It seems a kind of desecration, but Melissa has a splendid figure and if her clothes were not quite so voluminous she would be as stylish as any one. She improves every day in many ways and seems to be less shy."
"She has an instinct for good literature. Professor Green tells me her taste is unerring. He says it is because her preference is for the simple, and the simple is always the best. Little Otoyo has the same feeling for the best in poetry. Haven"t we missed that little j.a.p, though? I"ll be so glad to have her back. I fancy I shall have some tutoring to do in spite of myself to get Otoyo Sen up with her cla.s.s."
Otoyo Sen, the little j.a.panese girl who had played such a close part in the college life of our girls, had been back in j.a.pan, and had not been able to reach America in time for the opening weeks of college, due to some business engagements of her father. But she was trusting to Molly and her own industry to catch up with her cla.s.s, and was hurrying back to Wellington as fast as the San Francisco Limited could bring her.
Molly had been writing every moment that she could spare from her hard reading, and now she had two things she really wanted to show Professor Green-a story she had worked on for weeks until it seemed to be part of her, and a poem. She had sent the poem to a magazine and it had been rejected, accompanied by a letter which she could not understand. At all times in earlier days she had gone frankly to the professor"s study to ask him for advice, but this year she could hardly make up her mind to do it.
"He is as kind as ever to me, but somehow I can"t make up my mind to run in on him as I used to," said Molly to herself. "I know I am a silly goose-or is it perhaps because I am so grown up? It is only five o"clock this minute, it gets dark so early in November, and I have half a mind to go now." The temperament that goes with Molly"s coloring usually means quick action following the thought, so in a moment Molly had on her jacket and hat. "Nance, I am going to see Professor Green about some things I have been writing. I won"t be late, but don"t wait tea for me.
Melissa may be in to see us, but you will take care of her, I know."
There was a rather tired-sounding, "Come in," at Molly"s knock on Professor Green"s study door.
"Oh, dear, now I am going to bore him!" thought the girl. "I have half a mind to run back through the pa.s.sage and get out into the Cloister before he has a chance to open the door and see who was knocking. But that would be too foolish for a postgraduate! I"d better run the risk of boring him rather than have him think I am some one playing a foolish Soph.o.m.ore joke, or even a timid little Freshman, afraid to call her soul her own."
"Come in, come in. Is any one there?" called the voice rather briskly for the usually gentle professor. And before Molly could open the door it was actually jerked open. "Dearest Molly!-I mean, Miss Molly-I thought you were going to be some one else. The fact is, I have had a regular visitation from would-be poets this afternoon, and, as it never rains but it pours, I had a terrible feeling that it was another one. I am so glad to see you; not just because you are not what I feared you were, but because you are you."
Molly blushed crimson and tried to hide the little roll of ma.n.u.script behind her, but the young man saw it and kicked himself mentally for a rash, talking idiot.
"I can"t come in, thank you. I just stopped by to-to--I just thought I"d ask you when your sister was coming."
"Oh, Molly Brown, what a poor prevaricator you do make! You know perfectly well you have written something you want me to see; and you also know, or ought to know, that I want to see what you have written above everything; and what I said about would-be poets had nothing to do with you and me. The fact is, I am a would-be myself and have been working on a sonnet this afternoon instead of looking over the thousand themes that I must have finished before to-morrow"s lecture. I had just got the eighth line completed when you knocked, and the six others will be easy. Please come in and take off your hat, and I"ll get Mrs. Brady to make us some tea; and while the kettle is boiling you can show me what you have been doing, and when I get my other six lines to my sonnet done I"ll show it to you."
Molly of course had to comply with a request made with so much kindliness and sincerity. Mrs. Brady came, in answer to the professor"s bell which connected his study with his house, and was delighted to see Molly, remembering with great pleasure the Christmas breakfast the young girl had cooked for Professor Green the year before. Molly had a way with her that appealed to old people as well as young, and she had won Mrs. Brady"s heart on that memorable morning by telling her that she, too, boasted of Irish blood.
"And I might have known it, from the sweet tongue in your head," Mrs.
Brady had replied.
The old woman hastened off to make the tea, and Molly reluctantly unrolled her ma.n.u.script.
"Professor Green, I want you to think of me as some one you do not know or like when you read my stuff."
"That is a very difficult task you have set me, and I am afraid one that I am unequal to; but I do promise to be unbiased and to give you my real opinion, and you must not be discouraged if it is not favorable, because, after all, it is worth very little."
"I think it is worth a lot. This first thing is something I have been working on very hard. It is called "The Basket Funeral." I remembered what you told me about trying to write about familiar things, and then, on reading the "Life and Letters of Jane Austen," I came on her advice to a niece who was contemplating a literary career. It was, "Send your characters where you have never been yourself, but never take them." I had never been out of Kentucky, except to row across the Ohio River to Indiana, when I came to Wellington, and so I put my story in Kentucky with Aunt Mary as my heroine. Now be as hard on me as you want to. I can stand it."
