Nell Speed - Molly Brown's Freshman Days

“Wellington! Wellington!” called the conductor.

The train drew up at a platform, and as if by magic a stream of girls came pouring out of the pretty stucco station with its sloping red roof and mingled with another stream of girls emptying itself from the coaches. Everywhere appeared girls, – leaping from omnibuses; hurrying down the gravel walk from the village; hastening along the University drive; girls on foot; girls on bicycles; girls running, and girls strolling arm in arm.

Few of them wore hats; many of them wore sweaters and short walking skirts of white duck or serge, and across the front of each sweater was embroidered a large “W” in cadet blue, the mystic color of Wellington University.

In the midst of a shouting, gesticulating mob stood Mr. Murphy, baggage master, smiling good naturedly.

“Now, young ladies, one at a time, please. We’ve brought down all the baggage left over by the 9.45. If your trunk ain’t on this train, it’ll come on the next. All in good time, please.”

A tall girl with auburn hair and deep blue eyes approached the group. There was a kind of awkward grace about her, the grace which was hers by rights and the awkwardness which comes of growing too fast. She wore a shabby brown homespun suit, a shade darker than her hair, and on her head was an old brown felt which had plainly seen service the year before.

But knotted at her neck was a tie of burnt-orange silk which seemed to draw attention away from the shiny seams and frayed hem and to cry aloud:

“Look at me. I am the color of a winter sunset. Never mind the other old togs.”

Surely there was something very brave and jaunty about this young girl who now pushed her way through the crowd of students and endeavored to engage the attention of the baggage-master.

“I think my trunk was on this train,” she said timidly. “I hope it is. It came from Louisville to Philadelphia safely, and when I re-checked it they told me it would be on this train.”

Now, Murphy, the baggage master, had his own peculiar method of conducting business, and it was strictly a partial and prejudiced one. If he liked the face of a student, he always waited on her first, regardless of how many other students were ahead of her; and, as he told his wife later, he “took a fancy to that overgrown gal from the fust.”

“I beg your pardon, but Mr. Murphy is engaged,” put in a haughty looking young woman with black eyes that snapped angrily.

“Now, Miss Judith,” said the baggage master, who knew many of the students by name, “don’t go fer to git excited. I ain’t made no promises to no one. It’s plain to see this here young lady is a newcomer, and, as sich, she gits my fust consideration.”

“Oh, please excuse me,” said the girl in shabby brown. “I’m not used to – I mean I haven’t traveled very much.”

Judith turned irritably away.

“I should think you hadn’t,” she said in a low voice, but loud enough to be overheard. “Freshies have a lot to learn and one is to respect their elders.”

The new girl put down her straw suit case and leaned against the wall of the station. She looked tired and there was a streak of soot across her cheek. The trip from Kentucky in this warm September weather was not the pleasantest journey in the world. While she waited for Mr. Murphy to return with news of her trunk, her attention was claimed by two girls standing at her elbow who were talking cheerfully together.

“Yes,” said one of them, a plump, brown-eyed girl with brown hair, a slightly turned-up nose and a humorous twitch to her lips, “I have a room at Queen’s cottage. It’s the best I could do unless I went into one of the expensive suites in the dormitories, and you know I might as well expect to take the royal suite on the Mauretania and sail for Europe as do that.”

The other girl laughed.

“You’d be quite up to doing anything with your enterprising ways, Nance Oldham,” she exclaimed.

“Oh, are you going to Queen’s cottage?” here broke in the girl in shabby brown. “I’m there, too. My name is Molly Brown. I come from Kentucky. I feel awfully forlorn and homesick arriving at the University station without knowing a soul.”

There was a kind of ringing note to Molly Brown’s voice which made the other girls listen more closely.

“I wonder if she doesn’t sing,” thought Nance Oldham, giving her a quick, scrutinizing glance. “Yes, I am at Queen’s cottage,” she continued aloud, “but that’s about all I can tell you. I feel like a greeny, too. We’ll soon learn, I suppose. This is Miss Brinton, Miss Brown.”

Caroline Brinton was rather a nondescript young person with dreamy eyes and an absent-minded manner. She came from Philadelphia, and she greeted the new acquaintance rather coldly.

“Your trunk ain’t here, yet, Miss,” called the baggage master. “Like enough it’ll come on the 6.50.”

Molly looked disturbed, while the black-eyed Judith standing nearby flashed a triumphant smile, as much as to say:

“It only serves you right for pushing in out of turn.”

“What are we to do now?” she asked of her new friends, rather helplessly.

“Take the ’bus up to Wellington,” said brisk Nance Oldham. “I know that much. There’s one filling up now. We’d better hurry and get seats.”

The three girls crowded into the long, narrow side-seated vehicle already half filled with students. Even at this early stage in their acquaintance, the bonds of loneliness and sympathy had drawn them together.

“I’m a stranger in a strange land,” Molly Brown had confided to the listening ear of Nance Oldham. “I had made up my mind not to be homesick. I really didn’t know what the feeling was like, because I have never had a chance to learn. But I know now it’s a kind of an all-gone sensation. I suppose little orphans have it when they first go into an orphan asylum.”

“Oh, you’ll soon get over it,” answered Nance. “It’s because you live so far away. Kentucky, didn’t you say?”

Molly nodded and looked the other way. The memory of an old brick house with broad piazzas and many windows blurred her vision for a moment. But she resolutely pressed her lips together and began to watch the passing scenery, as new and strange to her as the scenery in a foreign land.

The road leading to Wellington University skirted a pretty village and then plunged straight into the country between rolling meadow lands tinged a golden brown with the autumn sun. And there in the distance were the gray towers of Wellington, silhouetted against the sky like a mediæval castle.

Molly Brown clasped her hands and smiled a heavenly smile.

“Is that it?” she exclaimed rapturously.

“It must be,” answered Nance, who also felt some quiet and reserved flutterings.

“It is,” said Miss Brinton. “I came down to engage my room, so I know.”

In the meantime, there was a busy conversation going on around them.

“I’m going to cut gym this year. It interferes too much,” exclaimed a tiny girl with birdlike motions and intelligent, beady little eyes as bright and alert as the eyes of a little brown bird.

But evidently Molly was not the only person who had noticed this resemblance, for one of the students called out:

“Now, Jennie Wren, you must admit that gym never had any charms for you and it’s a great relief to give it up.”

“Of course she must,” put in another girl. “The only exercise Jennie Wren ever takes is to hop about on the lawn and prune her feathers.”

“Never!” cried Jennie Wren. “I never wear them, not even quills. I belong to the S. P. C. A.”