Molly Brown's Sophomore Days Part 23

"What a jolly time you must have had!" observed Nance with a wistful smile which reminded the self-centred Judy at last that it was not exactly kind to pile it on too thickly about her delightful parents.

Not a little curiosity was felt by the Queen's girls to see Mr. and Mrs.

Kean, whom Judy had described as paragons of beauty and wit, and they a.s.sembled at Wellington station in a body to meet the distinguished pair. Judy herself was in a quiver of happy excitement and when finally the train pulled into the station, she rushed from one platform to another in her eagerness. Of course they had taken the chair car down, but she was too bewildered to remember that there was but one such coach on the Wellington train, and it was usually the rear car.

"I don't find them. Oh, mamma! Oh, papa! You couldn't have missed the train!" she cried, addressing the spirits of the air.

Just then a very tall, handsome man with eyes exactly like Judy's pinioned her arms from behind.

"Well, little sister, don't you know your own father?"

He was just as Judy had described him; and her word-picture also fitted Mrs. Kean, a dainty, pretty, little woman, with a doll-like face and flaxen hair, who would never have given the impression that she was in the habit of roughing it in engineering camps, sleeping out of doors, riding across sun-baked plains on Texas bronchos, and accompanying her husband wherever he went on his bridge and railroad-building trips.

"Judy hasn't had much home life," she said later to Molly. "We had to take our choice, little sister and I, between a home without papa or papa without a home, and we decided that he was ten thousand times more delightful than the most wonderful palace ever built."

Her extravagant speeches reminded Molly of Judy; but the mother was much gentler and quieter than her excitable daughter, and perhaps not so clever.

They dined at Queen's that night and made a tour of the entire house, except Judith Blount's room, all apartments having been previously spruced up for inspection. Otoyo had shown her respect for the occasion by hanging a j.a.panese lantern from the chandelier and loading a little table with "meat-sweets," which she offered to the guests when they paused in her room during their triumphal progress through the house.

Later Molly and Nance entertained at a fudge and stunt party and Mr. and Mrs. Kean were initiated into the secrets of life at Queen's.

They entered into the fun like two children, and one of the stunts, a dialogue between the Williams sisters, amused Mr. Kean so much that he laughed loud and long, until his wife shook him by the shoulder and exclaimed:

"Hush, Bobbie. Remember, you're not on the plains, but in a girls'

boarding school."

"Yes, Robert," said Judy, who frequently spoke to her parents by their first names, "remember that you are in a place where law and order must be maintained."

"You shouldn't give such laugh-provoking stunts, then," answered Mr.

Kean, "but I'll try and remember to put on the soft pedal hereafter."

Then Molly, accompanying herself on Judy's guitar, sang:

"Big camp meetin' down the swamp, Oh, my! Hallelujah!"

Mr. Kean suddenly joined in with a deep, booming ba.s.s. He had learned that song many years before in the south, he said, and had never forgotten it.

"He never forgets anything," said Judy proudly, laying her cheek against her father's. "And now, what will you sing, Bobbie, to amuse the ladies?"

Mr. Kean, without the least embarra.s.sment, took the guitar, and, looking so amazingly like Judy that they might have been twins, sang:

"Young Jeremy Jilson Johnson Jenks Was a lad of scarce nineteen----"

It was a delightful song and the chorus so catchy that after the second verse the entire fudge and stunt party joined in with:

"'Oh, merry-me, merry-me,'

Sang young Jeremy, 'Merry-me, Lovely Lou----'"

Presently Mr. Kean, seizing his daughter around the waist, began dancing, and in a moment everybody was twirling to that lively tune, b.u.mping against each other and tumbling on the divans in an effort to circle around the room. All the time. Mrs. Kean, standing on a chair in the corner, was gently remonstrating and calling out:

"Now, Bobbie, you mustn't make so much noise. This isn't a mining camp."

n.o.body heard her soft expostulations, and only the little lady herself heard the sharp rap on the door and noticed a piece of paper shoved under the crack. Rescuing it from under the feet of the dancers, and seeing that it was addressed to "Miss Kean," she opened and read it.

"Oh, how very mortifying," she exclaimed. "Now, Bobbie, I knew you would get these girls into some sc.r.a.pe. You are always so noisy. See here! Our own Judy being reprimanded! You must make your father explain to the President or Matron or whoever this Miss Blount is, that it was all his fault."

"What in the world are you talking about, Julia Kean?" demanded Judy, s.n.a.t.c.hing the note from her mother and reading it rapidly. "Well, of all the unexampled impudence!" she cried when she had finished. "Will you be good enough to listen to this?

"'Miss Kean: You and your family are a little too noisy for the comfort of the other tenants in this house. Those of us who wish to study and rest cannot do so. This is not a dance hall nor a mining camp. Will you kindly arrange to entertain more quietly? The singing is especially obnoxious.

"'JUDITH BLOUNT.'"

Judy was in such a white heat of rage when she finished reading the note, that her mother was obliged to quiet her by smoothing her forehead and saying over and over:

"There, there, my darling, don't mind it so much. No doubt the young person was quite right."

Mr. Kean was intensely amused over the letter. He read it to himself twice; then laughed and slapped his knee, exclaiming:

"By Jove, Judy, my love, it takes a woman to write a note like that."

"A woman? A cat!" broke in Judy.

Mrs. Kean put her hand over her daughter's mouth and looked shocked.

"Oh, Judy, my dearest, you mustn't say such unladylike things," she cried.

"It's just because she wasn't invited," continued Judy. "I wouldn't let the girls ask her this time. She usually is invited and makes as much racket as any of us."

"It was rather mean to leave her out," observed Molly. "I suppose she's sore about it. But we didn't ask all the girls at Queen's. Sallie Marks and two freshmen were not invited, and if we had gone outside, we'd have invited Mary Stewart and Mabel Hinton."

"Still," said Mr. Kean, "there's nothing meaner than the 'left-out'

feeling. It cuts deep. Suppose we smooth things over by asking her to our next party. Let me see. Will all of you give Mrs. Kean and me the pleasure of having you dine with us to-morrow evening at the Inn? Now, may I borrow some writing materials?" he added, after a chorus of acceptances had been raised.

Nance conducted him to her writing desk, which was always the acme of neatness, and well stocked with stationery. Here is the letter that Mr.

Kean wrote to Judith Blount, which Judy, looking over her father's shoulder, read aloud as it evolved:

"'Dear Miss Blount:' (Blount, did you say her name was? Humph!) 'You were quite right to scold Mr. Kean and me for making so much noise. It was inconsiderate of us----'"

"But, Bobbie," protested Mrs. Kean, "it isn't fair to lay the blame on me and make me write the letter, too."

"Be quiet, my love," answered her husband.

"'Will you not give us the pleasure of your company at dinner to-morrow evening at the Inn? We are anxious to show you what really quiet, law-abiding people we are, and Mr. Kean and I will be much disappointed if you do not allow us the opportunity to prove it to you.'"

Judy's father paused, his pen suspended, while he asked:

"Didn't I see bill posters at the station announcing a performance at the Opera House?"

"Yes," cried Judy. "They're giving 'The Silver King.'"