VIEWS AND REVIEWS
Monday morning dawned gloriously, but it was with great effort that Jenny
made her mood match the day. Often her grandparents glanced at her and
then at one another as they ate their simple breakfast. At last her
grandfather asked: “What be yo’ studyin’ on so hard, dearie? Is it
anything about yo’re schoolin’ that’s frettin’ you?”
The girl, who had been gazing at the bowl of golden poppies on the middle
of the table with unconscious abstraction, looked up with a bright smile.
Luckily her grandfather’s remark gave her a suggestion to enlarge upon.
Turning to the little old woman whose sweet blue eyes were watchfully
inquiring, the girl said: “Something has happened, or rather it is going
to happen.” She paused a moment, but her grandfather urged: “Do go on,
Jenny. Don’t let’s stop for no guessin’ contest this time. I’ve got to
get out early to the cultivatin’.”
Jenny told how the Board of Education had required Miss Dearborn to take
a teacher’s examination before she had been permitted to continue
instructing her one lone pupil.
“Tut! Tut! Wall now, yo’ don’ tell?” Grandma Sue was much impressed. “Did
Miss Dearborn go an’ take them teachin’ examinations jest so she could
keep on helpin’ yo’ wi’ your studies?”
The girl nodded. “She must set a power by you,” the old woman concluded.
Grandpa Si spoke up. “Huh, how could she help it? I reckon every critter
as knows Jenny sets a power by her, but thar must be more to the yarn. I
don’ see anything, so far, for you to fret about.”
“Yes, there is more,” Jenny agreed, “Miss Dearborn has had a letter from
the Board of Education saying that I must take the high school
examinations next month. Think of it, Granny Sue! I’ve got to go to that
big new high school over in Santa Barbara where I don’t know a single
soul, and take written examinations, when I never have had even one in
all my life.”
Again the grandfather’s faith in his “gal” was expressed. “It’s _my_
notion when them examinations are tuk, _your’s_ ’ll be leadin’ all the
rest. Thar ain’t many gals as sober minded as _yo’_ be, Jenny, not by a
long ways.”
The girl’s merry laughter pealed out and the twinkle in her liquid brown
eyes did not suggest sober-mindedness. Rising she skipped around the
table kissing affectionately her grandfather’s bald spot.
“Here’s hoping that you won’t be disappointed in your granddaughter. But
really she isn’t half as wise as you think she is.” Then turning toward
the smiling old woman, she concluded, “Is she, Mrs. Susan Warner?”
The sweet blue eyes told much more than the reply. “Wall, I reckon yo’
won’t come out tail-end.”
Again the girl laughed, then donning her hat and taking her books, she
merrily called “Good-bye.” But her expression changed when she reached
the lane and started walking briskly toward the highway.
The real cause of her anxiety returned to trouble her thoughts. “Oh, I
_must_ study so hard, so hard,” she told herself. “Then I will be able to
be a teacher and make a home for my dear old grandparents. How I hope the
farm will not be sold until then.”
Jenny did not follow the highway, but took a short cut trail to Miss
Dearborn’s hillside home. It led over a rugged upland where gnarled live
oaks twisted their rough barked branches into fantastic shapes. Jenny
loved low-growing oaks and she never climbed through this particular
grove of them, however occupied her thoughts might be as they were on
this troubled morning, without giving them a greeting. “I’m glad that
Miss Dearborn is teaching me mythology, for otherwise I wouldn’t know
that each of these trees is really the home of a dryad, beautiful,
slender graceful sprites, born when the tree is born and dying when the
tree dies. How I would love to come here some moon-lit night in the
spring and watch them dance to the piping of Pan. They would have wide
fluttering sleeves in their garments woven of mist and moonbeams and they
would be crowned with oak leaves, but how sad it would be if a
woodchopper came and chopped down one of the trees, for that night there
would be one less dryad at the dance on the hill.”
Beyond the trees there was a long sweep of meadowland down the hill side
to the highway, and beyond to the rocky edge of the sea. On this bright,
spring morning it was a glittering, gleaming carpet of waving poppy cups
of gold.
Joyfully the girl cried, pausing on the edge of it, “O, I know the poem
Miss Dearborn would quote. I thought of it right away.” Then she recited
aloud, though there was no one to hear.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of shining daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine,
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never ending line,
Along the margin of the bay.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee.
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazed and gazed, but little thought
What wealth to me the show had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
And then my heart with rapture fills
And dances with the daffodils.
“If only Wordsworth had lived in California,” she thought as she
continued on her way, “he would have written just such a poem about these
fields of golden poppies.”
Ten minutes later, the girl, feeling an inward glow from so close a
communion with Nature, the greatest of artist-poets, skipped between the
two graceful pepper trees that were the gate posts of Miss Dearborn’s
attractive hillside home.
“Well, dearie, how bright you are this morning,” was the greeting the
woman, digging about in her garden, sang out. Then, standing her hoe
against a rustic bench, she began taking off her gloves, as together they
walked toward the house. “I am indeed glad,” she concluded, “for you are
to have a hard testing today.”
Instantly the morning glow faded from the girl’s face and a troubled
expression clouded her eyes. “Miss Dearborn, what now?”
The older woman laughed. “No need of high tragedy,” she said. “It’s only
that I have paid a visit to the principal of the high school, and have
obtained from him the questions used on examinations for several years
past, and today I am going to give you your first written test. We have
nearly a month for review, and each week I shall ask you one complete set
of questions of previous years and then, at least, you will be familiar
with written examinations.”
“Oh, Miss Dearborn, how kind, how wonderfully kind you are to me. It
would be most ungrateful of me to fail.”
“Fail? There is no such word for the earnest student who has worked
faithfully day by day all through the term as my pupil has. There will be
no need of that nerve-racking system called cramming for you.” Then, as
they ascended the steps to the wide veranda, Miss Dearborn exclaimed,
“See, I’ve put a table in the glassed-in corner. I’m going to shut you in
there until noon with the questions, and I shall expect your average to
be 90 at least.”
Jenny felt a little thrill of excitement course over her, and she started
at her new task with a determination to try her best to be worthy of the
faith placed in her by the three who loved her so dearly.