About this time the School Board in Silverton were sitting in solemn
conclave, deciding who should take the vacant position in the Primary
Department of the Public School, left vacant by the sudden death of the
woman who had taught that department for the last twenty-five years.
The position had been open since spring, and filled temporarily by
pupils from the Normal School, most of whom had not proved satisfactory
to some one on the Board, although three who had made formal
application for the position were now under consideration.
“Well, I have a new name I’d like to present,” said Mr. Powers, who had
just entered late, and had not heard the wrangling over the three names
by their various advocates. “She’s a pippin, too, and I think you’d
better take her.”
“Oh, now, Powers, don’t get in any more names. We’re having trouble
enough as it is,” laughed a member who was in a hurry to get home.
“Let’s put these three to a vote and be done with it. I make that as a
motion--”
“I object,” said Mr. Powers. “This young woman has fine
recommendations. I took the trouble to look them up. She’s teaching
over in Lyman’s church at that summer Bible School he’s so crazy about,
and he says she’s the best teacher he ever had. Gets the kids and all
that! Don’t have a bit of trouble with discipline, and has ’em right
with her from the word go!”
“Where does she come from?” growled one of the men, who was trying to
get his candidate voted on.
“Why, she lives in the little land office down on Bryant’s lot. Mrs.
Bryant can’t get done talking about her, how much go she has, and what
she can do. She’s bought that building and had it moved there. Has a
lot of initiative and all that, and is right there in an emergency. It
seems she saved their house from getting on fire just by keeping her
head. I say that’s the kind of girl we want in our school.”
While he was speaking the new superintendent entered.
He had just been called to fill the vacancy caused by the old
superintendent’s being called to a city school. He was young and
good-looking and they all stood somewhat in awe of him. He had a grave
manner and seemed to know just what he wanted. They all rose to greet
him.
“Professor Harrington, we’ve just been trying to get this primary
teacher decided upon,” said one man. “Powers here is holding us up by
presenting a new name. Don’t you think we’d better just stick to the
three we’ve decided upon and tried, and pick one of them? At least we
know what they are.”
The young superintendent turned toward Powers.
“Who is the person in question?” he asked, looking straight at Powers
and trying to find out whether he thought a recommendation from him
would be worth the paper it was written upon.
“Why, her name is Radway, Miss Joyce Radway,” said Powers. “I’d like
to have you see her, professor. She certainly is intellectual-looking
and all that. I had the pleasure of watching her teach this morning
over in the Roberts Avenue Church. They have some kind of a religious
summer school there to occupy the children during vacation, and the
pastor tells me she is the best teacher they have.”
“I shouldn’t think a minister would be a very good judge of what was
needed in the public schools,” piped up the advocate of one of the
other applicants.
“Well, this one is. He’s making that school a success, I can tell
you--has something over five hundred kiddies there regularly every day,
and crazy about the school. He won’t have anybody there that isn’t a
cracker-jack teacher--”
But the attitude of the superintendent suddenly drew the attention of
the speaker. Professor Harrington was sitting alert, all attention,
interest in his eyes.
“Did you say her name was Radway? Joyce Radway? There could scarcely be
two of that name, I should think. It is rather an unusual name. If it’s
the Miss Radway I know, I should say have her by all means. I’ve been
hunting for her for the last two months, only gave it up because I was
called here. Did she come from Meadow Brook, do you happen to know?”
“Why, I don’t know, I’m sure. I didn’t ask about that. But I can find
out. Suppose I go and bring her!”
“Do,” said the professor. “I’d like to see if she is the same one. She
certainly gave promise of being a rare mind. I had the pleasure of
looking over her examination papers--”
But Powers had already seized his hat and gone out the door. There was
a special reason why he wanted to “put one over” on the men who were
sponsoring the other candidates, and he didn’t mean to lose a single
chance. He went at once to the school telephone and called up Mrs.
Bryant, asking her to ask Miss Radway to be ready to come back with him.
And so it was that Joyce, summoned from her preparation of the
Bible-school lesson for the next day, hurried into a pretty little blue
voile she had just finished and was ready when Mr. Powers arrived to go
before the School Board.
In a few minutes, she stood, at last, before Professor Harrington, who
had wasted many precious hours of his time, to say nothing of telephone
charges and letters, trying to locate this special teacher, and when
she finally stood before him he looked into her clear blue eyes and
said to himself, “That’s the girl I want.” And aloud, to the School
Board, he said gravely:
“I feel sure, from what I know of Miss Radway’s work, that she is
eminently fitted to teach in our school.”
