The Melting of Molly | Page 3

comforted voice. What woman wouldn't be
comforted 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.
"Now," he said in his most businesslike 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 arrives 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-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 disturbed him, so many a night I walked 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 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 generally 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.
"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 committed myself to myself like that!
I don't know just how