Molly Brown's College Friends Part 9

Mildred trotted off with a.s.surances of caution. Nance settled herself to her knitting and her thoughts. What a boon this universal knitting has become to women who want to think and be busy at the same time! The girl's thoughts were centered on herself. What was she to do with her life? The desire to teach had left her with the years she had spent nursing her father and mother. United States was on the verge of war--any moment it might be declared. That would mean the women of the land would be in demand just as they had been in Europe. There would be work to do, but what was her share to be?

This little breathing time with Molly was very sweet, but it could not go on forever. The time would come when she must take up life again. Her unruly thoughts would dwell on how different things would have been had Andy McLean not shown himself so unreasonable. She might have gone to the front with him. There was work in the hospitals in France for others besides trained nurses, lots of work! Cooking, cleaning, sewing, peeling potatoes, scrubbing floors--nothing was too menial for her. It would have been sweet to work near Andy, shoulder to shoulder in spirit even if he would happen to be the surgeon in charge and she a poor scrub girl. She might have been taking care of some of the war orphans.

Minding little babies was her long suit, it seemed. A big tear gathered and spilled on the toe of the sock that was being so neatly finished off.

A shrill scream broke on the still air.

"I'm a-sinkin'! I'm a-sinkin'!"

"Mildred!" cried Nance, jumping to her feet.

"Never mind, nurse, I'll go after her," said a stern voice from behind her. "You had better look after your other charge," in a tone which made no attempt to veil its sarcasm.

Dodo had awakened and was sitting up in the carriage reaching for the willow catkins. His position was precarious, as one more inch might have sent him headlong in the sand.

Nance dropped her knitting and grabbed the venturesome baby while the stern voice materialized into a tall grey figure with sandy hair who ran towards the water's edge, skinning out of his coat and vest as he ran and in some miraculous way also divesting himself of his shoes. His hat he had already hurled at Nance's feet.

Mildred had walked out on the little pier and decided that she would get in the pretty blue boat that her father considered such a safe refuge from tickling curls. It was bobbing about most invitingly in easy stepping distance.

"Won't Aunt Nance be 'stonished?" the child had said to herself. "She's gonter holler out: 'M-i-i-l-dred! Where you Mi--ldred baby?' an' I gonter lay low an' keep on a-sayin' nothin'."

She put out her little foot and set it firmly on the bow of the boat that was almost grazing the edge of the landing.

"My legs is a-gettin' mos' long enough to step up to the moon an'

stars," she boasted.

But how strangely boats behaved! This one did not stay still as she had expected but ran away from her. Her legs had not grown nearly so long as she had thought and they refused to grow another bit. The boat got farther and farther away and the horrid little pier seemed to be moving, too, and in the opposite direction. The time came when Mildred must choose between land and water. She decided to stay on sh.o.r.e and with a mighty effort jerked her little foot from the unsteady blue boat.

Three years going on four is not a period of great equilibrium. Fate took matters out of Mildred's hands and kersplas.h.!.+ she went in the cold waters of the lake. It was not very deep so close to the sh.o.r.e, but neither was the little girl so very tall. By standing on her tiptoes she might have managed to keep her inquisitive nose out of the water, but the naughty blue boat came swinging back to her rescue and she clutched first the painter and then the side of the boat, screaming l.u.s.tily as she clung.

The grey figure with the sandy hair ran lightly along the pier and with one swoop gathered the child up into his arms. He might have saved himself the trouble of taking off his coat and shoes, but he had seen the child as she fell in the water and did not know what would be required of him as life saver. Mildred was sobbing dolefully as she buried her wet curls in the neck of her rescuer.

"Your nurse should have looked after you," he muttered.

"She had her husband to 'tend to," said Mildred, "an' I was a-keepin'

keer of myself. 'Sides she ain't my nurse but my 'loved aunty."

"Oh! And who may you be?"

