Molly Brown's Post-Graduate Days

by Nell Speed

  CHAPTER V.--THE WEDDING.

  The wedding came off so exactly as Judy had planned it that it seemed toher to be a proof of the theory of transmigration of the soul, and thatin a previous incarnation she had been to just such a wedding. Theeldest brother, Ernest, arrived from the far West just in time to changehis clothes and give the bride away. There were three understudies forhis part, so there was not much concern over his non-arrival until hegot there with a blood-curdling tale of wrecks and wash-outs that haddelayed him twenty-four hours. Then all of them got very much concernedand Mrs. Brown reproached herself for being so taken up with Mildred'swedding that she had forgotten to worry about the absent one for thetime being. Ernest resembled Sue more than any of the rest of them, andhad a good deal of her poise and dignity. "But I'll wager that he is notas serious as he seems," thought Judy, detecting a twinkle in the cornerof his sober eyes.

  Mildred looked lovely, and she had such a sweet, trusting look in hereyes as she came down the steps and up the tan-bark walk on Ernest'sarm, that Crittenden Rutledge, waiting for her at the end of the walk,broke away from his best man and went forward several yards to meet hisbride. Sue and Molly brought up the rear; Sue, composed and calm withher sweet dignity; but Molly, so deeply moved by this beloved sister'smarriage and the break in their ranks, the very first, that she felt herknees trembling and wondered if it could be possible that she was goingto ruin everything and burst into tears or fall in a faint or dosomething terrible. But she didn't. The familiar voice of their oldminister in the opening lines of the Episcopal marriage service broughther to her senses, and she was able to follow the ritual in her mind,but she dared not trust herself to look up. She kept her eyes glued toher bouquet of "love-in-the-mist," that Miss Lizzie Monday had broughther that morning, picked from her own old-fashioned garden.

  "I know the groom will send the bridesmaids flowers, but somehow, Molly,I don't want you to carry hothouse flowers. These 'love-in-the-mists'will look just right with your dress and your eyes and your ways."

  So Molly carried Miss Lizzie's "bokay" and put the flowers that thegroom sent her in a vase in the parlor. But Molly was not thinking ofher dress or her eyes, except to try to keep the tears in them, sincecome they would, and not let them run out on her cheeks. Mildred'sresponses were inaudible except to dear old Dr. Peters, the minister,but Crittenden's were so loud and clear and resonant that it was almostlike chanting, and Judy had to smile when she could not help thinking ofthe stammering man's "Your house is on fire, tra la, tra la."

  "I pronounce you man and wife."

  All is over. Molly can let the tears fall now if she wants to, but,strange to say, she does not seem to want to any more. Such a rejoicingis going on. Everybody seems to be kissing everybody else. Aren't theyall more or less kin? Mildred and Kent, the center of a gay crowd, arefondly kissing the ones they should merely shake hands with, andformally shaking hands with their nearest and dearest, just as in a firepeople have been known to carry carefully the pillows downstairs andthrow the bowls and pitchers out of the window. Kent has his wits abouthim, however, and kisses Judy, declaring it is all in the day's work.

  A stranger standing on the outskirts of the crowd during the wholeceremony seemed much more interested in the bridesmaid dressed in bluethan in the bride herself, and when this same bridesmaid felt herselfswaying a little as though her emotion might get the better of her, ifone had not been so taken up with the central figures on the stage hemight have noticed the stranger start forward as though to go to herassistance. But he, too, was brought to his senses by the calm voice ofDr. Peters in the opening words of the service, and saw with evidentrelief that the bridesmaid had gained control of herself. He was a tallyoung man with kind brown eyes and light hair, a little thin at thetemples, giving him more years perhaps than he was entitled to.

  When the service was over and the general confusion ensued, he made hisway swiftly to where Molly stood, and without saying one word ofgreeting he put his arm around her and tenderly kissed her. Molly was soovercome with astonishment that she could only gasp, "Professor Green!What are you doing here?"