Joyce lifted astonished eyes to the fine, scholarly face and didn’t in
the least recognize him. But she had sense enough left in spite of her
perturbation not to say so, and in a few minutes she was dismissed from
the room and the vote was carried in her favor.
The fact was, every man of them was prepossessed in her favor so soon
as he looked into her eyes, and the three bobbed-haired candidates
hadn’t a chance, with her on the spot.
“But I thought she was a cook!” said one wife when her husband got home
from the School Board meeting and told her about the election of the
new teacher. “Mrs. Powers told me she got dinner for her one night
when she had company.”
“I asked Powers about that,” her husband answered. “It seems she just
did it to help them out when she first came, while she was looking for
a job. Powers said he never tasted such cooking. His wife offered her
twenty-five dollars just to stay and cook dinner on Sunday for some
guests and she wouldn’t do it.”
“Well, I don’t blame her. Mrs. Powers is very unpleasant to get along
with, all the maids say. But it does seem strange to hire a cook to
teach in the school. I think we’ll send Genevieve to a private school
this fall.”
“No, we won’t send Genevieve to any private school, not if I have
anything to say about it, and I guess I’d have to pay the bills. Not
while I’m on the School Board either. How do you think that would make
me look?”
“You could resign. You could say you didn’t approve of having cooks
teach our children.”
“Well, I do approve. It’s a pity Genevieve couldn’t learn to cook too.
I’ve seen this girl and I want my children under her. I count it a
privilege to have them under her. I like her looks. She doesn’t paint
her face, nor bob her hair, nor wear clothes way up to her knees. And
she doesn’t wear dangle-dangles in her ears, nor pull out her eyebrows.
She wears neat, sensible, pretty things and looks like a good girl, and
that’s the kind we want our little children under. That Miss Harlow
you wanted me to vote for makes eyes at every man that comes near her,
married or single. This girl tends to her business and knows what
she’s about. I voted for her, and I mean to stick by her. Now! I want
it understood that she is _not a cook_. She may know _how_ to cook,
but that talk about her being a cook doesn’t go another step from this
house! Understand? If it does, there’s going to be a big overhauling
somewhere.”
“Oh, of course, if you’ve taken her up,” said his wife disagreeably.
“It seems she has all the men on her side even if she doesn’t make eyes
at them.”
“She doesn’t need to. She’s a good girl and she doesn’t want ’em; and
that’s the kind the children ought to have.”
So Joyce was established in the Primary Department of the Silverton
School, under the very immediate supervision of the new superintendent,
who paid her marked attention from the first, to her evident
embarrassment.
Joyce was not averse to having friends, nor to going out and having
good times like other girls, but it happened that the very first thing
this luckless young man asked her to was a dance, and she had to tell
him she didn’t dance.
Joyce didn’t like to go around flaunting her principles, and never
talked about those things unless she had to, but he argued the question
with her. He certainly wanted to take her to that dance. But when it
came to arguing, Joyce just smiled and said she was sorry to seem
ungracious, but she didn’t care to learn to dance. Well, would she go
to an orchestra concert in the city with him then? Yes, she said she
would enjoy that. So they went. But he, poor soul, felt himself called
upon to bring Joyce into a better way of thinking about the dancing, “a
more modern view,” he called it, and they certainly did not get on very
well.
Then he told her how he had hunted for her in Meadow Brook, and how he
had admired her from seeing her just once; how she was different from
other girls, that was what he admired about her; and Joyce looked up
with a smile and said:
“Then why are you trying to make me over just like all the rest?” He
looked at her a moment embarrassedly, and then began to laugh.
“No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe I do want to. I like you
just as you are.” After that they talked about books, and summer, and
the beautiful meadows about Meadow Brook, and they seemed quite good
friends. He asked her why she ran away, and she said evasively, that
it was hard for her to stay where she and her aunt had been happy so
many years, and she felt it would be better for everybody if she went,
and went quietly, without waiting to bid all her dear friends good-bye.
She saw he had not been intimate with any of her intimate friends, and
rightly surmised that he had not heard anything peculiar about her
going.
It did occur to her that he might write back sometime and speak about
her to some one, but it seemed rather unlikely; and she was going to
write home pretty soon anyway, so she thought no more of the matter.
