ENGAGED
The trustees of Purple Springs School had reached the climax of their
professional duties. They were about to appoint a teacher, and being
conscientious men, anxious to drive a good bargain for the people,
they were proceeding with deep caution to "look around."
Looking at the modest equipment of Purple Springs School, the observer
would wonder why such stress was laid on the teacher's qualifications.
The schoolhouse was a bleak little structure of wood, from whose walls
the winds and rain had taken the paint. It was set in an arid field,
that knew no tree or flower. Its three uncurtained windows threw a
merciless light on the gray floor and smoked walls.
Former teachers had tried to stir the community to beautify the
grounds and make the inside more homelike, but their efforts had been
fitful and without result. Trees died, seeds remained in the ground,
and gray monotony reigned at Purple Springs. Still, the three trustees
believed it was an enviable position they had in their hands to
bestow, and were determined that it should not be given lightly.
Just at the time that they were hard engaged in "lookin' 'round," the
secretary's wife came back from a visit to Chicken Hill, and told
about Pearl Watson, who had been to the city and come back "quite a
girl," able to talk, and just as nice and friendly as ever. Mrs. Cowan
was not well read in the political situation of the day, and so did
not know that Pearl had been guilty of heretical utterances against
the Government.
If this had been known to the trustees her candidature would not have
been considered, for all of the trustees were supporters and believers
in the Government--and with reason. Mr. Cowan had a telephone line
built expressly for him; Mr. Brownlees had been given a ditch--just
where he wanted it, digging it himself, and been paid for it by the
Government; the third trustee had been made game warden, at a monthly
salary and no duties; so naturally they would like not to hear their
friends criticized. Mrs. Cowan only read newspapers to see the
bargains, crotchet patterns, and murders, and after that, she believed
their only use was to be put on pantry shelves. So her account of
Pearl's address was entirely without political bias.
"She's a fine looking girl," said Mrs. Cowan, "and it's nice to hear
her talk, even if she isn't saying anything. She's brown-eyed, tall,
and speaks out plain so every one can hear, and what she says is not
too deep--and you'd never know she was educated, to hear her talk."
The three trustees resolved to look into the case. Being masters of
duplicity, they decided to call on Miss Watson at her home, and to go
in the early morning hours, believing that the misty light of 8 a.m.
will reveal many things which the glare of high noon might hide. They
would see first would she be up? They had once had a teacher who lay
in bed the whole day on Saturday. Would she have her hair combed? They
were not keen on artistic effects in the school buildings, but were a
unit on wanting a tastefully dressed teacher. It was decided that the
call would be early and unannounced.
They found Pearl in a pink and white checked gingham house dress, with
her brown hair done up in the style known as a French roll, sewing
at a machine in the front room, and at once Mr. Cowan, who was the
dominant spirit of the party signalled to the others--"So far so
good." Miss Watson, even though the hour was early, was up, dressed
neatly--and at work. All of this was in the glance which Mr. Cowan
shot over to his colleagues.
Investigating still further, for Mr. Cowan knew the value of detail in
estimating human character; the general arrangement of the room won
his approval. It was comfortable, settled, serene--it looked like
home--it invited the visitor to come in and be at rest. A fire burned
in the heater, a bird sang in the kitchen, a cat lay on the lounge and
did not move when he sat down beside it, showing that its right of way
had not been disputed. Mr. Cowan saw it all.
After the introductions were over, Mr. Cowan put forth some questions
about her qualifications, and at each answer, his colleagues were
given to understand by a faint twitter of his eyes that Miss Watson
was still doing well.
"You're young of course," said Mr. Cowan, with the air of a man who
faces facts--but his natural generosity of spirit prompted him to add
"but you'll get over that, and anyway a girl is older in her ways than
a boy."
"We measure time by heart-beats," said Pearl, as she handed him a
flowered cushion to put behind his head, "not by figures on a dial."
She tossed it off easily, as if poetry were the language of every day
life to her.
Mr. Cowan shut one eye for the briefest space of time, and across the
room his two friends knew Miss Watson's chances were growing brighter
every minute. "My wife happened to be down at Chicken Hill the day you
spoke, and she said you sure did speak well, for a girl, and she
was hopin' you'd speak at our school some night--and we could get a
phonograph to liven things up a bit--I guess we're broad-minded enough
to listen to a woman."
