"I'll never forget you, Norah," I promised.
"Won't you then?" she cried, much pleased.
"No. And, Norah, listen! All that I learn I shall teach you myself!"
"Sure there's a great day coming for both of us," Norah agreed.
I shall never forget that day, the start in the early sunshine, the
stiff ruffled apron that I wore, and my mother leading me along the
street by the hand. She was just as much excited as I was, and when we
came to the door of a large white house, with a brass plate saying,
"Mrs. Garfield's Select School for Girls and Young Ladies," she stopped
a moment before she rang the bell to rearrange my hair, and give me a
private hug.
"Don't forget your seven times!" she whispered, warningly.
I was too far gone for reply, but I nodded, blindly, at her through a
mist of tears, unexpected tears, for somehow or other I suddenly seemed
to be leaving my old life behind me, and to be going into a strange
country.
It was very quiet in the white house. There were a great many rooms,
and a subdued hum of recitation. A clock in the hall ticked loudly. My
mother and I sat on two lonely chairs in the reception room and waited.
I remember that there was a large piece of white coral on the floor in
front of the pierglass. It had exactly thirty-seven points. And there
was a motto neatly framed on the wall. "The Good Child Makes the Careful
Mother." By and by there was a rustle of silk in the doorway, and Mrs.
Garfield was shaking hands with us. She was a fair, pleasant-looking
lady. She shook hands with my mother first, and then with me. She gazed
at me, very closely and attentively, much as a doctor might gaze, but
she had kind eyes and once in awhile her dignity would break into a
smile.
"I want to enter my little girl," my mother said, falteringly. "She--she
doesn't know a great deal."
"Then there's all the more to learn," Mrs. Garfield encouraged us,
brightly.
It seemed to me that she liked to know that I didn't know anything. It
seemed to me that she liked to think that I was to be built up after her
own plan.
She was busy in a moment asking my age, and getting my school books
together. There was a brief farewell with my mother in the hall, during
which I clung to her, wildly, then the door had shut and I was alone in
the world. It was a dreadful feeling to be alone! And it was still more
dreadful when I had followed Mrs. Garfield into a large room filled with
pupils seated at their desks, and had been introduced to Miss Lucy, the
teacher in charge.
"A little new friend of ours, Miss Lucy," Mrs. Garfield said, in the
hush that followed our arrival.
Then she turned and left me.
An elderly lady shook my hand in welcome. She had a soft hand, and a
worried look as if something had been going wrong, and there was a
little curly-haired girl standing in a far corner, with her face hidden
against the wall, who was sobbing bitterly. Somebody had been drawing a
picture on the blackboard. It showed a stout man with bow-legs, and an
ugly face, and underneath was written "Miss Lucy's Beau."
"You can come out of the corner, Miss Armitage," Miss Lucy said, in an
icy tone.
She pointed an accusing finger at the blackboard.
"As for that dreadful--that distinctly unladylike--performance of yours
on the blackboard I shall allow it to remain until the noon recess."
The little girls all looked at one another.
"Shan't I rub it right off, Miss Lucy?" a small person in a long apron
demanded, eagerly.
"Oh, teacher, teacher, let me rub it off!" another echoed.
She had bright red hair and a plaid dress.
"No, Cebelia, no, Janet," Miss Lucy replied, more in sorrow than in
anger. "We will look at this drawing together. We will consider its
disloyalty, its bad perspective, one foot is larger than the other
notwithstanding all I have taught her! its _unchristian spirit_!"
She paused for a moment, and seemed to discover me.
"Miss Harcourt, you may take the seat next to Miss Armitage," she added,
in haste. "Young ladies, we will go on with the geography lesson."
I followed the little curly-headed girl to a desk, and sat down, and
looked at her. And she looked back at me with drowned eyes. She was
rather pretty. Suddenly, somehow, I felt sorry for her, bad as she
evidently was. I slipped my hand into hers.
