"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE."
"A look of pride, an eye of flame,
A full drawn lip that upward curled,
An eye that seemed to scorn the world."
The little town of Burnfield contained but one school, within the old
brown walls and moss-grown eaves of which the "fathers of the hamlet"
for many a generation had sat at the feet of some worthy pedagogue, or
pedagoguess, as the case might be, to catch the wisdom that fell from
their lips. In summer woman held her sway there, but in winter man
reigned supreme on the throne of learning, and "boarded round," a custom
not yet obsolete.
Once every year came the great anniversary of the school, the last day
of April, when the "master's" term expired, and he left the town to the
dominion of the new school-marm. Then took place the great public
examination, in which lanky youths, weighed down with the consciousness
of their responsibility and first tail-coats, and cherry-cheeked girls,
bursting out of their hooks and eyes, showed off before the admiring
Burnfieldians, and received their rewards of merit, more highly prized
by them than the Cross of the Legion of Honor would be by some old
French veteran. A new innovation had lately been introduced by one of
the teachers--that of speaking dialogues at these distributions, and
wonderful was the delight young Burnfield took in these displays. The
more strait-laced of the parents at first objected to this, as smacking
too much of "play acting," but young Burnfield had a decided will of its
own, and looked contemptuously on the "slow" ideas of old Burnfield, and
finally, in triumph, carried the day.
The great day arrived, and the anxious parents who had young ideas at
school, were crowding rapidly toward the large old-fashioned
school-house under the hill. Among them, in grim, unbending majesty,
stalked Miss Jerusha Skamp, resplendent in what she was pleased to term
her new "kaliker gound," a garment which partook of the nature of its
forerunners in being exceedingly short and exceedingly skimpy, and the
gorgeous patterns of which can be likened to nothing save a highly
exaggerated rainbow. But Miss Jerusha, happy in the belief that nothing
like it had appeared in modern times, walked majestically in, upsetting
some loose benches, half a dozen small boys, and other trifles that lay
in her way, and took her seat on one of the front benches. The boys,
gorgeous in blue and gray homespun coats, with brass buttons of alarming
size and brightness, were ranged on one side, and the girls, arrayed in
all the hues of a flower-garden, on the other. Miss Jerusha's eyes
wandered to the side where the girls sat, and rested with a look of
evident pride and self-complaisance on one--a look that said as plainly
as words, "There! look at that! there's _my_ handiwork for you."
And certainly, amid the many handsome, blooming girls there, not one was
more worth looking at than she on whom Miss Jerusha's eyes rested. The
tall, slight, but well-portioned form had none of the awkwardness common
to girls in their transition stages. The queenly little head was poised
superbly on the sloping neck; the clear olive skin, with its glowing
crimson lips and cheeks, was the very ideal of dark, rich, southern
beauty; the jet-black shining hair, swept off the broad forehead in
smooth silken braids, became well the scarlet ribbons that bound it, as
did also the close-fitting crimson dress she wore.
Georgia (for of course every reader above the unsuspecting age of three
years knows who it is), without being at all aware of it, always fell
into the style of dress that best suited her and harmonized with her
warm, tropical complexion--dark, rich colors, such as black, purple,
crimson, or, in summer, white. The two years that have passed since we
saw her last have changed her wonderfully; but the full, proud,
passionate, flashing eyes are the same in their dark splendor; the
short, curling upper lip and curved nostril tell a tale of pride, and
passion, and daring, and scornful power--tell that time may have
softened, but has not eradicated, the temper of our stormy little
essence of wild-fire.
Yes, she sits there, leaning listlessly back in her seat, her little
restless brown hands folded quietly enough in her lap, her long black
lashes vailing her darkly glancing eyes, cast down by a sort of proud
indolence; but it is the calm that precedes the tempest, the dangerous
spirit of the drowsy and beautiful leopard, the deep, treacherous
stillness that heralds the bursting sheets of fire from the volcano's
bosom, the white ashes that overlie consuming flames hidden beneath
them, but ready at any moment to burst forth. And there she sat, known
only to those present as the "smart little girl," the star scholar of
the school, good-looking, bright, generous, and warm-hearted, too, but
"ugly tempered."
