SCHOOL.
The next fall was Job's last term at school. He felt awkward and out
of place, for most of the boys of the country round left at sixteen,
just as they were tangled up in fractions and syntax. Now he was close
to the twenties, and the only big boy left in the Frost Creek school,
whose white walls peeped out through a grove of live-oaks where the
creek babbled merrily over the rocks.
Yet with a pluck that had always characterized him, Job stuck to his
books and sat among the crowd of little youngsters who automatically
recited the multiplication table when the teacher was looking, and
threw paper wads when she was not. Jane was there, copying minutely in
dress and manner after Miss Bright, the new teacher, whom she greatly
admired. Job found it very pleasant to still walk home with Jane and
talk of algebra, class meeting, and the trip they must soon take to
the Yosemite--subjects which were mutually interesting. Yet somehow
the wild, natural freedom of former days was missing. Both were
painfully conscious of their awkward age and the fact that they were
no longer children.
Charlie Lewis sat next to Job, a wee, frail little fellow, whose large
eyes looked up endlessly at his tall next neighbor, whom he secretly
worshiped, partly because Job shielded him from the rough bullies,
and partly because he had taken a fancy to the little lad and took him
along when he went up to the mountains or down to Perkins Hollow
swimming. A crowd of dark-eyed Mexicans and one small Chinese boy
filled the right corner, while over on the left were the Dixon
children and little Helen Day. Helen was a new arrival, a prim Miss of
six, who used to live on the plains, where her father was section-hand
on the railroad; which accounted, perhaps, for the fact that the time
when Father Lane, the old preacher from Merritt's Camp, called and
they sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and the teacher asked Helen
what ties were meant, she promptly answered, "Railroad ties, ma'am."
As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at
her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss
Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing
merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing
kindergarten songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the
smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they
stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco,
lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of
philosophy--names which Job knew must mean something grand. He began
to wish that Jane looked like her and talked like her and had lived in
'Frisco. He began to wonder who it was that Miss Bright wrote letters
to every day, and who wrote those Dan Dean used to leave at the
school-house for her postmarked "New York." His fears were relieved,
though, when he heard her laugh merrily one day when inquisitive
Maggie Dean asked: "What man writes to you all the time, Miss Bright?"
and reply, "My brother, of course, Maggie. But little girls shouldn't
ask too many questions."
They used to have morning prayers when the other teacher was here, but
Miss Bright said that prayer was only the expression of our longings
and we did not need to pray aloud, and she thought God knew enough to
look after us without bothering him about it every day. Job was
shocked at first, then he thought perhaps Miss Bright was right, she
was so nice and knew so much. She boarded at Jeremiah Robinson's, who
lived on the Frost Creek road. More than once Job found himself going
there at her invitation, ostensibly to study Latin and literature,
which were not in the regular curriculum. He did not care much for the
studies--he found it hard to get far beyond "Amo, amas, amat," and as
for Chaucer and his glittering knights and fair ladies, he detested
them; but those moments after the lessons, when Miss Bright chattered
away about the beauties of evolution and the loveliness of protoplasm
and the immanence of Deity in all nature--Job fairly doted on them.
Sometimes she accepted his invitation for an evening ramble. He felt
proud to have people see him with her. He would have liked to ask her
to the class-meeting at Squire Perkins', but he was afraid to; she
would think it beneath her to go among those country folks. And then,
what would she think of Widow Green if she got one of her
crying-spells? or lame Tim, who was a little daft, but who loved to
come to class-meeting and said always, "Tim's no good; he ain't much;
but Jesus loves him. Sing, brethren, 'I am so glad that Jesus loves
me.'" So Job never invited her. In fact, he did not like to tell her
he went; and, for fear she would know it, he stayed away two weeks
when she asked him to walk with her those moonlight nights.
Miss Bright was so good, he thought; yet there was much he could not
understand. She never went to church. She said it was too far, and
besides she thought it more helpful to worship amid the grandeur of
nature, reading the lofty thoughts of the poets. And after that Job
thought the preacher at Gold City was a little old fogyish.
