleep. Finally +Molly gave up. She closed the windows, as too much fresh air on bare +feet and legs might not be best and already the little limbs were icy +cold. Then she kindled a fire in the grate, the furnace not yet having +been started, and gave herself up to a night of sleeplessness. Early in +the action, Edwin had been banished to the guest chamber, as he must get +sleep no matter what happened, for he had a busy day ahead of him. + +Toward morning little Mildred mastered her pedagogy, as her father had +called it, and then she dropped off into a deep and peaceful sleep. The +weary Molly slept, too. + +Before he went to his lectures, Edwin crept into the room to look at his +sleeping treasures. The chubby baby still had a toe clasped in her hand +but from very weariness had fallen over on her side and was covered up +all but the pink foot, which was asserting itself in the remarkable +position that only the young can take. Molly looked very pale and tired +but was sleeping peacefully. Edwin smiled at them. He had given the +green maid from the Emerald Isle strict orders not to awaken them. He +devoutly hoped that Molly would not know what a very mean breakfast he +had endeavored to choke down; burnt bacon and underdone biscuit washed +down with very weak coffee and flanked by eggs that had been cooked too +long and not long enough, thereby undergoing that process that the +chemist tells us is of all things the most indigestible: half hard and +half soft. The burnt bacon had been cold and the underdone biscuit still +cooking, seemingly, when the poor young husband and father had tried to +nourish himself on them. + +He had rather hoped when Molly once got back to Wellington that his food +would be better; no doubt it would as soon as she, poor girl, could get +rested up. He was thankful, indeed, now that she was asleep and tiptoed +out of the room and house without making a sound. + +She slept until late in the morning and then the business of the day +began, getting little Mildred fed and washed and dressed and fed again +and then to sleep. The good-natured, if wholly incapable, Katy hung +around and waited on the pretty young mistress. Katy had never been out +in service in the "schtates," but had come from New York in answer to an +advertisement in a newspaper inserted by the despairing professor when +he had come back to Wellington alone while his wife waited in Kentucky +for news of her brother. He had had kindly visions of getting a good +Irish cook and having the housekeeping all running beautifully before +Molly's return. + +Immigrant Katy proved rosy and willing but with no more conception of +how to cook than she had how to clean. She was great on "scroobing," +but walls and furniture and carpets were not supposed to be scrubbed. +The kitchen floor and pantry shelves were alike beautiful after her +administrations, but gold dust and a stiff brush had not improved the +appearance of the piano legs. Edwin had come home in the nick of time +to stop her before she vented her energies on Molly's own Persian +rug, the pride of her heart because of the wonderful blue in it. + +"What time is it, Katy?" asked Molly after the baby was absolutely +finished and tucked in her carriage to stay on the porch. + +"'Tis twilve of the clock, Miss, and I haven't so much as turned a hand +below schtairs." + +"Oh, it can't be that late! Lunch at one! What are we to have?" + +"And that I am not knowing, Miss. Sure and there is nothing in the +house." + +"Oh, Katy, and I have been dawdling up here for hours! I forgot about +keeping house, I was so taken up with the baby." + +"Yes, and no doubt your man will be sour about it, too." + +Molly, still in her kimono, flew to the regions below and began +frantically to search for something to concoct into luncheon. A forlorn +piece of roast veal was excavated and half a loaf of stale baker's +bread. A can of asparagus, a leftover from the housekeeping of the +spring, was unearthed. Olive oil was in the refrigerator, also, butter, +milk and eggs. The veal looked very hopeless, evidently having reposed +for hours in a half cold oven before it had furnished forth a miserable +dinner for the poor professor. + +"Now I'll 'form a miracle on the vituals,' as dear Aunt Mary would say," +declared Molly to herself. "Katy, get the dining room straight. Don't +scrub anything but just clear off the table and then set it again as +well as you can. Put on a fresh lunch cloth and clean napkins; then see +that the fire in the library is all right." + +The veal, run through the meat chopper, came out better than was to be +expected, and croquettes were formed and frying in deep fat before the +dazed Katy had cleared off the breakfast table. + +"Katy, you must hurry or we won't have the master's luncheon ready when +he gets in." + +"Faith, and, Mrs. Green, you do be flying round so schwift like, that I +can't get me breath. I feel like the wind from your schkirts was sinding +me back. All I can do is schtand schtill and breast the wind." + +"Well, I tell you what you do then," laughed Molly: "You come fly with +the wind," and she caught the Irish girl by the hand and ran her around +the dining room table just to show her how fast she could go if +necessary. Katy, having got wound up, kept on going at a rate of speed +that was astonishing. To be sure, she broke a cup and a plate, but what +was a little chaney to the master's luncheon being served on time? + +The faithful can of asparagus was opened and heated; toast was made from +the half loaf of stale bread, and a cream sauce prepared to pour over +the asparagus on toast. Popovers were stirred up and in the oven before +Katy got the table set, although she was going with the wind instead of +trying to breast it. A few rosy apples from the orchard at Chatsworth, +unearthed from the depths of the unpacked trunk, formed a salad with a +mayonnaise made in such a hurry that Molly trembled for its quality; but +luck being with her that day, it turned out beautifully. + +"No lettuce, so we'll put the salad on those green majolica plates and +maybe he won't notice," she called to Katy, just as the professor +opened the front door. + +"Mol--ly!" he called. + +"Here I am." + +The mistress of the house emerged from the kitchen in a state of +mussiness but looking very pretty withal, her red-gold hair curling up +in little ringlets from the steam and her cheeks as rosy as though she +had joost come over wid Katy. Her blue kimono was very becoming but +hardly what she would have chosen to appear in at luncheon. + +"I am so sorry not to be dressed, but I had to hustle so as to get lunch +ready in time. The clock struck twelve when I thought it was about ten." + +"Did you have to get luncheon? Where was Katy?" + +"She helped, but I wanted to have a finger in it. If you will wait a +minute, I will get into a dress." + +"Why, you look beautiful in that loose blue thing; besides, I have to +eat and run. A faculty meeting is calling me." + +The luncheon was delicious, and Edwin gave it all praise by devouring +large quantities of it. Molly could not eat much as she was too hot, and +hurrying is not conducive to appetite. Mildred, who was sleeping on the +porch, awoke when the meal was half over and Molly could not trust Katy +to take her up. + +"She might hold her upside down. I will bring her to the table and she +can talk to you while you are finishing!" + +So Molly flew to the porch and picked up her darling. She had intended +to take her to the dining room but she remembered it was time for +Mildred to have her food and so the patient Edwin had to finish his meal +alone. + +He found his wife and baby on the upper back porch. The color had left +Molly's cheeks and she was quite pale, and there was a little wan, +wistful look in her countenance that Edwin did not like. + +"Molly, honey, you are all tired out. You did not eat your luncheon and +you got no sleep last night. What are we going to do about it?" + +"Oh, I'm all right! Please don't bother about me! Did you like the apple +salad? They were apples from Kentucky." + +"Fine! Everything was delicious. But I don't want you to wear yourself +out cooking. If Katy can't cook, we must get some one who can. If she +can't cook and you won't let her nurse, why what is the use of her?" + +Molly, worn out with the sleepless night and the record breaking getting +of a meal out of nothing, felt as though she would disgrace herself in a +minute and burst into tears. She could not discuss the matter with Edwin +for fear of breaking down. Edwin kissed her good-by and tactfully +withdrew. + +"You goose, Molly Brown!" she scolded herself. "And what on earth are +you so full of tears over? I know Edwin thinks I ought to have a nurse +and I just can't trust Mildred to any one. I am going to try so hard to +have everything so nice that he won't think about it any more." + +A grand telephoning for provisions ensued, and a dinner was planned for +six-thirty that would have taxed the culinary powers of a real chef and +before which Katy bowed her head in defeat. It meant that by four Molly +must be back in the kitchen to start things. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +IRISHMAN'S CURTAINS. + + +Callers came in through the afternoon to welcome back to Wellington the +popular wife of the popular professor and to glimpse the new baby. Kind +Mrs. McLean, the wife of the doctor, a little older than when last we +saw her but showing it only in her whitening hair and not at all in her +upright carriage and British complexion, stopped in "just for a moment" +to be picked up later by the doctor on his way to a country patient. +Miss Walker herself, the busy president of Wellington, ran in from the +meeting of the faculty to greet her one time pupil and to give one kiss +to the college baby. Several of the seniors, who were freshmen when +Molly was still at college as post graduate and who had the delight of +calling her Molly while most of the others had to say Mrs. Green, came +in fresh from a game of basketball, glowing with health and enthusiasm. + +While these friends were all gathered about Molly and the baby, Alice +Fern, Edwin Green's cousin, driving in to Wellington in a very stylish +new electric car, stopped to make a fashionable call on her law kin. She +had never forgiven Molly for stealing (as she expressed it) Edwin's +affections. She was still Miss Fern, and although she was possessed of +beauty and intelligence, it was likely that she would remain Miss Fern. +Molly was never very much at her ease with Alice. She was particularly +sensitive to any feeling of dislike entertained toward her, and Edwin's +cousin always made her feel that she disapproved of her in some way. + +The living room in the broad old red brick house on the campus, occupied +by the professor of English, was a pleasant room, breathing of the +tastes and pursuits of the owners. Low bookshelves were in every nook +and cranny, filled with books, the shelves actually sagging with them. +Botticelli's Primavera, a present from Mary Stewart, adorned one wall; +Mathew Jouette's portrait of Molly's great grandmother, a wedding +present from Aunt Clay, another. This was the portrait that looked so +much like Molly and also like the Marquise d'Ochtè, between whom and +Aunt Sarah Clay there was no love lost; indeed, it was this likeness +that had induced Aunt Clay to part with such a valuable work of art. The +other pictures were some dashing, clever sketches by Judy Kean, and +Pierce Kinsella's very lovely portrait of Mrs. Brown, that had won +honorable mention at the Salon and then had been sent by the young +artist to adorn Molly's home. On the whole, it was a very satisfactory +and tastefully furnished room and Molly and Edwin always declared they +could talk better and think better in that room than in any they had +ever seen. + +On that first day home, Molly was a little conscious of the fact that +the room needed a thorough cleaning, not the scrubbing that Katy was so +desirous of administering, but just a good thorough cleaning. However, +she was so glad to see her friends again and so proud of showing her +wonderful baby to them that the cleaning seemed of small importance. + +"I'll dust all the books to-morrow," she said to herself, "and have Katy +wipe down the walls, polish the glass on the pictures, and above all, +wash the windows." + +She well knew that Miss Walker and dear Mrs. McLean were not noticing +such things, or, if they did, they would make all excuses. As for the +college girls--dirt was not what they came to see. They came to see the +lovely Molly and her adorable baby. If the walls were festooned with +cobwebs, why that was the way walls should be in the home of a learned +professor of English, who had written several books, besides the +libretto to a successful opera, and who was married to a beautiful +Titian-haired girl who was also a genius in her way, having been +accepted in magazines when she was not even out of college. What did +they care for dust on the books and smeary window panes? Molly was so +popular with the college girls that in their eyes she was perfection +itself. + +Alice Fern's entrance broke up the cheerful group gathered around Molly +and the rosy Mildred. Miss Walker suddenly remembered that she had an +important engagement and hurried off, and Mrs. McLean, who made no +endeavor to hide her impatience at Miss Fern's exceeding smugness, went +outside to wait for the doctor. The girls stayed, however, hoping to sit +out the unwelcome interrupter. + +These girls were favorites of Molly's. The harum scarum Billie McKym +from New York reminded her in a way of her own Judy, although no one +else could see it. Josephine Crittenden, Tom boy of college and leader +in all sports, hailed from Kentucky, and being a distant relative of +Crittenden Rutledge, Mildred Brown's husband, was of course taken +immediately under the wing of the loyal Molly. She had what she called a +crush on Molly, and not a little did she amuse that young matron, as +well as annoy her, by her gifts of flowers and candy. + +The third girl was from the West. Thelma Olsen was her name, and +although her family had been in America for three generations, Thelma +had inherited the characteristics of a Viking maiden along with the +name. She was very tall, with an excellent figure and the strength of +a man. Her hair was as yellow as gold and her eyes as blue as corn +flowers. She moved with dignity, holding her head up like a queen. Her +expression was calm and kindly. She had, in very truth, worked her way +through college, which of course appealed to Molly, remembering well her +own boot blacking days and her many schemes for making a few pennies. +But what most touched our Molly was the fact that Thelma had a writing +bee in her bonnet. The girl had an instinct for literature and a longing +for expression that must come out. Professor Green thought very highly +of her gift for prose and did much to encourage her. + +These three girls formed a strange trio, but they were inseparable, +having roomed together since their freshman year. Billie was very rich +in her own name, since she was an orphan with nothing closer than a +guardian and an aunt-in-law. Money