The dark, bright, handsome eyes of the girl of fifteen had already
carried unexampled desolation into more than one susceptible breast,
and some of the unhappy youths were so badly stricken as to be guilty of
the atrocity of perpetrating soul-harrowing "pote"-ry to those same
dangerous optics. But these were only the worst cases, and even they
never tried it but in the first delirium of the attack, and, like all
delirious fevers, it soon passed away, died out like a hot little fire
under (to use a homely simile) the wet blanket of her cool, utter
indifference, and they returned to their buckwheat cakes, and pork, and
molasses with just as good an appetite as ever.
One by one the people came in until the school-house was filled, and
then the exercises commenced. The premiums were arranged on a table, and
on a desk beside it stood the master, who rose and called out:
"First prize for general excellence awarded to Miss Georgia Darrell."
There was a moment's profound silence, while every eye turned upon
Georgia, and then, as if by general impulse, there was an enthusiastic
round of applause, for her warm, ardent nature, and many generous
impulses, made her schoolmates like her in spite of her ebullitions of
temper. And in the midst of this Georgia rose, with a flashing eye and
kindling cheek, and, advancing to where the teacher stood, received the
first prize from his hand, courtesied, and, with head proudly erect, and
cheeks hot with the excitement of triumph, walked back to her seat.
Then came the other premiums, for grammar, for geography, history, and
astronomy; the first prize was still awarded to "Miss Georgia Darrell,"
until the good folks of Burnfield began to knit their brows in anger and
jealousy, and accused the master of being swayed, like the rest, by a
handsome face, and unjustly depriving their offspring for the sake of
this "stuck-up Georgia Darrell," who--as Deacon Brown remarked, in a
scandalized tone--seemed to despise the very "airth she walked on."
The distribution was over at last, and then came the dialogues. And here
Georgia's star was in the ascendant again. She, and the teacher,
perhaps, knew what acting was--not one of the rest had the remotest
idea--and they held their very breath to listen, as losing her own
identity her eyes blazed and her cheeks burned, and she strode up and
down, declaiming with such vehement gestures, that they looked at one
another in a sort of terror, wonder, and admiration. And once, when she
and another were repeating a selection from Tamerlane, where she took
the character of Bajazet, and Tamerlane, in a sort of wonder and
admiration, says:
"The world! 'twould be too little for thy pride!
Thou wouldst scale heaven!"
Georgia's eyes of lightning blazed, and raising her hand with a
passionate gesture, she strode over and fiercely thundered:
"I WOULD! Away! my soul
Disdains thy conference!"
The Tamerlane of the moment recoiled in terror, and there was an instant
of death-like silence, while every heart thrilled with the knowledge
that the dark, wild girl was not "acting," but speaking the truth.
It was all over at last, and, with a few words from the teacher, the
assembly was dismissed. As Georgia gathered up her armful of prizes and
put on her bonnet, the teacher came over, and, to the jealousy of the
other pupils, held out his hand to her, who had from the first been his
favorite.
"Good-by, Bajazet," he said, smiling; "you electrified the good people
of Burnfield to-day."
Georgia laughed.
"Do you know you were not acting just now, Georgia? Do you know you are
ambitious enough to scale heaven? Do you know that you have within you
what hurled Lucifer from heaven?"
"Yes, sir," she said, lifting her eyes boldly; "I know it."
"And do you not fear?"
"No, sir."
"Do you know you are composed of elements that will make you either an
angel or a--_demon_?"
"Miss Jerusha says I'm the latter _now_, sir," she said, with a light
laugh.
He looked at her with a smile half fond, half sad.
"Georgia, take care."
"Of what, sir?"
"Of _yourself_--your worst enemy."
"Father Murray says everyone is his own worst enemy."
"You are not like everyone. You are a little two-edged sword in a
remarkably thin sheath, my little sprite. Take care."
"Well, I know I'm thin," said Georgia, who was in one of her unserious
moods; "but that is my misfortune, Mr. Coleman, not my fault. Wait a
little while, and you'll see I'll turn out to be a female pocket edition
of Daniel Lambert."
"Georgia!"
"Well, sir."
"Promise me one thing."
"What is it, first?"
"That you will study very hard till I come back next winter?"
"Of course I will, sir. I made that promise once before."
"Indeed? To whom? Miss Jerusha?"
"Miss Jerusha!" said Georgia, laughing. "I guess not! To a friend of
mine--a young gentleman."
