"Don"t think about it, Molly, dear," said Nance. "We"ll soon get adjusted at O"Reilly"s with you, and we never would at Queen"s without you."
Molly could not find her mail when she returned to Queen"s for lunch, which had been prepared with much difficulty on several chafing dishes and a small charcoal brazier by Mrs. Markham and the maid. n.o.body seemed to know anything about letters in the upset and half-frozen household, until it was finally discovered that Mr. Murphy had taken Molly"s mail down to O"Reilly"s when he had moved the trunks.
Having disposed of indifferently warmed canned soup and creamed boned chicken that was chilled to its heart, the three friends went down to the village. They looked at the rooms; they stood gazing pensively at their trunks; it seemed too cold to make the physical effort to unpack their clothes. Again the fugitive letters had escaped Molly. Mr. Murphy, finding she was not to come down until afternoon had kept them in his pocket and was at that moment at the station awaiting the three fifteen train.
"It"s too cold to follow him," said Molly, never dreaming that Mr.
Murphy was carrying about with him a letter which was to change the whole tenor of her life. "I"m so homesick," she exclaimed, "let"s go back to Queen"s for awhile."
And back they hastened. Somehow they didn"t know what to do with themselves in their new quarters. It seemed unnatural to sit down and chat in those strange rooms.
As they neared the avenue they noticed groups of girls ahead of them, all running. The three friends began to run, too, beating their hands together to stir up the circulation. A bell was ringing violently. Its clang in the frosty air sounded harsh and unnatural.
"That"s the fire bell," cried Judy.
They dashed into the avenue. The campus was alive with students all running in the same direction.
"It"s Queen"s," shrieked Nance. "Queen"s is burning!"
Smoke was pouring from every window in the old brown house. The lawn in front was filled with a jumbled ma.s.s of furniture and clothes. Margaret and Jessie appeared on the porch dragging a great bundle of their belongings tied up in a bedspread. Otoyo rushed from the house, her arms filled with things. Mrs. Murphy, seated in a big chair on the campus, was rocking back and forth and moaning:
"Queen"s is gone. Nothing can save her. The pipes is froze."
Out of the front door Edith Williams now emerged, quite calmly, with an armload of books.
"Edith," cried Katherine, who had run at full speed all the way from the Quadrangle, "why didn"t you bring our clothes?"
For an answer her sister pointed at a pile of things on the ground.
"I made two trips," she replied.
All this the girls heard as in a dream as they stood in a shivering row on the campus. Old brown Queen"s was about to be reduced to ashes and cinders! No need to summon the fire brigade or call in the volunteer fire department from the village, although this organization presently came dashing up with a small engine. Flames were already licking their way hungrily along the lower story of the house, and the slight stream of water from the engine hose only seemed to rouse them to greater fury.
"I"m only thankful it didn"t happen at night," they heard Miss Walker cry as she pushed her way through the throng of girls. "And you, my dear child," she continued, laying a hand on Molly"s shoulder, "did you save your things?"
Molly started from her lethargy. She was so cold and unhappy, she had forgotten all about her belongings.
"Oh, yes, Miss Walker," she answered. "You see, we moved this morning.
Wasn"t it fortunate?"
"We?" repeated Miss Walker.
"Yes. My two friends, Miss Oldham and Miss Kean, moved, too. They--well, they wouldn"t stay at Queen"s without me."
"Is it possible?" said the President. "And their trunks had gone down to the village? Dear, dear, what a remarkably providential thing. And what devoted friends you seem to make, Miss Brown," she added, patting Molly"s hand and then turning away to speak to Professor Green, who had hurried up.
"Is everybody safe?" he asked breathlessly.
"Yes, yes, Professor, everybody"s safe and everything has been done that could be done. I am afraid some of the girls have lost a good many things, but you will be glad to know that three of them had only this morning sent their trunks to rooms in the village--Miss Brown and her two friends."
"Miss Brown moving to the village?"
Molly looked up and caught the Professor"s glance turned searchingly on her.
"I am going to live at O"Reilly"s," she said.
"And you are safe and your things are safe?" he asked her, frowning so sternly that she felt she must have displeased him somehow. "I"m glad, very glad," he added, turning abruptly away. "Is there nothing I can do, Miss Walker?"
For answer she pointed to the volunteers from the village who had leaped away from the house. The crowd swerved back. There was a crackling sound, a crash; a great wave of heat swept across the campus and the front wall of Queen"s fell in. They had one fleeting view of the familiar rooms, and then a cloud of ashes and smoke choked the picture.
It was not long before only the rear wall of old brown Queen"s was left standing.
"Dust to dust and ashes to ashes," said Edith Williams, solemnly.
It did seem very much like a funeral to the crowd of Queen"s girls who stood in a shivering, loyal row to the end.
"So much for Queen"s," said Margaret Wakefield. "She"s dead and now what"s to be done?"
It was decided that the girls should go to O"Reilly"s for the time being, all other available quarters being about filled. If they preferred the post-office they could stay there; but they preferred O"Reilly"s.
And thither, also, went Mrs. Markham and the Murphys and the maids from Queen"s. In a few short hours, it would seem, Queen"s had been changed to O"Reilly"s, or O"Reilly"s to Queen"s. It turned out, too, that Mrs.
O"Reilly was nearly related to Mr. Murphy, and all things, therefore, worked together in harmony.
O"Reilly"s seemed a place of warmth and comfort to the half-frozen girls who cl.u.s.tered around the big fire in Judy"s room at five o"clock that afternoon, scalding their tongues with hot tea and coffee while they discussed their plans for the future.
"Mrs. Markham told _me_," announced Margaret, a recognized authority on all subjects, political, domestic, financial and literary, "that it would probably be arranged to make O"Reilly"s into a college house for the rest of the winter. She said they might even do over the rooms. It would be a smaller household than Queen"s, of course--only eight or nine--but it would be rather cosy and--there would be no breaking up of old ties. If this isn"t approved," she continued, exactly as if she were addressing a cla.s.s meeting, "we shall have to scatter. There"s another apartment in the Quadrangle and there are a few singletons left in some of the campus houses. Now, girls,"--her voice took on an oratorical ring--"of course, I know that we are nearly fifteen minutes" walk by the short cut from the college and that we may not be _in_ things as much; but the best part of college we have here at O"Reilly"s. And that"s ourselves. I move that we change O"Reilly"s into Queen"s and make the best of it for the rest of the winter."
"Hurrah! I second the motion," cried Katherine Williams.
"All those in favor of this motion will please say "aye"," said the President.
"Aye," burst from the throats of the eight friends, Otoyo"s shrill high note sounding with the others.
"Hurrah for our President," cried Molly, dancing around the room in an excess of happiness.
"_Unitus et concordia_," said Edith gravely.
"It"s really Molly that"s transformed O"Reilly"s into Queen"s,"
continued Margaret, who had a generous, big way of saying things when she chose. "It"s Molly who has kept us all together. With Molly and Nance and Judy gone, Queen"s would have been a different place."
"It would! It would!" they cried. "Three cheers for Molly Brown!"
""Here"s to Molly Brown, drink her down!
Here"s to dear old Queen"s, drink her down.""
Through the din of singing and cheering, there came a loud knocking at the door and a voice cried:
"Open in the name of the law!"
Then the door was thrust open and Sallie Marks marched in flourishing a hot-water bag in one hand and a thermos bottle in the other.