meant no more to her than black-eyed +peas. She was intensely affectionate and where she loved, she loved so +fiercely that it positively hurt, she used to say. She was witty and +clever but not much of a student, as is often the case where learning +comes too easily. She was so generous it was embarrassing to her +friends. Her talent lay in clothes. She knew more about clothes than +Paquin and Doucet and all the others. It positively hurt her when her +friends did not wear becoming clothes, just as it hurt her when she +loved them so hard. The object of her life was to clothe her dear friend +Thelma in dark blue velvet. Thelma was too proud to be clothed in +anything that she had not paid for herself, and the consequence was that +coarse blue serge was as near as she came to poor Billie's dream. + +Alice Fern seated herself on the front of a chair with very much of +a lady-come-to-see expression and then formally entered into a +conversation, going through the usual questions about when Molly had +arrived and how old the baby was, polite inquiries regarding the +relatives in Kentucky, etc. + +Molly was eager to get into the kitchen just for a moment to start Katy +on the right track, well knowing that nothing would be doing until she +did, but Alice Fern's arrival made that impossible. She would not in the +least have minded excusing herself for a moment to the girls, but if +Edwin Green had to wait until midnight for his dinner, she could not be +guilty of such a breach of etiquette with the cousin-in-law, whose +disapproval she felt was ever on the alert for a _raison d'être_. A leg +of lamb, and well grown lamb at that, must have plenty of time and the +oven must be hot (something Katy knew nothing about), but the wife of +Professor Green must not let his relatives know that she was such a poor +manager as to have to leave the parlor to attend to cooking at a time in +the afternoon when callers were supposed to be doing their calling. + +Alice Fern was really a very pretty young woman, and since she had +nothing to do but attend to her person, she was always excellently well +groomed. No blemish was allowed on her faultless complexion from sun or +wind. An hour a day was religiously given up to massage and manicure. +Her hair was always coiffed in the latest mode, and not one lock was +ever known to be out of place. Her costume was ever of the richest and +most stylish. + +On that afternoon, as she rode up in her closed electric car, dressed in +a fawn-colored suit with spotless white gloves and spats, she really +looked like a beautiful wax figure in a showcase. Beside her, poor Molly +looked like a rumpled Madonna. She had on a very becoming blue linen +house dress that she had donned as not only suitable for possible +callers but also not too pure or good in which to cook her husband's +food. The baby had delighted the admiring audience, before the arrival +of Miss Fern, by clutching a handful of her mother's pretty hair and +having to have her little pink fingers opened one by one to disengage +them. No doubt it was a highly intelligent and charming performance, but +it had played sad havoc with Molly's hair. + +"We are so glad you are back, Molly, for more reasons than one," +exclaimed Jo Crittenden, hoping to loosen the tension a little, when +Alice had completed her perfunctory catechism. "When are you going to +begin the Would-be Authors' Club?" + +"Oh, do begin soon!" begged Billie. "Thelma has turned out some +scrumptious bits during vacation, and even I have busted loose on +paper." + +"Yes, I have written a lot this summer," said Thelma, as Molly smiled on +her. "Have you done anything, or has the baby kept you too busy?" + +"Oh, I had plenty of time while I was in Kentucky. You see, out there I +have a very good servant and then my mother helps me with Mildred. I +have finished a short story and sent it off. Of course, I am expecting +it back by every mail." + +"I should think your household cares would prevent your giving much time +to scribbling," sniffed Alice, if one could call the utterances of such +an elegant dame sniffing. + +"Scribbling! Why, Mrs. Green has written real things and been in real +magazines," stormed Billie. + +"Ah, indeed!" + +"Yes, and if we had not limited the Would-be Authors to twenty, we would +have the whole of Wellington clamoring to join," declared Jo, who +considered it was high time for a perfect gentleman to step in and let +Miss Alice Fern know how Wellington felt toward Mrs. Edwin Green. + +Miss Fern said nothing but stared at the corner of the room that Edwin +and Molly called: "The Poet's Corner." It was where all the poetry, +ancient, medieval and modern, found shelf room. Over it hung +Shakespeare's epitaph, a framed rubbing from the tomb, the same that +Edwin had always kept over his desk in his bachelor days to scare his +housekeeper, Mrs. Brady, into sparing his precious papers. + + "Good frend for Isus sake forbeare + To digg ye dust encloased heare + Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones + And curst be he yt moves my bones." + +She kept her eyes so glued to the spot over the book shelves that +finally all turned involuntarily to see what she was gazing on so +intently. There it hung! There was no denying it or overlooking it: a +great black cobweb that must have been there for several generations of +spiders. No doubt it had taken all summer to weave such a mighty web and +catch and hold so much grime. + +Molly blushed furiously. For a moment, she almost hated Katy and she +wholly hated Alice Fern. That elegant damsel had a supercilious +expression on her aristocratic countenance that said as plainly as +though she had given utterance to her thoughts: + +"Author's Club, indeed! She had much better clean her house." + +Molly was suddenly conscious that every corner was festooned with +similar webs. The late afternoon sun was slanting in the windows and its +searching rays had found and were showing up every grain of dust. The +panes of glass were, to say the least, grimy. + +"Oh!" she faltered, "I didn't know it was so--so--dusty in here. Katy, +the new maid, was supposed to have cleaned it before I came." + +"What do you care for a few Irishman's curtains?" said the +hero-worshipping Billie. "No one noticed them until--ahem--until the +sun came in the window." She _said_ sun came in the window but she +plainly _meant_ Fern came in the door. + +"I haven't had time to do much housekeeping since I got back," continued +Molly, lamely. "The new maid, Katy, that Edwin got from New York, is +most inefficient but so good-natured that I am hoping to train her. The +truth of the matter is that she and I spent the whole morning doing +things for Mildred and we let the house go. I am going to have a big +cleaning to-morrow." + +Molly felt like weeping with mortification and she began to hate herself +for making explanations and excuses to Alice Fern. Even if she kept +Professor Green's house festooned in cobwebs from attic to cellar and +had dust over everything thick enough to write your name, what business +was it of this perfect person? She suddenly realized, too, that that +perfect person had never uttered a word although she had looked volumes. + +Miss Fern arose from her prim seat and made a rather hasty retreat. The +relieved Molly excused herself to the girls and rushed to the kitchen to +start Katy on the dinner that should have been on half an hour before. +What was her chagrin to find the fire only just kindled, as Katy had let +it go out so that she might polish the stove. The Irish girl was on her +knees "scroobing," happy in a sea of soap suds. + +Molly almost had hysterics. How could she ever get things done? Edwin +would be home any moment now and she could not stand having a miserable +underdone dinner for him, nor could she stand having his dinner hours +late. She realized that there was no use in reprimanding Katy,--the girl +was simply ignorant. She asked her gently to postpone her "scroobing" +until later and to wash her hands and prepare the vegetables. Then she +piled kindling wood in the range until the chimney roared so that Katy +said it sounded like a banshee. The oven must be hot for the roast. + +"I tell you what to do, Katy: make some tea immediately and slice some +bread quite thin, open this box of peanut cookies, and we will have such +a grand tea that the master won't be hungry until the roast is done." + +"And phwat a schmart trick!" laughed the girl. + +When Miss Fern made her adieux, Molly had flown so quickly to the +kitchen that she had not seen her husband crossing the campus. Alice +Fern had seen him, however, and her greeting of him was so warm and +friendly, her smile so charming and her manner so cordial that she +hardly seemed the same person who had just left poor Molly stuttering +and stammering apologies over her Irishman's curtains. + +"Look at the pill!" exclaimed Jo. "She is about to eat up Epiménides +Antinous Green." That was the name Professor Green was known by at +Wellington. + +"Did you ever see any one cast such a damper over a crowd without saying +a single word? I thought Molly was going to cry," declared Billie. + +"I think our friend is looking very tired," said Thelma. "I wish we +could do something for her. She says this new maid is almost worse than +none at all." + +"I've got a scheme!" squealed Billie. "I know of a way to help. Gather +'round me, girls!" And then such another whispering as went on in the +house--while Molly behaved like triplets in the kitchen, being in at +least three places at one time in her determination to get dinner on the +stove. Mildred lay on the divan, happy with her newly found toes, and +Edwin helped Alice Fern into her glass show case. + +"I appreciate your coming to see my wife so soon, Alice. I should so +like to have you and Molly be close friends." + +"Thank you, Edwin, I am sure nothing would please me more. You must +bring Molly out to see us." Could this be the same person who had made +the living room look so dusty and ill kempt only a few minutes before, +this gracious, charming, sweet, friendly creature, who doted on babies? +She had paid no attention to Mildred except to give her a tentative poke +with her daintily gloved finger, but to hear her conversation with +Edwin, one would have gathered that she was a supreme lover of children. + +The girls would not stay to tea, although Molly pressed them, but full +of some scheme, they hurried off. + +Dinner was not so very late, after all, and the tea and bread and peanut +cookies saw to it that the professor was not too hungry before the leg +of lamb had reached the proper stage of serving. Molly was too much of a +culinary artist not to feel elated when things turned out right, which +they usually did if she could get her finger in the pie. The day had +been a very trying one for her. The sleepless night had left her little +strength to grapple with it and the slow stupidity of Katy was very +irritating. It was over at last, however, and dear little Mildred had +decided to let her pigs rest and had gone quietly to sleep at the +proper time that a well-trained infant should. Edwin was smoking his +after-dinner pipe and everything was very peaceful and pleasant. Molly +was trying to keep her eyes open, ashamed to confess that she was so +sleepy she could hardly see. + +She lay back in the easy chair while Edwin read aloud from his scrap +book of fugitive verse. This scrap book Professor Green had started when +he was in college, putting in only the rare, fine things he found in +magazine reading. Molly had helped him in his collecting and now the +volume was assuming vast proportions. + +Suddenly Molly's upturned eyes rested on the terrible cobweb that had +been her Waterloo of the afternoon. How black and threatening it looked! +She hoped Edwin would not see it. And the books! Actually you had to +open one and beat it and blow it before you dared begin to read. All +this must be cleaned to-morrow and oh, how tired she was! + +"Did not Alice look lovely this afternoon?" said Edwin, stopping his +reading for a moment. "I hope you and she are going to be great +friends. I think it was very nice for her to come so soon to call on +you. She spoke so sweetly of the baby, too." + +Molly said nothing but gazed at the cobweb. She said nothing but she did +some thinking: + +"Molly Brown, what right have you, just because you are tired and Alice +Fern came to call on you, looking very pretty and very beautifully +dressed, and found you all frumpy and your living room looking like +a pig sty, what right have you, I say, to sulk? Now you answer your +husband and tell him Alice was pretty and don't tell him anything else." +Accordingly, after giving herself the mental chastisement, Molly emitted +a faint: + +"Yes, very pretty!" But it was so faint and so far away that Edwin +looked at her in alarm, and then it was that she could stand nothing +more and broke down and shed a few tears. + +"Why, Molly, my dearest girl, what is the matter?" + +"Nothing, but I am tired and everything is so dirty. Look at the +cobwebs! Look at the dust on the books! Look at me! I am an old frowsy, +untidy frump." + +"You! Why, honey, you are always lovely. As for dust--don't bother about +that. Let me read you this wonderful little poem by Gertrude Hall. I +clipped it years ago." + +Professor Green saw that Molly was tired and unstrung and he well knew +that nothing soothed her more than poetry. Of course, man-like, he had +no idea that what he had said about Alice Fern's looking so sweet had +been too much for her, as she had contrasted herself all the afternoon +with her husband's immaculate cousin. Molly wiped away the foolish tears +as Edwin read the poem. + + +"THE DUST. + +By Gertrude Hall. + + It settles softly on your things, + Impalpable, fine, light, dull, gray; + The dingy dust-clout Betty brings, + And, singing, brushes it away: + + And it's a queen's robe, once so proud, + And it's the moths fed in its fold, + It's leaves, and roses, and the shroud, + Wherein an ancient Saint was rolled. + + And it is beauty's golden hair, + And it is genius' wreath of bay, + And it is lips once red and fair + That kissed in some forgotten May." + +"It is lovely, exquisite!" breathed Molly. "I don't feel nearly so bad +about it as I did." + +But she did wish that Alice Fern had not seen that black, black cobweb. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +HEROES AND HERO WORSHIPERS. + + +The next morning poor Molly slept late again. With all good intentions +of waking early and going down stairs in time to see about her husband's +neglected breakfast, when morning came she did not stir. Mildred had +given her another wakeful night after all, finding out more things about +her little pigs. Finally the little monkey had given up and dropped off +to sleep, and she and her doting mother were both dead to the world when +the time came for Professor Green to go to lectures. + +Again he gave instructions to Katy not to disturb the mistress and crept +out of the house as still as a mouse. Breakfast had been a little +better. Molly was rubbing off on Katy evidently. Just to associate with +such a culinary genius as Molly must have its effect even on the worst +cook in the world, which Katy surely seemed to be. + +Coming across the campus, he ran into Billie McKym, Josephine Crittenden +and Thelma Olsen. They looked very bright and rosy as they gave him a +cheery good morning. Each carried a bundle. He wondered that they were +going away from lecture halls instead of toward them. But after all, it +was not his business to be the whipper-in for lectures. Wellington was a +college and not a boarding school. If students chose to cut lectures, it +was their own affair until the final reckoning. + +"Just our luck to meet Epiménides Antinous!" cried Billie. "He should +have been out of the house five minutes ago, at least." + +"His legs are so long he doesn't have to start early," declared Jo. +"Just see him sprint!" + +"I am certainly sorry to cut his lecture to-day," sighed Thelma, "but +this thing must be done." + +The Greens' front door was never locked except at night, so the girls +crept quietly in. Billie peeped into the kitchen, where she discovered +Katy on her knees "scroobing" the part of the kitchen she could not +finish the evening before, when Molly was so hard-hearted as to make +her stop and prepare vegetables. Such a sea of suds! + +"Katy," whispered Billie. + +"Merciful Mither! And phwat is it? Ye scart me," and the girl sat back +on her heels and looked at Billie with round, wide eyes. + +"We are great friends of Mrs. Green and we have come to dust her books +and--ahem--do a few little things. Is she still asleep?" + +"Yis, and the master was after saying she must not be distoorbed, not on +no account." + +"Of course she must not be! That is why we have come to dust the things. +We think she looks so tired." + +"And so she is, the scwate lamb; but she do fly around so, and she do +cook up so mooch. I tell her that she thinks more of her man's insides +thin she do of her own outsides." + +"Well, Katy, we want you to let us have a broom and a wall brush. We +brought our own aprons and rags," and Billie pressed a round, hard +something into Katy's hand. It was not so large as a church door nor +so deep as a well, but it served to get the Irish girl up off of her +run-down heels; and in a trice the coveted broom and wall brush were in +possession of the three conspirators, as well as a stepladder, which +they decided would be needful. + +"Don't say a word to Mrs. Green, Katy,--now remember. We are going to +work very quietly and hope to finish before she gets downstairs. We +don't want her to know who did it, but we mean to get it all done +before noon," said Jo, rolling up her sport shirtsleeves and disclosing +muscular arms, that showed what athletics had done for her and what she +could do for athletics. + +"Where must we begin, Thelma?" asked Billie, who was as willing as could +be but knew no more about cleaning than a hog does about holidays, Jo +declared. + +"Begin at the top," laughed Thelma, tying up her yellow head in a great +towel and rolling up her sleeves. + +"Gee, your arms are beautiful!" exclaimed Billie. "I'd give my head for +such arms. I'd like to drape them in a silver scarf. Think how they +would gleam through." The arms were snow white and while Thelma's +strength was much greater than Jo's, her muscles did not show as they +did on that athletic young person. + +Thelma blushed and laughed as she balanced herself on a stepladder and +began taking down pictures. A cloud of dust floated down and enveloped +her. + +"Look, look! She looks like the 'white armed Gudrun'! Don't you remember +in William Morris's 'Fall of the Neiblungs'? The battle in Atli's Hall? + + "'Lo, lo, in the hall of the Murder where the white-armed + Gudrun stands, + Aloft by the kingly high-seat, and nought empty are her + hands; + For the litten brand she beareth, and the grinded war-sword + bare: + Still she stands for a little season till day groweth white + and fair. + Without the garth of King Atli, but within, a wavering + cloud + Rolls, hiding the roof and the roof-sun; then she stirrith + and crieth aloud.'" + +"Cut it out! Cut it out!" cried Jo, "and come lend a hand." + +"Mustn't we dust before we sweep?" innocently asked Billie. + +"If you want to, but you'll have to dust again afterwards," said the +white-armed Gudrun from her ladder. "The books are really so dirty that +I don't think it would hurt to wipe down the walls without covering +them, but that is a mighty poor cleaning method. Poor Molly! Didn't she +look tired yesterday? I hope she won't think we are cheeky to take a +hand in her affairs." + +"Cheeky! She will think we are her good friends, not like that snippy +Miss Fern who stared so at the cobwebs and then went out and palavered +over Epiménides Antinous. She used to claim him, so I am told. One of +the nurses at the infirmary told me that when Epi Anti had typhoid +there, years ago, Miss Fern came and dressed herself up like a nurse and +almost bored the staff to death taking care of her sick cousin," said +Billie, delighted with the job that had been given her of wiping down +walls. "Isn't this splendid? Just look at all the dirt I got on my +rag!" + +"Well, don't rub it back on the wall," admonished Jo. + +"No. Well, what must I do with it?" + +"Can't say, but don't put it back on the walls." + +"Jo, you and Billie dust the books and I will finish up the pictures. +I can't trust myself to dust Professor Green's books. I am afraid of +breaking the tenth commandment all the time," sighed Thelma. "I'll wash +the windows, too." + +"Oh, Thelma! The white-armed Gudrun sitting in windows washing them! +That's not occupation meet for a queen. Let me do it." + +"You, Billie McKym, wash a window! Did you ever wash one in your life?" + +"Well, no, not exactly, but I bet I could. What's the use of a college +education if one can't wash windows when she gets to be a full grown +senior?" + +But since the object of the girls was to get the room clean, it was +decided that Thelma was to wash the windows. My, how they worked! Jo +found she had muscles that her athletics had never revealed. She found +them because they began to ache. + +"Why, to dust all these books and books is as bad as building a house," +she said, straightening up and stretching when she had finished the +poet's corner. + +"Exactly like laying brick," declared Billie. "I'm going to join the +Hod-carriers' Union. I'll be no scab." + +Katy had occasionally poked her head in at the door, entreating "whin +they coom to the scroobing" to call her. + +The cleaners made very little noise, so little that the sleeping Molly +and Mildred were not at all disturbed. + +"I wish she knew it was almost done," said Thelma, perched in the window +sill and rubbing vigorously on a shining pane. "She would be so glad. I +know she is worrying about it in her sleep. Hark! There is the baby!" + +Then began the business of the day upstairs. Katy was called, for water +must be heated as Katy, according to her habit, had let the fire go out +before the boiler was hot. + +"Katy, we must hurry up with Mildred this morning and get to the +library. It is filthy," said Molly, as she slipped the little French +flannel petticoat over Mildred's bald head. + +"Yes, mum!" grinned Katy. + +"We have luncheon almost ready, with the cold lamb to start with." + +"Yes, mum." + +"Don't you think you could get the dining room cleaned while I am +attending to the baby?" + +"Yes, mum, if yez can schpare me." + +"Oh, I think I can. But, Katy, before you go hand me that basket. And, +Katy, perhaps you had better wash out this flannel skirt. I am so afraid +she might run short of them. You can empty the water now--and, Katy, +please hold the baby's hand while I tie this ribbon, she is such a +wiggler--and, Katy--a little boiled water now for her morning tipple. +She must drink lots of water to keep in good health." + +"Yes, mum, and how aboot breakfast for yez, mum?" + +"Oh, I forgot my breakfast! Of course I must eat some breakfast. I'll +come down to it." + +"Oh, no, mum! And let me be after bringing it oop to yez, mum," insisted +the wily Katy, who was anxious for the youthful house cleaners to +accomplish their dark and secret mission without interruption. Not only +was it great fun, a huge joke, in fact, for her to be paid fifty cents +to let others do her work, but it meant that since others were doing it, +she would not have to, and she could have just that much more time for +"scroobing" and resting. A tray was accordingly got ready and Molly +found she had a little more appetite than the morning before; also, that +Katy's food was really a little better. + +"Your coffee is better this morning, Katy," she said, believing that +praise for feats accomplished but egged on the servitor to other and +greater effort. + +"Yes, mum, so the master said." + +"Poor Edwin," thought Molly, "how I have neglected him. I must do +better. But if I don't wake up, I don't wake up. If I could only get a +little nap in the day time. Mother always wanted me to take one, but how +can I? The living room must be cleaned to-day." She felt weary at the +thought. Accustomed as she was to being out of doors a great deal, she +really needed the fresh air. + +"As soon as luncheon is over, we must get busy with the cleaning. I wish +we might have done it in the forenoon, but I am afraid it is too late." + +"Yes, mum, it's too late!" and Katy indulged in such a hearty giggle +that her mistress began to think perhaps she was feeble-minded as well +as inefficient. + +"Is the table in the dining room cleared off, Katy, so you can set it +for luncheon?" + +"No, mum, it is not!" + +"Oh, Katy! What have you been doing all morning?" + +"Well, mum, I scroobed my kitchen, and--and----" + +"And what?" demanded Molly. + +"And I did a little head work in the liberry, that is, I----" + +"Oh, Katy, did you clean the living room, clean it well?" + +"Well, mum, yez can wait and see if it schoots yez," and Katy beat a +hasty retreat to warn the cleaners that the mistress was about to +descend. + +The room presented a very different appearance to what it had before the +girls rolled up their sleeves. The slanting afternoon sun would seek out +no dusty corners now; everything was spick and span. The books no longer +had to be beaten and blown before you dared open them, and they stood in +neat and orderly rows; the walls held no decorations in the shape of +Irishman's curtains now; the picture glass shone, as did the window +panes; the rugs were out in the back yard sunning after a vigorous +beating and brushing from Thelma, whom Billie called "the powerful +Katrinka." + +The floor, being the one part of the room that Katy had put some licks +on, did not need anything more serious than a dusting after everything +else was done. + +"Katy, you might bring in the rugs now as we have done everything else," +suggested Billie. Katy went out into the back yard and bundled up the +rugs. Molly, seeing her from an upper window, smiled her approval. + +"I believe she is going to do very well," she said to herself. "She +seems to be trying, and she is so fond of Mildred." + +"Come on, girls, we must hurry and get off! Molly will be down stairs +any minute now and she must not see us," and Thelma unwound the towel +from her head and took off her apron. + +"Well, surely the white-armed Gudrun is not going across the campus with +a black face," objected Billie. "Why, both of you look like negro +minstrels----" + +"And you!" interrupted Jo. "You should see yourself before you talk +about kettles. You'd have not a leg to stand on and not a handle to your +name. I told you to tie up your head. I believe nothing short of a +shampoo and a Turkish bath will get the grime off you." + +"Let's hide behind the sofa and after Molly goes on the porch with the +baby, we can sneak up to the bath room," suggested Thelma. The girls +then crouched on the floor behind a sofa that stood near the poet's +corner. + +In a minute Molly came down the stairs, little Mildred in her arms and +on her face a contented and rested expression. She stood in the doorway +of the living room and exclaimed with delight over its polished +cleanliness. + +"Oh, Katy, how splendid it is! Did you do it all by yourself and in such +a short time? I don't see how you managed it. Why, you have even dusted +the books. That is almost a day's work in itself. I was dreading it +so,--it is such a back breaking job." + +Jo rubbed her aching back, with a grim smile, and nudged Billie. + +"And you have kept yourself so clean, too!" Molly began to feel that she +had the prize servant of the east: one who could clean such an Augean +Stable as that room had looked, dust all the books, wash the windows and +wipe down walls, beat rugs, polish picture glass, etc., etc., and still +be neat and tidy. "Why, I would have been black all over if I had done +such a great work." + +Katy stood by, quite delighted with the undeserved praise. The young +ladies had told her not to tell and far be it from her to refuse to +accept the unaccustomed praise from any one. She had never been very apt +in any work she had undertaken and no one had ever taken any great pains +to teach her, and now if this pretty lady wanted to praise her, why she +was more than willing. She felt in her pocket for her fifty cent piece, +that still seemed a great joke to her. The sweet taste of the praise did +one great thing in her kindly Irish soul: it was so pleasant, she +determined to have more of it, and through her slow intelligence there +filtered the fact that to get more praise, she must deserve more praise, +and to deserve it she must work for it. She beat a hasty retreat to the +dining room and actually cleared off the table, where the master had +eaten his solitary breakfast, in a full run. She broke no dishes that +morning, either, which was a great step forward. + +Molly could not tear herself away from the wonder room. She moved +around, busying herself changing ornaments a bit and placing chairs at +a slightly different angle, doing those little things that make a room +partake of a certain personality. + +"Here, baby, lie on the sofa, honey. Muddy is going to give you a little +ride. Do you know, darling, that Katy knows how to put things in place +just like a lady? She must have an artistic soul. Look how she has +arranged the mantel-piece! Servants usually make things look so stiff. +Actually there is nothing for me to do in the room, she has done it so +beautifully." + +Billy here dug an elbow into Jo's lame back that almost made her squeal, +but she held on to her emotions and in turn gave her chum a fourth +degree pinch. + +"Now, Muddy is going to ride her baby--this sofa must go closer to the +wall," and Molly put Mildred on the sofa and gave it a vigorous push. +The law of impenetrability, that two things cannot be in the same place +at the same time, prevented the baby from having much of a ride. Molly +gave a harder push. "I must be very feeble if I can't budge this sofa." + +Then came a smothered groan from the huddled girls, and one by one they +emerged from their corner, clutching their bundles of dust rags and +aprons and exposing to Molly's amazed eyes three of the very blackest, +dirtiest faces that ever Wellington had boasted in her senior class. + +They sat on the floor and