The Melting of Molly   By: Maria Thompson Daviess (1872-1924)

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

1912

[Illustration: Melted]

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

LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF MOLLY

Leaf First THE BACHELOR'S BUTTONS

Leaf Second A LOVE LETTER, LOADED

Leaf Third MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU?

Leaf Fourth SCATTERED JAM

Leaf Fifth BLUE ABSINTHE

Leaf Sixth THE RESURRECTION RAZOO

Leaf Seventh DASHED!

Leaf Eighth MELTED

LEAF FIRST

THE BACHELOR'S BUTTONS

Yes, I truly think that in all the world 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 going 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 responsible for myself, and then who will there be to blame?

There are a great many kinds of good 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 garden 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 buttons 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 digging up his buttons. Billy claims everything in this garden, and he thought they would grow up into the kind of buttons 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 somebody 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 miserable, 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 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 tragedy! 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 how much it measures now in figures to insult yourself with. No, I intend to have this for my happy spring.