THE HEART OF MISS SNOOPINS
“Miss Snoopins is almost human sometimes, isn’t she?” Betsy exclaimed as
the girls, having received their mail, trooped upstairs to their rooms.
“She actually smiled when Miss King called her and gave her a letter. I
do believe it’s the first she’s had this term.”
“Maybe it was only a bill, after all. I don’t think there’s anyone on
this green earth who would care to write to her.”
“Oh, Betsy!” Virginia protested. “There is someone to love everybody.”
“You’ll have to prove it to me. I don’t believe—”
“Sh!” Megsy cautioned. She was last in line, and turning, she saw that
Miss Buell had started up the stairway and feared that she might
overhear. They proceeded toward the southeast wing almost in silence and
were indeed surprised to hear Miss Snoopins’ voice, close back of them,
saying: “Miss Virginia, can you spare time to come to my room? I’d like
your help for a few moments.”
“Indeed I can, Miss Buell. I have an hour of free time, and I shall be
glad to give it to you.”
Excusing herself, the girl turned down a narrow hallway at the end of
which was the small room occupied by the monitress of the rooms and
corridors. The thin, angular woman was plainly excited. On her usually
sallow face two red spots burned. She drew forward a stiff-backed chair.
“Oh, Miss Virginia,” she said, “I just had to tell someone—or—” She was
plainly unable to complete the sentence, and so Virg said kindly:
“You have had good news, from some relative perhaps? I shall be glad to
hear about it.” But she was interrupted with: “No, ’tisn’t a relative.
Leastwise not by blood. I haven’t any of those.” Then eagerly: “There is
a way, isn’t there, by going to law or something by which folks can be
made into real relations, if they aren’t born so?”
“Why, yes, Miss Buell. Neighbors of ours on the desert adopted a boy and
then he was their very own.”
The eyes, that the girls had called green, were like wells of happiness.
“That’s what I wanted to know. Of course I could have asked Mrs. Martin,
but she’d have discouraged me, like as not, saying I had all I could do
to save up a bit for my old age.” Then, opening the envelope, she handed
the wondering girl a kodak picture. “That’s little Terry!”
Tears sprang to the eyes of Virginia, “Oh, Miss Buell,” she said, “that
poor little twisted body, but what a beautiful face he has! It makes me
think of a painting I saw in the Boston cathedral when Miss Torrence
took us up there for Christmas service. It’s just as though his little
soul were singing songs of praise.”
Tears, all unheeded, fell down the sallow cheeks of the woman, who had
been called unloved and unloving. “I believe he is! I sometimes think
little Terry lives in a world the rest of us can’t see.”
“Tell me about him. Is it Terry whom you wish to adopt?”
Miss Buell nodded. “I was under-housekeeper at the Boston orphanage two
years ago, and this little fellow—he was five then—was brought in. He
was found on the steps in a basket after dark and the matron said they
couldn’t keep him. He was so twisted she thought he’d need a nurse all
the time, and what was more, when he came to the age to be homed out,
there wouldn’t be anybody that would want him. Well, it was decided that
he would have to be sent somewhere else, but it being late evening they
had to keep him till they could find where he could be taken. What to do
with him that night troubled the matron. Then ’twas I stepped up and
said I’d keep him in my room and be glad to. He was in awful pain all
night, the little fellow was, and though he didn’t cry out loud, he kept
up a pitiful moaning, and his eyes looked scared, as though somebody’d
hit him for it. But when I picked him up and held him close in my arms,
he seemed to feel better, and by and by he went to sleep, but I didn’t
lay him down. I just held him there all night, and though my arms ached,
there was a warm feeling in my heart. I just knew that it was love. The
next morning, the matron said the proper authorities were coming to get
him. I kept watching and when I saw the hard-faced woman in a blue
uniform who came I just up and told that matron that I was going to keep
the little fellow myself. The next day I was to leave there, anyway, so
I took Terry with me and I asked in the city where was the place that
crooked babies were made straight. They told me about a hospital. It
cost a lot to have Terry taken in there, but I left him, and I’ve sent
them all the money I’ve made here every month up to now.
