Molly Brown's Sophomore Days Part 16

"They can never get down the embankment and we can never get up,"

remarked Judith, who appeared to have forgotten that she had lately been a human volcano. "Why can't we take the short cut back? It couldn't be any worse than this."

"Why not?" answered Molly politely, although it must be confessed she was still tingling under the lash of Judith's flaying tongue, and not one word had she spoken since they left the others.

"Mrs. McLean," called Judith, making a trumpet of her hands, "we're going to cut across the golf links. It will be easier."

"But I'm afraid for you to go alone at this time of night," answered Mrs. McLean.

"What could harm them a night like this?" expostulated her husband.

"Very well, then. I suppose it's all right," said the distracted and wearied lady.

"Don't be uneasy, Mrs. McLean. You'll tak' the high road and we'll tak'

the low, but we'll gang to Wellington afore ye," called Molly laughing.

After all, wasn't it absurd enough to make a body laugh--one man, eight helpless women slipping and sliding after him, and she herself making off in the darkness with the only enemy she had ever known! She wished it had been Judy or Nance. She was sure they would have giggled all the way. But who ever wanted to laugh in the presence of this black-browed, fierce-tempered Judith?

They walked silently on for some time, until they came to a little hill.

"I guess we'll have to crawl it," sighed Molly.

Long before this, they had pinned their long skirts up around their waists, and now, on hands and knees, they began the difficult ascent.

Just as they reached the top, Molly's slipper bag somehow got away from her and went sliding to the bottom. Suddenly both girls began to laugh.

They laughed until the echoes rang, and Molly, losing her grasp on a bush, went sliding after the bag.

"Oh," laughed Judith, "oh, Molly, I shall----" and then the twigs she had been clutching pulled out of the ice and down she went on top of Molly.

The two girls sat up and looked at each other. They felt warmer and happier from the laugh.

"Judith," exclaimed Molly, suddenly, "I could never laugh with any one like that and not be friends. It's almost like accepting hospitality.

Shall we be friends again?"

"Oh, yes," replied Judith eagerly. "I am sorry I was rude to-night about the coffee, Molly. You know it's my terrible temper. Once it gets a start, I can't seem to hold it in, and I've had a great deal to try me lately. I apologize to you now. Will you accept my apology?"

"Yes, indeed," Molly a.s.sured her. "Come along, let's try again. Once we get to the top of this little 'dis-incline,' as an old colored man at home would call it, we'll be on the links."

The girls both reached the summit at the same moment, and as they scanned the white expanse before them, they exclaimed in frightened whispers:

"There comes a man."

Instantly they slid back to the bottom again and lay in a heap, gasping and giggling.

"Where shall we go? What shall we do?" exclaimed Judith.

"Nothing," answered Molly. "We can hardly crawl, much less run, but I suppose he can't either, so perhaps we are as safe here as anywhere."

"But what man except a burglar could be prowling around Wellington at this hour?" whispered Judith.

"I can't think of anyone, but I should think no sensible burglar would come out a night like this. Besides, do burglars ever come to Wellington?"

"Once there was one, only he wasn't a real burglar. He was a lunatic who had escaped from an asylum near Exmoor."

"Oh, heavens, Judith, a lunatic? I'd rather meet ten burglars. After all, only a lunatic would come out on such a night. Can't we run?"

Molly had a fear of crazy people that she had never been able to conquer.

They rose unsteadily on their frozen feet and began hurrying back in the direction of the trolley embankment. As they ran, they heard a long, sliding, sc.r.a.ping sound. Evidently the man had slid down the little hill. They could hear the sound of his footsteps on the ice. He was running after them. At last he called:

"Wait, wait, whoever you are. I'm not going to hurt you."

In another moment he had caught up with them. Oh, joy of joys, it was Professor Green, wearing a thick gray sweater and a cap with ear m.u.f.fs.

With a cry of relief, Judith flung herself on her cousin's neck while Molly rather timidly clasped his arm. She felt she could have hugged him, too, if he had only been a relation.

"We thought you were an escaped lunatic," she exclaimed.

"I am," he answered, "at least I've been nearly crazy trying to get news of you." He took her hand and drew it firmly through his arm, while Judith appropriated his other arm. "They telephoned over from Exmoor to know if you had reached Wellington safely. We found at the village that the car had not arrived. Then about twenty minutes ago they called us from the car station to say that the conductor and motorman had walked but that you had decided to remain in the car all night. I thought I had better go over and persuade you not to freeze to death by degrees. I am glad you decided to walk. Where are the others?"

"They have gone on by the track," answered Molly. "We slipped down the embankment and couldn't crawl up again. Perhaps you could catch them, if you branched off here and took the other road."

"Never mind," answered the Professor, tucking her arm more tightly through his. "Dr. McLean can look after the others, now that his burdens are lightened by two. I'd better see you across this skating rink. Mrs.

Murphy is up waiting for you. I stopped and told her to get hot soup and water bottles and things ready."

"You're a dear, Cousin Edwin," exclaimed Judith. "You are always thinking of other people."

"I expect the old doctor will be a good deal knocked up by this little jaunt," went on the Professor, not taking the slightest notice of Judith's expressions of grat.i.tude, the first Molly had ever heard her make about anything.

It was half-past two o'clock when they reached Queen's Cottage, just ten minutes before the others arrived.

"It's a good thing you found us," Molly said to the Professor as he helped them up the steps. "I believe we'd have been crawling over those links another hour or so if you hadn't."

"I can never explain what made me cut across the links," he answered. "I had my face turned toward the other road when something urged me to go that way."

Dr. McLean always insisted that it was continuous giggling that kept them all from freezing that bitter night. Judith Blount was the only one in the party who suffered from the experience. She spent a week in the Infirmary with a deep cold and sore throat.

"You see," explained Judy Kean sagely to her two friends, "her system was weakened by that awful fit of temper; she lost all mental and bodily poise and took the first disease that came her way."

"She certainly lost all bodily poise," laughed Molly. "I didn't have any more than she did. We slipped around like two helpless infants."

"But you didn't take cold," said Judy.

"I've made up my mind not to have any colds this winter," announced Molly seriously. "After all, there's a good deal in just declining to entertain them. I think the grip is a sort of bully who attacks people who are afraid of him and keeps away from the ones who are not cowards."

The three girls spent half a day in bed sleeping off their weariness, and on Friday afternoon they were able to call on Mrs. McLean, who, being a hardy Scotchwoman, was none the worse from the walk. The doctor, she said, had been up since seven o'clock attending to his patients.

"The truth is," she added, "he would not have missed the sight for anything--the whole world turned into a skating rink and the campus the centre of it."

Everybody in Wellington who could wear skates was out that afternoon.

The campus and golf links, as well as the lake, were covered with circling, gliding figures. The best skaters coasted down hill on their skates, as men do on snow shoes. They went with incredible speed and the impetus carried them up the next hill without any effort.