Molly Brown of Kentucky Read online

  MOLLY BROWN OF KENTUCKY

  by

  NELL SPEED

  Author of"The Tucker Twins Series," "The CarterGirls Series," etc.

  A. L. Burt CompanyPublishers New York

  Printed in U. S. A.

  Copyright, 1917,ByHurst & Company, Inc.

  Printed in U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I A LETTER 5

  II THE ORCHARD HOME 19

  III KENT BROWN 37

  IV AFTERNOON TEA 51

  V LETTERS FROM PARIS AND BERLIN 61

  VI AT THE TRICOTS' 80

  VII A MOTHER'S FAITH 99

  VIII DES HALLES 112

  IX THE AMERICAN MAIL 123

  X THE ZEPPELIN RAID 132

  XI "L'HIRONDELLE DE MER" 138

  XII TUTNO 147

  XIII THE "SIGNY" 160

  XIV THE CABLEGRAM 167

  XV WELLINGTON AGAIN 185

  XVI IRISHMAN'S CURTAINS 200

  XVII HEROES AND HERO WORSHIPERS 221

  XVIII CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 246

  XIX WASTED DYE 263

  XX A WAR BRIDE 270

  XXI THE FLIGHT 283

  XXII THE WEDDING BREAKFAST 296

  XXIII THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 304

  Molly Brown of Kentucky.

  CHAPTER I.

  A LETTER.

  From Miss Julia Kean to Mrs. Edwin Green.

  Giverny, France, August, 1914.

  Dearest old Molly Brown of Kentucky:

  You can marry a million Professor Edwin Greens, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., L.D.(the last stands for lucky dog), and you can also have a million littleGreen Olive Branches, but you will still be Molly Brown of Kentucky toall of your old friends.

  I came up to Giverny last week with the Polly Perkinses. They are greatfun and, strange to say, get on rather better than most married folks.Jo is much meeker than we ever thought she could be, now that she hasmade Polly cut his hair and has let her own grow out. Polly is moremanly, too, I think and asserts himself occasionally, much to Jo'sdelight. I should not be at all astonished if his falsetto voice turnedinto a baritone, if not a deep bass. He walks with quite a swagger andtalks about my wife this and my wife that in such masculine pride thatyou would not know him.

  Paris was rather excited when we came through last week. I have been atQuimperle all summer and only stopped in Paris long enough to get somepaints and canvas. I had actually painted out. Jo had written me to joinher in this little housekeeping scheme at Giverny. I wish you could seethe house we have taken. It is too wonderful that it is ours! Such peaceand quiet! Especially so, after the turmoil in Paris. I have seen so fewpapers that I hardly know what it is all about; no doubt you in Kentuckywith your _Courier Journal_ know more than I do. They talk of war, butof course that is nonsense. Anyhow, if there is a war, I bet I am goingto be Johnny on the Spot. But of course there won't be one.

  I miss Kent,--but I need hardly tell you that. I almost gave in andsailed with him, but it was much best for me to wait in France for mymother and father. They are now in Berlin waiting for the powers that beto give some kind of a permit for some kind of a road that Bobby is tobuild from Constantinople to the interior; that is, he is to build it ifhe can get the permission of the Imperial Government. What the Germanshave to do with Turkey, you can search me, but that is what Bobby writesme. He has done a lot of work on it already in the way of preliminaryplans. I am to hang around until I hear from them, so I am going to hangaround with the Polly Perkinses.

  No doubt Kent is home by this time. I envy him, somehow. It is sowonderful to have a home to go to. Now isn't that a silly line of talkfor Judy Kean to be getting off, I, who have always declared that aGypsy van was my idea of bliss? I never have had a home and I neverhave wanted one until lately. I fancy that winter in Paris with yourmother in the Rue Brea was my undoing. Of course, if Bobby had beenanything but a civil engineer and Mamma had been anything but so muchmarried to Bobby that she had to trot around with him from one end ofthe earth to the other, why then, I might have had a home. But Bobby isBobby and he wouldn't have been himself doing anything but buildingroads, and I certainly would not have had Mamma let him build them allby his lonesome. The truth of the matter is, I was a mistake. Ishould either never have been born or I should have been born a boy.Geewhillikins! What a boy I would have been! Somehow, I'm glad I'm not,though.

