xt7stq5r8g72 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7stq5r8g72/data/mets.xml Daviess, Maria Thompson, 1872-1924 1912  books b92-194-30611104 English Bobbs-Merrill, : Indianapolis : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Melting of Molly  / illustrated by R.M. Crosby. text Melting of Molly  / illustrated by R.M. Crosby. 1912 2002 true xt7stq5r8g72 section xt7stq5r8g72 
THE MELTING OF MOLLY
 





































Melted

 



             THE

MELTING OF MOLLY




               By
   MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS
             Author of
      Miss Selina Lue. The Road to Providence
         Rose of Old Harpeth. Etc.. Etc.








         ILLUSTRATED BY
         R. M- CROSBY








           INDIANAPOLIS
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
           PUBLISHERS

 








      COPYRIGHT 1912

TnE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

















































           PRESS OF
        ORAUNWORTH  CO.
     booKBIKDERS AND PRINTED
         VROOKLYN. N. Y,

 





















MOLLY CARTER AND I
DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO OUR GOOD FRIEND
CAROL KING JENNEY

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         LEAVES FROM
     THE BOOK OF MOLLY

Leaf First
   THE BACHELOR' S-BUTTONS       1

Leaf Second
   A LOVE-LETTEER, LOADED  . . 22

Leaf Third
   MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU      45

Leaf Fourth
   SCATTERED JAM .70

Leaf Fifth
   BLUE ABSINTHE. . . . . . 98

Leaf Sixth
   THE RESURRECTION RAZOO . . 123

Leaf Seventh
   DASHED    . . . . . . . 149

Leaf Eighth
   MELTED   .      6      .1  173

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THE MELTING OF MOLLY

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The Melting of Molly


           LEAF FIRST

      THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS

y  ES, I truly think that in all the world
1 there is nothing so dead as a young
widow's deceased husband, and God
ought to give His wisest man-angel special
charge concerning looking after her and
the devil at the same time. They both
need it! I don't know how all this is go-
ing to end and I wish my mind wasn't in
a kind of tingle. However, I'll do the
best I can and not hold myself at all re-
sponsible for myself, and then Who will
there be to blame
  There are a great many kinds of good-
                  I

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



feeling in this world, from radiant joy
down to perfect bliss, but this spring I
have got an attack of just old-fashioned
happiness that looks as if it might become
chronic.
  I am so happy that I planted my gar-
den all crooked, my eyes upon the clouds
with the birds sailing against them, and
when I became conscious I found wicked
flaunting poppies sprouted right up
against the sweet modest clover-pinks,
while the whole paper of bachelor's-but-
tons was sowed over everything-which I
immediately began to dig right up again,
blushing furiously to myself over the
trowel, and glad that I had caught myself
before they grew up to laugh in my face.
However, I got that laugh anyway, and
I might just as well have left them, for
Billy ran to the gate and called Doctor
John to come in and make Molly stop
                   2

 

THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



digging up his buttons.  Billy claims
everything in this garden, and he thought
they would grow up into the kind of but-
tons you pop out of a gun.
  "So you're digging up the bachelor-
pops, Mrs. Molly" the doctor asked as
he leaned over the gate. I went right on
digging without looking up at him. I
couldn't look up because I was blushing
still worse. Sometimes I hate that man,
and if he wasn't Billy's father I wouldn't
neighbor with him as I do. But some-
body has to look after Billy.
  I believe it will be a real relief to write
down how I feel about him in his old book
and I shall do it whenever I can't stand
him any longer, and if he gave the horrid,
red leather thing to me to make me miser-
able, he can't do it; not this spring! I
wish I dared burn it up and forget about
it, but I don't! This record on the first
                   3