And the girl of fifteen glanced up from under her long lashes at the
dignified man of forty.
"Pooh, Georgia! stick to your books, and never mind the _genus homo_.
You're a pretty subject to be advised by young gentlemen. It was good
advice, though, and I indorse it."
"Very well, sir; but why am I to attend to my studies more than any of
the rest of your pupils--Mary Ann Jones, for instance?"
"Humph! there is a wide difference. Mary Ann Jones will go home and help
her mother to knit stockings, scrub the floor, make pumpkin pies, and
eat them, too, without even a thought of mischief, while you would be
breaking your neck or somebody else's, setting the iron on fire, or
bottling thunderbolts to blow up the community generally. As there is
more truth than poetry in that couplet of the solemn and prosy Dr.
Watts, wherein he assures us--
"'Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do,'
on that principle you need to be kept busy. Between you and Mary Ann
Jones there is about as much difference as there is between that useful
domestic fowl, a barnyard goose, and that dangerous, sharp-clawed,
good-for-nothing thing, a tameless mountain eaglet; and you may consider
the comparison anything but complimentary to you. Mary Ann is going to
be a merry, contented, capital housekeeper, and you--what are _you_
going to be?"
"A vagabones on the face of the airth," said Georgia, imitating Miss
Jerusha's nasal twang so well that it nearly overset the good teacher's
gravity.
"Ah, Georgia! I see you are in one of your wild moods to-day, and will
not listen to reason. Well, good-by--be a good girl till I come back."
"Good-by, sir. I don't think I will ever be a good girl, but I will be
as good as I can. Good-by, and thank you, sir."
There was something so darkly earnest in her face, that Mr. Coleman
looked after her, more puzzled than he had ever before been by a pupil.
She had always been an enigma to him--she was to most people--and to-day
she was more unreadable than ever.
"I declare to skreech, Georgy!" said Miss Jerusha, as they walked home
together, "you like to skeered the life out o' me to-day, the way you
talked and shouted. Clare to gracious! ef it wasn't parfectly orful, not
to say downright wicked. Talk about scalin' heaven! there's sense for
you now! And it's not only sinful, as Deacon Brown remarked, but reglir
onpossible. Where could a ladder, now, or even a fire escape be got,
long enough to do it? Pah! it's disgustin', such nonsense! I wonder a
man like that there Mr. Coleman would 'low of sich talk in his school
hus, it's rale disgraceful--that's what it is!"
Georgia laughed. Georgia was more patient with Miss Jerusha than she
used to be, and had her hot temper more under control. This was in a
great measure owing to the instructions and gentle exhortations of good
Mrs. Murray, little Emily's mother, who had taught her that instead of
conferring a favor on the old maid by living with her, she owed her a
debt of gratitude she would find it difficult to repay. And Georgia,
whose faults were more of the head than of the heart, saw Mrs. Murray
was right, and consented to try and "behave herself" for the future.
Georgia found _self_-control a _very_ difficult lesson to practice; and
the impulses of her nature very often rose and mastered her good
resolutions yet. Still it was something for her even to try, and it had
such an effect on Miss Jerusha, that the vinegar in that sour spinster's
composition became perceptibly less acid, and the ward and "dragon" got
along much better than formerly. So true it is that every effort to do
good is rewarded even here.
When Georgia got home she found her friend Emily Murray awaiting her.
Despite the wide difference in their dispositions Emily and Georgia were
still fast friends. Emily did not go to the public school, but was
taught at home by her mother. But they saw each other every day, and
Emily's sunny disposition helped not a little to soften down our savage
little wild-cat into her present state of comparative civilization.
Still the same rounded little lady was Emily, perhaps an inch or two
higher than when thirteen years old, but still nothing to speak of, with
the same smiling, rosy, sunshiny little face peeping out from its wealth
of tangled yellow curls--for Emily's hair would persist in curling in
spite of all attempts to comb it straight and respectable looking, and
persisted in having its own way, and openly rebelling against all
established authority.
"Oh, Georgia! I'm so glad!" exclaimed Emily, throwing her arms around
Georgia's neck, and administering a dozen or two short, sharp little
kisses that went off like the corks out of so many ginger-beer bottles.
"I'm _ever_ so glad that you got all the prizes! I knew you would; I
said it all along. I knew you were dreadfully clever, if you only liked.
