"Crit and I are more and more pleased with our little home out here in this Western town (not that they call themselves Western, and on the map they are really more Eastern than Western). The people are lovely, and so neighborly and hospitable. It is a good thing for Southern people to get away from home occasionally and come to the realization that they have not got a corner on hospitality.
Entertaining out here really means trouble to the hostess, as there are no servants and the ladies of the house have all the work to do; and still they entertain a great deal and do it very well, too.
"I have never seen anything like the system the women have evolved for their work. For instance: they wash on Monday morning and have a "biled dinner." When washing is over, they are too tired to do any more work, so they usually go calling or have club meetings or some form of amus.e.m.e.nt to rest up for Tuesday, ironing day. Wednesday, they bake. Thursday is the great day for teas and parties. Friday is thorough cleaning day, and I came very near making myself very unpopular because in my ignorance, when I first came here, I returned some calls on that fateful day. I was greeted by irate dames at every door, their heads tied up in towels and their faces very dirty. I could hardly believe they were the same elegant ladies I had met at the Thursday reception, beautifully gowned and showing no marks of toil. On Sat.u.r.day they bake again and get ready for Sunday, and on Sunday no one ever thinks of staying away from church because of cooking or house work.
"I am so glad our mother taught us how to work some, at least not to be afraid of work, but I do wish I had been as fond of the kitchen as you always were and had learned how to cook from Aunt Mary. My sole culinary accomplishment was cloudbursts, and if Crit is an angel he has to have something to go on besides cloudbursts. The restaurants and hotels here are impossible and there are no boarding houses. There are only twenty servants in the whole town and they already have a waiting list of persons who want them when the present employers are through with them, which only death or removal from the town would make possible, so you see we have to keep house.
I am learning to cook, and simply adore Friday when I can tie up my head and pull the house to pieces and make the dust fly. Crit calls me a Sunbonnet Baby because I am so afraid of not keeping to the schedule set down for me by my neighbors. Crit has bought me every patent convenience on the market to make the work easy: washing machine, electric iron and toaster, fancy mop wringer, and a dust pan that can stand up by itself and let you sweep the dirt in without stooping, vacuum carpet cleaner (but no carpets as yet), window washer and dustless dusters, fireless cooker and a steamer that can cook five things at once and blows a little whistle when the water gets low in the bottom vessel. I have no excuse for not being a good cook except that I lack the genius that you have. I thought I never should learn how to make bread but I have mastered it at last and can turn out a right good loaf and really lovely turnovers.
"Thank you so much for your hints from your Domestic Science cla.s.s.
I really got a lot from them. I had an awfully funny time with some bread last week. You see, having once learned how to make it, it was terribly mortifying to mix up a big batch and have it simply refuse to rise. I didn"t want Crit to see it, so I took it out in the backyard and buried it in some sand the plasterers had left there.
Crit came home to dinner and went out in the yard to see if his radishes were up and came in much excited: said he had found a new mushroom growth (you remember he was always interested in mushrooms and knew all kinds of edible varieties that we had never heard of).
Sure enough there was a brand new variety. That hateful old dough had come up at last! The hot sand had been too much for it and it was rising to beat the band. I was strangely unsympathetic with Crit and his mushroom cult, so he came in to dinner. As soon as Crit went back to work, I went out and covered up the disgraceful failure with a lot more sand, hammered it down well and put a chicken coop on it, determined to get rid of it; but surely murder must be like yeast and it will out. When Crit came back to supper that old leaven had found its way through the cracks under the chicken coop and a little spot was appearing to the side of the sand pile. Crit was awfully excited and began to pull off pieces to send to Washington for the Government to look into the specimens, and I had to give in and tell him the truth. He almost died laughing and decided to send some anyhow, just to see what Uncle Sam would make out of it. The report has not come yet. I have lots more things to tell you about my housekeeping but I must stop now. I am so sorry I can not come home to Sue"s wedding, but it is such an expensive trip out here that I do not see how Crit and I can manage it just now. Of course Crit could not come anyhow as the bridge would surely fall down if he were not here to hold it up, and even if we could afford it I should hate to leave him more than I can tell you. Oh, Molly, he is so precious! We have been married almost a year now and when I was cross about his mushrooms was the nearest we have ever come to a misunderstanding. That is doing pretty well for me who am a born pepper pot. It is all Crit, who is an angel, as I believe I remarked before. Please write to me all about your cla.s.s reunion, and give my love to that adorable Julia Kean, and also remember me to that nice Professor Green.
"Your "special sister, Mildred Brown Rutledge.""
"What a delightful letter and how happy they are," said the professor, fingering his roll of blue prints with a sad smile. "It was good of her to remember me. Please give her my love when you write."
