wheel. “I saw Jim Higgins, who came up in the _Walsh Honsell_, and he
says it has cut back a quarter of a mile. The whole bend has gone. The
two houses at the landing—the people hardly got out. That’s what they
get for living outside the levee. I wish I knew what we’ll find in the
crossing below. Like as not, Big Timber Beacon has gone into the river
before now.”
The big side-wheeler coughed her way down through the Silverplate Bend
cautiously enough, feeling it by the loom of the shore, since the lights
at the head and middle of it were gone.
Only a solitary beacon at the foot remained, and as they swept the curve
the pilot reached for a lever and threw on the search-light, and with it
lighted up the bend.
All along its front, tree trunks cluttered a ragged bank, and the water
rustled through their tops as they lay fallen half-over. He cut the light
off, and brought the steamboat a little farther out.
“Hate to take chances on McAlpin’s Bar,” he said. “But there are some
nasty snags there, and the bar is the lesser evil.”
So they came down to the foot of the bend and to the solitary beacon.
Then the pilot cast a glance across the river.
“Well, by hokey!” he exclaimed. “Big Timber Light is still standing. I’m
glad of that. The _Lily_ reset it, and if ever I was glad to see a light
I am glad to see that one now.”
He brought the big wheel spinning over toward him, and the _Rupert Lee_
swung its nose out from the bank, and slowly turned its huge bulk till it
was headed toward the Big Timber Beacon. The current swept it downward as
it turned, so that as it finally “straightened out,” the two lights bore
almost directly ahead and astern, the proper line for a run through the
thread of channel below McAlpin’s Bar. Hinckley thoughtfully eyed the Big
Timber Beacon.
“Tommy,” he said, “does that light seem to be as high up as usual?”
“Pretty low,” commented Tommy, peering out into the darkness. “Looks to
me like it ain’t steady, either.”
The light was, indeed, swaying with the motion of the tree, but a moment
later it swayed much more violently. Barney had taken it from its nail,
and was swinging it to and fro in a long arc, in the usual manner of
hailing a passing steamboat.
“It ain’t the beacon at all—or else some one is using it for a
signal-light!” exclaimed the pilot.
He threw the lever, and the search-light blazed out. A turn of a little
wheel overhead directed the beams, and out of the darkness leaped the
picture of a caved bank, a treetop waving in the water, and the figure of
some one in the treetop swaying the light.
“It’s the beacon all right,” said the pilot, “or it’s where the beacon
was.”
He reached for a rope, and sounded loudly three long blasts of the
whistle, two short and another long. On the lower deck all was activity
at once.
“What’s the landing, Mr. Hinckley?” came a deep voice from the darkness
below. The pilot leaned out of the window and answered:
“Head of Big Timber Bend, captain. Something wrong with the beacon—some
one in the water.”
He signaled the engine-room and the wheels stopped, and again the _Rupert
Lee_ swung round.
Hinckley took a quick survey of the bank up and down the bend, then
turned his light on the beacon tree. The figure of Barney stood out in
bold detail.
“Hello!” said the pilot. “It’s the kid that tends the light. Lower the
stage on deck there, and brace the inner end of it. Send some one out to
pick the boy out of that tree. We will have to do it quick. Don’t miss
him, now.”
The _Rupert Lee_ was broadside to the current, and drifting swiftly
down-stream. The wheels were barely turning.
The port landing-stage was run out forward and lowered, a dozen negro
hands were stationed on the inboard end of it, and a stout “rouster” and
the mate ran to the outer end, where they hung out over the water. Barney
saw them coming and made ready to be caught.
He hung the lantern on its nail, freed himself from the branches, and as
Hinckley, with the skill of a lifelong experience, set the wheels of the
steamer back to clear the nest of fallen trees, Barney reached out, and
the two on the landing-stage caught him and dragged him on board. The
steamer backed away and turned down-stream, and Barney, after hearty
congratulations from the lower deck, was escorted to the pilot-house.
“Hello, bub!” said the pilot, as he came in. “No false light about you,
is there? You guided us over that crossing straight as a die, and I’ll
report the way you did it to the department.”