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



page is enough to reduce me-to tears,
and I wonder why it doesn't.
  I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds,
down in black and white, and it is a trag-
edy! I don't believe that man at the
grocery store is so very reliable in his
weights, though he had a very pleasant
smile while he was weighing me. Still
I had better get some scales of my own,
smiles are so deceptive.
  I am five feet three inches tall or short,
whichever way one looks at me. I thought
I was taller, but I suppose I will have to
believe my own yardstick.
  But as to my waist measure, I positively
refuse to write that down, even if I have
promised Doctor John a dozen times
over to do it, while I only really left him
to suppose I would. It is bad enough to
know that your belt has to be reduced to
twenty-three inches without putting down
                   4

 

THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



how much it measures now in figures to
insult yourself with. No, I intend to have
this for my happy spring.
  Yes, I suppose it would have been lots
better for my happiness if I had kept quiet
about it all, but at the time I thought I
had to advise with him over the matter.
Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing
about being a widow, you are accustomed
to advising with a man, whether you want
to or not, and you can't get over the habit
right away. Poor Mr. Carter hasn't been
dead much over a year and I must be
missing him most awfully, though just
lately I can't remember not to forget
about him a great deal of the time. Now
if he had been here-horrors!
  Still, that letter was enough to upset
anybody, and no wonder I ran right across
my garden, through Billy's hedge-hole and
over into Doctor John's office to tell him
                  5

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



about it; but I ought not to have been agi-
tated enough to let him take the letter
right out of my hand and read it.
  "So after ten years Al Bennett is com-
ing back to pop his bachelor's-buttons at
you, Mrs. Molly" he said in the deep
drawling voice he always uses when he
makes fun of Billy and me and which
never fails to make us both mad. I didn't
look at him directly, but I felt his hand
shake with the letter in it.
  "Not ten, only eight! He went when
I was seventeen," I answered with dig-
nity, wishing I dared be snappy at him;
though I never am.
  "And after eight years he wants to
come back and find you squeezed into a
twenty-inch-waist, blue muslin rag you
wore at parting No wonder Al didn't
succeed at bank clerking, but had to make
his hit at diplomacy and the high arts.
                  6

 

THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



Some hit at that to be legationed at Saint
James! He's such a big gun that it is a
pity he had to return to his native heath
and find even such a slight disappointment
as a one-yard waist measure around his
his-"
  "Oh it's not, it's not that much." I
fairly gasped and I couldn't help the tears
coming into my eyes. I have never said
much about it, but nobody knows how it
hurts me to be all this fat! Just writing
it down in a book mortifies me dreadfully.
It's been coming on worse and worse
every year since I married. Poor Mr.
Carter had a very good appetite and I
don't know why I should have felt that I
had to eat so much every day to keep him
company; I wasn't always so considerate
of him. Then he didn't want me to
dance any more because married women
oughtn't, or ride horseback either-no
                  7

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



amusement left but himself and weekly
prayer-meetings,  and - and - I  just
couldn't help the tears coming and drip-
ping as I thought about it all and that
awful waist measure in inches.
  "Stop crying this minute, Molly," said
Doctor John suddenly in the deep voice he
uses to Billy and me when we are really
sick or stump-toed. "You know I was
only teasing you and I won't stand for-"
  But I sobbed some more. I like him
when his eyes come out from under his
bushy brows and are all tender and full
of sorry for us.
  "I can't help it," I gulped in my sleeve.
"I did used to like Alfred Bennett. My
heart almost broke when he went away. I
used to be beautiful and slim, and now I
feel as if my own fat ghost has come to
haunt me all my life. I am so ashamed!
If a woman can't cry over her own dead
                  8


 




















"Will you do just as I tell you"



I E-,

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THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



beauty, what can she cry over" By this
time I was really crying.
  Then what happened to me was that
Doctor John took me by the shoulders and
gave me one good shake and then made
me look him right in the eyes through the
tears and all.
  "You foolish child," he said in the
deepest voice I almost ever heard him use.
"You are just a lovely, round, luscious
peach, but if you will be happier to have
Al Bennett come and find you as slim as a
string-bean I can show you how to do it.
Will you do just as I tell you "
  "Yes, I will," .1 sniffed in a comforted
voice. What woman wouldn't be com-
forted by being called a "luscious peach".
I looked out between my fingers to see
what more he was going to say, but he
had turned to a shelf and taken down two
books.
                  9