  I am wild to see little Mildred. It seems so wonderful for you to be amother. I know you will make a great job of being one, too. Are yougoing to have her be an old-fashioned baby with the foregone conclusionthat she must "eat her peck of dirt," or is she to be one of theseinfants whose toys must be sterilized before she is allowed to playwith them, and who is too easily contaminated to be kissed unless thekisser gargles first with corrosive sublimate? Please let me know aboutthis, because kiss her I must and will, and if I have to be asepticbefore I can do it, I fancy I had better begin right now. Here is Pollywith the mail and Paris papers. Will finish later.

  It has come! Actual war! We feel like fools to have rushed off here tothe country without knowing more about the state France was in. I canhardly believe it even now. They are asking Americans to leave Paris,but I can't leave. How can I, with Mamma and Papa in Berlin? I am goingto stay right where I am until things settle themselves a little. Thepeasants even now do not believe it has come. We are not much more thanan hour from Paris, but there are many persons living in this villagewho have never been to Paris. The old men stand in groups and talkpolitics, disagreeing on every subject under the sun except the onegreat subject and that is Germany. Hatred of Germany is the one thingthat there are no two minds about. The women look big-eyed andawestruck. There are no young men--all gone to war. They went offsinging and joking.

  What I long for most is news. We don't get any news to speak of. I amfilled with concern about Bobby and Mamma. It is foolish, as they areable to take care of themselves, but Bobby is so sassy. I am so afraidhe might jaw back at the Emperor. He is fully capable of calling him toaccount for his behavior. Some one should, but I hope it won't be Bobby.

  Polly Perkins is going to drive a Red Cross Ambulance. He is quitedetermined, so determined that he has actually produced a chin fromsomewhere (you remember he boasted none to speak of). It is quitebecoming to him, this determination and chin, and Jo is beaming withpride. I believe if Polly had wanted to run, it would have killed Jo.

  Excuse the jerkiness of this, but I am so excited that I can only jotdown a little at a time. Things are moving fast! The artists and nearartists at Madame Gaston's Inn are piling out, making for Paris, some tosail for United States and others to try to get into England. Jo and Ihad determined to sit tight in our little house with its lovely walledgarden that seems a kind of protection to us--not that we are scared,bless you no! We just felt we might as well be here as anywhere else.

  This morning Jo came to breakfast looking kind of different and yet kindof familiar--she had cut off her hair!

  "I mean to follow Polly," she remarked simply.

  "Follow him where?"

  "Wherever he goes." And do you know, Molly, the redoubtable Jo burstinto tears?

  I was never more shocked in my l
ife. If your Aunt Sarah Clay haddissolved into tears, I would not have been more at a loss how toconduct myself. I patted her heartily on the back but the poor girlwanted a shoulder to weep on and I lent her one. I tell you when Jo getsstarted she is some bawler. I fancy she made up for all the many yearsthat crying has been out of her ken.

  My neck is stiff from the wetting I got. Nothing short of the plumbercould have stopped her. When she finally went dry, she began to talk:

  "By I'b glad Bolly didn zee be bake zuch a vool ob byself!"

  "Well, you had better look after your p's and s's or you'll be taken upas a German spy." That made her laugh and then she went on to tell mewhat she meant to do, the p's still too much for her but her s'simproving.

  "What's the use of my brofession now? I'd like to know that. Miniaturepainting will be no good for years to come. This war is going to besomething that'll make everybody baint on big canvasses. Who will wantto look at anything little? I tell you, Judy, the day of mastodons is athand! There'll be no more lap-dogs, no more pet canaries. The one timelap-dogs will find themselves raging lions; and the pet canaries willgrow to great eagles and burst the silly wires of their cages with asnap of their fingers----"

  "Whose fingers?" I demanded.

  "Never mind whose! Mixed metaphors are perfectly permissible in wartime." I was glad to see she could say such a word as permissible, whichmeant that her storm of weeping had subsided.

  "Are you going as a Red Cross nurse?" I asked.

  "Nurse your grandmother! I'm going to drive an ambulance or maybe fly."