A very pleasant friendship sprang up between Joyce and John Harrington.
Not that there was anything sentimental about it, as yet. John
Harrington might express his admiration of a girl, but that was all
until he was quite sure of himself; also quite sure of her. It was
one thing to run after a new teacher with all his heart. It was quite
another thing to commit himself personally. Harrington was a most
judicious young man. He would not have been called to take charge
of the Silverton School if he had not been. He was well satisfied in
his mind as to his own feelings toward Joyce, but it was not yet time
to commit himself. Joyce needed molding and modifying. She needed
modernizing somewhat before she would be fitted to become the wife of a
superintendent. So he set himself to mold and modernize her.
Joyce was simple-hearted and happy. She loved her work, and she was
having a good time. The superintendent did not pick her out to focus
his entire attention upon her and make her an object of jealousy,
therefore she enjoyed the occasional trips to the city to hear some
fine music, and the constantly kindly helpfulness of the young man
as her head in the school. Things were going well with her, and she
thanked God every night.
Somehow, however, with Harrington’s advent there had come so many
new things that her time was more than filled. The letters she had
planned to write to Meadow Brook were still unwritten, and the more she
thought about them (usually at night, after she had got to bed, and was
reviewing the day), the harder they seemed to write. How to explain her
going, what to say about Nan and Gene. It would be so disagreeable if
Nan should take it into her head to come after her and coax her to come
back and live with them. Nan hated housework, and she could not help
knowing that she was valuable to her in that way. No, she was not yet
ready to write home.
So the days drifted by, full of hard work, and pleasantness. She loved
her young pupils and they loved her. Often they invited her to their
homes, and here she met many pleasant people who showed themselves as
more than friendly. She could have spent every evening in a merry
round if she had chosen. But, here again, the fact that she was a very
old-fashioned girl, and neither danced nor played bridge nor mah jong,
nor could be persuaded to learn, set her apart, and saved many evenings
for reading and study and necessary sewing. People tried to persuade
her at first, laughed at her, and cajoled her, but she remained sweetly
firm, yet without preaching to them, and they finally, good-naturedly,
let her alone.
Sometimes she had little gatherings of two or three people in her wee
house, and served them chocolate and delectable little cakes, or Welsh
rarebit or hot pancakes made on her little electric grill. Harrington
was occasionally included in these gatherings, but she never received
young men alone. She told them they could not come without some woman
friend with them. They laughed at her old-fashioned ideas, but they
went away and found some quiet elderly friend and came again. Joyce’s
home began to have a reputation all its own, showing a girl could live
alone and yet keep free from all the unconventions of the modern world.
If any one grew troublesome there was always Mrs. Bryant to whom she
might call, and Mrs. Bryant understood and always happened in whenever
she knew Joyce had a caller who might want to stay alone.
So the fall passed and the winter entered in.
Jim had finished the chimney and fireplace, and the little room was
warm and cosy, even on a bitter November evening with the wind howling
outside.
It had not taken Harrington long to find out which was the most
influential and intellectual church in the community and to connect
himself with it. Thereafter, he set about bringing Joyce to go with
him sometimes. He felt if she could but listen to the wise and modern
thoughts of this most learned divine, who preached at his chosen
church, it would be easier to win her from some of her narrow views.
But when he asked her to go to church with him, one evening, she told
him she could not leave her own, that she had asked her Sunday School
class to go with her that night. When he said, then they would go the
next Sunday night, she looked at him with her clear eyes and said:
“I’m sorry to have to say no again, but I cannot go to that church at
all. That minister dishonors my Lord, and I do not feel I can ever
listen to him again.”
He told her it sounded pharisaical for a young girl like herself to
set up to criticise a man of the minister’s years and standing. Didn’t
she know that the great denomination for which he stood was back of
him, and that they knew better than she did, a young girl with little
experience? Besides, what about that Bible verse that said you mustn’t
speak evil of dignitaries? She had been taught by dear old-fashioned
people, and it was beautiful to look back on such an upbringing, but,
of course, it wasn’t progress to stay just where her forefathers had
stood. She ought to go on to higher realms of thought. It wasn’t
Christian to stand still. Things were not as they used to be. Science
and art and everything else had progressed and grown, why should not
religion? Men had learned more of God, and grown wiser. They had
learned that He was not the same God their fathers had supposed.
