'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL
With the elasticity of Youth, however, Janice opened her eyes the
following morning on a new world. Certainly the outlook from her
window was glorious; therefore her faith in life itself--and in
Poketown and her relatives--was renewed as she gazed out upon the
beautiful picture fresh-painted by the fingers of Dawn.
All out-of-doors beckoned Janice. She hurriedly made her toilet, crept
down the squeaking stairs, and softly let herself out, for nobody else
was astir about the old Day house.
The promise of the morning from the window was kept in full. Janice
could not walk sedately--she fairly skipped. Out of the sagging gate
and up the winding lane she went, her feet twinkling over the dew-wet
sod, a song on her lips, her eyes as bright as the stars which Dawn had
smothered when she tiptoed over the eastern hills.
And then at a corner of a cross-lane above her uncle's house, Janice
came upon the only other person in Poketown astir as early as
herself--Walkworthy Dexter, who led Josephus, the heavy harness
clanking about the horse's ribs.
"Ah-ha! I see there's a new _day_," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue
eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd
call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase
Day ain't. What d'ye think?"
Janice didn't know just what to think--or, to say, either.
"Find Jase jest a mite leisurely, don't ye?" pursued the gossipy
Dexter. "I bet a cooky he ain't much like the folks where you come
from?"
"I couldn't give an opinion so soon," said Janice, shyly, not sure that
she liked this fat man any more for the scorn in which he held his
neighbors.
"There speaks the true Day--slow but sure," laughed Dexter, and went
his way without further comment, leading the bony Josephus.
But the morning was quite spoiled for Janice. She wondered if her
uncle's townsfolks all held Walkworthy Dexter's opinion of the Day
family? It hurt her pride to be classed with people who were so
shiftless that they were a byword in the community.
She went back to the house when she saw the smoke curling out of the
chimney below her. Aunt 'Mira was shuffling around the kitchen in slow
preparation for the morning meal. Mr. Day was pounding on the stairs
with a stick of stove-wood, in an endeavor to awaken Marty.
"That boy sleeps like the dead," he complained. "Marty! Marty!" he
shouted up the stairs, "your marm is waitin' for you to git her a pail
of water."
Then he started for the stable to feed the stock, without waiting to
see if his young hopeful was coming down, or not.
"I declare for't!" Aunt 'Mira sighed; "I'm allus bein' put back for
water. I do wish Jason would mend that pump."
Janice took the empty pail quietly and departed for the neighbor's
premises. It was an old-fashioned sweep-and-bucket well at the
Dickerson's, but Janice managed it. The pail of water was heavy,
however, and she had to change hands several times on her way up the
hill. Marty came yawning to the door just as his cousin appeared.
He grinned. "You kin git up an' do that ev'ry morning, if ye want to,
Janice," he said. "I won't be jealous if ye do."
"Ye'd oughter be ashamed, Marty," whined his mother, from the kitchen,
"seein' a gal do yer work for ye."
"Who made it my work any more'n it's Dad's work?" growled Marty. "And
she didn't have ter do it if she didn't want to."
Janice did her best to keep to a cheerful tone. "I didn't mind going,
Aunty," she said. "And we'll get breakfast so much quicker. I'm
hungry."
She endeavored to be cheerful and chatty at the breakfast table. But
the very air her relatives breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr.
Day insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it
took almost a pitched battle to get the boy started.
Mrs. Day was inclined, after all, to "take sides" with her son against
his father, so the smoke of battle was not entirely dissipated when
Marty had flung himself out of the house to attack the weeds.
"Ef you'd do a few things yourself when they'd oughter be done, p'r'aps
the boy'd take example of ye," said Mrs. Day, bitterly.
Her husband reached for his pipe--that never-failing comforter--and
made no reply.
"Ev'rythin' about the house is goin' to rack an' ruin," pursued the
lady, slopping a little water into the dishpan. "No woman never had to
put up with all _I_ hafter put up with--not even Job's wife! There!
all the water's gone ag'in. I do wish you'd mend that pump, Jason."
But Jason had departed, and only a faint smell of tobacco smoke trailed
him across the yard.
Janice tried to help her aunt--and that was not difficult. Almira Day
was no rigid disciplinarian when it came to housekeeping. By her own
confession she frequently satisfied her housewifely conscience by
giving things "a lick and a promise." And anybody who would help her
could make beds and "rid up" as best pleased themselves. Aunt 'Mira
was no housekeeping tyrant--by no means! Consequently she did not
interfere with anything her niece did about the house.