"I did not tell you quite all she said," confessed Molly, opening the letter again and reading. "She says, "remember me to that nice Professor Green, who is almost as lovely as Crit,"" and Molly beat a hasty retreat.
CHAPTER VIII.-THE OLD QUEEN"S CROWD.
"Nance, do you fancy this has really been such a quiet, uneventful college year, or are we just so old and settled that we don"t know excitement when we see it? It has been a very happy time, and I feel that I have got hold of myself somehow, and am able to make use of the hard studying I have done at college. I know you will laugh when I tell you that one reason I have been so happy is that I have not had to bother myself over Math. No one can ever know how I did hate and despise that subject."
"You poor old Molly, I know it was hard on you. You were in good company, anyhow, in your hatred of it. You remember Lord Macauley hated it, too, but for that very reason was determined "to take no second place" in it. You always managed to get good marks after that first condition in our Freshman year. I often laugh when I think of you with your feet in hot water and your head tied up in a cold wet towel, trying to cure a cold and at the same time grasp higher mathematics," answered the sympathetic Nance, looking lovingly at her roommate. The girls found themselves looking at each other very often with sad, loving glances.
Their partnership was rapidly approaching its close. They could not be room-mates forever and college must end some time.
"The funny thing about me and Math. is that I never did really and truly understand it," laughed Molly. "I learned how to work one example as another was worked, but it was never with any real comprehension.
Nothing but memory got me through. I remember so well when I was a little girl, going to the district school. I came home in tears because division of decimals had stumped me. My father found me weeping my soul out with a sticky slate and pencil grasped to my panting breast. "What"s the matter, little daughter?" he said. "Oh, father, I can"t see how a great big number can go into a little bits of number and make a bigger number still." "Well, you poor lamb, don"t bother your little red head about it any more, but run and get yourself dressed and come drive to town with me. I am going to take you to see Jo Jefferson play "Cricket on the Hearth."" I shall never forget that play, but I never have really understood decimals; and you may know what higher mathematics meant to me."
"Speaking of a quiet year, Molly, I have an idea one reason it has been so uneventful is that our dear old Judy has not been here to get herself into hot water, sometimes pulling in her devoted friends after her when they tried to fish her out. Won"t it be splendid to see all the old Queen"s crowd again: Judy and Katherine and Edith, Margaret and Jessie?
I wonder if they have changed much! I am so glad they are coming to the meeting of the alumnae this year, and that we are here without having to come!"
"I do hope my box from home will get here in time for the first night of the gathering of the clan. I know it will seem more natural to them if we can get up a little feast. I want all of the girls to know Melissa.
Isn"t she happy at the prospect of her dear teacher"s coming? Do you know the lady"s name? I never can remember to ask Melissa, who always speaks of her with clasped hands and a rapt expression as "teacher"."
"Yes," answered Nance. "She has a wonderful name for one who is giving up her life working for mankind: Dorothea Allfriend, all-friendly gift of G.o.d. I believe her name must have influenced her from the beginning."
"We must ask her to our spread on Melissa"s account," cried the impetuously hospitable Molly. "That makes ten, counting the eight Queen"s girls, and while we are about it, let"s have--"
"Molly Brown, stop right there. If you ask a lot of outsiders, how can we have the intimate old talk that we are all of us hungering for? Of course we can"t leave Melissa out, as she has been too close to us all winter to do anything without her, and her friend must come, too; but in the name of old Queen"s, let that suffice."
"Right, as usual, Nance, but inviting is such a habit with all of my family that it almost amounts to a vice. Of course we don"t want outsiders, and I shall hold a tight rein on my inclination to entertain until after the fourth of June. If there are any sc.r.a.ps left, I might give another party."
"There won"t be any, unless all of us have fallen in love and lost our appet.i.tes."
The fourth came at last, and with it our five old friends: the Williams sisters, Katherine and Edith, as amusing as ever, still squabbling over small matters but agreeing on fundamentals, which they had long ago decided was the only thing that mattered; Margaret Wakefield, with the added poise and gracious manner that a winter in Washington society would be apt to give one; Jessie Lynch, as pretty as ever but still Jessie Lynch, not having married the owner of the ring, as we had rather expected her to do when she left college; and our dear Judy, in the seventh heaven of bliss because The American Artists" exhibition had accepted and actually hung, not very far above the line, a small picture done in Central Park at dusk.
The meeting at No. 5, Quadrangle, was a joyous one. Everybody talked at once, except of course little Otoyo, whose manners were still so good that she never talked when any one else had the floor; but her smile was so beaming that Edith declared it was positively deafening.
"Silence, silence!" and Margaret, the one-time cla.s.s president, rapped for order. "I am so afraid I will miss something and I can"t hear a thing. Let"s get the budget of news and find out where we stand, and then we can go on with the uproar."
