Molly Brown's Freshman Days

She opened Judy’s door unceremoniously and marched in.

The room looked as if a cyclone had struck it. The contents of the bureau drawers were dumped onto the floor; the closet was emptied, clothes and books piled about on the bed and chairs, and Judy’s two trunks filled up what floor space remained.

Judy herself was working feverishly. She had packed a layer of books in one of the trunks and was now folding up her best dresses.

“Julia Kean, what are you doing?” cried Molly in a stern voice.

Judy gave her a constrained nod.

“Don’t bother me now. There’s a dear. I’m in a dreadful hurry.”

Molly shook her violently by the shoulder. She had a feeling that Judy was asleep and must be waked up.

“Get up from there this minute and answer my question,” she commanded.

“What was your question?” asked Judy with an embarrassed little laugh. “Oh, yes, you asked what I was doing. I should think you could see I wasn’t gathering cowslips on the campus.”

“Are you running away, Judy?” asked Molly, trying another tack.

“Yes, my Mariucci,” cried Judy, quoting a popular song, “‘I’m gona packa my trunk and taka my monk and sail for sunny It.’”

Molly refused even to smile at this witticism.

“I know what you’re doing,” she exclaimed. “You are running away from examinations. You’re a coward. You are no better than a deserter from the army in time of war. It’s bad enough in time of peace, but just before the battle – I’m so ashamed and disappointed in you that I can hardly understand how I ever could have loved you so much.”

Judy went on stolidly packing, rolling her clothes into little bundles and stuffing them in anywhere she could find a place between her numerous books.

“Have you lost your nerve, Judy, dear?” said Molly, after a minute, kneeling down beside her friend and seizing her hands.

“I suppose so,” said Judy, extricating her hands, and speaking in a hard, strained voice in an effort to keep from breaking down. “I’d rather not stay here and be disgraced by flunking, but there’s another reason beside that, Molly. I know I look like a deserter and deserve to be shot, but there’s another reason,” she wailed; “there’s another good reason.”

“Why, Judy, dearest, what can it be?” asked Molly gently.

“They’re going to Italy,” she burst out. “They’re sailing on Monday. I got the letter to-day, and, oh, I can’t stand it – I can’t endure it. They’ll be in Sicily in a few weeks – and without me! Mamma hates the cold. So do I. I’m numb now with it. Oh, Molly, they’ll be sailing without me, and I want to go. You can’t understand what the feeling is. There is something in me that is calling all the time, and I can’t help hearing it and answering. In my mind I can live through every bit of the voyage. At first it’s cold, bitter cold, and then after a few days we get into the Gulf Stream and gradually it grows warmer. Even in the winter time the air is soft and smells of the south. At last the Azores come – cunning little islands snuggling down out there in the Atlantic – and finally you see a long line of coast – it’s Africa; then Gibraltar and the Mediterranean – oh, Molly – and Algiers, lovely Algiers, nestling down between the hills and looking across such a harbor! You can see the domes of the mosques as you sail in and Arab boys come out in funny little boats and offer to row you to shore. It’s delightfully warm and you smell flowers everywhere. The sky is a deep blue. It’s like June. And then, after Algiers, comes Italy – ”

Judy had risen to her feet now, and her eyes had an uncanny expression in them. She appeared to have lost sight entirely of the little room at Queen’s, and through the chaos of books and clothing, she was seeing a vision of the South.

“Come back to earth, Judy,” said Molly, gently pulling her sleeve. “Wouldn’t your mother and father be angry with you for giving up college and joining them uninvited?”

“Angry?” cried Judy. “Of course not. Even if I just caught the steamer, it would be all right, they would fix it up somehow, and they would be glad – oh, so glad! What a glorious time we will have together. Perhaps we shall spend a few weeks in Capri. I shall try and make them stay a while in Capri. Such a view there is at Capri across the Bay. Papa loves Naples. He even loves its dirtiness and calls it ‘local color.’ We’ll have to stay there a week to satisfy him, and then mamma will make us go to Ravello. She’s mad about it; and then I’ll have my choice – it’s Venice, of course; but we’ll wait until it’s warmer for Venice. April is perfect there, and then Rome after Easter. Oh, Molly, Molly, help me pack! I’m off – I’m off – isn’t it glorious, Italy, when the spring begins, the roses and the violets and the fresias – ”

Judy began running about the room, snatching her things from the bed and chairs and tossing them into the trunks helter-skelter. Molly watched her in silence for a while. She must collect her ideas, and think of something to say. But not now. It was like arguing with a lunatic to say anything now.

At last Judy’s feverish energy burned itself out and she sat down on the bed exhausted.