And now I want you to come right over to our house and spend the evening
with us. Mother told me to come for you. Oh, Georgia! we'll have a good
time!"
"Well, there, Em, you needn't strangle me about it," said Georgia,
laughingly releasing herself. "If Miss Jerusha doesn't want me
particularly, I'll go."
Two years previously Georgia would no more have thought of asking Miss
Jerusha's leave about any thing than she would of flying; but since she
had come to a sense of her duty things were different. But as the
leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiope his skin, so neither
could she entirely change her nature, and there was an involuntary
defiant light in her eye and haughtiness in her tone when asking a
favor, and a fierce bright flash and passionate gesture when refused.
Miss Jerusha looked undecided, and was beginning a dubious "Wal, raily,
now--" when Emily's impulsive arms were around _her_ neck, and her
pretty face upturned.
"Ah, now, Miss Jerusha, please do; that's a dear! Do just let her come
over this once. I want her so dreadfully! P-p-please now."
No heart, unless made of double-refined cast iron, could resist that
sweet little face and pleading "please now;" so Miss Jerusha, who liked
little Emily (as indeed nobody could help doing), accordingly "pleased,"
and Emily, giving her a kiss--of which commodity that small individual
had a large stock in trade, that like the widow's cruse of old, never
diminished--put on Georgia's hat, and, nodding a smiling good-by to Miss
Jerusha, marched her off in triumph.
"I am so glad, Georgia, you got so many prizes. Oh! I knew all along you
were real clever. I should like to be clever, but I'm not one bit; but
you, I guess you're going to be a genius, Georgia," said Emily, soberly.
"Nonsense, Em! A genius! I hope I shall never be anything half so
dreadful."
"Dreadful! Why, Georgia!"
"Why, Emily!" said Georgia, mimicking her, "geniuses are a nuisance, I
repeat--just as comets, or meteors, or eclipses, or anything out of the
ordinary course are. People make a fuss about them and blacken their
noses looking through smoked glass at them, and then they are gone in a
twinkling, and not worth all the time that was wasted looking at them. I
know it is sacrilege and high treason to say so, but that doesn't alter
my opinion on the subject, and so don't trouble that small, anxious head
of yours, my dear little snow-flake, about my being a genius again."
"I know who thinks so as well as I do," said Emily.
"Who?"
"Why, Richmond Wildair. Do you recollect the day, long ago, he first
told you to go to school?"
"Yes."
"Coming home that day he said he knew you were a little genius and
should not hide your light under a bushel, but set it on the hill-top. I
remember his words, because they sounded so funny then that they made me
laugh."
"Pooh! what does he know about it? What a little simpleton I must have
been to do everything he used to tell me to! Still, that was good advice
about going to school, and I don't know but what, on the whole, I feel
grateful to him for it. That was two years ago--wasn't it, Em? Why, it
seems like yesterday."
"And that funny brother of his," said Emily, laughing at some
recollections of her own, "he used to say things in such a droll way. I
wonder if they'll ever come back."
"Why, what would bring them back, now that their uncle is gone away for
his health? I wonder if traveling really _does_ make sick people well?"
"Don't know, I'm sure. Isn't it a pity to have such a nice house as that
shut up and so lonely and deserted looking?"
"I wish that house was mine," said Georgia. "I should like to live in a
large, handsome place like that. I hate little old cramped places like
our cottage--they're horrid."
"Why, that's coveting your neighbor's goods," said Emily. "Look out,
Georgia."
"Well, then, I should like one as good as that. I wish I owned one just
like it. I _shall_, too, some day," said Georgia, decidedly.
"Do tell," said Emily, "where are you going to get it? Are you going to
rob a peddler?"
"No. I intend to be rich."
"You do? _How?_"
"I don't know yet; but I _shall_! I'm determined to be rich. I am quite
sure I will be," said Georgia, in a tone of quiet decision.
"Well, really! But it's better to be poor than rich. 'It's easier for a
camel--' You know what the Testament says."
"I'd risk it. Why, Emily, it's riches moves the world; the whole earth
is seeking it. Poverty is the greatest social crime in the whole
category, and wealth covereth a multitude of sins. Don't tell me! I know
all about it, and I am determined to be rich--_I don't care by what
means_!"