He did report him, too, and things came of that; but the ending of this
story came when Barney had been put aboard the _Kate Clancy_ in the bend
below, to be carried back home. And as the _Kate Clancy_ came up through
Big Timber Bend, to drop him at the foot of McAlpin’s Bar, he and her
captain surveyed the scene of his adventure, and found no sign of the
beacon, for the big gum-tree and the lantern had gone into the river.
HOW HILDA GOT A SCHOOL
By Lelia Munsell
“Well, Hilda, do you want to try again?”
Mr. Kenyon had hung up his overcoat and cap and was standing with his
back to the fire, which Hilda had quickened when she heard him coming.
She knew he would be chilled, for it was a cold February night.
“Johnston told me that there would be a change for the spring term down
here in Hazel Row,” he went on. “The board is going to meet next Monday,
he said. So if you want to try again we’d better get in your application
within a day or two.”
Mrs. Kenyon heard her husband’s question, and came in from the kitchen to
hear what further he might have to say, while the two younger children
dropped their play to listen. They were all interested in Hilda’s attempt
to get a school.
“You could board at home if you got that,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “It’s only
two miles.”
Mr. Kenyon laughed. “Better catch your hare before you cook it. Perhaps
Hilda doesn’t even want to try again.”
“Papa,” cried Hilda, indignantly, “you know I want to try again! But now
listen, you and mamma both. And please don’t think I don’t appreciate
what you have done to help me; but I want to go all alone this time. If
I am ever going to make a teacher, I must learn to depend upon myself.
I can’t always have you to do things for me. And besides, I don’t blame
a school board for not hiring a teacher who hasn’t grit enough to apply
alone. You know I can’t say anything for myself when you are along, papa.
I can talk before a stranger lots better than I can before you.”
“I don’t see why you should feel that way,” interposed Mrs. Kenyon. “You
surely are not afraid of your father.”
“I’m not afraid of him in one sense, but in another sense I am. I can’t
talk to the directors before him as I could if I were alone. I let papa
apply for me last fall, and I let him go along twice this spring, and I
haven’t a school yet.”
Mrs. Kenyon started to speak, but her husband shook his head at her. “I
guess we’ll have to let you have your way this time,” he said. “We’ll
see if you succeed any better than I did.”
Hilda gave him a grateful look.
“But how are you going?” he asked.
“Couldn’t I walk? It isn’t far.”
“No, indeed. Johnston, of course, is less than two miles away, but Mr.
Andrews lives four or five miles northeast, and Smith is as far in the
other direction. You’ll have twelve or fourteen miles to travel by the
time you get back home. There is too much snow for you to walk, anyway,
even if it wasn’t too far. And I can’t trust you to drive the team alone
as cold as it is.”
“I can ride old Selim. He’s safe enough.”
“Yes, he’s safe enough. But you will find it pretty cold, riding so far
on horseback.”
“You’d better let your father take you in the buggy,” said Mrs. Kenyon.
“You’ll freeze to death on Selim.”
“Now, mamma, please!” begged Hilda, and her mother said no more.
Hilda had many ambitions, but the nearest and most absorbing one was
to get a school. Beyond that lay a college course, and beyond that—she
hardly dare to think of all the good things the future might hold for her
and hers if only she might go to college.
But she knew that the money for a college course must come from her own
efforts.
She had been a very proud girl when her first certificate came. It was
only for a year, of course. According to the laws of the state, one must
have taught three months to receive a certificate for a longer time than
that. But her grades were high enough to entitle her to a second class.
The county superintendent had enclosed a kind little note with the
certificate, and had spoken personally to her father, commending her work
very highly. Hilda felt that she had a right to be proud.
But the certificate in itself was not worth much. Its chief value lay in
the fact that it entitled her to teach if she could get a school. And how
she did want a school! She dreamed of it by night and talked of it by day.
Her father’s announcement that there was a vacancy so near home raised
her hopes again. If she could get the place she could save all her
salary, for the schoolhouse was so near that she could board at home, as
her mother had said. She must get it, that was all. And she felt that she
must go alone. Mr. Kenyon made no objection this time, and Mrs. Kenyon
consented on the condition that Hilda would allow herself to be well
bundled up for the long, cold ride.
Hilda readily consented to this, but she almost rued her bargain in the
morning when her mother insisted on putting a large coat of her own over
Hilda’s and in tying a scarf over the warm hood, and when the girl had
climbed on the horse she had wrapped a warm shawl about her.
