HESTER'S FORGOTTEN BOOK.
It wanted scarcely three weeks to the holidays, and therefore scarcely
three weeks to that auspicious day when Lavender House was to be the
scene of one long triumph, and was to be the happy spot selected for a
midsummer holiday, accompanied by all that could make a holiday
perfect--for youth and health would be there, and even the unsuccessful
competitors for the great prizes would not have too sore hearts, for they
would know that on the next day they were going home. Each girl who had
done her best would have a word of commendation, and only those who were
very naughty, or very stubborn, could resist the all-potent elixir of
happiness which would be poured out so abundantly for Mrs. Willis' pupils
on this day.
Now that the time was drawing so near, those girls who were working for
prizes found themselves fully occupied from morning to night. In
play-hours even, girls would be seen with their heads bent over their
books, and, between the prizes and the acting, no little bees in any hive
could be more constantly employed than were these young girls just now.
No happiness is, after all, to be compared to the happiness of healthful
occupation. Busy people have no time to fret and no time to grumble.
According to our old friend, Dr. Watts, people who are healthily busy
have also no time to be naughty, for the old doctor says that it is for
idle hands that mischief is prepared.
Be that as it may, and there is great truth in it, some naughty sprites,
some bad fairies, were flitting around and about that apparently peaceful
atmosphere. That sunny home, governed by all that was sweet and good, was
not without its serpent.
Of all the prizes which attracted interest and aroused competition, the
prize for English composition was this year the most popular. In the
first place, this was known to be Mrs. Willis' own favorite subject. She
had a great wish that her girls should write intelligibly--she had a
greater wish that, if possible, they should think.
"Never was there so much written and printed," she was often heard to
say; "but can any one show me a book with thoughts in it? Can any one
show me, unless as a rare exception, a book which will live? Oh, yes,
these books which issue from the press in thousands are, many of them,
very smart, a great many of them clever, but they are thrown off too
quickly. All great things, great books among them, must be evolved
slowly."
Then she would tell her pupils what she considered the reason of this.
"In these days," she would say, "all girls are what is called highly
educated. Girls and boys alike must go in for competitive examinations,
must take out diplomas, and must pass certain standards of excellence.
The system is cramming from beginning to end. There is no time for
reflection. In short, my dear girls, you swallow a great deal, but you do
not digest your intellectual food."
Mrs. Willis hailed with pleasure any little dawnings of real thought in
her girls' prize essays. More than once she bestowed the prize upon the
essay which seemed to the girls the most crude and unfinished.
"Never mind," she would say, "here is an idea--or at least half an idea.
This little bit of composition is original, and not, at best, a poor
imitation of Sir. Walter Scott or Lord Macaulay."
Thus the girls found a strong stimulus to be their real selves in these
little essays, and the best of them chose their subject and let it
ferment in their brains without the aid of books, except for the more
technical parts.
More than one girl in the school was surprised at Dora Russell exerting
herself to try for the prize essay. She was just about to close her
school career, and they could not make out why she roused herself to work
for the most difficult prize, for which she would have to compete with
any girl in the school who chose to make a similar attempt.
Dora, however, had her own, not very high motive for making the attempt.
She was a thoroughly accomplished girl, graceful in her appearance and
manner; in short, just the sort of girl who would be supposed to do
credit to a school. She played with finish, and even delicacy of touch.
There was certainly no soul in her music, but neither were there any
wrong notes. Her drawings were equally correct, her perspective good, her
trees were real trees, and the coloring of her water-color sketches was
pure. She spoke French extremely well, and with a correct accent, and her
German also was above the average. Nevertheless, Dora was commonplace,
and those girls who knew her best spoke sarcastically, and smiled at one
another when she alluded to her prize essay, and seemed confident of
being the successful competitor.
"You won't like to be beaten, Dora, say, by Annie Forest," they would
laughingly remark; whereupon Dora's calm face, would slightly flush and
her lips would assume a very proud curve. If there was one thing she
could not bear it was to be beaten.
"Why do you try for it, Dora?" her class-fellows would ask; but here Dora
made no reply: she kept her reason to herself.
The fact was, Dora, who must be a copyist to the end of the chapter, and
who could never to her latest day do anything original, had determined to
try for the composition prize because she happened accidentally to hear a
conversation between Mrs. Willis and Miss Danesbury, in which something
was said about a gold locket with Mrs. Willis' portrait inside.