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



  "Now," he said in his most business-
like voice, as cool as a bucket of water
fresh from the spring, "it is no trouble at
all to take off your surplus avoirdupois
at the rate of two and a half pounds a
week if you follow these directions. As
I take it you are about twenty-five pounds
over your normal weight. It will take
over two months to reduce you and we
will allow an extra month for further
beautifying, so that when Mr. Bennett ar-
rives he will find the lady of his adoration
in proper trim to be adored. Yes, just be
still until I copy these directions in this
little, red leather blank-book for you, and
every day I want you to keep an exact
record of the conditions of which I make
note. No, don't talk while I make out
these diet lists! I wish you would go
across the hall and see if you don't think
we ought to get Bill a thinner set of night-
                   IO

 

THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



drawers. It seems to me he must be too
warm in the ones he is wearing."
  When he speaks to me in that tone of
voice I always do it. And I needed Billy
badly at that very moment. I took him
out of his little cot by Doctor John's big
bed and sat down with him in my arms
over by the window through which the
early moon came streaming. Billy is so
little, little not to have a mother to rock
him all the times he needs it that I take
every opportunity to give it to him I find
-when he's unconscious and can't help
himself. She died before she ever even
saw him and I've always tried to do what
I could to make it up to him.
  Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut
his teeth that a neighbor's baby can be
worse than twins of your own. He didn't
like children and the baby's crying dis-
turbed him, so many a night I walked
                  II

 
THE MELTING OF MOLLY



Billy out in the garden until daylight,
while Mr. Carter and Doctor John both
slept. Always his little, warm, wilty body
has comforted me for the emptiness of
not having a baby of my own. And he's
very congenial, too, for he's slim and
flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish
as his father, in funny little flashes.
  "Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was
murmuring in his sleep. Then I heard the
doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put
him back in his bed, and go across the hall.
  Doctor John was standing by the table
with this horrid small book in his hand
and his mouth was set in a straight line
and his eyes were deep back under their
brows. I hate him that way, too, and I
would like to get up so close to him that
he couldn't hit me or have a door locked
between us. It's strange how the thought
of taking a beating from a man can make
                  12

 
THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so
it was hard to look as meek as I felt best
under the circumstances; but I looked it
out from under my lashes cautiously.
  "There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said
briskly as he handed me this book. "Get
weighed and measured and sized-up gen-
erally in the morning and follow all the
directions.  Also make every record I
have noted so that I can have the proper
data to help you as you go along-or
rather down. And if you will be faithful
about it to me, or rather Al, I think we
can be sure of buttoning that blue muslin
dress without even the aid of the button-
hook." His voice had the "if you can"
note in it that always sets me off.
  "Had we better get the kiddie some
thinner night-rigging " he hastened to
ask as I was just about to explode. He
knows the signs.
                  13

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



  "Thank you, Doctor Moore ! I hate the
very ground you walk on and I'll attend
to those night-clothes myself to-morrow,"
I answered, and I sailed out of that office
and down the path toward my own house
beyond his hedge. But I carried this book
tight in my hand and I made up my mind
that I would do it all if it killed me. I
would show him I could be faithful-to
whom I would decide later on. But I
hadn't read far into this book when I com-
mitted myself to myself like that !
  I don't know just how long I sat on
the front steps all by myself bathed in
a perfect flood of moonlight and loneli-
ness. It was not a bit of comfort to hear
Aunt Adeline snoring away in her room
down the dark hail. It takes the greatest
congeniality to make a person's snoring
a pleasure to anybody and Aunt Adeline
and I are not that way.
                  14