Dan Dean was not slow to observe the unconscious drifting of Job away
from the church and toward the schoolma'am. Jane did not notice it
till Dan hinted to her that the only reason Job had cared for the
church was because she went there, and now that Miss Bright had come
he had dropped her and the church both. Which was so near the truth
that Jane began to feel strange when Job was near, and to do what she
had never dreamed of doing before with a single human being--she began
to doubt the occasional kind words he now gave her, and all he had
ever uttered. With the impulse of a wounded heart, she turned to Dan.
Yet try the best she could, she could never feel the same toward him.
She pitied Dan; a philanthropic feeling animated her as she thought of
him. She would do anything to make a man of him--marry him, even, if
necessary; but to think of surrendering her life and very being to
him, following him down the tortuous path of life, "For better or for
worse, for richer or poorer," to have him as her ideal of
manhood--that thought repelled her. Often she found herself standing
behind a tree on the way home from school, waiting to catch one
glimpse of Job as he sauntered by with Miss Bright's cloak on his arm
and its owner chattering at his side. She was angry to think she did
it; she ran home by the short cut through the woods, slammed the cabin
door behind her, threw herself on the bed and had a good cry, arose
and wiped the tears away, and vowed she would marry Dan if he asked
her.
Job unconsciously walked into the meshes that fate seemed to have
thrown around him. More and more he transferred the admiration of his
heart to the stately, proud, talented girl of the world, who found him
a convenient escort and companion in the mountain country where
friends that suited her were scarce. Job was blind; he adored her.
Later and later, daily, was his return from school. The little
Testament grew dusty on the box-table in his bedroom, his morning
prayers sounded strangely alike, and even Andy Malden wondered at the
coldness of the lad's devotion at family worship. He went to church,
but seldom to class-meeting. He devoured a book Miss Bright had loaned
him, on "The World's Saviors--Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,"--in which he
found his Master placed on a level with other great souls. He asked
her the next day if she did not think Christ was divine, and marveled
at her learned reply that "All nature is divine. Matter and men are
but the manifestations of divinity, and the Galilean Teacher was
undoubtedly a wonderful character of his day."
One night, as he left her, she loaned him a French novel full of
skepticism and scorn of virtue and morality. He was tempted to throw
it in the fire, but it was hers. He read it and rather liked it. He
began to think he had been too narrow; he wished he could get out and
see the world, the great world of thinking people where Miss Bright
lived. The poison was in his soul. How commonplace the sermon sounded
the next Sunday on "I am determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and him crucified"! How narrow Paul must have been! It
was the Sunday night before Christmas. The fall term had ended, and
the schoolma'am was going home; no more school till spring. A year
before Job had stood in the great congregation and taken the solemn
vow to be loyal forever to Christ and his church; to-night the
Christmas service went on without him. Tony, who was there and who
half suspected something was wrong, yet did not like to have anyone
else think so, said to those who asked him:
"Yes, Marse Job's sick; dassen't come out."
But Job was not sick, as Tony thought. He was in the Robinson parlor,
sitting with Miss Bright before the flickering log fire, which dimly
lit the long, low room with its rag carpet and old-fashioned
furniture. They were talking over their friendship, and she was
flattering him upon his superiority to those country greenhorns who
lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was
acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act,
in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which
drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and,
on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken
she was to leave the mountains and him.
Job went home in raptures, and lay awake all night planning how to get
away from the mountains and the rude people who lived there, and down
into the city somewhere--anywhere where Fanny Bright lived.
All that week he wandered about as if lost, cross and good for nothing
at work. His city idol had gone home.
It was two days after Christmas that Job tore the wrapper off a
'Frisco paper and sat down to read, when, glancing over the columns,
his eyes met the following:
"Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the
wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society
lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright
had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for
her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one
in a double sense."
It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs
after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he
rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright
had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school,
vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was
gone--long since he had let Dan have her to himself--his church was
gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride
up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and
eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike--all
were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has
learned--a bitter lesson--and all the forces of evil seemed to fight
for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.
He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove
away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black
ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good
woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down
the hill and toward home.