Mr. Cowan's confidence in his companions was amply justified. They
nodded their heads approvingly, like men who are willing to try
anything once.
"Well, you see," Mr. Cowan went on, "we have a nice district, Miss
Watson. We're farmer people, of course, with the exception of the few
who live at the station; we're farmers but we're decent people--and
we're pretty well-to-do farmers--we have only one woman in the
district--that we sort of wish wasn't there."
"Why," asked Pearl quickly.
"Well you see, she got in first, so to speak. She bought the farm
beside the river, and it was her that called the place 'Purple
Springs.' It's an outlandish name, but it seems to kind a' stick.
There's no springs at all, and they are certainly not purple. But she
made the words out of peeled poplar poles, with her axe, and put them
up at the front of her house, facin' the track, and the blamed words
stick. Mind you, she must have spent months twistin' and turnin' them
poles to suit her and get the letters right, and she made a rustic
fence to put them on. They're so foolish you can't forget them. She's
queer, that's all--and she won't tell who she is, nor where she came
from--and she seems to have money."
Pearl looked at him inquiringly. There must be more than that to the
story, she thought.
"The women will tell you more about her--that's sure. They gabble a
lot among themselves about her--I don't know--we think it best to
leave her alone. No woman has any right to live alone the way she
does--it don't look well."
"Well, anyway," Mr. Cowan spoke hurriedly, as one who has been
betrayed into trifling feminine matters, and is anxious to get back to
man's domain, "we'll take you--at seventy-five dollars a month, and
I guess you can get board at Mrs. Zinc's here at about fifteen. That
ain't bad wages for a girl your age. You can stay at Mrs. Zinc's
anyway till you look around--Mrs. Zinc don't want a boarder. Girls can
fit in any place--that's one reason in our neighborhood we like a girl
better--there's no trouble about boardin' them. They can always manage
somehow. Even if things ain't very good--it don't seem to phaze
them--same as a man. We had a man once, and we had to pay him
twenty-five dollars a month extra, and gosh--the airs of him--wanted
a bed to himself and a hot dinner sent to the school. By Gum! and got
it! We'll be lookin' for you at the middle of the month, and you can
stay at Mrs. Zinc's and look around."
When the delegation had departed, Pearl acquainted her mother with the
result of their visit. Mrs. Watson had retired to the kitchen, all of
a flutter, as soon as the visitors came.
"I'm going to Purple Springs, Ma," she said, "to take the school, and
they'll give me seventy-five dollars a month."
Mrs. Watson sat down, dramatically, and applied her print apron to her
eyes--an occasion had come, and Mrs. Watson, true to tradition, would
make the most of it. Her mother had cried when she left home--it was a
girl's birthright to be well cried over--Pearlie Watson would not go
forth unwept!
"Cheer up, Ma," said Pearl kindly, "I'm not going to jail, and I'm not
taking the veil or going across the sea. I can call you up for fifteen
cents, and I'll be bringing you home my washing every two weeks--so I
will not be lost entirely."
Mrs. Watson rocked herself disconsolately back and forth in her chair,
and the sound of her sobs filled the kitchen. Mrs. Watson was having a
good time, although appearances would not bear out the statement.
"It's the first break, Pearlie, that's what I'm thinkin'--and every
night when I lock the door, I'll be lockin' you out--not knowin' where
ye are. When a family once breaks you never can tell if they'll ever
all be together again--that's what frightens me. It was bad enough
when you went to the city--and I never slept a wink for two nights
after you'd gone. But this is worse, for now you're doin' for yourself
and away from us that way."
"Gosh, Ma," spoke up Mary, "you sure cry easy; and for queer things. I
think it's grand that Pearl can get out and earn money, and then when
I get my entrance, I'll go to the city and be a teacher too. You're
going to get back what you've spent on us, ma, and you ought to be in
great humor. I'm just as proud of Pearl as I can hold, and I'll be
tellin' the kids at school about my sister who is Principal of the
Purple Springs School."
"Principal, Assistant and Janitor," laughed Pearl, "that gives a
person some scope--to be sure."
