But she did wish that Alice Fern had not seen that black, black cobweb.

CHAPTER XVII.

HEROES AND HERO WORSHIPERS.

The next morning poor Molly slept late again. With all good intentions of waking early and going down stairs in time to see about her husband's neglected breakfast, when morning came she did not stir. Mildred had given her another wakeful night after all, finding out more things about her little pigs. Finally the little monkey had given up and dropped off to sleep, and she and her doting mother were both dead to the world when the time came for Professor Green to go to lectures.

Again he gave instructions to Katy not to disturb the mistress and crept out of the house as still as a mouse. Breakfast had been a little better. Molly was rubbing off on Katy evidently. Just to a.s.sociate with such a culinary genius as Molly must have its effect even on the worst cook in the world, which Katy surely seemed to be.

Coming across the campus, he ran into Billie McKym, Josephine Crittenden and Thelma Olsen. They looked very bright and rosy as they gave him a cheery good morning. Each carried a bundle. He wondered that they were going away from lecture halls instead of toward them. But after all, it was not his business to be the whipper-in for lectures. Wellington was a college and not a boarding school. If students chose to cut lectures, it was their own affair until the final reckoning.

"Just our luck to meet Epimenides Antinous!" cried Billie. "He should have been out of the house five minutes ago, at least."

"His legs are so long he doesn't have to start early," declared Jo.

"Just see him sprint!"

"I am certainly sorry to cut his lecture to-day," sighed Thelma, "but this thing must be done."

The Greens' front door was never locked except at night, so the girls crept quietly in. Billie peeped into the kitchen, where she discovered Katy on her knees "scroobing" the part of the kitchen she could not finish the evening before, when Molly was so hard-hearted as to make her stop and prepare vegetables. Such a sea of suds!

"Katy," whispered Billie.

"Merciful Mither! And phwat is it? Ye scart me," and the girl sat back on her heels and looked at Billie with round, wide eyes.

"We are great friends of Mrs. Green and we have come to dust her books and--ahem--do a few little things. Is she still asleep?"

"Yis, and the master was after saying she must not be distoorbed, not on no account."

"Of course she must not be! That is why we have come to dust the things.

We think she looks so tired."

"And so she is, the scwate lamb; but she do fly around so, and she do cook up so mooch. I tell her that she thinks more of her man's insides thin she do of her own outsides."

"Well, Katy, we want you to let us have a broom and a wall brush. We brought our own ap.r.o.ns and rags," and Billie pressed a round, hard something into Katy's hand. It was not so large as a church door nor so deep as a well, but it served to get the Irish girl up off of her run-down heels; and in a trice the coveted broom and wall brush were in possession of the three conspirators, as well as a stepladder, which they decided would be needful.

"Don't say a word to Mrs. Green, Katy,--now remember. We are going to work very quietly and hope to finish before she gets downstairs. We don't want her to know who did it, but we mean to get it all done before noon," said Jo, rolling up her sport shirtsleeves and disclosing muscular arms, that showed what athletics had done for her and what she could do for athletics.

"Where must we begin, Thelma?" asked Billie, who was as willing as could be but knew no more about cleaning than a hog does about holidays, Jo declared.

"Begin at the top," laughed Thelma, tying up her yellow head in a great towel and rolling up her sleeves.

"Gee, your arms are beautiful!" exclaimed Billie. "I'd give my head for such arms. I'd like to drape them in a silver scarf. Think how they would gleam through." The arms were snow white and while Thelma's strength was much greater than Jo's, her muscles did not show as they did on that athletic young person.

Thelma blushed and laughed as she balanced herself on a stepladder and began taking down pictures. A cloud of dust floated down and enveloped her.

"Look, look! She looks like the 'white armed Gudrun'! Don't you remember in William Morris's 'Fall of the Neiblungs'? The battle in Atli's Hall?

"'Lo, lo, in the hall of the Murder where the white-armed Gudrun stands, Aloft by the kingly high-seat, and nought empty are her hands; For the litten brand she beareth, and the grinded war-sword bare: Still she stands for a little season till day groweth white and fair.

Without the garth of King Atli, but within, a wavering cloud Rolls, hiding the roof and the roof-sun; then she stirrith and crieth aloud.'"

"Cut it out! Cut it out!" cried Jo, "and come lend a hand."

"Mustn't we dust before we sweep?" innocently asked Billie.

"If you want to, but you'll have to dust again afterwards," said the white-armed Gudrun from her ladder. "The books are really so dirty that I don't think it would hurt to wipe down the walls without covering them, but that is a mighty poor cleaning method. Poor Molly! Didn't she look tired yesterday? I hope she won't think we are cheeky to take a hand in her affairs."

"Cheeky! She will think we are her good friends, not like that snippy Miss Fern who stared so at the cobwebs and then went out and palavered over Epimenides Antinous. She used to claim him, so I am told. One of the nurses at the infirmary told me that when Epi Anti had typhoid there, years ago, Miss Fern came and dressed herself up like a nurse and almost bored the staff to death taking care of her sick cousin," said Billie, delighted with the job that had been given her of wiping down walls. "Isn't this splendid? Just look at all the dirt I got on my rag!"

"Well, don't rub it back on the wall," admonished Jo.

"No. Well, what must I do with it?"

"Can't say, but don't put it back on the walls."

"Jo, you and Billie dust the books and I will finish up the pictures.

I can't trust myself to dust Professor Green's books. I am afraid of breaking the tenth commandment all the time," sighed Thelma. "I'll wash the windows, too."

"Oh, Thelma! The white-armed Gudrun sitting in windows washing them!

That's not occupation meet for a queen. Let me do it."

"You, Billie McKym, wash a window! Did you ever wash one in your life?"

"Well, no, not exactly, but I bet I could. What's the use of a college education if one can't wash windows when she gets to be a full grown senior?"

But since the object of the girls was to get the room clean, it was decided that Thelma was to wash the windows. My, how they worked! Jo found she had muscles that her athletics had never revealed. She found them because they began to ache.

"Why, to dust all these books and books is as bad as building a house,"

she said, straightening up and stretching when she had finished the poet's corner.

"Exactly like laying brick," declared Billie. "I'm going to join the Hod-carriers' Union. I'll be no scab."

Katy had occasionally poked her head in at the door, entreating "whin they coom to the scroobing" to call her.

The cleaners made very little noise, so little that the sleeping Molly and Mildred were not at all disturbed.

"I wish she knew it was almost done," said Thelma, perched in the window sill and rubbing vigorously on a shining pane. "She would be so glad. I know she is worrying about it in her sleep. Hark! There is the baby!"

Then began the business of the day upstairs. Katy was called, for water must be heated as Katy, according to her habit, had let the fire go out before the boiler was hot.

"Katy, we must hurry up with Mildred this morning and get to the library. It is filthy," said Molly, as she slipped the little French flannel petticoat over Mildred's bald head.

"Yes, mum!" grinned Katy.

"We have luncheon almost ready, with the cold lamb to start with."