The upstairs work was done and the sitting room brushed and set to
rights much earlier than was the Day custom. When Janice had done this
she came back to the kitchen, to find her aunt sitting in a creaky
rocker in the middle of the unswept floor and with the dishes only half
washed, deep in a cheap weekly story paper.
"Why! how smart you be, child! All done? Wa-al, ye see, I gotter wait
for Jason, or Marty, to git me a pail o' water. They ain't neither of
'em been down to the house yit--an' I might's well rest now as any
time."
It was this way all day long. Aunt Almira was never properly through
her work. Things were always "in a clutter." She did not find time
from morning till night (to hear her tell it) to "clean herself up like
other wimmen."
Janice helped in the garden again; but Marty was grumpy, and as soon as
the last row of potatoes was hoed he disappeared until supper time.
Uncle Jason was marking a field for corn planting. A harness strap
broke and he was an hour fixing it, while old Lightfoot dragged the
rickety marker into the fence corner and patiently cropped the weeds.
Later a neighbor leaned on the fence, and Uncle Jason gossiped for
another hour.
The girl saw that none of the neighboring housewives came to call on
Aunt 'Mira. In the afternoon she saw several of them exchanging calls
up and down the lane; but they were in fresh print dresses and carried
their needlework, or the like, in their hands, while Aunt 'Mira was
still "down at the heel" and in her faded calico.
Janice was getting very lonely and homesick. Every hour made the
separation from her father seem harder to bear. And she had scarcely
spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in
Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached
the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again.
"I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some
of the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term."
"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'."
"But it would be something to _do_," exclaimed Janice, with vigor.
"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to
jest let things go along easy?"
"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter want ter go ter 'Rill
Scattergood's school," was again Marty's scornful comment.
"Just the same I'm going," declared Janice. "It's not far, is it?"
"Right up at the edge of town," said her uncle. "They built it there
ter git the young'uns out o' the way. Hard on some of 'em in bad
weather, it's sech a long walk. Some o' these here flighty folks has
been talkin' up a new buildin' an' a new teacher; but taxes is high
enough as they be, I tell 'em!"
"'Rill Scattergood ain't no sort er teacher," said Mrs. Day. "She
didn't have no sort er control over Marty."
"Huh!" grunted that young man, "she couldn't teach nothin' ter
nobody--that ol' maid."
"But 'most of the girls and boys of Poketown go to school to her, don't
they?" asked Janice.
"Them whose folks can't send 'em to the Middleboro Academy," admitted
her aunt.
"Then I'm going up to get acquainted after dinner," announced Janice.
"I--I had so many friends in Greensboro--so many, many girls at
school--and some of the boys were real nice--and the teachers--and
other folks. Oh, dear! I expect it's Daddy I miss most of all, and if
I don't pretty soon find something to _do_--something to take a real
interest in--I'll never be able to stand having him 'way down there in
Mexico and me up here, not knowing what's happening to him!"
The girl's voice broke and the tears stood in her eyes. Her
earnestness made even Marty silent for the moment. Aunt Almira leaned
over and patted her hand.
"You go on to the school, if ye think ye got to. I'd go with ye an'
introduce ye ter 'Rill Scattergood if I didn't have so much to do. It
does seem as though I allus was behindhand with my work."
A little later, when Janice, in her neat summer frock and beribboned
shade-hat, passed down Hillside Avenue, she was conscious of a good
many people staring at her--more now than when she had come up the hill
with her uncle several days before.
Here and there some attempts had been made to grow flowers in the
yards, or to keep neat borders and rake the walks. But for the most
part Hillside Avenue displayed a forlorn nakedness to the eye that made
Janice more than ever homesick for Greensboro.
The schoolbell had ceased ringing before she turned into High Street
and began to ascend the hill again, so there were no young folks in
sight.
Higher up the main street of Poketown there were few stores, but the
dwellings were no more attractive. Nobody seemed to take any pride in
this naturally beautiful old town.
Janice realized that she was a mark for all idle eyes. Strangers were
not plentiful in Poketown.
She came at length in sight of the school. It was set in the middle of
a square, ugly, unfenced yard, without a tree before it or a blooming
bush or vine against its dull red walls. The sun beat upon it hotly,
and it did seem as though the builders must have intended to make
school as hateful as possible to the girls and boys who attended.
The windows and doors were open, and a hum came from within like that
of a swarming hive of bees. Janice went quietly to the nearest door,
mounted the steps, and looked in.
She had by chance come to the girls' entrance. The scholars' backs
were toward her and Janice could look her fill without being observed.
There was a small class reciting before the teacher's desk--droning
away in a sleepy fashion. The older scholars, sitting in the rear of
the room, were mainly busy about their own private affairs; few seemed
to be conning their lessons.
