May 9, 19--.
Dearest Winnies:
Thanks, a thousand times, for all the beautiful, comforting letters you
wrote. When did anyone ever have such friends as I? Everyone has been so
kind, so sympathetic. The whole countryside turned out to help us. Judge
Dalrymple and Justice are still here, straightening up father's affairs.
The farm and the stock are to be sold. Mother is sick; father's death was
a great shock to her. As soon as she is better she and I are going home
with Judge Dalrymple for a visit. We are going to motor back with him and
Justice--won't it be glorious? Justice is going back home to live. He and
his father have become great pals; it is perfect joy to watch them going
about like two boys, arm in arm. You never see one without the other any
more. Now that they are together it is possible to see quite a
resemblance, but Justice is much handsomer than his father ever could
have been. Sandhelo acted just as though he remembered the Judge from
last summer; he squealed when he saw him and put his nose into his
pocket. We had a council about what should become of Sandhelo and finally
decided that he was to be sent home to Judge Dalrymple's to be a pet for
Antha and Anthony. Sandhelo nodded solemnly when we told him, as much as
to say it was all right with him. I have a queer feeling all the time
that that mule is more than half human. He has such an uncanny way of
taking people's affairs into his own hands, sometimes. Did he not
recognize Justice in the road that night when I would have fled from him,
thinking he was the negro, Solomon, and didn't he scare Solomon into
confessing that he had set fire to Elijah Butts' cotton storehouse?
To-morrow is May 10th, the date that school closes in this district, and
I have planned a farewell celebration for the scholars. I am going to
give them "for keeps" all the things that came from the House of the Open
Door, besides all the splendid things that came for Christmas, to be the
property of the Corners schoolhouse from that time on henceforward, to
make of it another House of the Open Door.
May 10th, Evening.
Another amazing day! Do you know, I half believe that I have been
transported in a dream back to the land of witches and fairies, and have
to keep pinching myself to make sure I'm still myself, Katherine Adams,
and not some other girl who has gotten into my shoes by mistake. I have a
dreadful fear that I will find my real self sitting in the road
somewhere, tumbled off old Major's back as he ambled along, reading in
some book of romance the wonderful things that are happening to this new,
strange self. And presently it will be time to go home and help with
supper, and romance will come to an end with the closing of the book.
But I guess I'm real, all right. Before the door stands Judge Dalrymple's
car, latest model; its loud, raucous voice containing no hint of elfin
horns as it announces the return of Justice and his father from a spin in
the country. Beside me on the table is the deed of sale of our property,
made out to one Jim Wiggin, and drawn up on very substantial-looking
paper; and on my wrist sparkles the beautiful little gold watch which is
a very tangible souvenir of this last amazing day. It ticks away
companionably, as if to reassure me of its realness. I have named it
Thomas Tickle, and we are going to be inseparable friends.
You remember I told you I had planned a little last-day-of-school
celebration for the scholars? Well!!! As it turned out, it made the
Pageant look like five cents' worth of laundry soap by comparison. When I
got to school in the morning I found the schoolhouse draped with flags
and bunting, inside and outside, and my desk piled a foot high with great
red roses.
Then the people began to arrive. It seemed the whole county was there. My
eyes began to pop out of my head as one after another of the celebrities
began to arrive. The School Board from Spencer came _en phalanx_, and in
marching order behind them came the high school pupils with Justice at
their head. The parents of the pupils were all there in state and it soon
became evident that we would have to hold our closing exercises outdoors,
as the schoolhouse would not hold one-tenth of the crowd.
I was rushing around like a fire engine with the steering gear gone,
trying to find things for various mothers to sit on, when I was conscious
of a solemn hush, and with a flourish the county school commissioners
drove up and with them came Miss Fairlee, the Commission Lady.
Then there broke loose a sound of revelry by day. My scholars did the
folk dances and gave the little play I taught them; the Camp Fire Girls
held a ceremonial meeting and gave demonstrations of poncho rolling, camp
cooking, etc., while the boys had an exhibition of the articles they had
made from wood, out of the Dan Beard book.
