THE RED SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SHRUB OAK.
One entire week that poor girl lay upon the verge of death; but so
still, so mournfully feeble, that it would have pained you to look at
her. The sound of her voice must have sent you from her presence
heart-broken. The doctor visited her every day. At times he attempted to
arouse her with some of his droll sayings, but the voice in which they
were uttered was so pitiful that she understood it only as a
compassionate attempt to comfort her, and so, in truth, it was.
One day, when the fever had left her brain, and she could scarcely speak
for want of strength, Katharine whispered the doctor to sit down a
little while, as she had something to ask him about.
The doctor slid his crutches along the floor, and seated himself on the
edge of the bed, looking very grave, for he felt what the poor thing was
about to say.
"Doctor."
"Well, my child."
"What is that man always staying in the kitchen for?"
"That man--oh! he's help."
"Night and day, night and day, he's always there," murmured the unhappy
girl. "He tries to keep out of sight; but every time the door opens I
see his shadow on the wall."
"And it frightens you, poor child; is that it?"
"Yes, doctor, it troubles me. I want to know what it means?"
"He has been sent here to keep your mother company."
She looked at him with reproachful earnestness, tried to shake her head,
but the languid eyelids only drooped over the blue orbs fastened on his
face, and, directly, tears began to swell under them.
"I heard people talking in the other room, doctor; what was it about?"
"I cannot tell you, not knowing what they said."
"They were talking about my baby."
The word broke out in a sob, and tears gushed through her trembling
eyelashes. The doctor laid his hand on her head, and then the convulsion
of her grief became heart-rending.
"Hush, child, hush! don't cry, don't cry--it will hurt you."
"Doctor, what--what did my baby die of?"
The doctor turned white with the pain and surprise of that question.
"Won't you tell me, doctor?"
He looked at her in stern distrust. Her face was innocent as a child's.
She interrogated his countenance imploringly through her tears.
"Don't you know, Katharine?"
She began to cry bitterly.
"How could I? no one tells me, and I can't remember any thing."
"Katharine, is this true?"
"Is what true, doctor?"
"Have you no knowledge how the child died?"
"No; I was in bed here, shaking with cold and burning up with fever. I
wanted the baby, and got up; it was in the cradle, dead. Oh, I remember
so well how white its little face was--how white and cold. I came back
again, crept into bed, and wished that God would let me die, too."
"And this is all you know?"
"Yes, doctor; I was afraid to ask mother about it--she looks so strange;
but you will tell me every thing."
The doctor gathered up his crutches hurriedly, and stamped his way into
the next room.
"Mrs. Allen," he said, sharply, "you are a brave woman. I'm nothing but
a poor, miserable coward. I'm going to sneak off, and let you talk to
that poor girl. I could cut the throat of a lamb when it was looking
into my eyes as soon as tell her what must come. You're a Christian,
Mrs. Allen, a downright Christian, and no sham--crusty and bitter, sharp
and honest. You can do it; I can't. You're a Bible woman; I'm an old
sinner, and am running away--do you understand--because I'm an
abominable old coward. Tell her yourself."
Mrs. Allen turned white as parchment. She understood the doctor's
meaning in full.
"Has she been asking questions, doctor?"
"Yes; enough to break a commonly good heart--but mine is tough as sole
leather."
"She is better?"
"Yes; a great deal better."
"And when she is well enough to be moved, they will take her away?"
"I suppose so--the hounds."
The woman stood motionless--her hands tightly clasped, and her lips
stiffening with pain.
"You are right," she said; "who but her mother should take up this
burden. I will tell Katharine."
"Not 'till I am out of sight!" cried the doctor, wheeling sharply on
his crutches. "I tell you, woman, I can't stand it--feel like a butcher
for what I have done. The law is an abomination. Why can't they let my
pretty pigeon alone? As if there wasn't babies enough without making a
fuss if one does drop off a little out of the common way?"
"I'll tell her. It's hard, but what is before me I can do," said the
woman.
"Can't I help little?" said a sweet voice from the hearth, "or Jube?
he's very strong."
The doctor looked down on little Paul with a glance half quizzical, half
serious.
"You, little shoat, you?"
"Yes, if madame please," said Paul, with a sad smile; "if there's
trouble, I and Jube very used to it. We've been in a boat together three
days, with nothing but red hot sun and many waters to look on, till they
blind us. We know how to be hungry and cold, and he knows how to be
whipped on his back and never say a word. That is why we can help."
"That little trooper is what I call a pilgrim," muttered the guard,
nodding at the doctor with a wink of the left eye.
Mrs. Allen laid her unsteady hand on Paul's dark curls. "He is a good
boy, and God will bless him," she said.
Paul, with that touching grace that is so beautiful in highly bred
children of foreign birth, took the hard hand of his benefactress and
touched it to his lips.
"He ought to have been sent to school," she said, in a weary voice,
addressing the doctor. "My son charged it upon me, but I could not leave
her."
The doctor wheeled round, and examined Paul's face from beneath his
heavy eyebrows.