There was perfect silence in the pleasant study while Edwin Green carefully perused the well-written ma.n.u.script. An occasional involuntary chuckle was all that broke the quiet when one of Aunt Mary"s witticisms brought back the figure of the old darkey to his mind. When he had finished, which was in a very few minutes, as the sketch was a short one, he carefully rolled the paper and remained silent. Molly felt as though she would scream if he did not say something, but not a word did he utter, only sat and rolled the ma.n.u.script and smiled an inscrutable smile. Finally she could stand it no longer.
"I am sorry to have bothered you, Professor Green. I know it is hard for you to have to tell me the truth, so I won"t ask you." She reached for the roll of paper, her hand shaking a little with excitement.
"Oh, please excuse me. Do you know, I took you at your word and forgot I knew you, and forgot how much I liked you; forgot everything in fact but Aunt Mary and the "Basket Funeral." My dear girl, you have done a wonderful little bit of writing, simple, natural, sincere. I congratulate you and envy you."
And what should Molly do, great, big, grown-up postgraduate that she was, but behave exactly as the little Freshman had four years before when this same august professor had rescued her from the locked Cloisters: she burst into tears. At that crucial moment the rattle of tea cups was heard as Mrs. Brady came lumbering down the hall, and Molly had to compose herself and make out she had a bad cold.
"Have some hot soup," said the young man, and both of them laughed.
"It was natural for me to blubber, after all," said Molly, after Mrs.
Brady had taken her departure. "When you sat there so still, with your lips so tightly closed, I felt exactly as I did four years ago, shut out in the cold with all the doors locked; and when you finally spoke it was like coming into your warm pleasant study again with you being kind to me just as you were to the little scared Freshman. Do you know, I like my picture of Aunt Mary, too, and when I thought you didn"t like it I felt forlorn indeed."
"I notice one thing, Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky doesn"t cry until everything is over. The little Freshman didn"t blubber while she was locked out, but waited until she got into the pleasant study, and now the ancient postgrad is able to restrain her tears until the awful ogre of a critic praises her work. Now let"s have another cup of tea all around and show me what else you have brought."
"I hesitate to show you this more than the other thing, after your cutting remarks about would-bes. But I want you to read this so you can tell me what this letter means that I got from the editor of a magazine, when he politely returned my rejected poem."
"Read me the poem yourself. Would you mind? Poetry should always be read aloud, I think; and afterward I will see what I think the editor meant."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Read me the poem yourself. Would you mind?"-Page 218.]
"All right, but I am afraid it is getting late and Nance will worry about me."
The study was cosy indeed with its rows and rows of books, its comfortable chairs and the cheerful open grate. This was his one extravagance in a land of furnace heat and drum stoves, so Edwin Green declared. "But somehow the glow of the fire makes me think better," he said in self-defence.
Molly read any poetry well, her voice with its musical quality being peculiarly adapted to it. This was her poem:
"My thoughts like gentle steeds to-day Rest quiet in the paddock fold, Munching their food contentedly.
Was it last night? When up-away!
Through s.p.a.ces limitless, untold, Like storm clouds lashed before the wind, Nor strength, nor will could check nor hold, Manes flying-through the night they dashed "Til the first glimmering sun"s ray flashed Its blessed light; "til the first sigh Of dawn"s awak"ning stirred the leaves.
Then back to quiet fold-the night was done- Bend patient necks-the yoke-and day"s begun."
"Let me see it. Your voice would make "Eany, meany, miney, mo" sound like music. I should have read it first to myself to be able to pa.s.s on it without prejudice."
He took the poem and read it very carefully. "Miss Molly, you are aware of the fact that you may become a real writer? How old are you?"
"Almost twenty."
"Well, I consider that a pretty good poem for almost twenty. I bet I know what that saphead of an editor had to say without reading his letter. Didn"t he say something about your having only thirteen lines?"
"Oh, is that what he meant? I have puzzled my brains out over his note.
I didn"t even know I had only thirteen lines. Of course I knew it wasn"t exactly sonnet form, but somehow I started out to make fourteen lines and thought I had done it. Here is his cryptic note."
"Dear M. B.: We are sorry to say we are too superst.i.tious to print your poem. Are the poor horses too tired to go a few more feet? If you can urge them on, even if you should lame them a bit, we might reconsider and accept your verses.
"The Editor of --"
"Fools, fools, all of them are fools! Don"t you change it for the whole of the silly magazine. It is a good poem, and its having thirteen lines is none of his business. Haven"t you as much right to create a form of verse as Villon or Alfred Tennyson? That editor would have rejected "Tears, idle tears," because it hasn"t a rhyme in it and looks as though it might have."
The professor was so excited that Molly had to laugh.
"You are certainly kind to me and my efforts. I must go now. Please give my love to Mrs. Brady and thank her for her tea. You never did tell me when you expect your sister."
"Bless my soul," said Edwin Green, looking at his watch, "she will be here in a few minutes now!"
"Don"t forget to let me see your sonnet, and please put all the lines in. I am so glad your sister is to be with you, and hope to see her often."
And Molly flew away, happy as a bird that her writing was coming on, and that she felt at home again with the most interesting man she had ever met.
CHAPTER IV.-A BARREL FROM HOME.