“How in the world am I to get on and off again with all this stuff,
mamma?” she asked. “I feel as wrapped up as a mummy. I know I’ll frighten
all the horses I meet.”
It was well, perhaps, that she could not see herself, for she certainly
cut rather a ridiculous figure. Added to all the rest, she was riding her
father’s saddle. The right stirrup had been thrown over, and in this her
foot rested, while the left stirrup dangled below. She had never been
fortunate enough to possess a side-saddle, and had often ridden in this
way about the farm.
But she could not help feeling a little sensitive about her appearance
on this occasion, which meant so much to her, and she wished her mother
would not be so fussy.
As she drew near Mr. Johnston’s house, she considered.
It would take her some time to disentangle herself from her many
wrappings, and to any one watching from the house she would present
rather a ridiculous appearance in her necessarily clumsy efforts to
dismount.
So she halted old Selim some distance from the front gate, and here,
hidden by the trees, she divested herself of her extra garments.
Her heart was pounding away vigorously as she knocked and inquired if Mr.
Johnston was in. She had known him ever since she could remember, but he
seemed suddenly to have become almost a stranger. Outwardly, however, it
was a very dignified young lady who presented her case before him.
It seemed to her that he looked at her for fully five minutes without
speaking.
“So you want to teach?” he asked at last. “Pretty young, aren’t you? How
old are you? Seventeen?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda. “I suppose that isn’t very old, but I have a
good certificate, and I am pretty sure that I can teach a good school. At
least, I’d try my best if you would give me a chance.”
“That’s what they all say,” remarked Mr. Johnston.
“I know. But that is all I _can_ say till somebody gives me a chance to
show what I can do.”
“You have had no experience, of course.”
“No. But if I am ever to make a teacher, I’ll have to teach my first
school sometime and somewhere.”
“I guess that’s so. Got some pretty good grades here.” He had been
examining the certificate she had handed him.
“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda, modestly.
Again he was silent. Then he handed her back her certificate. “Well, I’ll
tell you, Hilda. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to give you a
chance. I’ve known you ever since you were a baby, and I know you are a
wide-awake, energetic little girl. But I’m only one of three, and I am
afraid you won’t stand the best of chances with the other two. You don’t
know either of them personally, do you? I thought not. Andrews wants the
place for a cousin of his, and Smith will think you are too young. But go
and see both of them. Don’t tell them what I’ve said. Simply say that you
spoke to me about it. Smith is president of the board.”
Hilda thanked him and went her way, much encouraged in spite of what
he had said about her possible reception by the other two members.
She experienced some difficulty in mounting and dismounting each time,
encumbered as she was, but that did not trouble her much now, although
she was careful at both places to stop far enough away from the house,
as she had done at Mr. Johnston’s, to enable her to accomplish this feat
without being seen.
And she was truly thankful that no one asked her how she came. She much
preferred that the men whose interest she was trying to enlist should not
see her perched up on old Selim, like a big round bump on a log, as her
father had expressed it.
Fortunately, she found both Mr. Andrews and Mr. Smith at home, but she
did not receive the encouragement from them that she had done from Mr.
Johnston.
Indeed, Mr. Andrews told her that the school was as good as engaged, and
that it was useless for her to see Mr. Smith. Hilda, remembering what Mr.
Johnston had told her about the cousin, made no reply, but resolved to
call upon Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith listened to her courteously and quietly. “Pretty young, aren’t
you?” he asked.
Hilda laughed. “I expected you to say that. But it isn’t always age and
experience that make success. I have always wanted to teach, and I’ve
always thought I could teach, and I believe I can, if I _am_ young.”
“I don’t know but that’s the right way to talk. We’ve got to believe
in ourselves before we ever amount to much. How much would you want a
month?”
She was not prepared for this question. In her heart she knew that she
would take the school at whatever they might offer. But she reflected
that it would not be policy to say so, so she answered:
“Whatever you have been paying for your spring term.”
“Well, we’ll talk over your application Monday. If we want you, we will
let you know. You needn’t come to see us about it again.”
Hilda was obliged to be content with this. She thanked him, and then,
behind the grove where she had tied her horse, she bundled herself up for
the ride home, where an eager audience listened to her story while she
thawed out her fingers and toes.