"Well, what is the matter with refreshments?" inquired the ever-ready Molly. "That will quiet some of us at least. But before we begin, I must ask you, Otoyo, where Melissa is. She and her friend Miss Allfriend understood the time, did they not?"
"Yes, they understood and send you most respectful greetings, but my dearly friend, Melissa, says she well understands that the meeting of these eight old friends is equally to her meeting of her one friend, and she will not intrusive be until we our confidences have bartered, and then she will bring Miss Allfriend to meet the companions of Miss Brown and Miss Oldham."
"I haven"t heard who Melissa is, but she must be fine to show so much tact," exclaimed Katherine. "I am truly glad we are alone. I am bursting with news and drying up for news, and any outsider would spoil it all."
Nance gave a triumphant glance in Molly"s direction, and Molly stopped carving the ham long enough to give an humble bow to Nance before remarking, "You girls are sure to adore my Melissa, but if Katherine is already bursting with news, suppose she begins before I get the ham carved. What is it, Kate? A big novel already accepted?"
"No, but a good job as reader for a publisher, and two magazine stories in current numbers, and an order for some college notes for a big Sunday sheet. Isn"t that going some for the homeliest one of the Williams sisters? But that is nothing. My news is as naught to what is to come.
Have none of you noticed the blushing Edith? Look at her fluffy pompadour, her stylish sleeves, her manicured nails. Compare them with those of the old Edith. Remember her lank hair and out-of-date blouses and finger nails gnawed down to the quick. Note the change and guess and guess again."
"Edith, Edith! Oh, you fraud!" in chorus from the astonished girls.
"Is it a man?"
"Who is he?"
"When is it to be?"
They certainly guessed right the very first time. Edith Williams was to be the first of the old guard to marry, and she was certainly the last to expect such a thing. She took the astonishment of her friends very coolly and accepted their congratulations without the least embarra.s.sment.
"I can"t see what you are making such a fuss about. You must have known all the time that my hatred of the male s.e.x was a pose, just adopted because I had a notion that no man in his senses could ever see anything in me to care for; or if one did, he would be such a poor thing that I could not care for him. But," with a complacent smile, "I find I was mistaken."
"Tell us all about him, do please, Edith. I know he is splendid or you would not want him," said Molly, handing Edith the first plate piled with all dainties.
"I can"t eat and talk, too, so I"ll cut my love affair short. His name is plain James Wilson, but he is not plain, at all. He is very tall, very good looking and very clever. He is dramatic critic on a big New York paper and has written a play that is to be produced in the fall.
Oh, girls, I can"t keep it up any longer! I mean, this seeming coldness.
He is splendid and I am very happy!" With which outburst, she attempted to hide her blushes in her plate, but Katherine rescued it, saying sternly, "Don"t ruin the food, but effuse on your napkin," which made them laugh and restored Edith"s equanimity. Then the girls learned that she was to be married in two weeks and go to Nova Scotia on her honeymoon.
"Next!" rapped Margaret. "How about you, my Jessica, and what have you done with your winter?"
Pretty Jessie blushed and held up her fingers, bare of rings. "Not even any borrowed ones?" laughed Judy. "Why, Jessie, I believe you have sought the safety that lies in numbers, and have so many beaux you can"t decide among them."
"I have had a glorious debutante winter and do not feel much like settling down as yet," confessed the little beauty. "There is lots of time for serious thoughts like matrimony later on."
"So there is, my child, but don"t do like the poor princess who was so choosey that she ended by having to take the crooked stick. My Jessica must have the best stick in the forest, if she must have any at all,"
said Margaret, putting her arm around her friend. "For my part, I have had a busy winter and haven"t felt the need of a stick, straight or crooked. What with entertaining for my father and keeping up the social end necessary for a public man, and a general welfare movement I am interested in, and the Suffrage League, I have often wished I had an astral body to help me out. Mind you, I am not opposed to matrimony, but I am just not interested in it for myself."
"That is a dangerous sentiment to express," teased Judy. "I find that a statement like that from a handsome young woman usually means she is taking notice. Come now, Margaret, if, instead of having an astral body to do part of the work you are planning for yourself, you had been born triplets, you would have let one of you get married, wouldn"t you? Now "fess up. Margaret could attend the suffrage meetings, and Maggie could look after the child"s welfare, while dear, handsome, wholesome Peggy could be the beloved wife of some promising public man. I don"t believe Margaret or Maggie would mind at all if Peggy had to hurry home from the meetings to have the house attractive for a brilliant young Senator from the western states whom we shall call "the Baby of the Senate" just for euphony, and who would come dashing up to the door in his limousine whistling "Peg o" my Heart" in joyful antic.i.p.ation of his welcome."
Margaret, the stately and composed, was blushing furiously at Judy"s nonsense.
"Judy Kean, who has been telling you things?"