MARIAN'S LETTER HOME
MARIAN'S letters to her Uncle George were written on Sunday afternoons.
She wrote pages and pages about Miss Smith and the country school and
begged him not to come for her in August.
"I haven't done anything better than any one else in school yet," she
wrote, "but I am learning all kinds of things and having the best time
ever was. I want to go to the country school until I graduate. I'll be
ready for college before you know it if you will only let me stay.
"I am good all the time because Mrs. Golding says so and Miss Ruth and
Miss Kate take me almost everywhere they go--when they drive to town,
circuses and things and I have lovely times every day.
"I would tell you who I play with only you would forget the names of so
many children. When I can't find any one else I go to the mill to see
the miller's boy. That isn't much fun because the miller's boy is half
foolish. His clothes are always covered with flour and he looks like
a little old miller himself. He jumps out at you when you don't know
where he is and says 'Boo!' and scares you almost out of your wits, and
that makes his father laugh. I tried to teach him to read but I didn't
have good luck. He read 'I see the cat' out of almanacs and everything.
"The old miser died last night, Uncle George, and I saw him in the
afternoon. Only think of it, I saw a man that died. After dinner I went
to see the miller's boy and he wasn't there. His father said he was
wandering along the river bank somewhere, so I stayed and talked to the
miller. Pretty soon the boy came back making crazy motions with his
arms and telling his father the old miser wanted to see him quick.
"I went outside and watched the big wheel of the mill when the boy and
his father went away, but it wasn't any time before the boy came back
and said the old miser wanted to see me. Of course I went as fast as
I could go, and when I got to the hut, the miller asked me if I could
say any Bible verses, and if I could to say them quick because the old
miser wanted somebody to read the Bible quick--quick. I thought it was
queer, Uncle George, but I was glad I had learned so much out of the
Bible.
"The old miser was all in rags and I guess he didn't feel well then,
because he was lying down on a queer old couch and he didn't stir, but
I tell you he watched me. I didn't want to go in the hut, so I stood
in the doorway where I could feel the sunshine all around me. Some
way I thought that wasn't any time to ask questions, so I began the
Twenty-third Psalm right straight off. When I got to the end of that I
was going to say the first fourteen verses of John, but the old miser
raised one hand and said, 'Again--again,' but before I got any further
than 'The valley of the shadow,' he went to sleep looking at me and I
never saw his face so happy. It smoothed all out and looked different.
Poor old miser, the boys used to plague him. The miller motioned to
his boy and me to go away. I guess he was afraid Jakey would wake the
old miser. Of course I knew enough to keep still when a tired looking
old man dropped to sleep.
"I don't know just when the old miser died, Uncle George, nobody talks
about it where I can hear a word. Mrs. Golding says when I grow up
I will be glad that I could repeat the Twenty-third Psalm to a poor
old man who hadn't any friends. She says it isn't true that he was a
miser, he was just an unfortunate old man. I wonder if he was anybody's
grandfather? You never can tell.
"I am well acquainted with all the folks in the village, Uncle George,
and lots of times I go calling. There are some old folks here who never
step outside of their houses and they are glad to have callers. One old
blind woman knits all the time. She likes to be read to, real well. And
there is one woman, the shoemaker's wife, that has six children that
bother her so when she tries to work; she says it does her good to see
me coming.
"Only think, Uncle George, how lonesome I will be when I get home where
I am not acquainted. The only sad thing that has happened here all
summer is that the miser died, and of course you know that might be
worse.
"I would like to be with Miss Smith more than I am but she studies
almost all the time. I don't see what for because she knows everything,
even about the stars. She likes me a great deal but I guess nobody
knows it. You mustn't have favorites when you are a school-teacher, she
told me so.
"You don't know how hard it is, Uncle George, to do something better
than anybody else. You might think it would be easy, but somebody
always gets ahead of you in everything, you can't even keep your desk
the cleanest. Some girls never bring in anything from the woods, so of
course they can keep dusted.
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed in
"Your loving niece,
"MARIAN LEE."