Several girls were busily braiding the plaits of the girls in front of
them. Two, with very red faces and sparkling eyes, were undeniably
quarreling, and whispering bitter denunciations of each other, to the
amusement of their immediate neighbors. One girl had a bag of candy
which she was circulating among her particular friends. Another had
raised the covers of her geography like a screen, and was busily
engaged in writing a letter behind it, on robin's-egg-blue paper.
At the far end of the room the teacher, Miss Scattergood, sat at her
flat-topped desk. "That old maid," as Marty had called her, was not at
all the sort of a person--in appearance, at least--that Janice expected
her to be. Somehow, a spinster lady who had taught school--and such a
school as Poketown's--for twenty years, should have fitted the
well-known specifications of the old-time "New England schoolmarm."
But Amarilla Scattergood did not.
She was a little, light-haired, pink-cheeked lady, with more than a few
claims to personal attractiveness yet left. She had her mother's
birdlike tilt to her head when she spoke, her eyes were still bright,
and her complexion good.
These facts were visible to Janice even from the doorway.
When she knocked lightly upon the door-frame, Miss Scattergood looked
up and saw her. A little hush fell upon the school, too, and Janice
was aware that both girls and boys were turning about in their seats to
look at her.
"Come in," said Mics Scattergood. "Scholars, attention! Eyes forward!"
She might as well have spoken to the wind that breathed at the open
window and fluttered the papers upon her desk. The older scholars paid
the little school-mistress no attention whatsoever.
Janice felt some little confusion in passing down the aisle, knowing
herself to be the center of all eyes. Miss Scattergood dismissed the
class before her briefly, and offered Janice a chair on the platform.
"I guess you're Jason Day's niece," said the teacher, pleasantly,
taking her visitor's hand. "Mother was telling me about you."
"Yes, Miss Scattergood," Janice replied. "I am Janice Day, and when
you have time I'd love to have you examine me and see where I belong in
your school."
"You--you are too far advanced for our school," said the little
teacher, with some hesitation and a flush that was almost painful.
"Especially if you came from a place where the schools are graded as in
the city."
"Greensboro has good schools," Janice said, "I was in my junior year at
high."
"Oh, dear me!" Miss Scattergood cried, hastily. "We don't have any
such system here, of course. The committee doesn't demand it of me. I
have to teach the little folks as well as the big. We go as far as our
books go--that is all."
She placed several text-books before Janice. It was plain that she was
not a little afraid of her visitor, for Janice was much different from
the staring, "pig-tailed" misses occupying the back seats of the
Poketown school.
Janice was hungry for young companionship, and she liked little Miss
Scattergood, despite the uncontradicted fact that "she didn't have no
way with her."
While she conned the text-books the school-mistress had placed before
her, Janice watched proceedings with interest. She had never even
heard of an ungraded country school before, much less seen one. The
older pupils, both girls and boys, seemed to be a law unto themselves;
Miss Scattergood had little control over them.
The teacher called another class of younger scholars. This class
practically took all of her attention and she did not observe the four
boys who carried on a warfare with "snappers" and "spitballs" in the
back seats; of the predatory campaign of the lanky, white-haired youth
who slid from seat to seat of the smaller boys, capturing tops,
marbles, and other small possessions dear to childish hearts,
threatening by gesture and writhing lips a "slaughter of the innocents"
if one of them dared "tell teacher."
Few of the older boys were studying, and none of the bigger girls. The
latter were too much interested in Janice. Looking them over, there
was not one of these Poketown girls to whom Janice felt herself
attracted. Some of them giggled as they caught her eye; others
whispered together with the visitor as the evident subject of their
secret observations; and one girl, seeing that Janice was looking at
her, actually stuck out her tongue--a pink flag of scorn and defiance!
Janice believed that in English, history and mathematics she might
improve by reciting with Miss Scattergood's classes, and she told the
little teacher so.
"You'll be welcome, I'm sure," said the school-mistress, nervously.
"Are you coming Monday? That's nice," and she shook hands with her as
the visitor arose.
Janice passed down the girls' aisle again, trying to pick out at least
one of the occupants of the old-fashioned benches who would look as
though she might be chummy and nice; but there was not one.
"Dear me--dear me!" murmured Janice, when she was outside and stood a
moment to look back at the ugly, red schoolhouse. "It--'it jest
rattles'--_that's_ what it does; like everything about Uncle Jason's,
and like everything about the whole town. That school swings on one
hinge like the gates on Hillside Avenue.
"Oh, dear me! Poketown is just dreadful--it's dreadful!"