"Go get your cap and great coat," he said with gruff kindness. "If
you've got a wedge of mince pie or a slice of gingerbread, Mrs. Allen,
drop it into a dinner basket, and I'll put the shaver on his course of
studies in double-quick time. Send him out when all is ready."
It took the doctor some minutes to mount his horse. By the time he was
in the saddle, Paul came forth with a painted dinner basket on his arm.
A new pair of mittens imprisoned his delicate hands, while the yarn
comforter that Rice had given him was twisted around his neck, and
concealed the lower part of his face.
"That's right, little trooper; climb up the fence and hop on behind.
That's it--sharp as a steel trap. Sit up close and hold on to my belt.
All right. Here we go! Get up! Get along, I say!"
The doctor's horse had been used to carrying double in all sorts of
ways, so he only threw up his head, and cast his long mane on the air
like a banner, intending this action as a protest against extra burdens
in general, before he started off in a heavy trot toward Falls Hill.
The doctor was heavy-hearted enough, but he took some note of the
strange child under his charge, told him to hang on to his belt like a
dog to a sassafras root, and expressed a decided opinion that Paul would
be a man before his mother, which filled the boy's heart with sadness,
as that word mother was ever sure to do.
The red school-house at Shrub Oak was half a mile out of the doctor's
way, but instead of setting Paul down at the willow tree on the corner,
he put his eccentric steed to its mettle, and drew up in front of that
sublime seat of learning with considerable dash.
"Holloa there, Tibbles! Holloa! I say! Come out and get a new scholar."
Mr. Tibbles, the master, heard this shout while in the midst of his
pupils, and laying down his ruler with dignity, moved toward the door,
leaving a hum and rush of whispers behind, which might have reminded one
of Babel before the inmates had ventured entirely upon their new
tongues.
"How do you do, Tibbles? Young ideas shoot prosperously--ha? Give 'em
the birch--give 'em the birch. Nothing like it. Whipped half out of my
skin before I got through Webster's spelling-book. Did me good. Give 'em
birch; and if you can't find that handy, try hemlock sprouts. Tingle
beautifully."
The master took these suggestions demurely, and asked if the little boy
upon the horse wanted to come to school.
"Yes. Hop down, shaver. Give him a lift, Tibbles. A little Frenchman
from St. Domingo. Nothing but a nest of niggers left there. Killed all
the white folks off. Nice country, that. You have heard of the boy that
stuck to the wrecked brig with Dave Rice?"
"Oh, yes, doctor," answered Tibbles, brightening.
"There he is, large as life. Take good care of him, for he's worth a
dozen of your common fellows. Put him through English, and give him a
touch of Latin, if you remember any. Who knows but I may take him for a
student one of these days?"
While the doctor was speaking, he took Paul by the hand, and swung him
lightly to the ground. Mr. Tibbles took possession of the handsome boy
with no little pride; for the child who had stood so manfully by David
Rice had become a historical character in Shrub Oak, and the master felt
the dignity of his school enhanced by Paul's advent there.
Paul was a good deal embarrassed as he entered school with thirty pairs
of eyes levelled at him, sparkling with every possible degree of
curiosity. He sat down on a little bench, blushing like a girl, but
looking so modest and gentle withal, that the whole school felt a
general and kindly impulse toward the stranger. The bluest covered
spelling-book was handed to him from the master's desk. One boy
volunteered to lend him a slate, and another took a new pencil from his
pocket and gave it to him outright, looking triumphantly round at the
little girls' bench to be sure that his intimacy with the distinguished
stranger had made its impression in that quarter.
At noon time there was no limit to the hospitalities of the occasion;
wonder-cakes, biscuits, and wedges of pumpkin pie, made their way into
Paul's dinner basket. One pretty little girl slily offered him a rusty
coated apple, and another was ambitious to teach him how to slide on a
strip of ice that lay, like a mammoth looking-glass, a little distance
down the turnpike.
Paul received all these kindnesses with gentle grace. His broken speech,
the sweet expression of his eyes, the natural refinement which even
children could feel, made him a general favorite in less than two hours.
The large boys were already arranging to lend him their sleds. As for
the girls, the whispering and nudging that took place among them
whenever the lad lifted those splendid eyes from his book, was a scandal
to the whole school and sex.
When Paul went out of school at night he felt very lonesome and forlorn,
not exactly knowing his way home, and a good deal dismayed by the snow,
which was getting damp and heavy, with a succession of warm, foggy
days. While he was standing in the door, uncertain which way to turn,
two large boys, rosy from the fresh air, came racing up harnessed to a
hand sled, in their opinion a marvel of workmanship, which was expected
to lift the stranger off his feet with admiration.
With cordial hospitality, the boys offered this conveyance to Paul, who
accepted it in good faith, and the boys carried him away in triumph,
dashing off toward Falls Hill, and up the crossroad, in splendid style.
The next day, one of these boys--the same little fellow who had given
Rose Mason the string of robins' eggs, might have been seen hanging
around Mrs. Allen's gate, looking wistfully at the front door. When it
opened, and Paul came forth, the lad ran to meet him, and the two went
away together, talking earnestly on the road to school.