Molly Brown's College Friends

“How about literature?” laughed Molly, her friend’s enthusiasm amusing her and at the same time pleasing her. “Do you think writing should stop as well as dressing?”

“Oh, of course scribblers will scribble and anyone who has a message to deliver will have to spout it out, war time or not, but they may not think they are so all-fired important. A letter from the most ignorant soldier at the front will have more real stuff in it than all of the vaporings of the poet who only imagines gunfire.”

“And here far from the strife – ”

“Here we will make sonnets with hoe and rake!”

“Our lines made by the gasoline plough shall be beautiful and harmonious!” suggested Molly.

“Our onion patch shall be worthy to be put into verse along with Eugene Field’s Onion Tart,” said Billie, going Molly one better.

“Our potato field shall be as full of solid refreshment as Charles Dudley Warner’s five feet of classics. Only smell the newly-ploughed earth! Isn’t it delicious?”

The wagons were unloaded, the farming implements piled neatly in the tool house and the Close-to-Nature houses dotted about the lawn ready for the stupendous task of being put up. The girls were waiting for Katy, whom they had dubbed “the powerful Katrinka,” to come help them with that job. Katy was in her element. She had been born and raised in the country, and now that she was once more where things were growing, where she could help them grow, she was as happy an Irish girl as there was in all the land. Nothing was too difficult for her to do and her great strength helped Molly and Billie out of many a quagmire of work that seemed too heavy for them to accomplish without masculine aid.

“And now Oi’m ready for to help put oop the little play houses,” she said as she joined Molly and Billie.

“That’s fine,” said her mistress, “but before we begin, just let’s smell the ploughed ground a little. Don’t you love it, Katy?”

“Sure! And it beats the perfumery that comes in a bottle, to my moind,” said the girl, sniffing delightedly.

“I don’t see why they don’t bottle the smell of new ploughed earth just as they have new mown hay,” laughed Billie. “I know two who would want to buy it.”

“Deed and Oi’d buy a gallon of sooch smells!”

“Do you know Masefield’s ‘Everlasting Mercy,’ Billie? You and Katy listen while I tell you the part about ploughing and then we’ll put up the tent houses.”

Very charming was the picture made by this group of girls. So Edwin Green thought as he walked silently across the lawn of the old farm. Katy, the sturdy Irish girl, was not without picturesque lines. Her look was somewhat that of Bastien Lepage’s peasant Jeanne d’Arc as she stood in rapt reverie while her beloved mistress gave voice to those wonderful lines of England’s greatest modern poet. Billie looked very down-to-date in her khaki overalls and stubby shoes, while Molly was very Mollyesque in the blue linen blouse that was the only true Molly Brown blue.

She did not hear her husband as he stepped lightly across the green spring grass and he motioned to Billie not to let her know he was there. He stood silently, with bared head while she recited. Molly’s voice had always appealed to Edwin, in fact it had been the first thing that had attracted him – and when Molly recited poetry!

“‘The past was faded like a dream;
There came the jingling of a team,
A ploughman’s voice, a clink of chain,
Slow hoofs, and harness under strain.
Up the slow slope a team came bowing,
Old Callow at his autumn ploughing,
Old Callow stooped above the hales,
Ploughing the stubble into wales.
His grave eyes looking straight ahead,
Shearing a long straight furrow red;
His plough-foot high to give it earth
To bring new food for men to birth.

“‘O wet red swathe of earth laid bare,
O truth, O strength, O gleaming share,
O patient eyes that watch the goal,
O ploughman of the sinner’s soul.
O Jesus, drive the coulter deep
To plough my living man from sleep.

“‘Slow up the hill the plough team plod,
Old Callow at the task of God,
Helped by man’s wit, helped by the brute,
Turning a stubborn clay to fruit,
His eye forever on some sign
To help him plough a perfect line.

*******

“‘I kneeled there in the muddy fallow,
I knew that Christ was there with Callow,
That Christ was standing there with me,
That Christ had taught me what to be,
That I should plough, and as I ploughed
My Savior Christ would sing aloud,
And as I drove the clods apart
Christ would be ploughing in my heart,
Through rest-harrow and bitter roots,
Through all my bad life’s rotten fruits.

“‘O Christ, who holds the open gate,
O Christ, who drives the furrow straight,
O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter
Of holy white birds flying after,
Lo, all my heart’s field red and torn,
And thou wilt bring the young green corn,
The young green corn divinely springing,
The young green corn forever singing;
And when the field is fresh and fair
Thy blessèd feet shall glitter there,
And we will walk the weeded field,
And tell the golden harvest’s yield,
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.’”

Katy wiped her eyes and Billie winked away the tears that would gather. Molly turned and saw Edwin standing only a few feet from her.

“Oh, Edwin, I didn’t know you were there. I declare I haven’t been spouting poetry ever since we got here! We have done a lot and were going now to put up the tent houses, but you aren’t to help. I’ll give you some tea and let you rest up after your tramp. We weren’t expecting you until Saturday – ”

“And don’t want me now?”

“Want you! Why, Edwin Green, B. A., M. A., P. H. D.! You know I always want you,” and then Billie and Katy thought it was time to leave the married lovers alone for a while.

“I want to help put up the houses, though,” insisted Edwin as he and Molly wended their way to a pretty little arbor covered by a crimson rambler that gave promise, if one might judge from the many buds, of being a glorious sight later in the season.

“But we can do it later by our lonesomes. You don’t know how many things we can do without the help of men, especially when one of us is as powerful as Katy and one as spunky as Billie.”