Nell Speed - Molly Brown of Kentucky

“Oh, you men folks!” laughed Molly. “I can’t see how she could leave France until she knows something about her mother and father, and after all, I don’t believe Kent and Judy are engaged.”

“Not engaged! What do you think Kent has been doing this whole year in Paris if he wasn’t getting engaged?”

“Studying Architecture at the Beaux Arts. Sometimes persons can know one another a long time and be together a lot and not get engaged,” she teased. It was a very well-known fact that Professor Edwin Green had been in love with Molly Brown for at least five years, and maybe longer, before he put the all important question.

“Yes, I know, but then – ”

“Then what? My brother Kent is certainly not able to support a wife yet, and maybe they are opposed to long engagements.”

“Well, all the same I am sorry for Kent. It was bad enough when you went abroad and the ocean was between us and I knew you were being well taken care of by your dear mother, – but just suppose it had been war time and you had been alone! The news from France is very grave. It looks as though the Germans would eat Christmas dinner in Paris as they boast they will.”

“Oh, Edwin, no!” and Molly turned pale.

“Well, look at these head lines in to-day’s paper. It looks very ominous. When did you say you were expecting Kent home?”

“By to-morrow at latest. He wrote Mother he was to stay some time in New York to try to land a job that looked very promising.”

“Here she comes now!” he exclaimed, his face lighting up with joy as it always did when his mother-in-law appeared on the scene.

Mrs. Brown was coming through the orchard from Chatsworth. Her hair had turned a little greyer since Molly’s marriage, but not much; her step was still light and active; her grey eyes as full of life; and in her heart the same eternal youth.

“Well, children! Did you get any mail? How is my precious little granddaughter? I’ve a letter from Kent. It just did beat him home. Paul ’phoned from Louisville that he is in town now, just arrived and will be here with him this afternoon. I am so excited!”

Dear Mrs. Brown’s life was made up of such excitements now: her children always going and returning. Mildred, Mrs. Crittenden Rutledge, had left for Iowa only two days before, having spent two months with her little family at Chatsworth; now Kent was almost home; and in less than a month the Greens would make their annual move to Wellington. Sue, the eldest daughter, married to young Cyrus Clay, lived within a few miles of Chatsworth and seemed the only one who was a fixture. Paul’s newspaper work kept him in Louisville most of the time and John, the doctor, made flying visits to his home but had to make his headquarters in the city for fear of missing patients. Ernest, the eldest son, was threatening to come home and settle at Chatsworth, but that was still an uncertainty.

“I must read you Judy’s letter, Mother. I know you will feel as uneasy as we do about her. Edwin thinks she should come home, but I think she could hardly leave, not knowing something more definite about her mother and father, who may be bottled up in Germany indefinitely.”

“Only think of the sizzle Mr. Kean will make when they finally draw the cork,” laughed Mrs. Brown; but when Molly read the whole of Judy’s letter to her, the laughter left her countenance and she looked very solemn and disturbed.

“Poor Kent!” she sighed.

“I wonder what he will do,” from Molly.

“Do? Why, he will do what the men of his blood should do!” Mrs. Brown held her head very high and her delicate nostrils quivered in the way her family knew meant either anger or high resolve. “He will go to France and either stay and protect Judy or bring her back to his mother.”

“But, Mother, are you going to ask this of him? Maybe he won’t think it is the right thing to do.”

“Of course, I am not going to ask it of him. I just know the ‘mettle of his pasture.’”

“But the expense!”

“Expense! Molly, you don’t sound like yourself. What is expense when your loved ones are in danger?”

“But I can’t think that Judy could be in real danger.”

“I can’t think anything else. You surely have not read the morning paper. The Germans are advancing so rapidly… The atrocities in Belgium! Ugh! I can’t contemplate our Judy being anywhere in their reach.”

“But, Mother, they must be exaggerated! People could not do what they say they have done, not good, kind German soldiers.”

“Molly! Molly! Your goodness will even let you love the Germans. I am not made that way. The Anglo Saxon in me is so uppermost and I feel such a boiling and bubbling in my veins that nothing but my grey hairs keeps me from joining the Red Cross myself and helping the Allies!”

“Well, then you don’t blame Miss Judy Kean,” laughed Professor Green, who never loved his mother-in-law more than when, as old Aunt Mary expressed it, “her nose was a-wuckin’.”

“Blame her! No, indeed! If I were her age, I’d do exactly what she is doing, but I should certainly have expected Molly’s father to come over and protect me while I was being so foolhardy.”

“Judy doesn’t say she is going as a nurse,” said Molly, referring to the letter. “Jo Williams is to fly and Judy seems uncertain what she is going to do, – just see the fight, as far as I can make out. I know Judy so well I just can’t feel uneasy about her. You mustn’t think I am mercenary, Mother, or careless of my friend. Judy always lands on her feet and is as much of an adept in getting out of scrapes as she is in getting in them.”

“My darling, of course I didn’t mean you were mercenary,” cried Mrs. Brown, seeing in Molly’s blue eyes a little hurt look at the vigorous tone she had taken when Molly merely suggested expense. “I just think in your desire to think well of every one, nations as well as individuals, that you are blind to the terrors of this war. If Judy will only go to Sally Bolling, she will be taken care of. I fancy Sally is at La Roche Craie now.”

“Oh, I had forgotten to think of what this must mean to Cousin Sally!” exclaimed Molly. “The truth of the matter is that it is so peaceful here my imagination cannot picture what it is over there. I am growing selfish with contentment. Of course Philippe d’Ochtè will join his regiment and poor Cousin Sally and the Marquis will suffer agonies over him.”

“Yes and over France!” said Edwin solemnly. “I remember so well a conversation I had with the Marquis d’Ochtè on the subject of his country. I believe he really and truly puts his country above even his adored wife and son. That is more patriotism than I could be capable of – ”

“Not a bit of it, my dear Edwin,” broke in Mrs. Brown.

“Molly and your little baby Mildred are but a part of your country, and if the time should come and your country called you, you would answer the call just as I hope my own sons would.”

“Oh, Mother, you are a Spartan! I am not so brave, I am afraid,” said Molly. “Even now at the thought of war, I am thanking God my Mildred baby is a girl.”

Little Mildred, at mention of her name, although it would be many a day before she would know what her name was, awakened and gave an inarticulate gurgle. Mrs. Brown dropped the rôle of Spartan Mother and turned into a doting grandmother in the twinkling of an eye.

“And was um little tootsie wootsies cold? Come to your Granny and let her warm them. Molly, this baby has grown a foot, I do believe, and look what a fine, strong, straight back she has! And does oo want your Granny to rub your back? Only look, her eyes have brown lights in them! I said all the time she would have brown eyes.”