  "I am having a very pleasant time, thank you, Miss Molly. I got yourmother's kind invitation to attend your sister's wedding, and--here I am.Didn't your brother Paul tell you that I had come?"

  "No, we have been so occupied, I believe I have not seen Paul to-day."

  "I went to his newspaper office in Louisville to find out somethingabout how to get here, and he asked me to drive out with him. Are yousorry I came, Miss Molly?"

  "Sorry? Oh, Professor Green, you must know how glad I am to see you!But, you see, I was a little startled, not expecting you and thinking ofyou as still at Wellington."

  "If you were thinking of me as being anywhere at all, I feel better.Were you really thinking of me?"

  "Yes," said the candid Molly, "and wasn't it strange that I was thinkingof you just as you came up--and--and----" but, remembering his manner ofgreeting her, she blushed painfully.

  "You are not angry with me, are you, my dear child? I felt so lonesome.You see everybody seemed to know everybody else, and there was such ahandshaking and so forth going on that before I knew it I was in theswim."

  "Almost every one here is kin or near-kin, and weddings in Kentucky seemto give a great deal of license," said Molly, recovering her equanimity."Of course I am not angry with you. I could not get angry with any oneon Mildred's wedding day."

  But Molly felt that in a way Edwin Green had paid her back for the hugshe had given him. She had hugged him because he was so old that shecould do so with impunity, and he in turn had kissed her because he feltlonesome, forsooth, and she was so young that it made no greatdifference. His "My dear child" had been a kind of humiliation to Molly.What is the use of being a senior and graduating at college if a manvery little over thirty thinks you are nothing but a kid?

  "Professor Green is not so very much older than Ernest," thought Molly,"and I wager he will not treat Judy with thatold-enough-to-be-your-father air! Here am I getting mad on Mildred'swedding day when I just said I could not! And, after all, ProfessorGreen has been very kind to me and means to be now, I know." Turning tohim with one of "Molly's own," as Edith Williams termed her smile, shesaid, "Now you must meet my mother and all the rest of them."

  Mrs. Brown looked keenly and rather sadly at the young professor. Thiscoming of men for her daughters was growing wearisome, so the poor ladythought; but she liked Edwin Green's expression and found herselftrusting him before he got through explaining his sudden appearance inKentucky.

  "After all, maybe he is only thinking of Molly as one of his pupils. Hisbuying the orchard meant an interest in her college course and nothingelse."

  Mrs. Brown introduced him to the relatives and friends near her, andMolly had to leave him and make herself useful, as usual, in seeing thatthe refreshments were forthcoming.

  When they had decided to have the wedding out of doors, it had seemedbest to have the supper al fresco, and now brisk and very polite coloredwaiters were busy bringing tables and chairs from a side porch andplacing them on the lawn. An odor of coffee and broiled sweetbreads,mingling with that of chicken salad and hot beaten biscuit, began torival the fragrance of the orange flowers and roses.

  The crowd around the bride thinning out a little to find seats at thetables, Professor Green was able to make his way to Mildred andCrittenden. After greeting them, he espied Judy talking sweetly to astern-looking woman with a hard face and a soft figure, who was dressedseverely in a stiff black silk, with most uncompromising linen collarand cuffs. Her iron-gray hair was tightly coiled in a fashion thatemphasized her hawk-like expression, but with all she looked enough likeMrs. Brown to establish an undeniable claim to relationship with thatcharming lady. Mrs. Brown herself, in a soft black crepe de Chine andold lace collar and cuffs, with her wavy chestnut hair, was morebeautiful than any of her daughters, the bride herself having to take asecond place.

  Judy was delighted to see the professor, an
d not nearly so astonished asMolly had been, the truth being that Paul had told that young lady ofEdwin Green's arrival, with the expectation that she would inform Molly.But Judy, realizing the state of excitement that Molly was in,determined to keep the news to herself and not give Molly anything moreto feel just then, even if in doing so she, Judy, would appear to becareless and forgetful. Judy understood the regard that Molly had forProfessor Green--better than Molly herself did. She remembered Molly'sexpression and misery when little Otoyo, their Japanese friend atWellington, had told them of his being so dangerously ill with typhoid,and how Molly had lost weight and could neither sleep nor eat until thecrisis had passed.