laughed and giggled, and Molly sat down beside +them and would have felt like a college girl again herself if it had not +been for little Mildred, who took all the laughter as an entertainment, +got up for her express amusement, and gurgled accordingly. + +"Now you must all stay to luncheon!" cried the hospitable Molly. + +"Oh, indeed we mustn't," said Billie, who never could quite get used to +Molly's wholesale hospitality, having been brought up in the lap of +luxury but with no privileges of inviting persons off hand to meals. + +"But you must. I won't do a thing for you but just put on more plates. +I was going to have the very simplest meal and I'll still have it." + +The girls stayed, after giving themselves a vigorous scrubbing, and +Molly's luncheon was ready when Professor Green arrived. The cold leg of +lamb played a noble part at the impromptu party, flanked by a lettuce +salad that Billie insisted upon dressing, reminding Molly more than ever +of her darling Judy. A barrel of preserves had just arrived, some that +Molly and Kizzie had put up during the summer. On opening it, a jar of +blackberry jam, being on top, was chosen to grace the occasion. Molly +made some of the tiny biscuit that her husband loved and that seemed +such a joke to Katy. When she came in bearing a plate of hot ones, she +spread her mouth in a grin so broad that Professor Green declared she +could easily have disposed of six at one mouthful. + +"I always call them Gulliver biscuit," he said, helping himself to three +at a time, "because in the old Gulliver's Travels I used to read when I +was a kid there was a picture of Gulliver being fed by the Lilliputians. +He was represented by a great head, and the Lilliputians were climbing +up his face by ladders and pouring down his throat barrels of little +biscuit that were just about the size of these." + +They had a merry time at that meal. Molly told her husband why his prize +pupils had cut his lectures and all others that morning, and how she had +almost passed a steam roller over them in form of the library sofa. + +"We were terribly afraid we would offend her," explained Thelma, "but +she was dear to us." + +"Offend me! Why, I can't think of anything in all my life that has ever +happened to me that has touched me more. I don't see how you ever +thought of doing anything so nice." + +"'Twas Billie," from Thelma. + +"Thelma and Jo did all the dirty work," declared Billie. + +"Dirty work, indeed! You looked as though you had used yourself to wipe +down the walls with," laughed Jo. + +"Well, anyhow, when that snippy Miss Fern comes again, giving her +perfunctory pokes at the baby and looking at the cobwebs until nobody +can help seeing them, I bet she won't find anything to turn up her nose +at. I'd like to use her to clean the walls with. If there is anything I +hate it is any one who is the pink of perfection in her own eyes. We +were having such a cozy time until she lit on us with her dove-colored +effects. Who cared whether there were cobwebs or not?" + +"Did Miss Fern speak of the cobwebs?" asked Edwin, while the others sat +around in frozen horror, remembering that she was his cousin and that he +was evidently very fond of her. + +"Oh, no, she didn't open her lips; she just pursed them up and stared +at the corner. Of course, she had already given her dig about Molly's +surely not having time to write and attend to her house, too; and then +when she fixed her eyes on that Irishman's curtain we all knew what she +was thinking, and that she wanted us to know it, just as well as though +she had spoken it and then written it and then had it put on the +minutes.... What's the matter?... Oh, Heavens! What have I done?... Oh, +Professor Green! She is your cousin! Please, please forgive me," and +Billie clasped her hands in entreaty. + +"Oh, don't mind me," said the professor with a twinkle. "Go as far as +you like. If the ladies have such open minds that he who runs may read, +and they think disagreeable things about my wife, why, they deserve to +be used for house cleaning purposes, have the floor wiped up with them +and what not." + +The luncheon broke up in a laugh and evidently there were no hard +feelings on the part of the host for the criticism of Miss Fern that +had so ingenuously fallen from the lips of the irrepressible Billie. + +"Billie! What a break!" screamed Jo, when they got outside after Molly +had given them all an extra hug for the undying proof of friendship they +had given her. + +"Break, indeed! I never forgot for an instant that Epi Anti was a near +cousin to that maidenhair fern. I just thought I'd let him know how +she had acted and how uncomfortable she had made our Molly feel. I +knew Molly would never let him know, and I could do it and make out it +was a break." + +"Well, if you aren't like Bret Harte's heathen Chinee, I never saw one," +laughed Thelma. + + "'Which I wish to remark, + And my language is plain, + That for ways that are dark + And for tricks that are vain, + The heathen Chinee is peculiar.'" + +"All the same, I bet old Epi Anti doesn't tell Molly any more what a +sweet thing Alice Fern is." + +"How do you know he did?" + +"Insight into human nature," and Billie made a saucy moue. + +"Gee, my back aches!" said Jo. "I think I'll do housework often. It +certainly does reach muscles we don't know about. But didn't it pay just +to see dear old Molly's face when we rolled out from behind the sofa?" + +And all of them agreed it had. + +"Edwin," said Molly, after the girls had gone, "I think I'll send for +Kizzie to come help me. I may put her in the kitchen and take Katy for a +nurse." + +"Good! I am certainly glad you have come to that decision. What changed +you?" + +"Well, it seems to me that when it comes to the pass that my college +girls feel so sorry for me they cut such lectures as yours to give the +whole morning to cleaning up for me I must do something, and the only +thing I can think of doing is to send for Kizzie." + +"Can you mix the black and white without coming to grief?" + +"Remember, Katy is more green than white, and she is so good-natured, +she could get along with anything." + +"I can't tell you how relieved I am, honey. I wanted you to do what +pleased you, but I could not see how I was coming in on this. I felt +very lonesome, and while I wasn't jealous of the baby, I was certainly +envious of her. If Kizzie comes, you can be with me more and nurse me +some." + +"Yes, dearie, I missed it, too, but somehow I couldn't get through. If +Katy had been more competent----" + +"But she wasn't and isn't." + +"No, she certainly isn't, but she adores Mildred already and Mildred +actually cries for her. I believe she would make a fine nurse. If only +she doesn't feel called upon to scrub the baby." + +Edwin laughed and, settling himself for a pleasant smoke, opened the +morning paper, which neither he nor Molly had found time to read. + +"Oh, what a shame!" he exclaimed. "The Germans dropping bombs on Paris! +Infamous!" + +"Paris! How can they? Oh, Edwin, Judy and Kent both there!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. + + +When the teller of a tale has to fly from one side of the ocean to the +other in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, at any rate between +chapters, and the persons in the tale have no communication with one +another except by letters that are more than likely to be tampered with +on the high seas, it is a great comfort to find that all the characters +have at last arrived at the same date. On that morning after the +dropping of bombs when Judy, dressed in her sad mourning garb, was +selling spinach and tarts to the hungry occupants of the Montparnasse +quarter, Molly, allowing for the difference in time, was oversleeping +herself after a wakeful night and the college girls were quietly +cleaning her living room. Kent and Jim Castleman were stretching +themselves luxuriously in the not too comfortable beds of the _Haute +Loire_ preparatory to making themselves presentable, first to find +Judy, and then to find the general who, no doubt, would be glad to have +the Kentucky giant enlist in the ranks, even though his letter of +introduction and credentials had gone to the bottom with the _Hirondelle +de Mer_. Jim Castleman's appearance was certainly credential enough that +he would make a good fighter. + +A bath and a shave did much towards making our young men presentable. +Kent with a needle and thread, borrowed from the chambermaid, darned the +knees of his trousers so that they did very well just so long as he did +not try to sit down; then the strain would have been too much. Jim's +were hopelessly short. + +"Nothing but a flounce would save me, so I'll have to go around at high +water mark; but I'll soon be in a uniform, I hope." + +They had breakfast in a little café where Kent had often gone while he +was a student at the Beaux Arts, and there Jim Castleman astonished the +madame by ordering four eggs. She couldn't believe it possible that any +one could eat that much _déjeuner_ and so cooked his eggs four minutes. +His French was quite sketchy but he plunged manfully in with what he had +and finally came out with breakfast enough to last until luncheon. Kent +was willing to do the talking for him but he would none of it. + +"Let me do it myself! I'll learn how to get something to eat if I starve +in the attempt." + +And now for Judy! Kent could hardly wait for his famished friend to eat +his two orders of rolls and coffee and his four eggs, but at last he was +through. + +First to the bank! No, they did not know where Mlle. Kean was. She had +been in once to get money but they were sorry they could not honour her +letter of credit. She had left no address. + +Then to the American Club! Judy had been in the day before for mail, and +had had quite a budget. She had left no address, but came for letters +always when the American mail was reported in. + +Where could she be? + +Next, to his cousin, the Marquise d'Ochtè, on the Faubourg! + +The venerable porter, at the porte-cochère, who came in answer to the +vigorous ring that the now very uneasy Kent gave the bell, said that +none of the family was within and they had no visitor. Madame the +Marquise had gone to the front only the day before, but was coming home +soon to open a hospital in her own home. Even then the workmen were busy +carrying out her orders, packing away books, pictures, ornaments, rugs +and what not so that the house would be the more suitable to care for +the wounded. The Marquis and Philippe were both with their regiments. +The old porter was sad and miserable. Jules, the butler, was gone; also +Gaston, the chef whose sauces were beyond compare. Madame had taken +great hampers of food with her, even going to Montparnasse for tarts +from Tricots'. + +Kent turned sadly away. Judy was somewhere, but where? Her letter to +Molly telling of her being in the Bents' studio had come after Kent +left Kentucky and he had no way of knowing that she was there. Polly +Perkins and his wife, he knew were in the thick of the battle from the +first letter he had seen from Judy. Where was Pierce Kinsella? He had +not heard from his studio mate and friend but he rather thought there +was little chance of finding him. At any rate, he determined to go to +the Rue Brea and see if the concierge there knew anything of the lost +damsel. + +They found a crowd at the entrance to the court on which the studios +fronted. The concierge in the midst of them was waving her arms and +talking excitedly. + +"Yes, and the first I heard was a click! click! click! and that, it +seems, was the terrible thing flying over us and then an explosion that +deafened me. They say it was meant for the Luxembourg and they missed +their mark. That I know nothing about----" + +"What is it? Tell me quick!" demanded Kent, elbowing his way through the +crowd with the help of Jim, that renowned center rush. + +"Ah, Monsieur Brune!" she exclaimed, grasping his hand. "Did you know +that a dirty Prussian had sent a bomb right down through the skylight of +the good Bents' and now all their things are wrecked?" + +"The Bents'!" gasped Kent. "Was any one hurt?" + +"And that we can't say. The young lady has not been sleeping there +lately but yesterday she came and got the key and did not return it, so +I thought she must have slept there last night! This morning we can find +no trace of her. The bomb did much damage, but surely it could not have +destroyed her completely." + +"Destroyed her! What young lady?" + +"Why, Mademoiselle Kean, of course." + +Kent was glad of the strong arm of Jim Castleman. He certainly needed a +support but only for a moment. He pushed through the crowd and made his +way to the shattered wall of the studio. The bomb had not done so much +damage as might have been expected. The front wall was fallen and the +skylight was broken all over the floor. The chairs and easels were +piled up like jackstraws at the beginning of a game. The bedrooms were +uninjured but the balcony where Judy and Molly had slept that happy +winter in Paris had fallen. + +Would Judy have slept up on the roost just for auld lang syne or would +she have occupied a more comfortable bedroom? If she had been blown into +such small bits that there was nothing to tell the tale, why should +these other things have escaped? There were the blue tea cups in the +china closet uninjured, although most of them were turned over, showing +that the shock had reached them, too. What was that blue thing lying on +the divan in the corner under untold débris? + +Kent pulled off the timbers and broken glass and unearthed Judy's blue +serge dress, which was waiting to be dyed a dismal black. He clasped it +in his arms in an agony of apprehension. Letters fell out of the pocket. +He recognized his mother's handwriting, also Molly's. So, Judy had +heard from Kentucky! He stuffed them back in the jacket. + +"Jim, I simply don't believe she was here. I couldn't have slept all +night like such a lummux if she--if she----" + +"Yes, old fellow! I know! I don't believe she was here, either." + +"I just know I would have had some premonition of it! I would have been +conscious of it if anything had been happening to Judy," which showed +that Kent Brown was his mother's own son. He was not going to mourn the +loss of a loved one until he was sure the loved one was gone, and he had +her own unfailing faith that something could not have happened to one he +cared for without his being aware of it. + +"Sure you would!" declared Jim, not at all sure but relieved that his +friend was taking that view of the matter. + +"I know something that will be a positive proof whether she was here or +not last night." Kent walked firmly to the bath room, which was behind +the bed rooms and out of the path of the bomb. He threw open the door +and looked eagerly on the little glass shelf for a tooth brush. + +"Not a sign of one. I know and you know that if Judy had been here last +night her tooth brush would have been here, too. I am sure now! Come on, +and let's look somewhere else." + +Kent went out with Judy's serge dress over his arm. The concierge looked +sadly after him: "Her dress is all he has to cherish now. The poor young +man! I used to see he was in love with her when Mrs. Brune was in the +Bents' studio and her son occupied the one to the right with Mr. +Kinsella. Oh, la la! _Mais la vie est amer!