The next six days seemed interminably long to her, but Monday came at
last. All day she listened expectantly for a step on the front porch, but
no one came that day or the next. Wednesday morning she was helping her
father about the barn, when she heard some one behind her, and turned to
face Mr. Johnston.
“Hello!” he cried. “So you concluded to try farming if you couldn’t get a
school?”
Hilda smiled in reply. She could not trust herself to speak. So she had
failed again.
Mr. Johnston chatted with her father for a time, while she went bravely
on with her work. It would never do to let him know how disappointed she
was.
“Well, Hilda,” he said, finally, “I’ll expect you to do me credit this
spring.”
Hilda looked up, surprised.
“We concluded we would try you,” he continued. “Andrews stuck out for his
cousin, but Smith went with me. Smith was quite taken with you. Andrews’
cousin had let him attend to her application, and had never come to see
one of us about it. Smith didn’t like that way of doing things, and I
confess I don’t, myself. You’ll get thirty-five dollars for three months.
If that is satisfactory, I guess we might as well go to the house and
sign the contract now.”
Hilda felt that she was treading on air as she followed him to the
house, and when she saw her name signed to the little slip of paper,
the contract between herself and District No. 33, she secretly pinched
herself to see if she were awake. She wanted to shout, but of course that
would not do. But the moment Mr. Johnston was gone she seized her mother
about the waist and whirled her round the room.
“Just think, mamma! Just think!” she cried. “I’ve actually got a school.
One hundred and five dollars, and no board to pay. Maybe, now, I won’t
have to wait any longer to go to college than I had expected to do in
the first place. And, mamma,” she drew her mother close and whispered in
her ear, “when I get to be a professor in some big university you won’t
have to work any more, and I can give you the things that I’ve wanted and
wanted so long to give you.”
THE IMP AND THE DRUM
By Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon
It never would have happened but for Miss Eleanor’s mission class. Once
a week through the winter she went in the cars to a town not far from
the city, where there were a great many mills, but few schools, and
talked to a crowd of the mill-hands’ little children. She did not give
them lessons, exactly, but she told them stories and sang songs with
them and interested them in keeping themselves and their homes clean and
pretty. They were very fond of her and were continually bringing in other
children, so that after the first year she gave up the small room she had
rented and took them up two flights into an old dancing-hall, a little
out of the center of the town.
The Imp had been from the beginning deeply interested in this scheme,
and when he learned that many of the boys were just exactly eight and a
half—his own age—and that they played all sorts of games and told stories
and sang songs, and had good times generally, his interest and excitement
grew, and every Thursday found him begging his mother or big aunty, with
whom they spent the winter, to telephone to his dear Miss Eleanor that
this time he was to accompany her and see all those fascinating children:
big Hans, who, though fourteen, was young for his years and stupid;
little Olga, who was only eleven, but who mothered all the others, and
had brought more children into the class than anyone else; Pierre, who
sang like a bird, and wore a dark-blue jersey and a knitted cap pulled
over his ears; red-headed Mike, who was all freckles and fun; and pretty,
shy Elizabeth, with deep violet eyes and a big dimple, who was too
frightened to speak at first, and who ran behind the door even now if a
stranger came.
But it was not till the Imp gave up being eight and a half and arrived at
what his Uncle Stanley called quarter of nine that Miss Eleanor decided
that he might go if his mother would let him.
“I used to think,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be wise to take him. I
thought they’d feel awkward; for of course he’s better dressed, and
I don’t want them to feel that they’re being shown off or made an
exhibition of, even to a child. But I know them so well now, and I’ve
told them about him and how he loves to play games, and wants to come,
and I think it may really be a good thing—for both sides.”
So on one delicious Thursday in early February, the Imp boarded the train
proudly, and they steamed out of the big station. He had gone over the
entire afternoon, in anticipation, with Harvey, his little lame friend,
who could not go to school, but did his lessons with a tutor, and with
whom the Imp studied every morning during the three or four months they
spent in the city; and Harvey was as interested as he, and sent his best
love to them all.
From the moment of the Imp’s entrance, when his cheerful “Hullo!” made
him any number of friends, and his delight at being there made them
all delighted to have him, he was a great success; and when big Hans,
with a furtive glance at the Imp’s clean hands, went quietly off to the
ever-ready basin and washed his own, Miss Eleanor regretted that she had
not brought him sooner.