"Don't cry!" I whispered, in compassion. "You dear! Don't cry!"
She pushed up the cover of the desk, and kissed me in its shadow.
"I like you," she whispered, ardently.
"And I like you," I whispered back.
"Let's be friends," she suggested.
We kissed again, solemnly, in agreement.
Up in front the geography class was bounding Asia very eagerly and
rapidly. They had all the air of people who had recently escaped from
some great peril. We did not pay them much attention for we were too
much occupied with each other. Oh, the glory of having a friend, the
secrets that we confided that morning behind the desk cover, the
horse-hair rings which we exchanged in token of undying affection, the
dear human delight of finding some one who is your own age, and who
loves you!
School lost its terrors for me in a very short while. With Grace
Armitage beside me I was willing to dare all things, and when half past
ten came I went quite happily hand-in-hand with her in the little
procession down the sunny street. It was so odd to look at my home from
the outside, to see Norah hanging out the wash, the twins playing in the
garden, and even grandmother sewing composedly at a window, just as if
it were an ordinary day, and I had not gone to school for the first
time. But my mother remembered, and when we passed the door she came
running out and waved to me.
After that life resolved itself into a series of school days. Every
morning I went gayly off with my books, feeling a new sense of
importance, and every afternoon I came running home, with a budget of
news to tell my mother. There were many things to puzzle me in the new
world. For instance, I could never understand, why, when the spelling
lesson was particularly hard, Janet McLarin would always show a great
anxiety to hear about Miss Lucy's childhood.
"Oh, Miss Lucy," she would cry, clasping her hands together, "tell us
about when you were a little girl!"
Then there would come a perfect chorus from the whole class.
"Oh, do, Miss Lucy! Do tell us about when you were a little girl!"
"Tell us about the little cloak your mother made out of a shawl,"
Cebelia would say, invitingly.
Even Grace would add her quota.
"Tell about your mother's party dress, and how she first met your
father."
"Yes, yes," the others would clamor. "And tell us about her pink coral
beads, and how they were lost, and _he_ found them!"
Then Miss Lucy would close the green spelling book, with a gratified
smile, and gather us about her in a little hushed circle, and tell us
the tales of a bygone age. I liked Miss Lucy. I liked to sit up close to
her and to Grace, and hear about the party dress, and the pink coral
beads, and when it all ended happily, as stories should, I would give a
great sigh of satisfaction.
"Dear me," Miss Lucy would say, all aglow with enthusiasm, "it's time
for recess! Why, where has the morning gone! Well, girls, you'll have to
take the same lesson over again for to-morrow."
She was very simple minded, Miss Lucy was, and she understood the
situation just as little as I did myself.
Janet McLarin was Scotch, and she was canny. She could do every sum in
the arithmetic; but when the day came for compositions she would put her
bright head down in her lap and groan.
"I wish I was dead," she would say, despairingly. "I do! I do!"
Cebelia was more stoical; but she would fold great pleats in her apron,
and frown at the blackboard. Miss Lucy always wrote the subjects for the
compositions on the blackboard, one under the other, beautifully written
out for our decision.
The Story of a Nine-pin.
Thoughts on Spring.
The Triumph of Columbus.
My Mother's Flower Garden.
A Meadow Daisy.
The Beauty of Truth.
They were lovely, lovely subjects! I would sit and look at them in a
blissful dream.
One day, the very first composition day, I remember Grace gave me a
little shake.
"Which one are you going to take?" she demanded, dolefully.
"I don't know," I answered, with a happy smile.
"Girls," Grace cried, "I believe Rhoda could write them _all_! She likes
to write!"
Miss Lucy was out of the room, and I remember that they all came around
me, and looked at me, as if I had been a strange animal.
"Rhoda," Janet McLarin cried, taking her head out of her lap, "if you'll
write my composition for me I'll give you my best blue hair ribbon. My
Sunday one. Honest."