THE SCHOOL IN THE CHURCH.
When there was nothing else for them to do, the children of Fairview
were sent to a school kept in the church, where they studied around a
big box stove, and played at noon and recess among the mounds in the
grave lot, there being no playground, as it was not intended that the
children of Fairview should play.
The older boys told it in low whispers that a sunken grave meant that
the person buried there had been carried away by the Devil, and it was
one of our amusements to look among the graves from day to day to see if
the dreadful visitor had been around during the preceding night.
These sunken graves were always carefully filled up by relatives of the
persons buried, and I regarded this as evidence that they were anxious
to hide the disgrace which had come upon their families from neglect of
my father’s religion. After a funeral--which we were all compelled to
attend so that we might become practically impressed with the shortness
of life, and where a hymn commencing “Hark, from the tomb, a doleful
sound,” was sung to such a dismal measure that the very dogs howled to
hear it--I used to lie awake in speechless terror for a great many
nights, fearing the Devil would call on me in my room on his way out to
the grave lot to see whether the person just buried belonged to him.
The boys and girls who attended from the houses dotted about on the
prairie did not differ from other children except that they were a long
time in the first pages of their books, and seemed glad to come. I have
heard that in some places measures are found necessary to compel
attendance on the schools, but in Fairview the children regarded the
teacher as their kindest and most patient friend, and the school as a
pleasant place of retreat, where grumbling and complaints were never
heard.
The. Meek sent so many children that the teacher never pretended to know
the exact number. Sometimes there were eleven, and at other times only
seven or eight, for the older ones seemed to take turns about, working
one day and studying the next. I think The. Meek was about the only man
in our country who was as good at home as he was at church, and his
family of white-headed boys were laughers like him, and always contented
and happy. They never learned anything, and my recollection is that they
all studied out of one book while I went to school there, reciting in a
class by themselves from the same page. If the teacher came upon them
suddenly in their seats, and asked them to name the first letter of the
alphabet, the chances were that one of them would know and answer,
whereupon they all cried “A!” in a chorus. But if one of the number was
called out separately a few moments later, and asked the same question,
the round, chubby face would look up into the teacher’s, and after
meditating awhile (moving his lips during the time as if recalling the
rules governing such a difficult problem) would honestly answer that he
didn’t know! He was then sent back to study, with the warning that he
would be called out again presently, and asked to name not only the
first letter, but the second, and third, and perhaps the fourth. Going
back to his seat, the white-headed brothers gathered about him, and
engaged in deep contemplation of their book for awhile, but one by one
their eyes wandered away from it again, and they became the prey of
anyone who had it in his heart to get them into difficulty by setting
them to laughing. If they all mastered the first three letters that day
they were content, and were so pleased with their progress that they
forgot them the next.
It was always safe to go to their house and expect a warm welcome, for
there seemed enough love hid away somewhere in the big house in which
they lived, not only for all the white-headed boys (with a reserve stock
for those yet to come), but also for the friends who came to see them.
Their mother, a large, fresh-looking woman, who was noted for a capacity
to lead in prayers and blessings when her husband was away, was
good-natured, too. It was the happiest family I had ever known, for
though they were all beset with difficulties, every one of them having
either weak eyes or the scald-head, they seemed not to mind it, but
patiently applied sulphur for one and mullein tea for the other,
remedies which were kept in saucers and bottles all over the house.
I never heard The. Meek or his wife speak impatiently to any of their
children, but they were obedient for all that--much more so than those
of us who were beaten on the slightest provocation--and were very fond
of one another. While other boys were anxious to get away from home,
The. Meek’s children were content, and believed there was not another so
pleasant place in the world as the big house, built after the
architecture of a packing-box, in which they lived. I often thought of
this circumstance to their credit, and thought it was also to the credit
of the father and the mother. There were but three rooms in the house,
two down stairs, and one above as large as both of those below in which
all the boys slept; and here also were the company beds, so that had I
ever heard of an asylum at the time of which I write, I should certainly
have thought the big room with the nine or ten beds scattered about in
it was like one.
I frequently went from school to spend the night with the young Meeks,
and, after we had gone to bed in the big room upstairs, I either froze
their blood with ghost stories, or convulsed them by telling any foolish
event I happened to think of, at which they laughed until I feared for
their lives. If the uproar became particularly loud their father and
mother came up to see what it was all about, and, on being informed of
the cause, laughed themselves, and went down again.