 
THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



  When poor Mr. Carter died, the next
day she said: "Now, Mary, you are en-
tirely too young to live all your long years
of widowhood alone, and as I am in the
same condition, I will rent my cottage and
move right up the street into your house
to protect and console you." And she did,
--the moving and the protecting.
  Mr. Henderson has been dead forty-
two years. He only lived three months
after he married Aunt Adeline and her
crepe veil is over a yard long yet. Men
are the dust under her feet, but she likes
for Doctor John to come over and sit on
the porch with us because she can consult
with him about what Mr. Henderson
really died of and talk with him about the
sad state of poor Mr. Carter's liver for a
year before he died. I just go on rocking
Billy and singing hymns to him in such
a way that I can't hear the conversation.
                  I5

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



Mr. Carter's liver got on my nerves alive,
and dead it does worse. But it hurts when
the doctor has to take the little sleep-boy
out of my arms to carry him home;
though I like it when he says under his
breath, "Thank you, Molly."
  And as I sat and thought how near he
and I had been to each other in all our
troubles, I excused myself for running to
him with that letter and I acknowledged
to myself that I had no right to get mad
when he teased me, for he had been kind
and interested about helping me get thin
by the time Alfred came back to see me. I
couldn't tell which I was blushing all to
myself about, the "luscious peach" he had
called me or the "lovely lily" Alfred had
reminded me in his letter that I had been
when he left me.
  Why don't people realize that a seven-
teen-year-old girl's heart is a sensitive
                  i6

 
THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



wind-flower that may be shattered by a
breath Mine shattered when Alfred
went away to find something he could do
to make a living, and Aunt Adeline gave
the hard green stem to Mr. Carter when
she married me to him. Poor Mr. Carter!
  No, I wasn't twenty, and this town was
full of women who were aunts and cous-
ins and law-kin to me, and nobody did
anything for me. They all said with a
sigh of relief, "It will be such a nice safe
thing for you, Molly." And they really
didn't mean anything by tying up a gay,
dancing, frolicking, prancing colt of a girl
with a terribly ponderous bridle. But God
didn't want to see me always trotting
along slow and tired and not caring what
happened to me, even pounds and pounds
of plumpness, so he found use for Mr.
Carter in some other place but this world,
and I feel that He is going to see me
                 17

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



through whatever happens. If some of
the women in my missionary society knew
how friendly I feel with God they would
put me out for contempt of court
  No, the town didn't mean anything by
chastening my spirit with Mr. Carter and
they didn't consider him in the matter at
all, poor man. Of that I feel sure. Hills-
boro is like that. It settled itself here in
a Tennessee valley a few hundreds of
years ago and has been hatching and
clucking over its own small affairs ever
since. All the houses set back from the
street with their wings spread out over
their gardens, and mothers here go on
hovering even to the third and fourth gen-
eration. Lots of times young, long-leg-
ged, frying-size boys scramble out of the
nests and go off to college and decide to
grow up where their crow will be heard by
the world. Alfred was one of them.
                  18

 

THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



  And, too, occasionally some man comes
along from the big world and marries a
plump little broiler and takes her away
with him, but mostly they stay and go to
hovering life on a corner of the family
estate. That's what I did.
  I was a poor, little, lost chick with
frivolous tendencies and they all clucked
me over into this empty Carter nest which
they considered well-feathered for me. It
gave them all a sensation when they found
out from the will just how well it was
feathered. And it gave me one, too. All
that money would make me nervous if
Mr. Carter hadn't made Doctor John its
guardian, though I sometimes feel that
the responsibility of me makes him treat
me as if he were my step-grandfather-in-
law. But all in all, though stiff in its
knees with aristocracy, Hillsboro is lovely
and loving; and couldn't inquisitiveness
                  '9

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



be called just real affection with a kind of
squint in its eye
  And there I sat on my front steps, be-
ing embraced in a perfume of everybody's
lilacs and peachblow and sweet syringa
and affectionate interest and moonlight,
with a letter in my hand from the man
whose two photographs and many letters
I had kept locked up in the garret for
years. Is it any wonder I tingled when
he told me that he had never come back
because he couldn't have me and that now
the minute he landed in America he was
going to lay his heart at my feet I
added his honors to his prostrate heart
myself and my own beat at the prospect.
All the eight years faded away and I was
again back in the old garden down at
Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-by,
folded up in his arms. That's the way
my memory put the scene to me, but the
                 20