When they had finished the story about Washington at Valley Forge—for
Miss Eleanor was quietly teaching them history—she got them into a long
line that reached quite around the room, and went out for a moment,
returning with a drum in her hand: not a play drum, but a real one, with
polished black sticks and a fascinating strap to cross over the shoulder.
“Now,” said she, “we’re going to learn the fire-drill, and we’ll take
turns at the drum.”
The children were delighted, and stood still as mice while she explained
the order of affairs. In the big city public schools, she had been told,
they practiced going out in line at a mock alarm of fire, and the boy or
girl who broke out of line or dashed for the door before the drum-tap
was disgraced for days in the eyes of the school. Everything must be
quiet and in order; every child must have his place and take it; no one
must cry out, or run ahead, or push, or try to hurry matters; and what
was most important, all must keep step—which was why the drum came to be
there.
She arranged them carefully: little one first, then girls, last of all
the boys, with big Hans at the rear, and Olga managing a crowd of the
little ones.
“Now,” she said, “we won’t leave the room this first time; we’ll just
march round and round till we can all keep step, and later we’ll
practice going through the halls and downstairs. I’ll drum the first
time, and then the best boy shall be drummer.”
The friend who had suggested the fire-drill when Miss Eleanor had begged
her for some new game to play, had never seen one, and did not know the
exact details, but she knew the general idea of it, and she knew, too,
that it was not at all easy for people to keep in step, even to a drum.
This had surprised Miss Eleanor greatly. She supposed that anybody could
keep step, and she was much inclined to doubt her friend’s statement that
a large number of grown people, even, found it difficult.
But there was a still greater surprise in store for her. When she slung
the strap over her pretty red waist and hit the drum a resounding blow, a
very different sound from what she had expected was the result—a muffled,
flat noise, with nothing inspiring about it whatever. She bit her lip and
tried again, the children watching her attentively from the sides of the
big room.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang, bang, bang!
A few feet began to keep time, but the sound was not very different from
that produced by a stick hit against the wall, and big Hans, whose father
played in a band, and who had attended many rehearsals—it was from him
the drum had been procured—shook his head solemnly.
“Not so! Not so!” he said in his thick, gruff voice. “You no hit good!
You no hit hard!”
“Oh, Hans, can _you_ play it?” cried Miss Eleanor eagerly. “Here, take
it!” And she flung the strap over his shoulder.
Hans shambled out to the center of the room, and struck a mighty blow.
The familiar deep sound of a drum filled the place, and Miss Eleanor
sighed with relief, but alas! her joy was short-lived, for poor Hans had
no idea of time, and could only pound away like a hammer. In vain she
held his hand and tried to guide his strokes. The noise was deafening,
but no more to be marched to than thunder.
Little Pierre tried next, but though he kept perfect time, and looked
very cunning in his little blue blouse, his taps were too light to cover
the sound of the tramping feet.
Miss Eleanor’s cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the
children were getting restless. She did not know what to do.
“Oh, dear! _Who_ would have thought it was so hard?” she exclaimed
pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his
lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his
mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do
a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again.
“What is it, Perry?” she asked.
“_I_ can—_I_ can play a drum, Miss Eleanor!” he burst out.
She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most
things.
“This isn’t a play drum, you know, dear; it’s a real one,” she said.
“But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a
truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up
like a good ’un!” the Imp exploded again.
Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among the Imp’s amazing list of
acquaintances, a one-legged Grand Army man, who kept a newspaper-stall,
had been mentioned, and decided that it could do no harm to let him try.
“Well, put it on,” she said, and the Imp proudly assumed the drum,
grasped the sticks loosely between his fingers, wagged his head knowingly
from side to side, and began.
Brrrm!
Brrrm!
Brrrm! brrrm! brrrm!
The straggling line straightened, the children began to grin, and little
Pierre, at the head of the line, stamped his foot and started off. Miss
Eleanor’s forehead smoothed, and she smiled encouragingly at the Imp.
“That’s it, that’s it!” she cried delightedly. “How easy it looks!”
But the Imp stopped suddenly, and the moving line stopped with him.
“Wait! I forgot!” he said peremptorily. “You mustn’t start till I do
this.”