Mrs. Watson hurriedly put up the ironing-board, and set to work. She
would get Pearl ready, though she did it with a heavy heart.
Pearl finished her sewing and then went upstairs to make her small
wardrobe ready for her departure, and although she stepped quickly and
in a determined fashion, there was a pain, a lonely ache in her heart
which would not cease, a crying out for the love which she had hoped
would be hers.
"I wonder if I will ever get to be like ma," she thought, as she lined
the bottom of her little trunk with brown paper, and stuffed tissue
paper into the sleeves of her "good dress," "I wonder! Well, I hope I
will be like her in some ways, but not in this mournful stuff--I won't
either. I'll sing when I feel it coming on me--I will not go mourning
all my days--not for any one!"
She began to sing:--
"Forgotten you? Yes, if forgetting
Is thinking all the day
How the long days pass without you.
Days seem years with you away!"
Pearl's voice had a reedy mellowness, and an appeal which sent the
words straight into Mary's practical heart. Mary, washing
dishes below, stopped, with a saucer in her hand, and listened
open-mouthed:--
"If the warm wish to see you and hear you,
And hold you in my arms again,
If that be forgetting--you're right, dear,
And I have forgotten you then!"
Her voice trailed away on the last line into a sob, and Mary,
listening below, dropped a tear into the dish-water. Then racing up
the stairs, she burst into Pearl's room and said admiringly:
"Pearl, you're a wonder. It's an actress you ought to be. You got me
blubbering, mind you. It's so sad about you and your beau that's had a
row, and both of you actin' so pale and proud, you made me see it
all. Sing it again! Well, for the love of Pete--if you ain't ready to
blubber too. That's good actin', Pearl--let me tell you--how can you
do it?"
Pearl brushed away the tears, and laughed: "I just hit on the wrong
song--that one always makes me cry, I can see them, too, going their
own ways and feeling so bad, and moping around instead of cutting out
the whole thing the way they should. People are foolish to mope!"
Pearl spoke sternly.
"I think you sing just lovely," said Mary, "now go on, and I'll get
back to the dishes. Sing 'Casey Jones'--that's the best one to wash
dishes to. It's sad, too, but it's funny."
Mrs. Watson held the iron to her cheek to test its heat, and
listened--too--as Pearl sang:--
"Casey Jones--mounted to the cabin,
Casey Jones--with the orders in his hand,
Casey Jones--mounted to the cabin
And took his farewell tri-ip--to the promised land!"
"It's well for them that can be so light-hearted," she said, "and
leave all belonging to them--as easy as Pearl. Children do not know,
and never will know what it means, until one of their own ups and
leaves them! It's the way of the world, one day they're babies, and
the next thing you know they're gone! It's the way of the world, but
it's hard on the mother."
Pearl came down the stairs, stepping in time with Casey Jones's
spectacular home-leaving:--
"The caller called Casey, at--a half-past-four,
He kissed his wife at the station door."
"How goes the ironing, honest woman," she said, as she lovingly patted
her mother's shoulder. "It's a proud old bird you ought to be getting
one of your young robins pushed out of the nest--instead of standing
here with a sadness on your face."
The mother tried to smile through her tears.
"Pearlie, my dear, you're a queer girl--you never seem to think of
what might happen. It may be six weeks before you can get home--with
the roads breaking up--and a lot can happen in that time. Sure--I
might not be here myself," she said, with a fresh burst of tears.
"Ma, you're funny," laughed Pearl, "I wish you could see how funny
you are. Every Christmas ever since I can remember, that's what you
said--you might never live to see another, and it used to nearly break
my heart when I was little, and until I made up my mind that you were
a poor guesser. You said it last Christmas just the same, and here
you are with your ears back and your neck bowed, heading up well for
another year. You're quite right in saying you may not be here, but if
you are not you'll be in a better place. Sure, things may happen, but
it's better to have things happen than to be scared all the time that
they may happen. The young lads may take the measles and then the
mumps, and the whooping-cough to finish up on--and the rosey-posey is
going around too. But even if they do--it's most likely they will get
over it--they always have. Up to the present, the past has taken care
of the future. Maybe it always will."