"I'm Mildred Carbuncle Green." The family name of Molly's mother, which was Carmichael, was thus perverted by this scion of the race.

"And your aunt's name?" asked the young man as he picked up his discarded coat and wrapped it around his burden.

"She's Aunt Nance----"

"Nance Oldham!" and he almost dropped little Mildred. "And you say she was busy with her husband?"

"Yessir! He keeps her busy mos' of the time."

The rescue and this conversation had taken but a moment. In the meantime, poor Nance had shoved her little husband back in the carriage and was rapidly wheeling him towards the scene of disaster.

She had recognized Andy McLean in the tall grey figure and sandy hair.

The moment he had spoken to her so sternly she had known it was he. At that moment she envied no creature in the world so much as an ostrich.

If she could only bury her head in the sand. Why should Fate be so cruel to her? Why should Andy McLean come back on her horizon at that moment when she was neglecting her duty? But then, she reflected, if he had not come back at that psychological moment either Mildred would have drowned or Dodo broken his neck. She could not have rescued both of them at once. Indeed, both of them might have been killed! The fact that the water was shallow and Mildred could have walked out of it was no comfort to Nance, nor did it allay her suffering and self-reproaches in the least to know that almost every baby that has grown to manhood has at one time or another fallen out of his carriage or bed, down the steps or even out of the window.

Andy McLean, too, was going through some uncomfortable moments as he held the dripping child close in his arms and made his way across the beach to Nance. There had never been a moment since he and Nance had parted that he had not regretted his hasty words; but what good were regrets? Nance could not have cared for him or she would have felt that at her father's death he was the person to whom she must turn instead of that Dr. Flint. As far as he could see, there was no reason under Heaven why Nance should not have married him immediately. He knew nothing of her mother's determination to give up her public life nor of her decision to remain at home for Nance to nurse. He had not yet learned of Mrs. Oldham's death, as he had arrived at Wellington only the evening before, and Mrs. McLean, with a wisdom sometimes granted mothers, had not mentioned Nance's name to him, much less the fact that she was even then visiting the Greens.

"Married! and so engrossed with her husband that she let little children entrusted to her care fall in the water and almost fall out of baby carriages! But where is the--the--cad?" was what Andy was thinking as he approached the frantic Nance, who was pus.h.i.+ng the carriage as for dear life through the heavy sand.

"Mildred! Mildred! You promised not to go near the water's edge!"

"I never went near it but jes' ran out on the little wooden street. I wasn't goin' to be naughty. I knowed I might get my feet wet down by the edge so I walked on the planks. I never done nothin' nor nothin'! 'Twas the bad little blue boat what wobbled."

Nance and Andy both laughed at the amusing child. The laugh made matters easier for them.

Brown eyes looked into blue and then such a blush o'erspread their countenances that a day's fis.h.i.+ng under a summer sun could not have accomplished.

"You had better put her in the carriage--it is warm there and I can carry Dodo."

"No, I will keep her wrapped in my coat. That will be better."

"But you--you might be cold."

"Not at all! I never catch cold," shortly.

Nance remembered otherwise, but there was nothing to do but turn and wheel the baby back to the house on the campus.

"I--you must think--I know I was careless to let such an accident happen to my charges. I have no excuse--I was just thinking!"

"About your husband, I fancy!"

Again Nance's cheeks were crimson, remembering only too well what her thoughts had been as she sat in the sand knitting.

"I----"

"Mildred told me about him," said Andy grimly.

"Did she?" laughed Nance, thinking that Andy was speaking of Dodo, of course. "He is a darling husband."

"Humph!" They walked on in silence, Andy taking great strides with Mildred clasped closely in his arms, while Nance wheeled the baby carriage, almost running to keep up.

"I don't know what to call you," said Andy at last.

"Call me? Why, call me Nance! Why not? My name is still Nance no matter what has happened."

"I--I--perhaps he wouldn't like it."

"Who?"

"Your husband! Is it Flint?"