Her wild eyes were blazing with that insufferable light that always
illuminated them when she was excited, and the stern determination her
set face expressed as she looked resolutely before her startled timid
little Emily.
"Oh, Georgia, I don't think it's right to talk so!" she said, in a
subdued tone; "I'm sure it's not. I don't think riches make people
happy; do you?"
"No," said Georgia, quietly.
"Oh, Georgia, then why do you wish for it? Why do you crave so for
wealth?"
"Because wealth brings power!"
"But neither does power bring happiness."
"To _me_ it would. Power is the life of my life. Knowledge is
power--therefore I studied; but it is only a means to an end. Wealth
will attain that end, therefore wealth I must and _will_ have."
The look of resolute determination deepened. She looked at that moment
like one resolved to conquer even fate, and to tread remorselessly under
foot all that stood between her and the goal of her daring ambition.
"What would you do if you were rich?"
"I would travel, for one thing--I should like to see the world. I would
visit England, and France, and Germany, and Italy--dear, beautiful
Italy! that I love as if it were my fatherland. I would visit the
Alps--Oh, Em! how I love great sublime mountains rearing their heads up
to heaven. I would sail down the Rhine, the bright flowing Rhine! I
would visit the demons of the Black Forest, and see if I happen to be
related to them, in any way. I would cultivate the acquaintance of the
Black Horseman of the Hartz Mountains--and finally I should settle down
and marry a prince. Yes, I rather think I _shall_ marry some prince,
Em!"
"Oh, Georgia! you're a case!" said Emily, breaking into one of her
silvery peals of laughter; "marry a prince! what an idea!"
"Well, I am good enough for any prince or emperor that ever wore a
crown," said Georgia, with a flash of her black eyes, and a proud lift
of her haughty little head, "and I should consider that the honor was
conferred upon him, and not me, if I did marry one--now then!"
"Oh, what a bump of self-esteem you have, Georgia!" said Emily, still
laughing; "what a notion to talk about getting married, any way! whoever
heard of such a thing."
"Well, it's nothing strange! you didn't suppose I was going to be an old
maid like Miss Jerusha, did you? _Of course_ I'll get married! I always
intended to!" said Georgia, decidedly, "and so will you, Emily."
"To another prince," said Emily, shyly.
"No, to--Charley Wildair!"
"I guess not! But here we are at home, and what would mother say if she
heard us talking like this? It all comes of your reading so many novels,
Georgia. Here, mother; here she is. I've got her," cried Emily, flying
into the pretty little parlor, where Mrs. Murray, a pleasant little
lady, a faded copy of her bright little daughter, sat sewing. Mrs.
Murray kissed Georgia, and congratulated her on her success, and then
went out to see about tea.
Later in the evening Father Murray, a benign-looking old man, with
silver-white hair, and a look so patriarchal that it had suggested
Charley Wildair's graphic description of his being like one of those
"blessed old what's-their-names in the Bible," came in, and the
conversation turned upon Georgia's success.
"I suppose you felt quite elated, Georgia, at carrying off the highest
honors to-day?" he said, smiling.
"A little, only," said Georgia. "It wasn't much to be proud of."
"What! To vanquish all competitors not much to be proud of! Why,
Georgia?"
"Well, neither it is, sir--_such_ competitors," said Georgia,
scornfully. "I should like a greater conquest than that."
"Georgia's ambition takes a bolder flight; she looks down on the common
people of this world," said Mrs. Murray, with a peculiar smile.
Georgia colored at the implied rebuke, but her disdainful look remained.
Father Murray looked at her half pityingly, half sorrowfully.
"It will not do, Georgia," he said kindly: "you will have to stop. The
Mountain of High-and-Mighty-dom is a very dazzling eminence to be sure,
but the sun shines brighter in the valley below."
At that moment Fly entered for her young mistress, and Georgia arose to
go.
"Good-by, Mrs. Murray; good-by, Em; good-night, Father Murray."
"Good-night, Georgia," he said, laying his hand on her shining, haughty
young head, "and Heaven bless you, my child!"
She folded her hands almost meekly to receive his benediction, and
feeling as though that blessing were sorely needed, she passed out and
was gone.
Gone! As for you and me, reader, the _child_ Georgia has gone forever.
Let the curtain drop on the first act in her drama of life, to rise when
the child shall be a woman.