SCHOOL NEWS
“See the school?” echoed Aunt Grace. “My dear child, of course you
can’t see the school; why it’s fully three miles from here, on the
other side of that section of woods. You have to walk half a mile to
get the bus.”
Elizabeth Ann hadn’t heard about the bus, and neither had Doris.
“You’re going to a consolidated school,” explained Aunt Grace. “When
I was a little girl they didn’t have them--we went to a little school
house near this farm. There was only one room, and my older sister
taught all the grades. But now they have combined a number of these
small schools into one large one. A bus goes through the country
gathering up the scholars, and in that way one school building can be
made to do the work of six or seven one-room buildings.”
“Why doesn’t the bus come and get us right here?” Doris asked.
That was almost the first question she had asked and Aunt Grace told
her she was glad to hear her voice.
“The bus couldn’t go round to every farm--it would take too long,”
Aunt Grace said. “So the pupils gather in certain places where the
bus driver knows they’ll be, and he picks them up in groups. You and
Elizabeth Ann and the other children who live around here, have to walk
to the nearest cross-roads--your uncle will tell you what time the bus
passes there and what time you have to leave the house. If there’s a
bad storm or it rains too hard, he will take you in the car as far as
the cross-roads; but your Uncle Doctor wrote to tell me that he wanted
both of you to walk whenever it is possible.”
Elizabeth Ann liked to walk and Doris didn’t. But everyone did as Uncle
Doctor directed, always.
“Then we can take our lunch to school, can’t we?” suggested Elizabeth
Ann.
“Why you’ll have to take your lunch,” Aunt Grace replied. “I believe
some of the teachers make hot soup in the winter, but there is no place
where you can buy anything to eat. The consolidated school is right in
the country; there was some talk of building it in Gardner, but they
couldn’t agree on a plot of ground for it. You’ll both be country girls
if you live on a farm all winter, and go to a country school.”
Elizabeth Ann and Doris had always wanted to take their lunches to
school. In Seabridge, Doris came home at noon to lunch, and Elizabeth
Ann had done that, too, wherever she went to school. Even at Aunt Ida’s
school, they had gone to Aunt Ida’s house for lunch--her house was next
door to the school.
“I think it will be more fun to carry our lunches,” said Elizabeth Ann.
“That is, if it won’t be too much trouble for you, Aunt Grace,” she
added.
Elizabeth Ann said “Aunt Grace” because Doris did, and now Aunt Grace
told her a surprising thing.
“I’ll be glad to put up lunches,” she declared. “I always wanted a
little girl or two of my own to work for; and it’s nice to hear you
call me ‘Aunt,’ Elizabeth Ann. You know you are distantly related to
Uncle Hiram.”
“Doris’s Uncle Hiram?” asked Elizabeth Ann.
“Yes,” Aunt Grace smiled a little. “Don’t ask me how it is, but I
believe your father is a sixth or seventh cousin of Hiram’s. You don’t
have to puzzle it out--it’s worse than the ship-time that Hiram is
always trying to get me to learn.”
They went down from the deck presently and Aunt Grace said she thought
Doris should lie down and take a little nap. This gave Elizabeth Ann an
excellent chance to study the mahogany clock, and listen to it strike.
And if ever she had said in her careless little mind that Aunt Grace
was “silly” not to learn ship-time, Elizabeth Ann was soon sorry.
For the more she puzzled over the eight bells, and the two and three
bells, the more confused she became. And when Uncle Hiram came in and
asked her where the first mate was, Elizabeth Ann merely raised her
head and stared at him.
“Who--who is the first mate?” she stammered uncertainly.
“Your Aunt Grace, to be sure,” said Uncle Hiram. “I’m the Captain of
this ship and she’s first mate. She stands the forenoon watch.”
“Is that the watch you carry in your pocket?” Elizabeth Ann asked,
beginning to feel that she didn’t understand anything Uncle Hiram said.
“No, the forenoon watch is from eight o’clock till noon,” said Uncle
Hiram. “That’s the morning hours, you see. At eight bells, or 12 noon,
I come up to the house for dinner.”
Elizabeth Ann blinked.