_" + +The crowd dispersed, since there was nothing more to see and the hour +for _déjeuner a la fourchette_ was approaching. The concierge went off +to visit her daughter who was ill. The studios were all empty now and +her duties were light. Her husband was to see that no one entered the +court to carry off the Bents' things, which were exposed pitifully to +the gaze of the public until the authorities could do something. He, +good man, waited a little while and then made his way to a neighbouring +_brasserie_ to get his tumbler of absinthe, and one tumbler led to +another and forgetfulness followed soon, and the Bents' studio +properties were but dreams to his befuddled brain. + +Judy had spent a busy morning. Marie had gone to carry tarts to "the +regiment" and all of the waiting in the shop fell on her. She did it +gladly, thankful that she was so busy she could not think. She measured +soup and weighed spinach and potato salad and wrapped up tarts until her +back ached. Finally Mère Tricot came in from the baking of more tarts. + +"My child, go out for a while. You need the air. I am here now to feed +these gourmands." + +"All right, Mother! I want to get my dress at the studio. Marie says she +will dye it for me." + +"Certainly! Certainly! We can save many a sou by doing it ourselves. Go, +child!" + +Judy put on her little mourning bonnet and sadly found her way to the +Rue Brea. + +"I wonder where the bomb hit last night. Père Tricot said near the +Luxembourg." + +What was her amazement to find the poor studio in ruins. No concierge to +tell her a thing about it, for her lodge was locked tight and no one +near. Judy picked her way sadly over the fallen front wall. + +"I'll get my dress, anyhow." But although she was sure it had been on +the divan in the studio, no dress was to be found. + +"Well, I'll have to have something to wear besides this thin waist. I am +cold now, and what will I do when winter, real winter comes? I shall +have to send to Giverny for my trunk, and no telling what it will cost +to get it here. Oh, oh, how am I to go on? I wish to God I had been +sleeping on that balcony when the bomb struck. Then I would have been at +peace." + +Judy gave herself up to the despair that was in her heart. She made a +thorough search for the suit through the poor wrecked apartment but no +sign of it could she see. She went sadly back to the delicatessen shop +and stepped behind the counter, her hat still on, to assist the good +Mother Tricot, who was being besieged with customers. + +"Take off your hat, child. Here is a fresh cap of Marie's and an apron. +Did you get your dress?" + +Judy told her kind friend of the bomb-wrecked studio and her lost suit. + +"Oh, the vandals! The wretches! There must be a Prussian in our midst +who would be so low as to steal your suit. No Frenchman would have done +it. Before the war,--yes, but now there is not one who would do such a +dastardly trick. We are all of one family now, high and low, rich and +poor,--and we do not prey on one another." + +"Well, it makes very little difference," said Judy resignedly. "I'll +send for my trunk. I have other suits in it." + +"Other suits! Oh, what riches!" but then the old woman considered that +the friend of the Marquise d'Ochtè perhaps had many other suits. + +Judy donned the cap and apron and went on with the shop keeping. No one +could have told her from a poor little bereaved French girl. The cap +was becoming, as was also the organdy collar. Her face was pale and her +eyes full of unshed tears, but the sorrow had given to Judy's face +something that her enemies might have said it had lacked: a softness and +depth of feeling. Her friends knew that her heart was warm and true and +that the feeling was there, but her life had been care free with no +troubles except the scrapes that she had been as clever getting out of +as she had been adroit getting in. She had many times considered herself +miserable before but now she realized that all other troubles had +been nothing--this was something she had had no conception of--this +tightening of the heart strings, this hopeless feeling of the bottom +having dropped out of the universe. + +She felt absolutely friendless, except for her dear Tricots. The Browns +could never see her again. They must blame her, as it was all her fault +that Kent had come for her. If she had not been so full of her own +conceit, she would certainly have sailed for America when all the others +did at the breaking out of the war. Her mother and father seemed as +remote as though they were on another planet. The war might last for +years and there seemed no chance of their leaving Berlin. + +"I'll just stay on here and earn my board and keep," she sighed. "The +Tricots find me useful and they want me." + +In the meantime, Kent and Jim Castleman went and sat down in the Garden +of the Luxembourg to smoke and talk it over, Kent still fondly clasping +the serge dress. + +"I'll find her all right before night," declared Kent. "She'll be sure +to go to the Bents' studio sometime to-day. I'll write a note and leave +it with the concierge. I'll also leave a note at the American Club. She +must go there twice a week at least. I'd like to know where the poor +little thing is," and Kent heaved a sigh. + +"I bet she is all right, wherever she is," comforted Jim. "Say, Brown, +I don't like to mention it, but I am starved to death." + +"Not mention it! Why not?" + +"Well, you see when a pal is in trouble it seems so low to go get +hungry." + +"But I'm not in trouble. Now if I thought that Judy had been in that +place last night there would be something to be troubled about, but as +it is, I just can't find her for a few hours, or maybe minutes. Where +shall we eat?" + +"That's up to you. I'm getting mighty low in funds, so let's do it cheap +but do it a plenty," and Jim looked rather ruefully at his few remaining +francs. + +"I am still in funds but I shall have to go it mighty easy, too, to get +Judy and me home. I tell you what we might do. Let's go to a shop where +they have ready cooked food and bring it out here and eat it. They say +you can live on half what it costs to eat in a restaurant. When I was +studying over here I knew lots of fellows who lived that way. Of course, +they had studios where they could take the stuff and eat it, but the +Luxembourg Garden is good enough. I know a place where the Perkinses +used to deal. They are the funny lot I told you about, the long-haired +man and the short-haired woman. He is driving an ambulance now and +goodness knows where she is." + +"Well, let's go to it. I am so hungry I can hardly waddle. These +Continental breakfasts with nothing but bread and coffee don't fill me +up half way." + +Kent smiled, remembering the two full orders and the four eggs his +friend had tucked away, but he said nothing. Having a good appetite of +his own, he had naught but sympathy for his famished friend. + +They left the garden and made for the shop where Jo and Polly Perkins +had bought their ready cooked provisions. + +"These people make some little pies that are mighty good, too. We might +get half a dozen or so of them as a top off," suggested Kent. + +"Fine! I've got a mouth for pie, all right." + +Judy had gone to the kitchen for a moment to bring to the fore the +smoked tongue that Père Tricot had been slicing in those paper-thin +slices that he alone knew how to accomplish. She bore aloft a great +platter of the viand, the even slices arranged like a wreath of autumn +leaves. While she was still in the living room behind the shop, two +strangers entered. Their backs being to the light, Judy only saw their +silhouettes as they bent over the show cases eagerly discussing what +selection of meats and vegetables they should make, while Mère Tricot, +accustomed to slim-pocketed customers, patiently waited. Suddenly she +leaned over the counter and touched something which one of the young men +had thrown over his arm. + +"What is this?" she demanded with the manner she could so well assume, +that of a woman of the Commune who meant to right her wrongs. + +The purchaser of sauce and potato salad, the two cheapest and most +filling of the wares, held up rather sheepishly a blue serge suit. + +"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Come quick! It is your suit--and no +Frenchman, as I said, but a Prussian, no doubt." + +The grenadier slid quickly from behind the counter and putting her +brawny arm out, held the door firmly, so that no escape could be +possible. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +WASTED DYE. + + +Judy emerged from behind the curtains which divided the family living +room from the little shop, the platter of tongue held high. In her cap +and apron, she reminded one of a Howard Pyle illustration for some +holiday number of a magazine. + +"Gee, what a beaut!" exclaimed the taller of the two strangers. + +The one with the serge suit dropped it and made a rush for the girl. He +had her in his arms, platter of tongue and all, before Mère Tricot could +rescue it. But that dame managed to extricate the big dish before any +greater damage was done than disarranging the effect of a wreath of +autumn leaves. + +Hearts that were broken may be mended but platters of smoked tongue +must not be dropped on the floor and smashed. + +"Oh, Judy gal, Judy gal! Tell me all about it!" + +"Kent! Kent! I thought you were drowned and have gone into mourning for +you," sobbed Judy. + +As for Jim Castleman, in the most execrable and impossible French, he +was explaining to good Mother Tricot how it all happened, and Father +Tricot hastened to the shop from his carving to find out what it was all +about, and then such a handshaking and hugging as ensued was never seen! + +"We were all about to sit down to _déjeuner a la fourchette_," said the +ever hospitable old man, "and if the young gentlemen would come with us, +we should be much honoured." + +The grenadier was equally pleased to have them and, indeed, Jim +Castleman was so hungry by that time that he would have eaten cold +spinach with his fingers. + +How that old couple plied the young Americans with their delightful +food and how they listened to their tale of shipwreck and rescue! When +Kent told of their fooling the Prussians with Tutno, the childish +language they had known in their youth, the Tricots laughed with such +glee that a gendarme put his head in the door to see what it was all +about. When Jim Castleman in a speech that sounded more like Tutno than +Parisian French, informed his hosts that he was there to join the army +of Joffre, old Mère Tricot helped him to two more tarts, although he had +already eaten enough of them to furnish dessert for any ordinary French +family of four. + +"And now, Madame," said Kent to his hostess, "I want you to do another +thing for me. You have done so many things already that maybe I should +not ask you." + +"What is it, mon brave?" and the old woman smiled very kindly on the +young American, whom she had not half an hour before called a Prussian +and accused of stealing Judy's serge suit. + +"I am to be married very soon and I want you to help me out in it." + +"Married!" Judy gasped. + +"Yes, Miss Judy Kean, I am to be married and so are you. What's more, it +is to be just as soon as the French law will tie the knot." + +"Well, of all----" + +"Yes, of all the slippery parties, I know you are the slipperiest and I +have no idea of letting you get away. Am I right, Jim?" + +Jim was too busy with a tart to be coherent. He nodded his head, +however, and when Kent put the same question to Mère Tricot in French, +she upheld him. + +"It would be much more convenable if you were married. It is very easy +to get married in war time. The authorities are not near so difficult to +approach on the subject. I will see what can be done by the magistrate +who married Jean and Marie, and no doubt if you interview your American +Ambassador, much can be attended to in a short time." + +"Kent Brown, if you think----" sputtered Judy. + +"I don't think a thing, I just know," said Kent very calmly. "Put on +your hat, honey, and let's take a little walk." + +"Well, all right--but----" Was this the Judy Kean who prided herself on +so well knowing her own mind, calmly consenting to be married against +her will? Was it against her will? She suddenly remembered the +communings she had had with herself, in which she had cried out to Kent: +"Why, why, did you not make me go with you?" + +"I shall have to rip the lining out of my hat before I can go out," she +said quite meekly. + +"The lining out of your hat?" questioned Kent. + +"Yes, you see I went into mourning when--when----" and Judy, now that it +was all over, still could not voice the terrible thing she thought had +happened to Kent. + +"Please don't rip it out until I see you in it. Not many men live to see +how their widows look mourning for them." + +"Widows, indeed! Kent Brown, you presume too much!" exclaimed Judy, but +she could not help laughing. The hat was very becoming and she was not +loathe to wear it, just once. + +First Mère Tricot must be assisted with the dishes, however; but then +Judy got ready to go walking with Kent. + +Père Tricot undertook to be guide to Jim Castleman, offering to lead him +to the proper place to enlist. + +"I'll only look into it to-day," said Jim, grasping Kent's hand. "I +shan't join for keeps until I have officiated as best man." + +Judy, who had gone into Marie's tiny bedroom to get into her rescued +serge suit, overheard this remark and blushed to the roots of her fluffy +hair. As she put on her white lined hat, she peeped again into the +mirror: "Judy Kean, you are much too rosy for a widow," she admonished +her image. + +Mère Tricot saw them off, her good man and Jim to the recruiting +station, and Kent and Judy to the Luxembourg Gardens, a spot hallowed by +lovers. + +"Well, well!" she said to herself. "The good God has brought the poor +lamb her lover from the grave. I am glad, very glad,--but it is +certainly a pity to waste all that good dye the butcher's wife saved for +us. It is not good when kept too long, either. I won't throw it out yet +a while, though,--some one will be wanting it, perhaps." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +A WAR BRIDE. + + +Marrying in Paris was certainly a much easier matter than it had been +almost two years before when Molly Brown and Edwin Green had struggled +to have the nuptial knot tied. Judy's baptismal certificate was not +demanded as had been Molly's, and the long waiting for research work, as +Kent expressed it, was not required. Mère Tricot undertook to engineer +the affair and did it with such expedition that it could have been +accomplished even before Judy got her trunk from Giverny. + +It was very nice to have one's trunk again, although it really was +embarrassing to take up so much of the Tricots' living room with the +huge American affair. + +"It seems funny to be married without any trousseau," Judy confided to +Mère Tricot. + +"No trousseau! And what is in that great box if not trousseau?" + +"I am sure I don't know. I really haven't any clothes to speak of that I +can remember," declared Judy. + +"Well, let us see them!" begged Marie and her belle mère. + +They were dying of curiosity to peep into the great box, so Judy +unpacked for their benefit, and their eyes opened wide at her stack of +shirt waists and lingerie and her many shoes. + +"Two more suits and a great coat, silk dresses--at least three of +them--and skirts and shirts of duck and linen!" exclaimed Marie. "And +hats and gloves--and blouses enough for three! Not many war brides will +boast such a trousseau." + +So our bride began to feel that in comparison to the little Marie, she +had so much that she must not worry about wedding clothes. Instead, she +divided her store of riches, and making up a bundle with a silk dress +and some blouses and lingerie, a suit and a hat, she hid it in Mère +Tricot's linen press for Marie to find when she, Judy, was married and +gone over the seas. + +She well knew that the French girl would not accept the present unless +it were given to her in a very tactful way, and just to find it in the +linen press with her name on it and the donor out of reach seemed to +Judy the most diplomatic method. + +Madame le Marquise d'Ochtè must be looked up again. Not only were Kent +and Judy very fond of her, but they knew they could not show their faces +to Mrs. Brown unless they had seen her dear Sally Bolling. This time +they found her in the old home in the Faubourg. She had been to the +front and come back to get her house in readiness for the wounded. + +Could this be the gay and volatile Marquise, this sad looking, +middle-aged woman? She had grown almost thin during those few months of +the war. Her beautiful Titian hair was now streaked with grey. Judy +remembered with a choking feeling the first time she had come to the +Ochtè home on that night soon after Molly and her mother had arrived +in Paris, when they had dined in the Faubourg and then gone to hear +_Louise_ at the Opera. The Marquise had been radiant in black velvet and +diamonds, a beautiful, gay woman that one could hardly believe to be the +mother of Philippe. She had looked so young, so sparkling. She had said +at one time that she allowed no grey hairs to stay in her head, but had +her maid pull them out no matter how it hurt. Now it would take all a +maid's time to keep down the grey hairs in that head, and would leave +but a scant supply for a coiffure could they be extracted. + +Kent thought she looked more like his mother and loved her for it. Her +greeting was very warm and her interest great in what Judy and Kent had +been doing and what they meant to do. She received them in the great +salon that had been converted into a hospital ward. All of the Louis +Quinze furniture had been stored away in an upper chamber and now in its +place were long rows of cots. The floor was bare of the handsome rugs +which had been the delight and envy of Judy on former visits, and now +the parquetted boards were frotted to a point of cleanliness that no +germ would have dared to violate. + +"I left the pictures for the poor fellows to look at--that is, those +who are spared their eyesight," she said sadly. "My hospital opens +to-morrow, but I want the privilege of giving a wedding breakfast to you +young people. I can well manage it in the small _salle à manger_. That +is left as it was." + +"Oh, you are so kind, but dear old Mère Tricot is making a great cake +for us and she would be sad indeed if she could not give the breakfast," +explained Judy. + +"That is as it should be," said the Marquise kindly, "but am I invited?" + +"Invited! Of course you are invited, and the Marquis and Philippe if +they can be got hold of." + +"They are still in camp and have not gone to the fore, so I will manage +to reach them. Jean is very busy, drilling all the time, but a family +wedding must be attended. Philippe is learning to fly," and she closed +her eyes a moment as though to shut out the remembrance of accidents +that happen all the time to the daring aviators. + +Judy wondered if he had come in contact with Josephine Perkins, but said +nothing as it was a deep secret that Jo was passing off as a man and a +word might give her away. + +"There are many Americans in the aviation camp, and very clever and apt +they are, Philippe says. I am proud of my countrymen for coming forward +as they are." + +"Yes, I think it is great for them to. I--I--think I ought not to marry +Kent and go off and leave so much work to be done. I ought to help. +Don't you think so, Cousin Sally?" asked Judy. + +The Marquise smiled at Judy's calling her cousin, smiled and liked it. +Kent looked uneasy and a little sullen. Suppose his Judy should balk at +the last minute and refuse to leave the stirring scenes of war! What +then? He had sworn not to return to United States without her, and +unless he did return in a very short time, the very good job he had +picked up in New York would be filled by some more fortunate and less +in love young architect. + +"Why, my dear, it is not the duty of all American girls to stay on this +side and nurse any more than it is the duty of all American men to stay +here and fight. Only those must do it who are called, as it were, by the +spirit. You must marry my young cousin and go back to United States, and +there your duty will begin, not only to make him the brave, fine wife +that I know it is in you to make, but also to remember suffering France +and Belgium. There is much work waiting for you. This war will last for +years, thanks to that same Belgium who threw herself in the breach and +stopped the tide of Prussians flowing into France. If it had not been +for Belgium, the war would have been over now--yes, over--but France +would have been under the heel of the tyrant and Belgium off of the map. +Thank God for that brave little country!" and Judy and Kent bowed their +heads as at a benediction. + +Kent kissed the Marquise for her sensible advice. He very well knew that +Judy would have been a great acquisition to his cousin's hospital, and +that workers were not numerous (not so plentiful at the beginning of the +war as they were later). Her advice was certainly unselfish. He thanked +her, also, for realizing that it was not up to all American men to stay +and fight. He had no desire to fight any one unless his own country was +at war, and then he felt he would do his duty as his ancestors had done +before him. + +"I tell you what we'll do, you children and I: I'll order out the car--I +still keep one and a chauffeur so that with it I can bring the wounded +back to Paris--and we will go out to the aviation camp and see Philippe +and ask him to the wedding. You would like to see the camp, eh?" + +"Above all things!" exclaimed Kent and Judy in chorus. + +The broad grassy field, bordered by houses, sheds and workshops, +presented a busy scene as the Ochtè car drove up. Biplanes were parked +to one side like so many automobiles at a reception in a city, or +buggies at a county seat on court day in an American town. The field was +swarming with men, all eagerly watching a tiny speck off in the blue sky +in the direction of the trenches where the French had called a halt on +the Germans' insolent and triumphant march to Paris. + +No more attempt was made to stop the car of Madame the Marquise from +coming into the aviation camp than there would have been had she been +Joffre himself. + +"They know me very well," she said in answer to Kent's inquiry as to +this phenomenon, as he well knew they were very strict about visitors in +camp. "I am ever a welcome guest here, not only because they know I love +them, but because of something I bring." She pointed to a great hamper +of goodies packed in by the chauffeur. + +The car was surrounded by eager and courteous young aviators and +soldiers, and Kent and Judy well knew it was not all for the _gateaux_ +that the Marquise was so beloved. Philippe was summoned and clasped in +his mother's arms. Her heart cried out that every time might be the +last. + +The Marquise was changed but her son even more so. His dilettantish +manner was gone for good, as was also his foppish beard. His face, clean +shaven except for a small moustache, was brown and lean; his mouth had +taken on purpose; his eyes were no longer merely beautiful but now had +depth of expression and a look of pity, as though he had seen much +sorrow. + +He was greatly pleased to see his cousin Kent and also Miss Kean, who, +of course, he thought had gone back to America long ago. He remembered +Judy always as the young lady he came so near loving. Indeed, he would +have addressed her when Molly Brown had refused him, had he not been +made to understand by his fair cousin how important it was to love with +one's whole soul if married happiness was to be expected. He had, after +that, gone very slowly in possible courtships. Molly's friend, Frances +Andrews, had almost been his choice, but there was something of +fineness lacking in her that deterred him in time, and he was in a +measure relieved when that dashing young woman proceeded to marry an +impoverished Italian prince. His mother was relieved beyond measure at +what she could not but look on as her Philippe's escape. In fact, she +had never seen but one girl she thought would be just right for her +beloved son and that was Molly Brown. + +Philippe was told of Kent's being shipwrecked and of Judy's having taken +up her abode with the Tricots. This last bit of information amused him +greatly. Judy told with much sprightliness of her serving in the shop +and of her learning to make tarts. Philippe began to look upon his +cousin Kent as a very lucky dog. He sighed when he promised to come to +the wedding breakfast, that is, if he could get leave. Why did all of +the charming American girls pass him by? + +"_J'ai la France et ma mère_," he muttered, as his arm crept around the +waist of that beloved mother. + +"What are they all looking at so intently?" asked Judy. + +"Why, that is a daring young American aviator who has gone to seek some +information concerning the trenches of our friends the enemy. He is a +strange, quiet little fellow. No one ever gets a word out of him but he +has learned to manage his machine quicker than any of the nouveaux, and +now is intrusted to carry out all kinds of dangerous orders. He looks +like a boy sometimes and sometimes when he is tired, like a strange +little old man. He is not very friendly but is quick at repartee and so +the fellows let him alone. Speaks French like a Parisian. I have seen +him before somewhere, but can't place him. I asked him once and he was +quite stiff and said I had the advantage of him. Of course I didn't like +to force myself on him after that, but I'd really like to be friendly if +he would let me. See, here he comes! Look!" + +They watched in silence the aeroplane sinking in a lovely spiral glide. +As it sank to rest on the greensward, many hands were outstretched to +assist the grotesque little figure to alight. Judy recognized in an +instant the person she had thought all the time Philippe was describing. +It was, of course, Jo Bill Perkins. She was swathed in a dark leather +coat and breeches, with a strange shaped cap coming down over her ears. +The great goggles she wore could not deceive Judy. + +"What is his name?" she asked Philippe. + +"Williams is all I know, J. Williams." + +"I believe I know him. Would you mind taking him my card and asking him +to come speak to me?" + +"Not a bit, but I don't believe he will come. Let him make his report +first, and then I will tell him you are here. You are very charming and +fetching, Mademoiselle, but I doubt your being able to bring Williams to +your feet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE FLIGHT. + + +Judy felt that perhaps she was not quite fair to Jo to test her by this +interview, but she did long to speak to her. If Kent and Cousin Sally +recognized her, she knew full well she could trust them to keep silent. + +Philippe crossed the field and stopped the daring little aviator just +after he had made his report to the commander. + +"A young lady is asking for you." + +"A young lady for me? Absurd!" + +"Yes, she has heard of your wonderful feats and longs to meet you," +teased Philippe; and then added: "Really, Williams, you are superb." + +"Not at all! Well, I am tired and don't want to meet any young ladies." + +"But this one already knows you," and Philippe produced Judy's card. + +"Miss Julia Kean," Jo read in amazement. "How did she get out here, +anyhow? Where is she?" + +"Over here with my mother," and Philippe looked with some amusement at +the evident blush that spread over Jo's freckled cheeks. She still had +on the grotesque cap and goggles which would have made recognition of +her difficult. She wanted very much to see Judy. She wanted to hear +something of her Polly, too, and she intended to have Judy look him up +if possible, and report to her. + +"Will you see her?" + +"Sure!" + +"Miss Kean is a charming girl, Williams, isn't she?" said the quizzing +Philippe, looking searchingly at his companion as they made their way +across the field. + +"You bet!" said Jo. + +"Have you known her long?" + +"Quite a while," and Jo's cheeks again were suffused with a dark flush. + +"Poor little fellow!" thought Philippe. "I can't bear to tell him she +is to be married. He is such a dare devil the chances are he will be +killed before long and he may never have to know that his inamorata has +chosen a better looking man, not a better man--they don't make them to +beat little Williams." + +As they approached the car, impulsive Judy jumped out and ran to meet +her friend. Jo ran, too, and they embraced with such ardor that Philippe +stood back amazed. Maybe Kent Brown was not to be so envied, after all. +If the girl who was to marry him in a day was so lavish with her +embraces for other men, what kind of wife would she make? Of course, +Williams was a rather dried up person, but then a man's a man for a' +that. + +Kent, too, was rather astonished when his fiancée left him with such +precipitation and before all the aviation camp hugged and kissed the +strange bunchy little figure. Ardor for the heroes of France was all +well enough, but a fellow's sweetheart need not be quite so warm in her +manner of showing her appreciation, especially when the fellow happens +not to be one himself in the habit of making daily daring flights to spy +out the weakness in the trenches of the enemy. + +The Marquise laughed as she had not done since the first week in August +of that terrible year. Kent looked at her in astonishment. She was not +so very much like his mother, after all. His mother would not have been +so much amused over the discomfiture of a young lover. + +That matron was saying to herself: "How stupid men are!" She had +recognized Jo from the beginning. Kent had known in some far off corner +of his brain that Mrs. Polly Perkins was doing something or other about +the war, but his mind had been so taken up with his own affairs and +Judy's possible danger that that knowledge had stayed in the corner of +his brain while the more important matter of getting married was +uppermost. Suddenly the