  "Did you ever see such a beautiful wedding in your life?" said Judy.

  "Never, and I am told it was all your plan, even to the holly-hockbackground."

  "Well, you see the idea was floating around in the air, and I was justthe one who had her idea-net ready and caught it. Ideas are likebutterflies, anyhow--all flying around waiting to be pounced on--but thething is to have your net ready."

  "Yes, and another thing, not to handle the butterfly idea too roughly.Many an idea, beautiful in itself, is ruined in the working out," saidher companion.

  "That is where taste comes in."

  Judy would have liked to chase the metaphor much farther with theagreeable young man, but she remembered that she had set out tofascinate Aunt Clay, and it was Aunt Sarah Clay to whom she had beentalking when Professor Green had come up. She introduced him, and Mrs.Clay immediately pounced on him with a tirade against innovations of allkinds.

  Looking very much as we are led by the cartoonists to expect asuffragist to look, Mrs. Clay was the most ardent "anti." Opposed to allprogress and innovations, and constantly at war on the subject of highereducation of women, she carried her conservatism even to the point ofhaving her grain cut with a scythe instead of using the up-to-datemachinery. Professor Green was her natural enemy, for was he notinstructor in a girls' school where, she was led to understand, beliefin equal suffrage was as necessary for entrance as the knowledge ofLatin or mathematics?

  Professor Green, ignorant of the antagonism she felt for him and hiscalling, endeavored to make himself as agreeable as possible to Molly'saunt. He listened with seeming respect to her attack on modernism andthen turned the subject to the wedding, her pretty nieces andfine-looking nephews.

  "I never heard of any one getting married out of doors before in mylife, and had I known they were contemplating such a thing I certainlyshould not have set my foot on the place, nor would I have sent them thehandsome wedding present I did. I shall not be at all astonished if thebishop reprimands that sentimental old Dr. Peters for allowing anythingso undignified in connection with the church ritual. They had muchbetter jump over a broomstick like Gypsies and not desecrate our prayerbook in such a manner. Mildred Carmichael has brought all her childrenup to have their own way. The idea of none of those boys being willingto stay on the farm where their forefathers managed to make a living,and a very good one! They, forsooth, must go as clerks or reporters orwhat not into cities and let their farm go to rack and ruin, alreadymortgaged until it is top-heavy. Then when they do make a little, theymust squander it in this absurd new-fangled machinery, labor-savingdevices that I have no use for in the world. And now Molly, not contentwith four years wasted at college, to say nothing of the money, says shewants to go back to fit herself more thoroughly for making her living.Living, indeed! Where are her brothers that she need feel the necessityof making her living?"

  "But, Mrs. Clay," Judy here broke in, "my father says that there areonly three male relatives that a woman should expect to support her: herfather, her husband and her son. Since Molly has none of these, she, ofcourse, wants to do something for herself. Even with a father, unlessthe father is very well off, it seems to me a girl ought to help after alot has been spent on her education. I certainly mean to do something,but the trouble is, the only thing I can do will mean more money spentbefore I can accomplish anything."

  "And what does such a charming person as Miss Kean expect to do?" askedthe irascible old lady.

  "I want to go to Paris and study to become a decorator." This was toomuch for Mrs. Clay. Without saying a word, she turned and stalked acrossthe lawn where the waiters were carrying trays of food.

  "Hateful old thing! I hope food will improve her temper. It wouldcertainly be acceptable to me. See, here comes Kent with a table! I'llfind Molly and we can have a fine foursome, and you shall taste AuntMary's beaten biscuit, hot from the oven. No wonder Molly is such anangel. If, as the cereal ads. say, we are what our food makes us, anyone raised on Aunt Mary's cooking would have to be good. Goodness knowswhat Aunt Clay eats! It must be thistles and green persimmons!"