It gives us much pleasure to inform you that among several hundred contestants you have won the prize of $200, offered by this company for the best advertis.e.m.e.nt in prose or verse for one of our mountain chalets. Your poem will occupy the first page in an elaborate booklet now under way and we hope will attract many customers. We offer you our congratulations and good wishes for other literary successes and enclose the check herewith.
Very cordially yours, etc., etc.""
"Am I sleeping or waking?" cried Molly. "This, at the end of this awful day! Isn"t it wonderful?"
The reunited friends made so much noise over this triumph of their favorite that Mrs. Markham, superintending the setting up of beds and arranging of rooms with Mrs. O"Reilly, smilingly observed:
"Dear me, they don"t seem to take their misfortune much to heart, do they?"
"They"re that glad to get in out of the cold, ma"am, and warm themselves with some tea. It"s thawed them out, I expect, the poor young things.
They was half froze when they come an hour ago."
"But where"s the poem, Molly," cried Judy, when the racket had subsided. "We must see the poem."
"It"s locked in my trunk."
"Get it out, get it out," they ordered, and she had no peace until she unlocked the trunk and, rummaging in her portfolio, found the original ma.n.u.script of "The Chalet of the West Wind."
"I can"t see why it won the prize," she said. "I hadn"t even the shadow of a hope when I sent it. It"s not a bit like an ad."
"It was certainly what they wanted," said Sallie. "They didn"t have to give you the prize, seeing that they had several hundred to choose from.
But read it, because I"m in a fever of curiosity to hear it."
In the meantime, Judy had lit the gas, and taking Molly by the shoulders, pushed her into a chair under the light.
"I"m most awfully embarra.s.sed," announced Molly, "but here goes," and she read the following verses:
The Chalet of the West Wind.
"Wind of the West, Wind of the West, Breathe on my little chalet.
Blow over summer fields, Bring all their perfume yields, Lily and clover and hay.
"Bring all the joys of spring, Soft-kissing zephyrs bring, Peace of the mountains and hills, Waken the columbine, Stir the sweet breath of pine, Hasten the late daffodils.
"Gentle Wind from the Isles of the Blest, Breathe on my little chalet, Fill it with music and laughter and rest; Fill it with love and with dreams that are best; Breathe on it softly, sweet Wind of the West, Breathe on my little chalet."
There was certainly nothing very remarkable about the little song, and yet it had caught the eye of the real estate men as having a certain quality which would attract people to that sunny mountainside whereon were perched the quaint Swiss chalets they desired to sell. There was a subtle suggestion to the buyer that he might find rest and happiness in this peaceful home. The piney air, the flowers and the sunshine had all been poetically but quite truthfully described. With a picture of the "Chalet of the West Wind" on the opposite page, people of discerning tastes, looking for summer homes, would surely be attracted.
"How ever did you happen to write it, Molly?" they asked her after re-reading the poem and admiring it with friendly loyalty. "Have you ever been to the mountains?"
"No," she answered, "I actually never have. But something in me that wasn"t me wrote the verses. They just seemed to come, first the meter and then, gradually, the lines. I can"t explain it. I had some bad news and was afraid I would have to leave college and then the poem came.
That was all. Two hundred dollars," she added, looking at the check.
"It seems too good to be true. What must I do with it?"
"Put it in the Wellington Bank to-morrow morning," answered Margaret promptly.
Between them, Mrs. Markham and Mrs. O"Reilly prepared a very good dinner for the girls that night, and instead of being a funeral feast it was changed into a jolly banquet. The old Queen"s dinner table was restored and there was as much gay, humorous conversation as there ever had been in the brown shingled house now reduced to a heap of ashes.
Paperhangers and painters did go into the new college house on the following Monday morning and in less than ten days the dingy rooms were transformed by white woodwork and light paper. If the Queen"s girls felt a little out of it at first, not being on the campus, they were too proud to admit it, and n.o.body ever heard a complaint from them. They had a great many visitors at O"Reilly"s. Crowds of their friends came down to drink tea or spend the evening. The President herself called one morning and had a look at the place.
In the meantime Molly had called at Miss Walker"s office and informed her that she had come into a little money unexpectedly and, with the money she was earning, she would be able to pay her own board at O"Reilly"s for the rest of the winter. It was only by chance that Miss Walker learned how Molly had earned this sum of money.
"Think of the child"s modesty in keeping the secret from me," she said to Miss Pomeroy. "Have you seen the poem that won the prize, by the way?"
"Why, yes," answered that critical individual. "It"s a sweet little thing and I suppose struck the exact note they wanted, but I a.s.sure you it"s nothing wonderful."
CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE GARDEN.
"Who would have thought this place could ever blossom like the rose,"
exclaimed Margaret Wakefield, settling comfortably in a long steamer chair and looking about her with an expression of extreme contentment.
"It"s the early summer that did it," remarked Judy Kean. "It came to console us after that brutal winter."
"It"s Mrs. O"Reilly"s labors chiefly," put in Katherine Williams. "She told me that this garden had been the comfort of her life."
"It"s the comfort of mine," said Margaret lazily. "Watching you girls there hoeing and raking and pulling up weeds reminds me of a scene from the opera of "The Juggler of Notre Dame,"--the monks in the cloister working among their flowers."
Molly paused in her operation of the lawn mower.
"It is a peaceful occupation," she said. "It"s the nicest thing that ever happened to us, this garden, because it was such a surprise. I never suspected it was anything but a desert until one day I looked down and saw Mrs. O"Reilly digging up the earth around some little green points sticking out of the ground, and then it only seemed a few days before the points were daffodils and everything had burst into bloom at once. This apple tree was like a bride"s bouquet."
"That"s stretching your imagination a bit," interrupted Judy, reclining at full length on a steamer rug on the ground. "Think of the gigantic bride who could carry an apple tree for a bouquet."
"Get up from there and go to work," cried Molly, poking her friend in the side with her foot. "Here"s company coming this afternoon, and you at your ease on the ground!"
"I don"t notice that Margaret W. is bestirring herself," answered Judy.
"A President never should work," answered Molly. "It"s her office to look on and direct."
Judy pulled herself lazily from the ground.
"I"ll be official lemon squeezer, then," she said. "I will not weed; I refuse to cut gra.s.s, or to pick up sticks with the Williamses. You look like a pair of peasant f.a.got gatherers," she called to the two sisters who were clearing away a small pile of brush gathered by the industrious hands of Mrs. O"Reilly.
"And what do you think you are? A bloomin" aristocrat?" demanded Edith.
"If I am," answered Judy, "my n.o.blesse has obleeged me to squeeze lemons for the party. It"s a lowly job, but I"d rather do it than pick up sticks."
"Anything like work is lowly to you, Miss Judy," said Katherine.
Summer had really come on the heels of spring with such breathless haste that before they knew it they were plunged into warm weather. And n.o.body rejoiced more than Molly over the pa.s.sing of the long cold winter. When at last the sun"s rays broke through the crust of the frost-bound earth and wakened the sleeping things underneath, it had seemed to the young girl that her cup of happiness was overflowing. Not even to Judy and Nance could she explain how much she loved the spring. One day, seizing a trowel from some tools on the porch, she rushed into the garden and began digging in the flower beds.
"You don"t mind, do you, Mrs. O"Reilly?" she apologized. "I"m so glad spring is here at last that I"ve got to take it out in something besides book-learning."
"I"m only too happy, Miss," said the widow. "Young ladies ain"t often so fond of the smell of the earth."