The Melting of Molly | Page 6

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.
[Illustration: I sat up and blushed red all over]
"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