That first miserable day at school! Who that has known it--even with a
mother's kiss burning on the cheek, a big orange bumping in the new
satchel, and a promise of apple-dumplings for dinner, can review it
without a shudder? Torturing--even when you can run home and "tell
mother" all your little griefs; when every member of the home circle
votes it "_a shame_" that Johnny Oakes laughed because you did not take
your alphabet the natural way, instead of receiving it by inoculation,
(just as he forgets that _he_ did;) torturing--when Bill Smith, and Tom
Simms, with whom you have "swapped alleys," and played "hockey," are
there with their familiar faces, to take off the chill of the new
schoolroom; torturing--to the sensitive child, even when the teacher is
a sunny-faced young girl, instead of a prim old ogre. Poor little Katy!
her book was before her; but the lines blurred into one indistinct haze,
and her throat seemed filling to suffocation with long-suppressed sobs.
The teacher, if he thought anything about it, thought she had the
tooth-ache, or ear-ache, or head-ache; and Katy kept her own secret, for
she had read his face correctly, and with a child's quick instinct,
stifled down her throbbing little heart.
To the doctor, and "Mis. Hall," with their anti-progressive notions, a
school was a school. The committee had passed judgment on it, and I
would like to know who would be insane enough to question the decision
of a School Committee? What did the committee care, that the consumptive
teacher, for his own personal convenience, madly excluded all
ventilation, and heated the little sheet-iron stove hotter than
Shadrack's furnace, till little heads snapped, and cheeks crimsoned, and
croup stood ready at the threshold to seize the first little bare throat
that presented its perspiring surface to the keen frosty air? What did
_they_ care that the desks were so constructed, as to crook spines, and
turn in toes, and round shoulders? What did they care that the funnel
smoked week after week, till the curse of "weak eyes" was entailed on
their victims for a lifetime? They had other irons in the fire, to which
this was a cipher. For instance: the village pump was out of repair, and
town-meeting after town-meeting had been called, to see who _shouldn't_
make its handle fly. North Gotham said it was the business of East
Gotham; East Gotham said the pump might rot before they'd bear the
expense; not that the East Gothamites cared for expense--no; they
scorned the insinuation, but they'd have North Gotham to know that East
Gotham wasn't to be put upon. Jeremiah Stubbs, a staunch North
Gothamite, stopped buying molasses and calico at "Ezekial Tibbs' East
Gotham Finding Store;" and Ezekial Tibbs forbade, under penalty of
losing his custom, the carpenter who was repairing his pig-sty, from
buying nails any more of Jeremiah Stubbs, of North Gotham; matches were
broken up; "own cousins" ceased to know one another, and the old women
had a millenial time of it over their bohea, discussing and settling
matters; no marvel that such a trifle as a child's school should be
overlooked. Meantime there stood the pump, with its impotent handle,
high and dry; "a gone sucker," as Mr. Tibbs facetiously expressed it.
"You can't go to school to-day, Katy, it is washing-day," said old Mrs.
Hall; "go get that stool, now sit down on it, at my feet, and let me cut
off those foolish dangling curls."
"Mamma likes them," said the child.
"I know it," replied the old lady, with a malicious smile, as she
gathered a cluster of them in one hand and seized the scissors with the
other.
"_Papa_ liked them," said Katy, shrinking back.
"No, he didn't," replied the old lady; "or, if he did, 'twas only to
please your foolish mother; any way they are coming off; if I don't
like them, that's enough; you are always to live with me now, Katy; it
makes no difference what your mother thinks or says about anything, so
you needn't quote _her_; I'm going to try to make a good girl of you,
_i. e._ if she will let you alone; you are full of faults, just as
she is, and I shall have to take a great deal of pains with you. You
ought to love me very much for it, better than anybody else in the
world--don't you?"
(No response from Katy.)
"I say, Katy, you ought to love me better than anybody else in the
world," repeated the old lady, tossing a handful of the severed ringlets
down on the carpet. "Do you, Katy?"
"No, ma'am," answered the truthful child.
"That tells the whole story," said the doctor, as he started up and
boxed Katy's ears; "now go up and stay in your room till I send for you,
for being disrespectful to your grandmother."
"Like mother--like child," said the old lady, as Katy half shorn, moved
like a culprit out of the room; then gathering up in her apron the
shining curls, she looked on with a malicious smile, while they crisped
and blackened in the glowing Lehigh fire.
But miserable as were the week-days--Sunday, after all, was the dreadful
day for Katy; the long--long--long Sunday, when every book in the house
was put under lock and key; when even religious newspapers, tracts, and
memoirs, were tabooed; when the old people, who fancied they could not
go to church, sat from sunrise to sunset in their best clothes, with
their hands folded, looking speechlessly into the fire; when there
was no dinner; when the Irish girl and the cat, equally lawless and
heretical, went to see their friends; when not a sound was heard in the
house, save the ticking of the old claw-footed-clock, that stood in the
entry; when Katy crept up to her little room, and crouching in a corner,
wondered if God _was_ good--why he let her papa _die_, and why he did
not help her mamma, who tried so hard to earn money to bring her home.
The last bright golden beam of the Sabbath sun had slowly faded
away. One by one the stars came gliding out. He who held them all in
their places, listening ever to the ceaseless music of their motion,
yet bent a pitying ear to the stifled sob of a troubled child.
Softly--sweetly--fell the gentle dew of slumber on weary eyelids, while
angels came to minister. Tears glittered still on Katy's long lashes,
but the little lips parted with a smile, murmuring "Papa." Sleep
on--dream on--little Katy. He who noteth the sparrow's fall, hath given
his angels charge to keep thee.