The two sons of the crippled but devout shoemaker, Mr. Winter, were the
most remarkable scholars that attended the school, for the reason that
they seemed to have mastered all sorts of depravity by sheer force of
native genius; for though they possessed all the accomplishments of
street Arabs, and we thought they must surely be town boys, the truth
was that they were seldom allowed even to go to town, and therefore
could not have contracted the vices of civilization from the contagion
of evil society. When one of them did go he returned with a knife for
nearly every boy in the school, and cloves and cinnamon bark to last for
weeks, which were stolen from the stores. If one of us longed for
anything in their presence, they said it would be forthcoming
immediately if we got them opportunity to go to town. This was only
possible by inducing some one to allow them to drive a team, as their
father was poor, and did not keep horses.
The older (and I may add the worse) one was probably named Hardy, but he
was always known as Hard. Winter, because of his hard character; and his
brother’s evil reputation was so woven into his name that we never knew
what the latter really was, for he was known as Beef Hide Winter, a
rebuke, I believe, for his failure to get away with a hide he had once
stolen, but the boys accepted these titles with great cheerfulness, and
did not mind them. They were the mildest mannered villains, I have no
doubt, that ever lived, for no difference how convincing the proof was
against them, they still denied it with tears in their eyes, and were
always trying to convince those around them by kindness and civility
that they were not so bad as represented (though they were worse), and I
fear they were rather popular in spite of their weakness for things not
belonging to them. In course of time their petty peculations came to be
regarded in about the same light as was their father’s shouting--one of
the peculiarities of the neighborhood--and we paid them no other
attention than to watch them. At the Fourth of July celebrations in the
woods, where all sorts of persons came to set up business, the Winter
boys stole a little of everything they saw on exhibition, and generously
divided with their friends. If they were sent together to a house near
the school after water, one went through the cellar while the other went
to the well, and if he secured anything he made a division at the first
opportunity.
They always had their pockets full of things to give away, and I am
satisfied that they came by none of them honestly, for they were very
poor, and at home but seldom had enough even to eat. A habit of theirs
was to throw stones with great accuracy, a collection of which they
carried around in their pockets, ready for use, making long journeys to
the creek bottoms to select them. They always went home with Guinea-hens
or geese in their possession, which they said had been “given to them,”
but which they had really knocked over in the road near farmers’
houses. They could kill more squirrels and quails by throwing than
others of a similar age could by shooting, and it will be imagined that
their failings were but seldom mentioned, for they were dangerous
adversaries, though usually peaceable enough.
The teacher of this school at the time of which I now write--to be more
explicit, when I was eleven years old, for what I have already written
is a hurried retrospect covering a period of six years--was a very young
and pretty girl named Agnes Deming, certainly not over sixteen and I
doubt if that, who came from a neighborhood north of Fairview, where her
widowed mother lived with an eccentric brother, and although it was as
poor as ours, she spoke of it in such a way--not boastingly, but
tenderly and reverently--that we thought of the community of Smoky Hill
as a very superior one. Her father, of whom she talked a great deal, had
been captain of a sailing vessel, as I learned a little at a time, and
before his death they lived in a town by the sea, where his ship loaded.
Of the town, however, which was called Bradford, she had but slight
recollection, for when a very little girl she was sent away to school,
and came home only at long intervals to welcome her father, who was
often away a year at a time.
When ten years old, and after the ship had been absent a long time, she
was sent for hurriedly one day, and told on her arrival that her
father’s ship had gone down at sea; that all on board were lost, and
that they were going West to live with her uncle, an eccentric man whom
she had never seen. After a few months of preparation, during which time
their effects were converted into money, they commenced their journey to
the country in which they had since lived. When she was fourteen years
old her uncle found her a place to teach a summer school, and, giving
satisfaction in spite of her tender years, she had followed the calling
since, her second engagement being in our neighborhood. I remember how
generally it was said on her arrival that she would not do, as she was
very young, but before the summer was over she somehow convinced her
patrons that she would do, very well, as she was thoughtful and
intelligent, and competent in every way.
This was her brief history, and before she had lived at Fairview a year,
nobody was like Agnes Deming, for she was everybody’s friend and
adviser, and was kinder to the people than anyone had ever been before.
She was a revelation to Fairview--a woman of a kind they had never
before seen; one who uttered no complaints, but who listened patiently
to the complaints of others, and did what she could to help them.