truth flashed over him and he was overcome with +laughter, too. + +"Caught on, eh?" asked his cousin. + +He nodded. + +"We must keep mum," she admonished. "There is no reason why a woman +should not do her part this way if she can. I'd fly in a minute if that +would help any. Of course these stupid men would raise a hue and cry if +they knew a woman was carrying off the honours." + +"I am as quiet as the grave," declared Kent. + +Judy came to the car with her friend and with the utmost audacity +introduced Jo as Mr. Williams. The Marquise greeted the supposed young +man graciously. Kent sprang out and shook Jo warmly by the hand, much +to the astonishment of his cousin Philippe. + +"Can't I see you a moment alone?" whispered Jo in Judy's ear. The +Marquise, as though she divined what was in the heart of Mrs. Polly +Perkins, asked her to come sit in the car; and then she suggested that +Philippe show the camp to Kent and on second thought decided to go with +them. The chauffeur had been sent with the hamper to the mess hall, so +Judy and Jo had a few minutes alone. + +"I must find out something about Polly. I feel as though I could wait +no longer for news of him. Can't you help me?" + +"Well, you know I am to be married to-morrow and sail for United States, +but I am going to see that news is got to you somehow. Cousin Sally will +do it, of course. She is the very person." + +"Oh, but that Philippe must not know. He has already been very curious +about where he has seen me before, and I have had to be insufferably +rude to him to keep him from prying into my past. I have made good as +a man, but still they would not like it, I know." + +"How on earth did you ever get in? I am dying to hear all about it." + +"Well, naturally the examination for physical fitness was worrying me +some. I got that little dried up art student named Joel Williams, the +one who was always trying to claim kin with me, to take the examination +and then let me slip in in his place. I bought his ticket to America to +pay him for his trouble. He was broke, as usual, and scared to death +when the war started, and willing to do anything to get home. It was +really very simple to manage it. I am the same type, in a way, although +I hope I am not so dried up as my would-be cousin. Same initials, too, +which made the entering rather more regular." + +"Oh, Jo, what a girl you are!" + +"Shh! Don't call me a girl even to yourself. Do you think the Marquise +d'Ochtè recognized me?" + +"Of course she did and Kent, too! Do you think they would have left us +alone if they had not thought you were safe? Kent wouldn't have left me +with such a bird if he had not known who the bird was. He would be +afraid I might fly away with you. Oh, Jo, I do so want to fly!" + +"Well, why not?" + +"Oh, could I really?" + +"I think so. I have brought in information to our commander that is +valuable enough for me to ask one small favor of him. Come on, let's +ask!" + +The two girls were across the field and knocking for admittance at the +Commander's tent before the Marquise and the two young men had begun +their tour of inspection. + +"A favor to ask!" exclaimed the grizzled old warrior who sat poring over +a map where Jo had only a few moments before added some crosses that +meant much to the tactics of the French army. + +"I want to take a friend up in a machine." + +"A friend! I am sorry, my son, but it is hard to tell friends in this +day of war. I can't let you. He might be no friend, after all, to +France." + +"He! It is not a man but an American girl. She is just outside your +tent," and Jo raised the flap and motioned Judy to enter. Judy was +introduced. The old warrior looked at her searchingly. + +"Tell me, are you related to Robert Kean?" + +"His daughter, sir." + +"Robert Kean's daughter! Why, my child, your father and I have been +close friends for years. Tell me where he is and what he is doing." + +So Judy told of her father's letter and his being held in Berlin +because of the knowledge he had of Turkey's topography. She made him +laugh long and loud when she told of the ridiculous limericks he had +written on the paper boats. + +"And you, Robert Kean's daughter, want to fly, and to fly with our +bravest and most daring aviator! Well, don't fly off to America with +him,--and God bless you, my children," and he gave Judy a fatherly +embrace and went back to his map. + +When Kent got back to the car with his cousin, there was no Judy. + +"Where can she have gone and where is Williams?" + +Philippe looked rather mysterious. Young girls who rushed up and +embraced bird men with such ardor should not be allowed too much rope. + +"No doubt she will be back soon. Williams is perhaps showing her the +camp. Look, there goes another machine up! Two in it! By Jove, it is +Williams! I can tell by his way of starting. He has such a smooth +getaway always. Could the passenger be Miss Kean?" + +"More than likely," said Kent composedly. "She has always been crazy to +fly. I reckon Williams will take good care of her and not go too high or +try any stunts." + +"Oh, certainly not!" said Philippe wonderingly. Americans were a riddle +to him. He never quite understood his own mother, who had rather a +casual idea of proprieties herself at times. That good lady, coming up +just then, expressed no concern over the impropriety of Judy's flying +with a man when she was to be married on the morrow to some one else. + +Kent sat in the car with his cousin Sally and together they enjoyed +Judy's flight. Jo took her as close to the fighting line as she dared, +but she had no idea of endangering the life of her passenger. They +dipped and curved, for the most part confining their maneuvers to the +vicinity of the camp. Judy never spoke one word, but held her breath and +wept for sheer joy. + +"To be flying! To be flying! Oh, Judy Kean, you lucky dog!" she said to +herself. "All my life I've been dreaming I could fly and now I am doing +it." + +"Dizzy?" asked Jo. + +"No, but happy enough to die," gasped Judy. "If I wasn't going to be +married, I'd be a bird man." + +When the landing was finally made and Judy stepped out, the world seemed +very stale, flat and unprofitable. She was glad Kent was there waiting +for her. If she could not be a bird man, she could at least be a very +happy war bride. The great leather coat she had worn in her flight was +very ugly and unbecoming, and she was thankful for one thing that she +did not have to wear such frightful looking clothes all the time. + +On the way back to Paris she asked cousin Sally how she had recognized +Jo Williams so readily. + +"By her feet, of course! Why, no man on earth ever had such eternally +feminine feet." That good lady promised to find out immediately +something about Polly and let his spunky wife know where and how he was. +"She will have the Cross of Honour before she gets through, Philippe +says." + +"You don't feel as though it were your duty to tell she is a woman, do +you?" asked Judy. + +"Duty to tell! Heavens, child! I feel it is my duty to help France in +every way I can, and surely to get that girl out of the aviation corps +would be a hindrance to _la Patrie_. I doubt even Philippe's thinking it +his duty to tell, and," with a twinkle in her eye that the horrors of +war could not altogether dim, "Philippe has a very stern idea of his +duty. He felt maybe it was his duty to get in a flying machine and go +after you and Mr. Williams so he could chaperone you. He felt that the +dignity of the family was at stake,--so soon to be the bride of his +cousin and flying with another man! Terrible!" + +"Why, of course! I never thought of how it looked. There I went and +hugged and kissed Jo right before everybody. I bet you a sou this +minute Philippe and all the rest of them are feeling sorry for you, +Kent." + +"Well, they needn't be," declared that young man as he found Judy's hand +under the robe. "I'm satisfied--but I did feel a little funny for half a +minute when you went and kissed Jo so warmly. It took me a moment longer +to recognize her. Why didn't you put me on?" + +"Put you on? How could I, with all the people around?" + +"You promised me once you wouldn't fly with anybody until you could fly +with me. Don't you remember?" + +"Of course I did, you goose! But I didn't say anybody--I said any man; +so you see I didn't break my promise when I flew with Mrs. Polly +Perkins!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE WEDDING BREAKFAST. + + +When the Marquise d'Ochtè said she would do something, she always did it +and did it as well as it could be done. When she undertook to find out +where and how Polly Perkins was for the benefit of his spunky wife, she +did it and did it immediately. And not only did she find him, but she +got a little respite from duty for him and bore him back to Paris where +she had already spirited Jo to be present at the wedding breakfast. She +had asked a holiday for Jo, too, although the grizzled commander was +loathe to let his best aviator off even for a day. + +Jo was taken to the converted d'Ochtè mansion and there dressed like a +nice, feminine little woman, her hair curled by madame's maid. A tight +velvet toque and a dotted veil completed the transformation and the +commander himself would not have recognized his one time prize aviator. +All of this masquerade was for the sole purpose of fooling Philippe, +who, also, was to be one of the guests at the Tricots'. + +Polly was so happy to see his Jo again that it was pathetic to behold, +and her pride in him and his bravery was beautiful. Polly was vastly +improved. Kent, who had always liked the little man and had insisted +that there was much more to him than the other members of the colony +could see, was delighted to have his opinion of his friend verified. + +The ceremony was a very simple one, performed, not by the magistrate as +Mère Tricot had suggested, but at the Protestant Episcopal Church. Polly +Perkins gave away the bride, and Jo looked as though she would burst +with pride at this honour done her husband. Jim Castleman was best man, +and Cousin Sally fell in love with him on the spot. + +"He is like the young men of my youth," she declared, "the young men of +Kentucky, I am not saying how many years ago." + +The little living room at the Tricots' soon after the ceremony was full +to overflowing, but every one squeezed in somehow. The old couple were +very happy in dispensing hospitality. Their Jean came home for a few +hours and their hearts were thankful for this glimpse of their son. +Marie beamed with joy and the rosy baby delighted them all by saying, +"Pa-pa!" the first word it had ever uttered. + +Philippe, looking so handsome that Judy, too, wondered that all the +American girls passed him by, fraternized with Jean, the peasant's son, +with that simplicity which characterizes the military of France. + +The party was very gay, so gay that it seemed impossible that the +Germans were really not more than thirty miles from them. Of course they +talked politics, men and women. Old Mère Tricot had her opinions and +expressed them, and they listened with respect when she pooh-poohed and +bah-bahed the notion that the Nations had gone to war from altruistic +motives. + +"Belgium might as well die fighting as die not fighting. The Germans +had her any way she jumped. France had to fight, too, fight or be +enslaved. As for Great Britain--she couldn't well stay out of it! When +the Germans got Antwerp, why, where was England? Let us fight, I +say--fight to a finish; but let's be honest about it and each country +say she is fighting for herself." + +"Do you think United States should come over and help?" asked Kent, much +interested in the old woman's wisdom. + +"Not unless she has wrongs of her own to right!" spoke the grenadier. + +"But think how France helped us out in '76!" exclaimed Judy. + +"Yes, and helped herself, no doubt. I am not very educated in history, +but I'll be bound she had a crow of her own to pick with England." + +"To be sure," laughed Philippe, "France did want to destroy the naval +supremacy of Great Britain. Her alliance with Spain meant more to France +than her alliance with America. She was not wholly disinterested when +she helped the struggling states." + +"Oh, Heavens, Philippe, please don't take from me the romantic passion I +have always had for Lafayette!" begged his mother. "I used to thrill +with joy when tales were told of my great grandmother's dancing with +him." + +"Keep your passion for Lafayette. He was at least brave and +disinterested, but don't waste much feeling on the government that +backed him. Vergennes, the minister of France at that time, prepared a +map in which the United States figured as the same old colonial strip +between the Alleghenies and the sea. They had no idea of helping United +States to become a great nation." + +"Yes, I remember reading a letter from Jay in which he said: 'This court +is interested in separating us from Great Britain, but it is not their +interest that we should become a great and formidable people.' But I +feel deeply grateful to France for all she did," said Kent. + +"Me, too!" cried Jim Castleman. "And I mean to do all I can to pay it +back." + +"Ah! My American Lafayette!" cried the Marquise. "A toast, a toast, to +my American Lafayette!" And they stood up and drank a toast to the +blushing young giant. + +"I didn't dream any one could have such a good time at her own wedding," +said Judy when the last vestige of cake had disappeared. It was a +wonderful cake with a tiny white sugar bride and a chocolate groom +perched on top. There had been much holding of hands under the table. +Every other person seemed to be eating with his or her left hand, and +Cousin Sally complained that she had no hand to eat with at all, as +Philippe held one of her hands and the American Lafayette held the +other. + +The Marquis could not come, much to the regret of all the company, for +his regiment expected to be called to the front any day and no leaves +could be granted. + +Judy put up a brave front when adieux were in order, but her heart was +very sad. How many terrible things might happen to these kind friends +she was leaving! The Tricots, good souls, might be bereft at any +moment. Dear Cousin Sally, with two in the war, might be doubly visited +by the hand of death. Polly and Jo Perkins were to part after this brief +time of happiness, holding hands under the Tricots' hospitable board, +one to return to his office of caring for the wounded, the other to her +office of keeping the German ambulance drivers busy. The young Kentucky +giant, Jim Castleman, was to join his regiment on the following day. His +glee at having a chance to swat the Prussians was intense. He didn't +look like a person who could ever die, but one bit of shrapnel might in +the twinkling of an eye destroy that virile youth. + +"Come to see me when you can, my American Lafayette," begged the +Marquise, "and if you get so much as a tiny little wound, let me nurse +you if you can get to me." + +Jim had delighted the little party by translating into his execrable +French football terms to describe his idea of how the war should be +conducted. His left tackle was frankly: "_gauche palan_," and