Molly Brown of Kentucky

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 forbeareTo digg ye dust encloased heareBleste be ye man yt spares thes stonesAnd 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.”