The Melting of Molly | Page 7

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