"O yes, I know there's always a chance things will go wrong--I know
it, Ma--" Pearl's eyes dimmed a little, and she held her lips tighter;
"there's always a chance. The cows may all choke to death seeing
which of them can swallow the biggest turnip--the cats may all have
fits--the chickens may break into the hen-house and steal a bag of
salt, eat it and die. But I don't believe they will. You just have to
trust them--and you'll have to trust me the same way. Just look, Ma--"
She took a five-dollar bill from her purse and spread it on the
ironing-board before her mother. "Fifteen o' them every month! See
the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine
chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his
name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff
at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to
teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn
to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having
a row of them at Purple Springs--I'm sure. They will be able to tell
in after years at Rotary Club luncheons how they ran barefooted in
November, and made wheat gum--and chewed strings together. They just
like to tell about their chilblains and their stone-bruises."
Her mother looked at her wonderingly: "You think of queer things,
Pearl--I don't know where you get it--I can't make you out--and
there's another thing troubling me, Pearl. You are goin' away--I don't
suppose you will be livin' much at home now. You'll be makin' your own
way."
She paused, and Pearl knew her mother was laboring under heavy
emotion. She knew she was struggling to say what was difficult for her
to get into words.
"When you've been away for a while and then come back to us, maybe
you'll find our ways strange to you, for you're quick in the pick-up,
Pearl, and we're only plain workin' people, and never had a chance at
learnin'. There may come a time when you're far above us, Pearl, and
our ways will seem strange to you. I get worried about it, Pearl, for
I know if that time ever comes, it will worry you too, for you're not
the kind that can hurt your own and not feel it."
Pearl looked at her mother almost with alarm in her face, and the
fears that had been assailing her that her family were beyond the
social pale came back for a moment. But with the fear came a
fierce tenderness for all of them. She saw in a flash of her quick
imagination the tragedy of it from her mother's side, and in her heart
there was just one big, burning, resolute desire, that pain from this
source might never smite her mother's loving heart. The hard hands,
the sunburnt face, the thin hair that she had not taken time to care
for; the hard-working shoulders, slightly stooped; the scrawny neck,
with its tell-tale lines of age; were eloquent in their appeal. Pearl
saw the contrast of her mother's life and what her own promised to
be, and her tender heart responded, and when she spoke, it was in
an altered tone. All the fun had gone from it now, and it was not a
child's voice, nor a girl's voice, but a woman's, with all a woman's
gentleness and understanding that spoke.
"Mother," she said, "I know what is in your heart, and I will tell you
how I feel about it. You're afraid your ways may seem strange to me.
Some of them are strange to me now. I often wonder how any one can be
as unselfish as you are and keep it up day in and day out, working for
other people. Most of us can make a good stab at it, and keep it up
for a day or so, but to hit the steady pace, never looking back and
never being cross or ugly about it--that's great!"
"And about the other ... If ever there comes a time when an honest
heart and a brave spirit in a woman seems strange to me, and I get
feeling myself above them--if I ever get thinking light of honesty and
kindness and patience and hard work, and get thinking myself above
them--then your ways will be strange to me, but not until then!"
Mrs. Watson's face cleared, and a look of pride shone in her eyes.
Her face seemed to lose some of its lines, and to reflect some of the
lavish beauty of her daughter.
"You've comforted me, Pearl," she said simply, "and it's not the first
time. Whatever comes or goes, Pearl, you'll know we are proud of you,
and will stand back of you. Your outspoken ways may get you into
trouble, but we'll always believe you were right. We haven't much to
give you--only this."
"Sure and what more would any one want, leavin' home," Pearl was back
to the speech of her childhood now. "That's better than a fur coat to
keep out the cold, and the thought of my own folks makes me strong to
face the world, knowin' I can always come home even if everything else
is closed. That's good enough!"
Pearl kissed her mother affectionately, and went back to her work
upstairs, and soon Mary and her mother heard her singing. Mary stopped
scrubbing the kitchen floor, and Mrs. Watson left the iron so long on
Teddy's shirt that it left a mark:
"Say Au Revoir," sang Pearl, "but not goodbye,
The past is dead--love cannot die,
T'were better far--had we not met,
I loved you then--I love you yet."
There was something in her voice that made her mother say, "Poor
child, I wonder what's ahead of her."