Her answer was to look at him steadily with rising color, and repeat:
“‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.’ And I’m not
speaking evil of dignitaries. I’m telling you he dishonored my Lord.
The Bible says, ‘From such turn away.’”
“Oh, now, don’t you think you are pressing a point too far?” he said.
“Of course Christ is the same, it’s our views of Him that have changed.
We have grown, and are able to see Him in a bigger, broader sense, as a
grand example for the whole world; not just a little personal God who
attends to each detail of our life.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t care much about Him if He wasn’t personal,
and didn’t care for the details of my life,” she said. “I take great
pleasure in that verse: ‘He knoweth the way that I take,’ and ‘The very
hairs of your head are all numbered,’ and ‘Fear ye not, therefore, ye
are of more value than many sparrows.’ And my God isn’t a little one,
either, because He attends to all the details. He wouldn’t be a God at
all if He didn’t.”
“I certainly wish I had your memory,” said the young man with a look of
admiration. “You have a fine mind. You would have made a good lawyer.
But I hate to see you so narrow. It isn’t like you in other things to
be narrow.”
“Enter ye in at the strait gate,” began Joyce thoughtfully. “For wide
is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be that go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is
the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
“And so you are actually priding yourself on being narrow!” He spoke
almost angrily. It was annoying to have her so stubborn, so ignorant of
modern ideas, so bound by these old traditions.
“No,” she said sadly. “Those are not my words. They are my Lord’s. I
didn’t make them. I’m only telling you why I’m narrow, as you say.”
“Well, if you’d only go to a respectable church, and hear some really
good teaching along intellectual lines I feel sure you are bright
enough and open-minded enough to give up these silly, pharisaical
ideas. They are really too egotistical for a sweet young girl like you.”
Joyce lifted her eyes sadly to his.
“You don’t understand because you can’t,” she said. “Your eyes are
blinded. There are a great many people like that nowadays. I didn’t
know it till I came away from Meadow Brook. I didn’t understand what
the verse meant when it said that the natural man could not understand
the things of the Spirit. Now I know. You can’t understand because you
haven’t been born again.”
The young man made an impatient movement.
“Oh, I dislike that phrase. Please don’t use it. It’s so ridiculous to
talk that way in this age of the world.”
“Jesus Christ used it,” said Joyce quietly.
“Well, it isn’t a thing to be talked about,” he said crossly. “How
should you set up to say I’m not ‘born again’ as you say it?”
“Because you don’t understand. Because you can listen to a minister
who doesn’t believe that Jesus died to shed His blood to wash away our
sins. Because you can listen to a man who can dare to say that they
called Jesus divine because they couldn’t think of any other word to
use, and who said the blind man only thought he was blind, and Jesus
just waked him up to open his eyes and use them. I heard him say
all those things, and I can’t go and listen to him any more. It is
dishonoring my Lord to hear him.”
“Well, I think the person that brought you up was awfully to blame,”
he said with contempt in his voice. “To saddle anybody with as many
hidebound doctrines as you seem to have is a sin. Whoever it was will
have to answer for it some day. You have an unusually fine mind, and if
you would once give up these foolish legends and prejudices with which
your mind is filled you would be a brilliant woman with a great future
before you.”
Joyce stood up and looked at him gravely, her eyes brilliant, her
cheeks flushed.
“I may not be a brilliant woman,” she said sweetly, “but I certainly
have a great future before me. I’m going to live and reign with Jesus
Christ some day, and I don’t really think it matters so very much
whether I’m brilliant down here or not with that in view. But you’ll
have to excuse me from any further talk on this subject. You have cast
a slur on my faith and we really haven’t anything in common when you do
that. I _know_ my Christ, and you don’t seem to. I must go now.”
She swept out of his office, whither he had summoned her on pretext
of consulting her about some of her scholars who were to be promoted.
There was something so final about her going that it quite depressed
him, and after a night’s wakefulness he went to see her, and had the
good grace to apologize to her, and to say he would like her to try and
show him what she meant by her faith.
“If you will come to the church where I go you will find out much
better than I can teach you,” she said, for she did not more than half
believe that he wanted to know.
So he agreed to go with her the following Sunday evening, and she began
to mention his name in her prayers as she knelt in the moonlight in her
little room. “Dear Father, show me how to make him understand,” she
prayed. But always her prayer ended with: “Find Darcy please, and don’t
let him lose the way home, for Christ’s sake.”