“How many bells is it now?” she asked, pointing to the clock which said
half-past eleven.
“Why, it’s seven bells,” Uncle Hiram replied promptly.
Then and there Elizabeth Ann decided that she must be like Aunt
Grace--it was so much easier to say “half past eleven” than to count up
to seven bells. Of course it was easier for Uncle Hiram to tell time
that way than by the regular time, for he had done it so long.
“Don’t bother your head about it,” he said now, noticing that Elizabeth
Ann was bewildered. “Perhaps you’ll pick it up as you go along, and if
you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Your Aunt Grace was brought up on a farm
and she can’t learn about the sea; I went to sea when I was a young lad
and I can’t pick up land ways. But we each do our way and get along
splendidly. There’s more than one way of doing a thing and I haven’t
much use for any man who thinks his is the only possible one.”
Elizabeth Ann thought that was very nice. If she learned to tell time
by the bells that would be fine--she could surprise Lansing and Ted.
But if she didn’t learn, Uncle Hiram wouldn’t be annoyed--he thought
that the old way of telling time--by the old way, Elizabeth Ann meant
the way she had been taught--was good, too.
Uncle Hiram had come up to the house before noon because he wanted to
drive to Gardner as soon as dinner was over and, he explained he could
get ready to go before dinner.
“I could ship two passengers,” he announced, a twinkle in his eye.
“That means we can go, Doris!” cried Elizabeth Ann joyfully.
“Does it?” Doris, who had just woke up from her nap, and was still a
bit sleepy, inquired doubtfully.
“Of course you may go,” said Aunt Grace, who had found time to cook
a marvelous dinner--with peach shortcake for dessert--informed them.
“Uncle Hiram just loves to have company with him when he drives to
Gardner.”
Aunt Grace wouldn’t hear of them waiting to help her with the
dishes--she said there were not many, and she was used to doing them
alone--and when Elizabeth Ann and Doris went outdoors to get into the
car, they found Tony sitting on the front doorstep, washing his face as
though he had always lived in the “Bonnie Susie.”
“Isn’t it nice to live in a house like that!” exclaimed Elizabeth Ann
proudly, looking back to wave to Aunt Grace as they drove away.
“Pretty good ship, if I do say it myself,” Uncle Hiram agreed proudly.
And all the way to town he told Elizabeth Ann and Doris stories of what
had happened to him while he was at sea.
“I can feel the way the hammocks used to sway in a storm, even now,”
he said. “I still sleep in a hammock, but your Aunt Grace couldn’t get
used to one; she had to have a bunk.”
Elizabeth Ann and Doris looked at each other. They were glad they had
bunks instead of hammocks--a hammock was all very well to sleep in for
an hour or two on a warm afternoon, but they didn’t care to sleep in
one.
Gardner was a pretty little town, about four miles from the farm. There
was one main store, where almost everything was sold that you could
mention. Uncle Hiram drove directly to this store and he said Elizabeth
Ann and Doris might come in with him while he bought the things he had
come for--knives for cutting corn, and gloves for the men who were to
cut it.
“Hello,” said Uncle Hiram as soon as he went into the store.
“Elizabeth Ann--Doris--here’s one of your neighbors. Catherine, this
is Elizabeth Ann Loring and Doris Mason, my nieces. They’re going to
school to-morrow, and Aunt Grace was saying she hoped you’d stop for
them as you go past the house. Catherine Gould lives near us,” Uncle
Hiram added.
Elizabeth Ann and Doris saw a pretty girl, about their own age, very
beautifully dressed. She didn’t look as though she could have much fun
in her pink silk frock, but it certainly was pretty. And she smiled at
Elizabeth Ann and Doris and was about to say something when suddenly
she frowned and looked so cross Elizabeth Ann was startled.
“Hello, Cathy!” said a boy’s voice, and a lad in faded overalls, with a
large package under his arm, pulled off his cap and smiled as he passed
the three girls.
“Hello, Roger!” Uncle Hiram boomed in his deep voice.
“I’m surprised your uncle speaks to him,” said Catherine, looking
crosser than ever. “Roger Calendar is only a taken boy.”