 
THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS



word "folded" made me remember that
blue muslin dress again. I had promised
to keep it and wear it for him when he
came back-and I couldn't forget that the
blue belt was just twenty-three inches and
mine is-no, I won't write it. I had got
that dress out of the old trunk not ten
minutes after I had read the letter and
measured it.
  No, nobody would blame me for run-
ning right across the garden to Doctor
John with such a real trouble as that! All
of a sudden I hugged the letter and the
little book up close to my breast and
laughed until the tears ran down my
cheeks.
  Then before I went into the house I
assembled my garden and had family
prayers with my flowers. I do that be-
cause they are all the family I've got, and
God knows that all His budding things
                 2x

 

  THE MELTING OF MOLLY

need encouragement, whether it is a
widow or a snowball-bush. He'll give it
to us!
  And I'm praying again as I sit here and
watch for the doctor's light to go out. I
hate to go to sleep and leave it burning,
for he sits up so late and he is so gaunt
and thin and tired-looking most times.
That's what the last prayer is about, al-
most always,-sleep for him and no night
call!


 
LEAF SECOND



       A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED

T    HE very worst page in this red-
     red devil-I'm glad I've written it
at last-of a book is the fifth. It says:
  "Breakfast-one slice of dry toast, one
egg, fruit and a tablespoonful of baked
cereal, small cup of coffee, no sugar, no
cream." And me with two Jersey cows
full of the richest cream in Hillsboro,
Harpeth Valley, out in my pasture!
  "Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of
toast, spinach, green beans and lettuce
salad. No dessert or sweet." The blue-
grass in my yard is full of fat little fryers
and I wish I were a sheep if I have to eat
lettuce and spinach for grass. At least
                  23

 
THE MELTING OF MOLLY



I'd have more than one chop inside me
then.
  "Supper-slice of toast and an apple."
Why the apple Why supper at all
  Oh, I'm hungry, hungry until I cry in
my sleep when I dream about a muffin!
I thought at first that getting out of bed
before my eyes are fairly open and turn-
ing myself into a circus actor by doing
every kind of overhand, foot, arm and leg
contortion that the mind of cruel man
could invent to torture a human being
with, would kill me before I had been at
it a week, but when I read on page sixteen
that as soon as all that horror was over
I must jump right into the tub of cold
water, I kicked, metaphorically speaking.
And I've been kicking ever since, literally
to keep from freezing.
  But as cruel a death as freezing is, it
doesn't compare to the tortures of being
                  24


 






































She shrouds me for the agony

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A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



melted. Judy administers it to me and
her faithful heart is so wrung with com-
passion that she perspires almost as much
as I do. She wrings a linen sheet out in
a caldron of boiling water and shrouds
me in it for the agony-and then more
and more blanket windings envelop me
until I am like the mummy of some Egyp-
tian giantess. I have ice on the back of
my neck and my forehead, and murder
for the whole world in my heart. Once I
got so discouraged at the idea of having
all this hades in this life that I mingled
tears with the beads of perspiration that
rolled down my cheeks, and she snatched
me out of those steaming grave-clothes in
less time than it takes to tell it, soused me
in a tub of cold water, fed me a chicken
wing and a hot biscuit and the informa-
tion that I was "good-looking enough for
anybody to eat up alive without all this
                  25

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



foolishness," all in a very few seconds.
Now I have to beg her to help me and I
beard her tell her nephew, who does the
gardening, that she felt like an undertaker
with such goings-on. At any rate, if it
all kills me it won't be my fault if any-
body has to lie in saying that I was "beau-
tiful in death".
  But now that more than a month has
passed, I really don't mind it so much. I
feel so good and strong and prancy all the
time that I can't keep from bubbling. I
have to smile at myself.
  Then another thing that helps is Billy
and his ball. I never could really play
with him before, but now I can't help it.
But an awful thing happened about that
yesterday. We were in the garden play-
ing over by the lilac bushes and Billy al-
ways beats me because when he runs to
base he throws himself down and slides
                  26

