College students -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"Bring all the joys of spring,
Soft-kissing zephyrs bring,
Peace of the mountains and hills,
Waken the columbine,
Stir the sweet breath of pine,
Hasten the late daffodils.
"Gentle Wind from the Isles of the Blest,
Breathe on my little chalet,
Fill it with music and laughter and rest;
Fill it with love and with dreams that are best;
Breathe on it softly, sweet Wind of the West,
Breathe on my little chalet."
There was certainly nothing very remarkable about the little song, and
yet it had caught the eye of the real estate men as having a certain
quality which would attract people to that sunny mountainside whereon
were perched the quaint Swiss chalets they desired to sell. There was a
subtle suggestion to the buyer that he might find rest and happiness in
this peaceful home. The piney air, the flowers and the sunshine had all
been poetically but quite truthfully described. With a picture of the
"Chalet of the West Wind" on the opposite page, people of discerning
tastes, looking for summer homes, would surely be attracted.
"How ever did you happen to write it, Molly?" they asked her after
re-reading the poem and admiring it with friendly loyalty. "Have you
ever been to the mountains?"
"No," she answered, "I actually never have. But something in me that
wasn't me wrote the verses. They just seemed to come, first the meter
and then, gradually, the lines. I can't explain it. I had some bad news
and was afraid I would have to leave college and then the poem came.
That was all. Two hundred dollars," she added, looking at the check.
"It seems too good to be true. What must I do with it?"
"Put it in the Wellington Bank to-morrow morning," answered Margaret
promptly.
Between them, Mrs. Markham and Mrs. O'Reilly prepared a very good dinner
for the girls that night, and instead of being a funeral feast it was
changed into a jolly banquet. The old Queen's dinner table was restored
and there was as much gay, humorous conversation as there ever had been
in the brown shingled house now reduced to a heap of ashes.
Paperhangers and painters did go into the new college house on the
following Monday morning and in less than ten days the dingy rooms were
transformed by white woodwork and light paper. If the Queen's girls felt
a little out of it at first, not being on the campus, they were too
proud to admit it, and nobody ever heard a complaint from them. They had
a great many visitors at O'Reilly's. Crowds of their friends came down
to drink tea or spend the evening. The President herself called one
morning and had a look at the place.
In the meantime Molly had called at Miss Walker's office and informed
her that she had come into a little money unexpectedly and, with the
money she was earning, she would be able to pay her own board at
O'Reilly's for the rest of the winter. It was only by chance that Miss
Walker learned how Molly had earned this sum of money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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