Then in a speech, which was more earnest than eloquent, I gave to the
school the furnishings from the House of the Open Door, together with the
graphophone, the lantern and the slides, to have and to hold, to be the
foundation of a new House of the Open Door. There was tumultuous
applause, and I sat down, red and perspiring, and my part of the show was
over.
Thereupon, up rose Absalom Butts, punched in the back as I could see by
three or four of the other boys, and, swallowing his fourteen-year-old
embarrassment as well as he could, he thrust into my hands a little blue
velvet case, mumbling the while, "It's yours. From the school. In token
of our--of our----"
Here he forgot his speech, looked around wildly, and then burst out:
"We're givin' it to you because you showed us such a good time, and we're
sorry you're goin' away!" Then he fled to his place and hid his blushes
behind Henry Smoot's red head.
I opened the case and took out a dear little gold wrist watch. I started
to thank them, but choked utterly when I thought of the sacrifices it
must have cost some of those people to help buy that watch.
But this was no time for tears. The main dish of the feast was being
brought in. The chief of the County school commissioners, the guest of
honor, rose pompously and made his way to the front after being
ceremoniously introduced by Elijah Butts. After much clearing of the
throat he began a flowery speech about the fame that had been gained
throughout the county by the little schoolhouse at our Corners on account
of its Red Cross activities and Patriotic Pageants; how it had been made
the social center for the people all around and had helped educate them
to better things; how the boys and girls had learned more useful things
from me than from anyone else who had ever taught there; and how Miss
Fairlee, who had come from the East to study rural school conditions in
our section had been quite carried away with my work, and so on, _ad
infinitum_.
Then, having loaded his cannon very carefully, so to speak, he proceeded
to fire it into the crowd with telling effect. The County school
commissioners, he announced with a fine air of jocularity, had heard that
I was carrying the schoolhouse around with me wherever I went, and as
they were afraid it might get mislaid some day they had voted to build a
new brick schoolhouse on a foundation; one that couldn't be moved. A new
schoolhouse for our district! Nobody had ever dared hope for such a
thing, not even in their wildest dreams. And it seems that I had
precipitated all this good fortune!
Later on I happened to hear this same commissioner congratulating Elijah
Butts on the good teacher he had picked, and Elijah swelled up like a
pouter pigeon and replied:
"Yes, sir, I spotted her for a good one the minute I laid eyes on her. It
was me that persuaded the Board to hire her when some of them was holdin'
back, favorin' a different kind of female. Yessir, it was me that picked
her!"
Justice, who had also overheard the conversation, winked solemnly and we
both fled where we could have our laugh out unnoticed.
But the best part of it all came after the Big Show was over. Miss
Fairlee came up and took me by the arm and strolled away with me.
"My dear," she said, "would you consider leaving this place and coming
East with me? I need an assistant in my Social Settlement work for the
summer, and there's no one I've met in the whole country that would fill
the bill as well as you. For handling difficult situations you are a
perfect marvel. Your talents are wasted out here--anyone can carry on the
work that you have started so wonderfully. Won't you please come?"
We talked about it a bit, and where do you suppose this Social Settlement
is? Where but in the one spot on earth that I'd rather be than any other!
The same city, my dears, that has the honor of being your home! It's all
settled now, and I am to go, after my visit to the Dalrymples. Mother is
going into a big Sanitarium, and I am going to work with Miss Fairlee
through the summer.
Clear the track! The Winnebago Special is about to start once more! O my
Winnies, don't you see the miracle of it all? Here I was, pining to live
in a House by the Side of the Road, when all the time I _was_ living in a
House by the Side of the Road! It was my little despised schoolhouse. I
was sent here by fate to prove myself worthy or unworthy of what she had
in store for me. I was taken away from you that I might come back to a
richer, fuller life than I had dreamed of in the old days. It is all part
of a Plan, so big and wonderful that I lose my breath when I think of it.
But whatever the Plan may turn out to be in the future, there's only one
thing about it that interests me now, and that is, I'm coming back to
you. I'm coming back! Back to my Winnies! Hang out the latchstring and
remove everything breakable, for the wanderer is coming home!
Your thrice-blessed
Katherine.
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Transcriber's note:
Punctuation and obvious typographical errors were corrected
without comment.