  "But they won't want a woman in the thick of the fight!"

  "Well, who's to know? When I get a good hair-cut and put on some ofPolly's togs, I bet I'll make as good a man as Pol--no, I won't saythat. I'll never be as good a man as he is. I'm going to try theaviation racket first. If they won't take me, I'll get with the RedCross, somehow. I know I could fly like a bird. I have never yet seenthe wheels that I could not understand the turning of. I believe it isnot so easy to get aviators. It is so hazardous that men don't go in forit. I am light weight but awfully strong."

  "But, Jo, what are you going to do about your feet?" You remember,Molly, what pretty little feet Jo has.

  "Oh, I'll wear some of Polly's shoes and stuff out the toes. I bet I'llwalk like Charlie Chaplin, but when one is flying, it doesn't make muchdifference about feet."

  Nothing is going to stop her. She is to start to Paris to-morrow, and Iwill go, too. I know all of you think I should stay here in G---- untilI can get into communication with Bobby, but Molly Brown, I can't do it.When history is being made, I simply can't stand aside and see it. I'vegot to get in it by hook or crook.

  Don't be scared--I am not going to fly! I wish I could, but I promisedKent Brown I would never fly with any man but him, and while it was donein jest, in a way I still feel that a promise must be kept. I wish Iwere not made that way. I'd like to dress up like Jo Bill Perkins andpass as a man, and I could do it quite as well as Jo, in spite of herhaving practiced being a boy all her life, but I can't help thinkingwhat Bobby has always said to me: "Just remember you are a lady and youcan't go far wrong." Somehow, I am afraid if I cut off my hair anddiscarded skirts, I might forget I am a lady. It is an awful nuisancebeing one, anyhow.

  I don't know just what I am going to do, but I certainly can't cross theAtlantic, with Bobby and poor little Mamma somewhere in Germany, maybelocked up in dungeons or something. I know it won't help them any for meto be in France, but at least I will be nearer to them geographically.

  My letter of credit on the Paris bankers will put me on easy streetfinancially, so as far as money is concerned, Bobby will know I am allright. I can't think the war will last very long. Surely all the neutralcountries will just step in and stop it. The French are looking toUnited States. It is very amusing to hear the old peasants talk aboutLafayette. They seem to think tit for tat: if they helped us out morethan a century ago, we will have to help them out now.

  I can't tell what I think just yet. Everything is in too much of aturmoil. I wish I knew what Bobby thinks. He is always so sane in hispolitical opinions. I get more and more uneasy about them, Bobby andMamma. Such terrible tales of the Germans are coming to us. I don'tbelieve them, at least not all of them. How could a kindly, ratherbovine race suddenly turn into raging tigers? Why should any one wantto do anything to Bobby? I comfort myself with that thought and then Iremember how hot-headed and impulsive he is, inherited directly from me,his daughter, and I begin to tremble.

  Jo and I are settling up our affairs here. Madame Gaston is to takecharge of our few belongings. I have a hunch it will be best to lightenour luggage all we can. Jo is not going to turn into a man until we getto Paris. She is too funny in her envy of old Mere Gaspard because ofher big moustache. You know how many of the French peasant women havequite mannish beards and moustaches. Mother Gaspard has the largest andmost formidable one I have ever seen, although she is a most motherlyold soul, not a bit fatherly.

  I will write from Paris again. I know Kent is in a state of grouch withhimself for sailing when he did. I believe he feels as I do about thingshappening. I don't want houses to burn down, but if they do burn, I wantto see the fire; I don't want dogs to fight, but if there is a dog fightgoing on, I am certainly going to stand on my tiptoes and look over thecrowd and see them tear each other up; I certainly don't want theNations to go to war, but if they will do it, I am going to haveexperiences.

  Please give my best love to all the family and a thoroughly sterilizedkiss to that marvelous infant. I verily believe if it had not been forKent's overweening desire to behold that baby, he would have waited overfor another steamer and in that way found himself in the thick of thefight. I am glad he went, however. If Polly Perkins developed a chin andrushed off, what might Kent have done with an overdevelopment of chinalready there?

  Yours always, JUDY.