Molly Brown of Kentucky Part 27

Cousin Sally's admonition to work for the Allies was not forgotten, either. Judy was planning a busy winter for herself in New York just as soon as she and Kent could get themselves settled in an apartment.

"It must be very inexpensive, too, Kent. We must save money."

Kent couldn't help laughing at Judy's solemn face. What would Judy's friends say at her becoming penurious? Judy, the spendthrift!

"You see, I've always cost poor Bobby a lot of money; not that he has ever complained, but I don't mean to be a burden to you, Kent."

Kent had no answer for such foolishness but to squeeze her hand.

"I'd be perfectly happy if I just knew that Bobby and poor little Mumsy were all right."

"Why, they may be on the high seas this minute. We will surely hear something of them when we get to New York."

Sandy Hook was at last sighted and then came the slow, majestic steaming into the harbour! Liberty still held her torch on high with the gulls circling around her. The same little tugs were puffing up and down, with the great ferries plying back and forth like huge shuttles. New York's sky line was as fascinating to Mrs. Kent Brown as it had ever been to Judy Kean.

"Oh, Kent, I love it so! How could I have stayed away so long?" cried Judy, rapturously making sketches in the air.

The pier was filled with an eager crowd, awaiting the arrival of the steamer.

"There won't be any one for us," said Judy rather wistfully. "Your mother is in Kentucky, and of course Molly couldn't leave the baby to come meet us, and there isn't any one else."

Kent smiled and said nothing. He was almost sure he saw the figure of his tall brother-in-law, Professor Green, towering above the crowd, but he was afraid he might be mistaken and could not bear to disappoint Judy.

It was Edwin Green and hanging on one arm was Molly (Kent knew her by the blue scarf). And who was that on the other arm? Oh, what a mother!

It was Mrs. Brown, her face uplifted and glowing.

"Judy, look a little to the left of the second post! Right in front of us, honey! What do you see?"

"Oh, it's Molly! I can tell her by her blue scarf--and Kent! Kent, there's your mother and dear Edwin!" Then Judy clutched her young husband's arm. "Look a little to the right, standing by your mother--there's a big man that looks like Bobby--See, with a little doll baby woman in front of him--he's keeping the crowd off of her--see! see! It is--it is Bobby and little Mumsy!"

Judy, who not much more than two weeks before had considered herself the most unfortunate and friendless of mortals, now knew that there was not such a happy person in all the world. How long the vessel took to be made fast to the pier! And then such a crowding and pus.h.i.+ng! Every one on board seemed to have some one on the pier he had not seen for centuries and must get to immediately.

"They can't be as anxious to hug their mothers as I am, and I know they haven't any Bobbies," she complained. "And I am sure they have not been s.h.i.+pwrecked like you and given up for drowned by their families. They ought to let us off first."

Mr. Kean was behaving exactly as though he were at a football game. He was jumping up and down and waving and shouting, and his rooting egged Kent to make a rush for the gangway, holding Judy like a pigskin; and once on the gangplank there was nothing to do but push and be pushed by the crowd until they shot out on the pier into the arms of their waiting and eager families.

With every one talking at once, it was difficult to get any accurate knowledge about one another, but when it was all sifted out it developed that Mr. and Mrs. Kean had finally been allowed by the Imperial Government to leave Berlin, in fact, they had been encouraged to go. Mr.

Kean was looked upon as a dangerous person, a lunatic at large, and they did not want the responsibility or expense of caring for him. His jokes got to be too many and serious, and when he became such an adept in evading the spy set to watch him that two had to be detailed for that duty, the powers that be evidently decided that what knowledge he possessed of the topography of Turkey did not outweigh in importance the wearing out of perfectly good soldier material. He worried the spy so that he was nothing more than skin and bones, poor fellow!

They had arrived in New York only the day before and had immediately got Molly on the long distance telephone. Of course, they knew nothing of Judy's being married, but unhesitatingly approved of the step Kent had taken and did not consider him at all high-handed. Mr. Kean, being of a most impulsive disposition, could understand it in other persons, and little Mrs. Kean was so used to her comet-like husband and daughter that she was never astonished by anything they did.

"I was not the impulsive one this time, though, Bobby," Judy declared when they finally settled themselves around the luncheon table at the hotel where a second bridal feast had been prepared, ordered by the lavish Bobby. "It was Kent. I had no idea of ever being married--in fact, it seemed to me to be not quite decent to be married so quickly when I was in such deep mourning--The wedding was quiet because of the recent bereavement----"

"In mourning! You, Judy, in mourning for whom?" and poor little Mrs.

Kean gasped, not knowing what she was to learn now.

"Why, for Kent himself. Nothing but the bombs dropped in Paris kept me from having my best serge suit dyed black. Molly, I always said I'd make a fetching widow, and I did all right. Kent thought I was just lovely in the hat I fixed for his mourning."

"Oh, Judy! The same old Judy!" exclaimed Molly fondly.

Molly had thought it would be impossible for her to go to New York to meet the incoming steamer with its precious cargo, but Edwin had declared she should go; so little Mildred was taken on the jaunt as well, with the eager Katy as nurse. Kizzie was already installed as cook and Katy was proving a most careful and reliable nurse. Molly was looking and behaving more like herself and no longer had to let her patient husband go off to his lectures like a bachelor with no wife to pour his coffee.

"And now, you and Kent and Mr. and Mrs. Kean must all come to Wellington to visit us," announced the hospitable Molly. "Mustn't they, Edwin?"

"Indeed they must," said Edwin obediently, but in his heart wondering where Molly would put all of them. The old red house on the campus was large but had not very many rooms. The young professor could never quite get used to the Browns and their unbounded hospitality. His favorite story was one on his mother-in-law; how, when one of her sons brought home the whole football team to spend the night, she calmly took the top mattresses off all the beds (the beds at Chatsworth were fortunately equipped with box mattresses and top mattresses) and made up pallets on the floor, thereby doubling the sleeping capacity of her hospitable mansion.

"I can't come, Molly,--mighty sorry," said Kent, "but my job must be held down now. They have kept it open for me long enough."

"And I stay with Kent!" declared Judy.

"Hurrah, hurrah! Her mother's own daughter!" cried the delighted Bobby.

"I was wondering what kind of wife my girl would make; now I know. I wouldn't take anything for that: 'I stay with Kent.'"

"Oh, I'm going to be terribly domestic. I found that out while I was living with the Tricots. What's more, I can make tarts--the best ever. I can hardly wait to get a flat and a pastry board to make some for Kent."

"You might use your drawing board for a pastry board," teased her father. "I fancy art is through with."

"Through with, indeed! Why, Bobby, I am astonished and ashamed of you! I am going to paint all the time that I am not making tarts, and what time is left, I am going to knit socks and make bandages for the wounded."

"And poor me! When do I come in?" asked Kent.

"You come in early and behave yourself or I'll spend the rest of the time making suffrage speeches," laughed the war bride.

And now since we must leave our friends some where, what better time and place than at this second wedding breakfast, while all of them are together and happy? Perhaps we shall meet them again when the old red house on the campus shall be taxed to its utmost in its endeavor to behave like Chatsworth. We shall see Judy and Kent in their little flat and mayhaps taste one of Judy's tarts. We must know more of Molly's girls at Wellington and meet dear Nance Oldham and little Otoyo Sen again. It is hard to part forever with our friends and those who know Molly Brown feel that all her friends are theirs.

So I hope our readers will be glad to meet again "Molly Brown's College Friends."

THE END.