Fiction: The Melting of Molly Ch 2

CHAPTER SECOND

A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED


The 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 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 turning 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 melted. Judy administers it to me and her faithful heart is so wrung with compassion 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 Egyptian 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 information that I was "good-looking enough for anybody to eat up alive without all this foolishness," all in a very few seconds. Now I have to beg her to help me and I heard 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 anybody has to lie in saying that I was "beautiful 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 playing over by the lilac bushes and Billy always beats me because when he runs to base he throws himself down and slides 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, before 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 always 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 believe 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 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 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 hairpins. 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 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 happened 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.

"No, no, Billy, the judge is just looking 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 intently.

"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 exploded, 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 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 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 monster 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 positive 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 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 fluttered as I went into the house, but I received 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 what a tender thing He was leaving exposed 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 netting 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-before-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.

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 everything. 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 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 wondered 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 turned around so old Lilac Bush couldn't peep over my shoulder at what he said.

He wrote from Rome this time, where he had been sent on some sort of
diplomatic mission to the Vatican, and his letter about the Ancient City on her seven hills was a prose-poem in itself. I was so interested that I read on and on and forgot it was almost toast-apple time.

Of course, anybody that is anybody would be interested in Father Tiber and the old Colosseum, but what made me forget the one slice of dry toast and the apple was the way he seemed to be connecting me up with all those wonderful old antiquities that had never even seen me. Because of me he had felt and written that poem descriptive of old Tiber, and the moonlight had lit up the Colosseum just because I was over here lighting up Hillsboro, Tennessee, with Mr. Carter dead. Of course that is not the way he put it all, but there is no place to really copy what he did say down into this imp book and, anyway, that is the sentiment he expressed, boiled down and sugared off.

That's just what I mean--love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind if one is timid; which I'm not. As I said, also, I am ready for a little taste of life, so I read on without fear. And, to be fair, Alfred had well boiled his own last paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped both. I almost thought I didn't quite like it and was going to read it over again to see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor John's and I laid the bombshell down on the bench.

First came the red setter that is always first with Doctor John, and then he came himself, leading Billy by the hand. It was Billy, but the most subdued Billy I ever saw, and I held out my arms and started for him.

"Wait a minute, please, Molly," said the doctor in the voice he always uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologize to you for being rude to your--your guest. He told me all about it and I think he's sorry. Tell Mrs. Carter you are sorry, son." When that man speaks to me as if I were just any old body else, I hate him so it is a wonder I don't show it more than I do. But there was nothing to say and I looked at Billy and Billy looked at me.

Then suddenly he stretched out his little arms to me and the dimples winked at me from all over his darling face.

"Molly, Molly," he said with a perfect rapture of chuckles in his voice, "now you look just as pretty as you do when you go to bed; all whity all over. You can kiss my kiss-spot a hundred times while I bear-hug you for that nice not-black dress," and before any stern person could have stopped us I was on my knees on the grass kissing my fill from the "kiss-spot" on the back of his neck, while he hugged all the starch out of the summer-before-last.

And Doctor John sat down on the bench quick and laughed out loud one of the very few times I ever heard him do it. He was looking down at us, but I didn't laugh up into his eyes. I was afraid. I felt it was safer to go on kissing the kiss-spot for the present, anyway.

"Bill," he said, with his voice dancing, "that's the most effective apology I ever heard. You were sorry to some point."
Then suddenly Billy stiffened right in my arms and looked me straight in the face and said in the doctor's own brisk tones, even with his cupid mouth set in the same straight line:

"I say I'm sorry, Molly, but damn that man and I'll git him yet!"

What could we say? What could we do? We didn't try. I busied myself in tying the string on Billy's blouse that had come untied in the bear-hug and the doctor suddenly discovered the letter on the bench. I saw him see it without looking in his direction at all.

"And how many pounds are we nearer the string-bean state of existence, Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the blouse, in the nicest voice in the world, fairly crackling with friendship and good humor and hateful things like that. Why I should have wanted him to huff over that letter is more than I can say. But I did; and he didn't.

"Over twenty, and most of the time I am so hungry I could eat Aunt Adeline. I dream about Billy, fried with cream gravy," I answered, as I kissed again the back of the head that was beginning to nod down against my breast. Long shadows lay across the garden and the white-headed old snow-ball was signaling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins down the walk in a scandalous way. At best, spring is just the world's match-making old chaperon and ought to be watched. I still sat on the grass and I began to cuddle Billy's bare knees in the skirt of my dress so the chigres couldn't get at them.

"But, Mrs. Molly, isn't it worth it all?" asked the doctor as he bent over toward us and looked down with something wonderful and kind in his eyes that seemed to rest on us like a benediction. "You have been just as plucky as a girl can be and in only a little over two months you have grown as lightfooted and hearty as a boy. _I_ think nothing could be lovelier than you are right now, but you can get off those other few pounds if you want to. You know, don't you, that I have known how hard some of it was and I haven't been able to eat as much as I usually do thinking how hungry you are? But isn't it all worth it? I think it is. Alfred Bennett is a very great man and it is right that he should have a very lovely wife to go out into the world with him. And as lovely as you are I think it is wonderful of you to make all this sacrifice to be still lovelier for him.

I am glad I can help you and it has taught me something to see how--how faithful a woman can be across years--and then in this smaller thing! Now give me Bill and you get your apple and toast. Don't forget to take your letter in out of the dew." I sat perfectly still and held Billy tighter in my arms as I looked up at his father, and then after I had thought as long as I could stand it, I spoke right out at him as mad as hops and I don't to this minute know why.

"Nobody in the world ever doubted that a woman could be faithful if she had anything to be faithful to," I said as I let him take Billy out of my arms at last. "Faithfulness is what a woman flowers, only it takes a man to pick his posy." With which I marched into the house and left him standing with Billy in his arms, I hope dumfounded. I didn't look back to see. I always leave that man's presence so mad I can never look back at him. And wouldn't it make any woman rage to have a man pick out another man for her to be faithful to when she hadn't made any decision about it her own self?

I wonder just how old Judge Wade is? I believe I will make up with Aunt Adeline enough before I go to bed to find out why he has never married.