"Get your things, child!"
And as he goes out with Grace, he is rewarded by one of those tender
smiles upon the lip of the mother which captivated him twenty years
before, and which still make his fireside the most cherished spot in the
town.
No wonder that the little half-orphaned creature, Adele, with her
explosive warmth of heart, is kindly received among the Elderkins. Phil
was some three years her senior, a ruddy-faced, open-hearted fellow, who
had been well-nurtured, like his two elder brothers, but in whom a
certain waywardness just now appearing was attributed very much, by the
closely observing mother, to the influence of that interesting, but
mischievous boy, Reuben. Phil was the superior in age, indeed, and in
muscle, (as we may find proof,) but in nerve-power the more
delicate-featured boy of the parson outranked him.
Rose Elderkin was a year younger than the French stranger, and a
marvellously fair type of New England girl-beauty: light brown hair in
unwieldy masses; skin wonderfully clear and transparent, and that
flushed at a rebuke, or a run down the village street, till her cheeks
blazed with scarlet; a lip delicately thin, but blood-red, and
exquisitely cut; a great hazel eye, that in her moments of glee, or any
occasional excitement, fairly danced and sparkled with a kind of insane
merriment, and at other times took on a demure and pensive look, which
to future wooers might possibly prove the more dangerous of the two. The
features named make up a captivating girlish beauty, but one which,
under a New England atmosphere, is rarely carried forward into
womanhood. The lips grow pinched and bloodless; the skin blanched
against all proof of blushes; the eyes sunken, and the blithe sparkle
that was so full of infectious joy is lost forever in that exhausting
blaze of girlhood. But we make no prophecy in regard to the future of
our little friend Rose. Adele thinks her very charming; Reuben is
disposed to rank her--whatever Phil may think or say--far above Suke
Boody. And in his reading of the delightful "Children of the Abbey,"
which he has stolen, (by favor of Phil, who owns the book,) he has
thought of Rose when Amanda first appeared; and when the divine Amanda
is in tears, he has thought of Rose; and when Amanda smiles, with
Mortimer kneeling at her feet, he has still thought of Rose.
These four, Adele, Phil, Rose, and Reuben are fellow-attendants at the
school of the excellent Miss Betsey Onthank. The schoolhouse itself is a
modest one, and stands upon a cross-road leading from the main street of
the village, and is upon the side of the little brook which courses
through the valley lying to the westward. A half-dozen or more of
sugar-maples stand near it, and throw over it a grateful shade in
August. In March these trees are exposed to a series of tappings on the
part of the more mechanically inclined of the pupils,--Phil Elderkin
being chiefest,--and gimlets, quills, and dinner-pails are brought into
requisition with prodigious results. In the heats of summer, and when
the brook is low, adventurous ones, of whom Reuben is chiefest,
undertake to dam its current; and it being traditional in the school
that one day a strange fisherman once took out two trout, half as long
as Miss Onthank's ruler, from under the bridge by which the high road
crosses the brook, Reuben plies every artifice, whether of bent pins, or
hooks purchased from the Tew partners, (unknown to Aunt Eliza, who is
prejudiced against fish-hooks as dangerous,) to catch a third; and
finding other resources vain, he punches two or three holes through the
bottom of his little dinner-pail, to make a scoop-net of it, and
manfully wades under the bridge to explore all the hollows of that
unknown region. While in this precarious position, he is reported by
some timid child to the mistress, who straightway sallies out, ferule in
hand and cap-strings flying, and orders him to land; which Reuben,
taking warning by the threatening tone of the old lady, refuses, unless
she promises not to flog him; and the kind-hearted mistress, fearing too
long exposure of the lad to the chilly water, gives the promise. But
with the tell-tale pail dangling at his belt, he does not escape so
easily the inquisitive Aunt Eliza.
The excellent Miss Onthank--for by this title the parson always
compliments her--is a type of a schoolmistress which is found no longer:
grave, stately, with two great moppets of hair on either side her brow,
(as in the old engravings of Louis Philippe's good queen Amelia,) very
resolute, very learned in the boundaries of all Christian and heathen
countries, patient to a fault, with a marvellous capacity for pointing
out with her bodkin every letter to some wee thing at its first stage of
spelling, and yet keeping an eye upon all the school-room; reading a
chapter from the Bible, and saying a prayer each morning upon her bended
knees,--the little ones all kneeling in concert,--with an air that would
have adorned the most stately prioress of a convent; using her red
ferule betimes on little, mischievous, smarting hands, yet not
over-severe, and kind beneath all her gravity. She regards Adele with a
peculiar tenderness, and hopes to make herself the humble and unworthy
instrument of redeeming her from the wicked estate in which she has
been reared. And Adele, though not comprehending the excess of her zeal,
and opening her eyes in great wonderment when the good woman talks about
her "providential deliverance from the artful snares of the adversary,"
is as free in her talk with the grave mistress as if she were her mother
confessor.
Phil and Reuben, being the oldest boys of the school, resent the
indignity of being still subject to woman rule by a concerted series of
rebellious outbreaks. Some six or eight months after the arrival of
Adele upon the scene, this rebel attitude culminates in an incident that
occasions a change of programme. The rebels on their way to school espy
a few clam-shells before some huckster's door, and, putting two or three
in their pockets, seize the opportunity when the good lady's eyes are
closed in the morning prayer to send two or three scaling about the
room, which fall with a clatter among the startled little ones. One,
aimed more justly by Reuben, strikes the grave mistress full upon the
forehead, and leaves a red cut from which one or two beads of blood
trickle down.
Adele, who has not learned yet that obstinate closing of the eyes which
most of the scholars have been taught, and to whom the sight recalls the
painted heads of martyrs in an old church at Marseilles, gives a little
hysteric scream. But the mistress, with face unchanged and voice
uplifted and unmoved, completes her religious duty.
The whole school is horrified, on rising from their knees, at sight of
the old lady's bleeding head. The mistress wipes her forehead calmly,
and, picking up the shell at her feet, says, "Who threw this?"
There is silence in the room.
"Adele," she continues, "I heard you scream, child; do you know who
threw this?"
Adele gives a quick, inquiring glance at Reuben, whose face is
imperturbable, rallies her courage for a struggle against the will of
the mistress, and then bursts into tears.
Reuben cannot stand this.
"_I_ threw it, Marm," says he, with a great tremor in his voice.
The mistress beckons him to her, and, as he walks thither, motions to a
bench near her, and says gravely,--
"Sit by me, Reuben."
There he keeps till school-hours are over, wondering what shape the
punishment will take. At last, when all are gone, the mistress leads him
into her private closet, and says solemnly,--
"Reuben, this is a crime against God. I forgive you; I hope He may"; and
she bids him kneel beside her, while she prays in a way that makes the
tears start to the eyes of the boy.
Then, home,--she walking by his side, and leading him straight into the
study of the grave Doctor, to whom she unfolds the story, begging him
not to punish the lad, believing that he is penitent. And the meekness
and kindliness of the good woman make a Christian picture for the mind
of Reuben, in sad contrast with the prim austerity of Aunt Eliza,--a
picture that he never loses,--that keeps him meekly obedient for the
rest of the quarter; after which, by the advice of Miss Onthank, both
Phil and Reuben are transferred to the boys' academy upon the Common.