“So you’re going to give up four splendid years at college and all the friends you’ve made – Nance and me and Margaret and Jessie, and nice old Sallie Marks and Mabel, all the fun and the jolly times, the delightful, glorious life we have here – and for what? For a three months’ trip you have taken before, and will take again often, no doubt. Just for three short, paltry little months’ pleasure, you’re going to give up things that will be precious to you for the rest of your life. It’s not only the book learning, it’s the associations and the friends – ”

“I don’t see why I should lose my friends,” broke in Judy sullenly.

“They’ll never be the same again. They couldn’t after such a disappointment as this. You see, you’ll always be remembered as a coward who turned and ran when examinations came – you lost your nerve and dropped out and even pretty little Jessie has the courage to face it. Oh, Judy, but I’m disappointed in you. It’s a hard blow to come now when we’re all fighting to save ourselves and pull through safely. And you – one of the cleverest and brightest girls in the class. Don’t tell me your father will be pleased. He’ll be mortified, I’m certain of it. He’s much too fine a man to admire a cowardly act, no matter whose act it is. You’ll see. He’ll be shocked and hurt. If he had thought it was right for you to give up college on the eve of examinations, he would have written for you to come. It will be a crushing blow to him, Judy.”

Judy lay on her bed, her hands clasped back of her head. There was a defiant look on her face, and she kicked the quilt up and down with one foot, like an impatient horse pawing the ground. Then, suddenly, she collapsed like a pricked balloon. Burying her face in the pillows, she began sobbing bitterly, her body shaking convulsively with every sob. It was a terrible sight to see Judy cry, and Molly hoped she would be spared such another experience.

Without saying another word, Molly began quietly unpacking the trunks and putting the things back in their places. Then she pulled the empty trunks into the hall. This done, she filled a basin with water, recklessly poured in an ample quantity of Judy’s German cologne, and sitting on the side of the bed, began bathing her friend’s convulsed and swollen face. Gradually Judy’s sobs subsided, her weary eyelids drooped and presently she dropped off into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Nance crept into the room.

“She’s all right now,” whispered Molly. “She’s had an attack of the ‘wanderthirst,’ but it’s passed.”

All day and all night Judy slept, and on Sunday morning she was her old self once more, gay and laughing and full of fun. That afternoon she was an usher at Vespers in Wellington Chapel, with Molly and Nance, and wore her best suit and a big black velvet hat.

She never alluded again to her attack of wanderthirst, but her devotion to Molly deepened and strengthened as the days flew by until it became as real to her as her love for her mother and father.

Once in the midst of the dreaded examinations they did not seem so dreadful after all. The girls at Queen’s came out of the fight with “some wounds, but still breathing,” as Margaret Wakefield had put it. Molly had a condition in mathematics.

“I got it because I expected it,” she said.

But Judy came through with flying colors – not a single black mark against her. Jessie barely pulled through, and her friends rejoiced that the prettiest, most frivolous member of the freshman class had made such a valiant fight and won.

CHAPTER XXIII

SOPHOMORES AT LAST

“Freshman, arise!
Gird on thy sword!
Captivity is o’er.
To arms! To arms!
For, lo! thou art
A daring sophomore!”

The words of this stirring song floated in through the open windows at Queen’s one warm night in early June. Moonlight flooded the campus, and the air was sweet with the perfume of lilac and syringa.

A group of sophomores had gathered in front of the house to serenade the freshmen at Queen’s, who had immediately repaired to the piazza to acknowledge this unusual honor paid them by their august predecessors.

“I think it would be far more appropriate if they sang:

“‘When all the saints who from their labors rest,’”

remarked Mabel Hinton, who, in order to make a record, had studied herself into a human skeleton.

“Well,” said Molly Brown, “when I left home last September, one of my brothers cheerfully informed me that I looked like ‘a rag and a bone and a hank of hair.’ I am afraid I don’t feel very saint-like now, because I have gained ten pounds, and I’m not tired of anything, except packing my clothes. I’m so sorry to leave blessed old Queen’s that I could kiss her brown cheek, if it didn’t look foolish.”

“Well, go and kiss the side of the house then,” put in Judy. “You have a poetic nature, Molly; but I wouldn’t have it changed. I like it just as it is.”

“Do you know,” interrupted Margaret Wakefield, “that Queen’s, from having once been scorned as a residence, has now become a very popular abode, and there were so many applications for rooms here for next year that the registrar has had to make a waiting list for the first time in connection with Queen’s. Think of that at old Queen’s!”

“It’s because it’s the residence of a distinguished person,” announced Molly. “I think we should put a brass plate on the front door, stating that in this house lived a class president who possessed every attribute for the office. She was versed in parliamentary law, she had an executive mind, and she was beloved by all who knew her.”

Margaret was pleased at this compliment.