Molly Brown's College Friends

“Strong!”

“Weak!”

“Impossible!”

“Plausible!”

“Original!”

“Bromidic!”

“Involved!” were the verdicts. The matter was thoroughly threshed out, Billie with difficulty keeping order. Nance was called on for the “but” that she had been left holding.

“The plot is slight but certainly original in its way. The letters are too long, longer than a Godmother would be apt to write, I think. The story could be cut to three thousand words, I believe, to its advantage.”

“I have already cut out about fifteen hundred words,” wailed Molly. “The first writing was lots longer.”

“Gee!” breathed the one eager for a hearing.

“Now for the characterization! Don’t all speak at once, but one at a time tell what you think of it.”

“Did you mean to make Polly so silly?” asked Lilian.

“I – I – perhaps!” faltered Molly.

“Of course if you meant to, why then your characterization is perfect.”

“Silly! Why, she is dear,” declared the girl from Alabama. “I don’t like her having to nurse that black man, though.”

“Too many points of view!” suddenly blurted out a member who had hitherto kept perfectly silent, but she had been eagerly scanning a paper whereon was written the requisites for a short story.

“But you see – ” meekly began Molly.

“The point of view must either be that of the author solely or one of the characters,” asserted the knowing one. “Why, you even let us know how the Bedouin feels.”

“Oh!” gasped the poor author. “I think you would limit the story teller too much if you eliminated such things as that.”

“Here’s what the correspondence course says – ”

“Spare us!” cried the club in a chorus.

“I hate all these cut and dried rules!” cried Billie. “It would take all the spice out of literature if we stuck to them.”

“That’s just it,” answered Lilian. “We are not making literature but trying to sell our stuff. Persons who have arrived can write any old way. They can start off with the climax and end up with an introduction and their things go, but I’ll bet you my hat that you will not find a single story by a new writer that does not have to toe the mark drawn by the teachers of short story writing.”

“Which hat?” teased Billie. “The one you put on for Great-aunt Gertrude? If it is that one, I won’t bet. I wouldn’t read a short story by a new writer for it.”

“To return to my story,” pleaded Molly, “do you think if I rewrite it, leave out the letters, strengthen the plot a bit and make Polly a little wiser that I might sell it?”

“Sure!” encouraged Lilian.

“Yes, indeed!” echoed Nance.

“And the black man – please cut him out! I can’t bear to think of him,” from the girl from Alabama.

“Dialogue, – how about it?” asked the chairman.

“Pretty good, but a little stilted,” was the verdict of several critics.

“I think you are all of you simply horrid!” exclaimed Mary Neil, who had been silent and sullen through the whole evening. “I think it is the best story that has been read all year and I believe you are just jealous to tear it to pieces this way.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Lilian.

“We do hope we haven’t hurt your feelings, Mrs. Green,” cried the girl who was taking the correspondence course.

“Hurt my feelings! The very idea! I read my story to get help from you and not praise. I am going to think over what you have said and do my best to correct the faults, if I come to the conclusion you are right.”

“You would have a hard time doing what everybody says,” laughed Nance, “as no two have agreed.”

“Well, I can pick and choose among so many opinions,” said Molly, putting her manuscript back in its big envelope. “I might do as my mother did when she got the opinion of two physicians on the diet she was to have: she simply took from each man the advice that best suited her taste and between the two managed to be very well fed, and, strange to say, got well of her malady under the composite treatment.”

“Ahem!” said the girl with the burning plot, rattling her manuscript audibly so that the hardhearted Billie must perforce recognize her and give her the floor.

CHAPTER VI

“I HAD A LITTLE HUSBAND NO BIGGER THAN MY THUMB”

“Aunt Nance, what’s the use you ain’t got no husband an’ baby children?” Mildred always said use instead of reason.

“Lots of reasons!” answered Nance, smiling at her little companion. Mildred had moved herself and all her belongings into the guest-chamber. Her mother had at first objected, but when she found it made Nance happy to have the child with her, she gave her consent.

“Ain’t no husbands come along wantin’ you?”

“That is one of the reasons.”

“I’m going to make Dodo marry you when he gets some teeth.”

“Thank you, darling! Dodo would make a dear little husband.”

“Dodo wouldn’t never say nothin’ mean to you. He’s got more disposition than any baby in the family.”

“I am sure he wouldn’t,” said Nance, trying to count the stitches as she neatly turned the heel of the grey sock she was knitting. Nance was always knitting in those days.

“’Cose if I kin get you a husband a little teensy weensy bit taller than Dodo, I’ll let you know.”

“Fine! But Dodo will grow.”

“Maybe you’ll make out to shrink up some. Katy kin shrink you. My muvver said Katy kin shrink up anything. She done shrinked up Dodo’s little shirts jes’ big enough for my dolly. I’s jes’ crazy ’bout Katy. I’m gonter ask her kin she shrink you up no bigger’n Dodo an’ then won’t you be cunning? You can look jes’ like you look now only teensy weensy little. Your little feet’ll be so long, not great big ones like mine, an’ your little hands will be ’bout as big as my little fingers an’ – an’ – you kin knit little bits of baby socks an’ I kin take you out ridin’ in my little doll-baby carriage, all tucked in nice.”