 
A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



along on the grass on his little stomach
as he sees the real players do over at the
ball grounds. Then all of a sudden, be-
fore I knew it, I just did the same thing,
and we slid to the flower pot we use as a
base together, each on his own stomach.
And what did Billy do but begin right
there on the grass the kind of a tussle we
always have in the big rocking-chair on
the porch! Over and over we rolled, Billy
chuckling and squealing while I laughed
myself all out of breath. I'm glad I al-
ways would wear delicious petticoats, for
there, looking right over my front fence,
I discovered Judge Benton Wade. I wish
I could write down how I felt, for I never
had that sensation before and I don't be-
lieve I'll ever have it again.
  I have always thought that Judge
Wade was really the most wonderful man
in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so
                  27

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



young in life that there is only a white
sprinkle in his lovely black hair that grows
back off his head like Napoleon's and
Charles Wesley's, but because of his smile,
which you wait for so long that you glow
all over when you get it. I have seen him
do it once or twice at his mother when he
seats her in their pew at church and once
at little Mamie Johnson when she gave
him a flower through their fence as he
passed by one day last week, but I never
thought I should have one all to myself.
But there it was, a most beautiful one,
long and slow and distinctly mine-at
least I didn't think much of it was for
Billie. I sat up and blushed as red all
over as I do when I first hit that tub of
cold water.
  "I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs.
Carter, but how could a mortal resist a
peep into the garden of the gods if he
                  28


 


































I sat up and blushed red all over

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A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



spied the queen and her faun at play " he
said in a voice as wonderful as the smile.
By that time I had reefed in my ruffles
around my feet and pushed in all my hair-
pins. Billy stood spread-legged as near in
front of me as he could get and said in the
rudest possible tone of voice:
  "Get away from my Molly, man !"
  I never was so mortified in all my life
and I scrambled to my feet and came over
to the fence to get between him and Billy.
  "It's a lovely day, isn't it, Judge
Wade " I asked with the greatest interest,
which I didn't really feel, in the weather;
but what could I think of to say A
woman is apt to keep the image of a good
many of the grand men she sees passing
around her in queer niches in her brain,
and when one steps out and speaks to her
for the first time it is confusing. Of
course I have known the judge and his
                  29

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



mother all my life, for she is one of Aunt
Adeline's best friends, but I had a feeling
from the look in his eyes that that very
minute was the first time he had ever seen
me. It was lovely and I blushed some
more as I put my hand up to my cheek so
I wouldn't have to look right at him.
  "About the loveliest day that ever hap-
pened in Hillsboro," he said, and there
was still more of the delicious smile,
"though I hadn't noticed it so especially
until-"
  But I never knew what he had intended
to say, for Billy suddenly swelled up like
a little turkey-cock and cut out with his
switch at the judge.
  "Git, man, git, and let my Molly alone !"
he said, in a perfect thundertone of voice;
but I almost laughed, for it had such a
sound in it like Doctor John's at his most
positive times with Billy and me.
                  30

 
A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



  "No, no, Billy, the judge is just look-
ing over the fence at our flowers! Don't
you want to give him a rose" I hurried
to say as the smile died out of Judge
Wade's face and he looked at Billy in-
tently.
  "How like John Moore the youngster
is," he said, and his voice was so cold to
Billy that it hurt me, and I was afraid
Billy would notice it. Coldness in people's
voices always makes me feel just like ice-
cream tastes. But Billy's answer was still
more rude.
  "You better go, man, before I bring my
father to sic our dog on you," he ex-
ploded, and before I could stop him his
thin little legs went trundling down the
garden path toward home.
  Then the judge and I both laughed.
We couldn't help it. When two people
laugh straight into each other's eyes
                  31