“They’ve done lots for that little fellow. He can walk some, and the
nurses are teaching him to read and write. The doctor tells me if I can
leave him there five years more he’ll be about like other boys,
excepting that he’ll always have to wear braces.”
“And are you going to try to keep him there for five more years, Miss
Buell?” Virginia felt awed in the presence of such complete
self-sacrifice.
The thin woman’s face brightened. “Of course I am, but first I want to
have Terry made into an own relation. Then when the time is up I’m going
to take him back to my father’s old farm. That’s mine, clear, and Terry
and I’ll make it into a home.”
Then the woman rose.
“Thanks,” she said, “for coming in, but I’ve kept this shut up inside
myself for so long I just wanted to tell somebody about Terry.”
“Thank you for telling me,” the girl replied, and then as she left the
small room she suddenly recalled a joking conversation of the girls on
the day she had arrived at Vine Haven. Babs had been telling about Miss
Snoopins and had called her “heartless,” but Virginia had declared that
everyone had a heart, and Margaret had prophesied that if Miss Snoopins
had one, Virginia would find it. How she did wish she could tell the
girls. Some day perhaps she would be given permission to do so. The
others looked up wonderingly as she entered.
All Virginia said was: “I have found the heart of Miss Buell, and this
much I will tell you, there is no one in this school who is living a
life of greater self-sacrifice.”
The girls, who had gathered in the corner room occupied by Margaret and
Babs, were indeed surprised to hear that Virginia had found the heart of
Miss Snoopins. But, since that maiden did not feel that she had a right
to tell the sweet, sad story, they soon forgot about it in recounting
their own news items that had arrived in the same mail pouch.
“Peyton is ever so eager to have us come home,” Babs exclaimed as she
glanced back at the open letter which she had been reading aloud when
Virginia’s entrance had interrupted. “Shall I go on?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, please do.” The girl, whose home had always been on
the desert (more than any of the others), was eager to have news from
there.
“Begin over again, Babs.” Megsy was on the window seat with her
roommate. “Then Virg will better understand just what is happening in
her home country.”
And so Babs read. “Dear sister and friends:
“Malcolm and I have just returned from a ride to the north. We have been
hunting for cows with young calves that we might drive them in and brand
them before they fell into the hands of rustlers. We were told that a
bunch of cattle from V. M. had been seen not far south of the Wilson
ranch and so we rode up there after them. We despaired of finding them,
and were turning back to the south when that little Mexican chap with
the long name, Francisco Quintano Mendoza, appeared. He seemed to rise
right up out of the chaparral on that little wild broncho of his and he
galloped toward us shouting frantically.
“We turned our horses and waited. He told us in broken English that
Harry had sent him to herd our little bunch of stray cattle until he had
an opportunity to drive them to V. M. and that he had them safe in a
nearby hollow. Just at that moment Harry appeared coming down the canyon
trail, and, as we had not seen him since Christmas, we were indeed glad
to hear his news and have an opportunity to thank him for having
protected our strays.
“Hal looked troubled. He is worried about his mother, but don’t mention
it to Benjy. They want him to finish out his year at Drexel if possible.
He certainly is a fine chap. He inquired about you girls, but especially
about Winona. He seems to greatly admire that Indian friend of yours.
“It took us a day and a night to return to the ranch belonging to
Barbara and Peyton Wente. Sis, I’ll ’fess up that I haven’t done a thing
to the inside of that old house. I’m leaving it all for you to change to
suit yourself.
“Malcolm said to tell Virginia that Uncle Tex spends most of his time
this spring planning a surprise for his beloved ‘gal.’”
“Dear old man,” Virg said when Babs paused. “I wonder what it can be
that he is making for me.”
“Only two months more and then you will know.”