his centre +rush was: "_cintre jonc_." + +He and Kent were not very demonstrative in their parting, but both of +them felt it deeply. + +"Wuv e lul lul! Sus o lul o nun gug!" called Jim, as the cab bearing the +bride and groom started. + +"Gug o o dud lul u sank kuk!" was Kent's feeling rejoinder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. + + +No submarine warfare interrupted the peaceful passage of our +honeymooners. The voyage was delightful to both of them after all the +trials they had been through. Judy was as much at home on the water as +on land, literally a born sailor, as she had been born at sea. Kent +loved a ship and all the many aspects of the ocean. The lazy days on +deck, with their chairs drawn as close together as chairs could be, +their hands clasped under the steamer rug, seemed like a beautiful +dream, only a dream that was going to last for a lifetime, not the lazy +days on deck but the being together and never talking out. Being lazy +was not the idea of eternal bliss common to either of these young +persons. Kent felt there were worlds to conquer in the architectural +universe and he meant to do his share towards conquering them; and with +Judy by his side, he gloried in the task before him. As for Judy, she +meant to paint like mad and to work up many ideas she had teeming in her +head. She was thankful for the reels of undeveloped snapshots she had in +her trunk, as she was going to use them as a jog to her memory for the +numerous illustrations she meant to make in an article she was thinking +of writing on Paris at the outbreak of the war. + +Cousin Sally's admonition to work for the Allies was not forgotten, +either. Judy was planning a busy winter for herself in New York just as +soon as she and Kent could get themselves settled in an apartment. + +"It must be very inexpensive, too, Kent. We must save money." + +Kent couldn't help laughing at Judy's solemn face. What would Judy's +friends say at her becoming penurious? Judy, the spendthrift! + +"You see, I've always cost poor Bobby a lot of money; not that he has +ever complained, but I don't mean to be a burden to you, Kent." + +Kent had no answer for such foolishness but to squeeze her hand. + +"I'd be perfectly happy if I just knew that Bobby and poor little Mumsy +were all right." + +"Why, they may be on the high seas this minute. We will surely hear +something of them when we get to New York." + + * * * * * + +Sandy Hook was at last sighted and then came the slow, majestic steaming +into the harbour! Liberty still held her torch on high with the gulls +circling around her. The same little tugs were puffing up and down, with +the great ferries plying back and forth like huge shuttles. New York's +sky line was as fascinating to Mrs. Kent Brown as it had ever been to +Judy Kean. + +"Oh, Kent, I love it so! How could I have stayed away so long?" cried +Judy, rapturously making sketches in the air. + +The pier was filled with an eager crowd, awaiting the arrival of the +steamer. + +"There won't be any one for us," said Judy rather wistfully. "Your +mother is in Kentucky, and of course Molly couldn't leave the baby to +come meet us, and there isn't any one else." + +Kent smiled and said nothing. He was almost sure he saw the figure of +his tall brother-in-law, Professor Green, towering above the crowd, but +he was afraid he might be mistaken and could not bear to disappoint +Judy. + +It was Edwin Green and hanging on one arm was Molly (Kent knew her by +the blue scarf). And who was that on the other arm? Oh, what a mother! +It was Mrs. Brown, her face uplifted and glowing. + +"Judy, look a little to the left of the second post! Right in front of +us, honey! What do you see?" + +"Oh, it's Molly! I can tell her by her blue scarf--and Kent! Kent, +there's your mother and dear Edwin!" Then Judy clutched her young +husband's arm. "Look a little to the right, standing by your +mother--there's a big man that looks like Bobby--See, with a little +doll baby woman in front of him--he's keeping the crowd off of +her--see! see! It is--it is Bobby and little Mumsy!" + +Judy, who not much more than two weeks before had considered herself the +most unfortunate and friendless of mortals, now knew that there was not +such a happy person in all the world. How long the vessel took to be +made fast to the pier! And then such a crowding and pushing! Every one +on board seemed to have some one on the pier he had not seen for +centuries and must get to immediately. + +"They can't be as anxious to hug their mothers as I am, and I know they +haven't any Bobbies," she complained. "And I am sure they have not been +shipwrecked like you and given up for drowned by their families. They +ought to let us off first." + +Mr. Kean was behaving exactly as though he were at a football game. He +was jumping up and down and waving and shouting, and his rooting egged +Kent to make a rush for the gangway, holding Judy like a pigskin; and +once on the gangplank there was nothing to do but push and be pushed by +the crowd until they shot out on the pier into the arms of their waiting +and eager families. + +With every one talking at once, it was difficult to get any accurate +knowledge about one another, but when it was all sifted out it developed +that Mr. and Mrs. Kean had finally been allowed by the Imperial +Government to leave Berlin, in fact, they had been encouraged to go. Mr. +Kean was looked upon as a dangerous person, a lunatic at large, and they +did not want the responsibility or expense of caring for him. His jokes +got to be too many and serious, and when he became such an adept in +evading the spy set to watch him that two had to be detailed for that +duty, the powers that be evidently decided that what knowledge he +possessed of the topography of Turkey did not outweigh in importance the +wearing out of perfectly good soldier material. He worried the spy so +that he was nothing more than skin and bones, poor fellow! + +They had arrived in New York only the day before and had immediately got +Molly on the long distance telephone. Of course, they knew nothing of +Judy's being married, but unhesitatingly approved of the step Kent had +taken and did not consider him at all high-handed. Mr. Kean, being of a +most impulsive disposition, could understand it in other persons, and +little Mrs. Kean was so used to her comet-like husband and daughter that +she was never astonished by anything they did. + +"I was not the impulsive one this time, though, Bobby," Judy declared +when they finally settled themselves around the luncheon table at the +hotel where a second bridal feast had been prepared, ordered by the +lavish Bobby. "It was Kent. I had no idea of ever being married--in +fact, it seemed to me to be not quite decent to be married so quickly +when I was in such deep mourning--The wedding was quiet because of the +recent bereavement----" + +"In mourning! You, Judy, in mourning for whom?" and poor little Mrs. +Kean gasped, not knowing what she was to learn now. + +"Why, for Kent himself. Nothing but the bombs dropped in Paris kept me +from having my best serge suit dyed black. Molly, I always said I'd make +a fetching widow, and I did all right. Kent thought I was just lovely in +the hat I fixed for his mourning." + +"Oh, Judy! The same old Judy!" exclaimed Molly fondly. + +Molly had thought it would be impossible for her to go to New York +to meet the incoming steamer with its precious cargo, but Edwin had +declared she should go; so little Mildred was taken on the jaunt as +well, with the eager Katy as nurse. Kizzie was already installed as +cook and Katy was proving a most careful and reliable nurse. Molly was +looking and behaving more like herself and no longer had to let her +patient husband go off to his lectures like a bachelor with no wife to +pour his coffee. + +"And now, you and Kent and Mr. and Mrs. Kean must all come to Wellington +to visit us," announced the hospitable Molly. "Mustn't they, Edwin?" + +"Indeed they must," said Edwin obediently, but in his heart wondering +where Molly would put all of them. The old red house on the campus was +large but had not very many rooms. The young professor could never quite +get used to the Browns and their unbounded hospitality. His favorite +story was one on his mother-in-law; how, when one of her sons brought +home the whole football team to spend the night, she calmly took the top +mattresses off all the beds (the beds at Chatsworth were fortunately +equipped with box mattresses and top mattresses) and made up pallets on +the floor, thereby doubling the sleeping capacity of her hospitable +mansion. + +"I can't come, Molly,--mighty sorry," said Kent, "but my job must be +held down now. They have kept it open for me long enough." + +"And I stay with Kent!" declared Judy. + +"Hurrah, hurrah! Her mother's own daughter!" cried the delighted Bobby. +"I was wondering what kind of wife my girl would make; now I know. I +wouldn't take anything for that: 'I stay with Kent.'" + +"Oh, I'm going to be terribly domestic. I found that out while I was +living with the Tricots. What's more, I can make tarts--the best ever. I +can hardly wait to get a flat and a pastry board to make some for Kent." + +"You might use your drawing board for a pastry board," teased her +father. "I fancy art is through with." + +"Through with, indeed! Why, Bobby, I am astonished and ashamed of you! I +am going to paint all the time that I am not making tarts, and what time +is left, I am going to knit socks and make bandages for the wounded." + +"And poor me! When do I come in?" asked Kent. + +"You come in early and behave yourself or I'll spend the rest of the +time making suffrage speeches," laughed the war bride. + + * * * * * + +And now since we must leave our friends some where, what better time and +place than at this second wedding breakfast, while all of them are +together and happy? Perhaps we shall meet them again when the old red +house on the campus shall be taxed to its utmost in its endeavor to +behave like Chatsworth. We shall see Judy and Kent in their little flat +and mayhaps taste one of Judy's tarts. We must know more of Molly's +girls at Wellington and meet dear Nance Oldham and little Otoyo Sen +again. It is hard to part forever with our friends and those who know +Molly Brown feel that all her friends are theirs. + +So I hope our readers will be glad to meet again "Molly Brown's College +Friends." + + +THE END. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Marjorie Dean + College + Series + +BY PAULINE LESTER. + +Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean High School Series. + + +Those who have read the Marjorie Dean High School Series will be eager +to read this new series, as Marjorie Dean continues to be the heroine in +these stories. + + All Clothbound. Copyright Titles. + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH. + + MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE FRESHMAN + MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SOPHOMORE + MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE JUNIOR + MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SENIOR + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +Publishers. + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + 114-120 East 23rd Street, New York + + + + +[Illustration] + + Marjorie Dean + High School + Series + +BY PAULINE LESTER + +Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean College Series + + +These are clean, wholesome stories that will be of great interest to all +girls of high school age. + + All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH + + MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN + MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE + MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR + MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +Publishers + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK + + + + +[Illustration] + + The + Girl Scouts + Series + +BY EDITH LAVELL + + +A new copyright series of Girl Scouts stories by an author of wide +experience in Scouts' craft, as Director of Girl Scouts of Philadelphia. + +Clothbound, with Attractive Color Designs. + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH. + + THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS ALLEN'S SCHOOL + THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP + THE GIRL SCOUTS' GOOD TURN + THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP + THE GIRL SCOUTS' RIVALS + THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH + THE GIRL SCOUTS' VACATION ADVENTURES + THE GIRL SCOUTS' MOTOR TRIP + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +Publishers + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK + + + + +[Illustration] + + The Camp Fire + Girls Series + +By HILDEGARD G. FREY + + +A Series of Outdoor Stories for Girls 12 to 16 Years. + + All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go + Camping. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads + the Way. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open + Door. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven + Cedars. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the + Winnebagos. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure + at Carver House. + + THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles. + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +Publishers + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK + + + + +[Illustration] + + The Blue Grass + Seminary Girls Series + +BY CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT + + +For Girls 12 to 16 Years + + All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH + +Splendid stories of the Adventures of a Group of Charming Girls. + + THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES; or, Shirley + Willing to the Rescue. + + THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS; or, A Four + Weeks' Tour with the Glee Club. + + THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS; or, Shirley Willing + on a Mission of Peace. + + THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS ON THE WATER; or, Exciting Adventures + on a Summer's Cruise Through the Panama Canal. + + +[Illustration] + +The Mildred Series + +BY MARTHA FINLEY + + +For Girls 12 to 16 Years. + + All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles + +PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH + +A Companion Series to the famous "Elsie" books by the same author. + + MILDRED KEITH MILDRED'S MARRIED LIFE + MILDRED AT ROSELAND MILDRED AT HOME + MILDRED AND ELSIE MILDRED'S BOYS AND GIRLS + MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER + +For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the +Publishers + +A. L. BURT COMPANY +114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Minor printer's errors have been corrected. Otherwise the original +has been preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLY BROWN OF KENTUCKY*** + + +******* This file should be named 36736-8.txt or 36736-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/7/3/36736 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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