 
THE MELTING OF MOLLY



something feels dangerous and you get
closer together. The judge leaned farther
over the fence and I went a little nearer
before I knew it.
  "You don't need to keep a personal dog,
do you, Mrs. Carter" he asked, with a
twinkle that might have been a spark in
his eyes, and just at that moment another
awful thing happened. Aunt Adeline
came out on the front porch and said in
the most frozen tone of voice:
  "Mary, I wish to speak to you in the
house," and then walked back through the
front door without even looking in Judge
Wade's direction, though he had waved
his hat with one of his mother's own
smiles when he had seen her before I did.
One of my most impossible habits is, when
there is nothing else to do I laugh. I did
it then and it saved the day, for we both
laughed into each others eyes a second
                  32

 
A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



time, and before we realized it we were
within whispering distance.
  "No, I don't-don't-need any dog,"
I said softly, hardly glancing out from
under my lashes because I was afraid to
risk looking straight at him again so
soon. I could fairly feel Aunt Adeline's
eyes boring into my back.
  "It would take the hydra-headed mon-
ster of-may I bring my mother to call
on you and the-Mrs. Henderson" he
asked and poured the wonder smile all
over me. Again I almost caught my
breath.
  "I do wish you would, Aunt Adeline is
so fond of Mrs. Wade!" I said in a pos-
itive flutter that I hope he didn't see, but
I am afraid he did, for he hesitated as if
he wanted to say something to calm me,
then bowed mercifully and went on down
the street. He didn't put on the hat he
                  33

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



had held in his hand all the while he stood
by the fence until he had looked back and
bowed again. Then I felt still more flut-
tered as I went into the house, but I re-
ceived the third cold plunge of the day
when I reached the front hall.
  "Mary," said Aunt Adeline in a voice
that sounded as if it had been buried and
never resurrected, "if you are going to
continue in such an unseemly course of
conduct I hope you will remove your
mourning, which is an empty mockery and
an insult to my own widowhood."
  "Yes, Aunt Adeline, I'll go take it off
this very minute," I heard myself answer
her airily to my own astonishment. I
might have known that if I ever got one
of those smiles it would go to my head!
Without another word I sailed into my
room and closed the door softly.
  I wonder if God could have realized
                  34

 
A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



what a tender thing He was leaving ex-
posed to life in the garden of the world
after He had finished making a woman
Traditionally, we are created out of rose-
leaves and star-dust and the harmony of
the winds, but we need a steel-chain net-
ting to fend us. Slowly I unbuttoned that
black dress that symbolized the ending of
six years of the blackness of a married
life, from which I had been powerless to
fend myself, and the rosy dimpling thing
in snowy lingerie with tags of blue ribbon
that stood in front of my mirror was as
new-born as any other hour-old similar
bundle of linen and lace in Hillsboro,
Tennessee. Fortunately, an old, year-be-
fore-last, white lawn dress could be pulled
from the top shelf of the closet in a hurry,
and the Molly that came out of that room
was ready for life-and a lot of it quick
and fast.



.35

 

THE MELTING OF MOLLY



  And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline
had retired with a violent headache and
black Judy was carrying her in a hot
water-bottle with a broad grin on her
face. Judy sees the world from the
kitchen window and understands every-
thing. She had laid a large thick letter
on the hall table where I couldn't fail to
see it.
  I took possession of it and carried it to
a bench in the garden that backs up
against the purple sprayed lilacs and is
flanked by two rows of tall purple and
white iris that stand in line ready for a
Virginia reel with a delicate row of the
poet's narcissus across the broad path. I
love my flowers. I love them swaying on
their stems in the wind, and I like to
snatch them and crush the life out of them
against my breast and face. I have been
to bed every night this spring with a
                   36

 

A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED



bunch of cool violets against my cheek
and I feel that I am going to flirt with my
tall row of hollyhocks as soon as they are
old enough to hold up their heads and
take notice. They always remind me of
very stately gentlemen and I have won-
dered if the fluffy little butter and eggs
weren't shaking their ruffles at them.
  A real love-letter ought to be like a
cream puff with a drop of dynamite in it.
Alfred's was that kind. I felt warm and
happy down to my toes as I read it and
I t