Dora instantly jumped at the conclusion that this was to be the great
prize bestowed upon the successful essayist. Delightful idea; how well
the trinket would look round her smooth white throat! Instantly she
determined to try for this prize, and of course as instantly the bare
idea of defeat became intolerable to her. She went steadily and
methodically to work. With extreme care she chose her subject. Knowing
something of Mrs. Willis' peculiarities, she determined that her theme
should not be historical; she believed that she could express herself
freely and with power if only she could secure an unhackneyed subject.
Suddenly an idea which she considered brilliant occurred to her. She
would call her composition "The River." This should not bear reference to
Father Thames, or any other special river of England, but it should trace
the windings of some fabled stream of Dora's imagination, which, as it
flowed along, should tell something of the story of the many places by
which it passed. Dora was charmed with her own thought, and worked hard,
evening after evening, at her subject, covering sheets of manuscript
paper with penciled jottings, and arranging and rearranging her somewhat
confused thoughts. She greatly admired a perfectly rounded period, and
she was most particular as to the style in which she wrote. For the
purpose of improving her style she even studied old volumes of Addison's
_Spectator_; but after a time she gave up this course of study, for she
found it so difficult to mold her English to Addison's that she came to
the comfortable conclusion that Addison was decidedly obsolete, and that
if she wished to do full justice to "The River" she must trust to her own
unaided genius.
At last the first ten pages were written. The subject was entered upon
with considerable flourishes, and some rather apt poetical quotations
from a book containing a collection of poems; the river itself had
already left its home in the mountain, and was careering merrily past
sunny meadows and little rural, impossible cottages, where the
golden-haired children played.
Dora made a very neat copy of her essay so far. She now began to see her
way clearly--there would be a very powerful passage as the river
approached the murky town. Here, indeed, would be room for powerful and
pathetic writing. She wondered if she might venture so far as to hide a
suicide in her rushing waters; and then at last the brawling river would
lose itself in the sea; and, of course, there would not be the smallest
connection between her river, and Kingsley's well-known song,
"Clear and cool."
She finished writing her ten pages, and being now positively certain of
her gold locket, went to bed in a happy state of mind.
This was the very night when Annie was to lead her revelers through the
dark wood, but Dora, who never troubled herself about the younger
classes, would have been certainly the last to notice the fact that a few
of the girls in Lavender House seemed little disposed to eat their
suppers of thick bread and butter and milk. She went to bed and dreamed
happy dreams about her golden locket, and had little idea that any
mischief was about to be performed.
Hester Thornton also, but in a very different spirit, was working hard at
her essay. Hester worked conscientiously; she had chosen "Marie
Antoinette" as her theme, and she read the sorrowful story of the
beautiful queen with intense interest, and tried hard to get herself into
the spirit of the times about which she must write. She had scarcely
begun her essay yet, but she had already collected most of the historical
facts.
Hester was a very careful little student, and as she prepared herself for
the great work, she thought little or nothing about the prize--she only
wanted to do justice to the unfortunate queen of France. She was in bed
that night, and just dropping off to sleep, when she suddenly remembered
that she had left a volume of French poetry on her school desk. This was
against the rules, and she knew that Miss Danesbury would confiscate the
book in the morning, and would not let her have it back for a week.
Hester particularly wanted this special book just now, as some of the
verses bore reference to her subject, and she could scarcely get on with
her essay without having it to refer to. She must lose no time in
instantly beginning to write her essay, and to do without her book of
poetry for a week would be a serious injury to her.
She resolved, therefore, to break through one of the rules, and, after
lying awake until the whole house was quiet, to slip down stairs, enter
the school-room and secure her poems. She heard the clock strike eleven,
and she knew that in a very few moments Miss Danesbury and Miss Good
would have retired to their rooms. Ah, yes, that was Miss Danesbury's
step passing her door. Ten minutes later she glided out of bed, slipped
on her dressing-gown, and opening her door ran swiftly down the
carpetless stairs, and found herself in the great stone hall which led to
the school-room.
She was surprised to find the school-room door a little ajar, but she
entered the room without hesitation, and, dark as it was, soon found her
desk, and the book of poems lying on the top. Hester was about to return
when she was startled by a little noise in that portion of the room where
the first class girls sat. The next moment somebody came heavily and
rather clumsily down the room, and the moon, which was just beginning to
rise, fell for an instant on a girl's face. Hester recognized the face of
Susan Drummond. What could she be doing here? She did not dare to speak,
for she herself had broken a rule in visiting the school-room. She
remained, therefore, perfectly still until Susan's steps died away, and
then, thankful to have secured her own property, returned to her bedroom,
and a moment or two later was sound asleep.