Whoever was in distress received her sympathy and aid, and I think the
advent of this friendless little woman, with her unselfish and pretty
ways, did more good for Fairview than its religion, for the people tried
to become like her, and were better in every way.
From the description she gave I imagined her father to have been a bluff
and manly fellow, for I had heard that such followed the sea, and when I
found her crying softly to herself, I thought of course she was thinking
of him, and often regretted that he was not in Fairview to be proud of
his pretty daughter, instead of at the bottom of the restless and angry
sea. That they had been very fond of each other I felt sure; and when
the winds blew furiously around our house, as they often did, she seemed
greatly distressed, as though it was just such a storm as that in which
her father’s ship went down. She sang to us at night sometimes, in a
sad, sweet voice, but always of storms, and of shipwrecks, as if the
frightful manner of her father’s death was much on her mind, and as if
she sorrowed always because she could not hope that some day his ship
would come in, and the dreadful story of his death prove a mistake.
She said almost nothing of her mother, and in reasoning about it I
thought that perhaps Mrs. Deming was so much distressed over the death
of her husband as to be poor company, and anxious to be let alone; for
Agnes seemed glad when vacation was over, and she was again occupying
her old room in our house. Although she was originally expected to
divide her time equally with every family sending children to the
school, or to “board round,” she was oftener at our house than anywhere
else; and once when she apologized in a burst of tears for being there
so much, my mother kissed her tenderly, and it was arranged immediately,
to the great satisfaction of all, that in future she should be a
recognized member of our family. My mother was very fond of her, and so
was my father, though he seemed ashamed to be fond of anyone; and being
the most influential of the school directors, he saw that her pay was
good and prompt, and on bad days took her to school in a wagon.
When Jo and I were busy on the farm, Agnes taught us at night, and was
so patient and encouraged us so much that we learned more than we should
have done at school. While we were never at school in summer, by this
means we were the head scholars in winter, though I am not certain this
was much to our credit, for we had little opposition from the children
of Fairview.
I have never seen a bird-of-paradise, and have no knowledge of them,
except that they are very beautiful; but if their manners are as
graceful as their plumage is beautiful, and it is conceded that we of
Fairview were as ungainly and ugly as crows, I hope the impression made
by the coming of Agnes Deming to the settlement will be understood. I
am glad to be able to write it to the credit of the people that they
were not envious of her, unless it be envious in one person to strive to
be like another he admires, and they all loved her from the day she came
until the day she went away.
Although slight in figure she was the picture of health, of which she
was as careful as of her dress and manners, which were never anything
but mild and gentle. As man and boy I have honestly admired a great many
women who afterwards shocked my admiration by a careless habit or manner
when they did not know I was about; but Agnes Deming was always the same
perfect woman. My admiration for her never had a check, and every day I
found in her a new quality to respect, as did everyone who came in
contact with her.
Although I was a favorite with her, I believed that when she came into
the fortune and position she deserved--I was always expecting some such
remarkable thing as this to happen, although I was not certain just what
it would be--I was sure she would not speak to me, or any of those she
had known at Fairview with whom she had associated temporarily, and made
herself agreeable, because that was her disposition; but that she would
hurry away as soon as possible, to get rid of thoughts of how
uncomfortable and unhappy she had been among us. I do not think I should
have blamed her, for I regarded her superiority as such that I should
have been content to see her go away to enjoy proud station and rich
friends, thankful that she had lived with us at all, and made us happier
than we had been.
I am certain that her dress was inexpensive, and that she spent little
of her money in this way, for most of it was sent to her family; but her
taste and skill were such that she was always neatly and becomingly
attired (much more so than many I knew who spent a great deal for that
time to attain that end); and she was able to work over an old garment
on Saturday, and appear on Sunday the best-dressed woman in the country.
I have thought that she was familiar with all the fashions in woman’s
dress without ever having seen them, for she was always in advance of
the plates in the Lady’s Book taken by my mother.
With more fortunate surroundings she would have been a remarkable woman.
But while there were many others less good and pretty who were better
off, and while she may have had at one time bright hopes for the future,
her good sense taught her that there was really no reason why she should
expect anything better now; so she diligently performed her work, and
gave up castle-building. And so it came to pass that she was simply
mistress of the Fairview school, and mistress of all our hearts, and did
what good was possible without vain regret for that which might have
come to pass, but did not.
In my recollections of that time, there is nothing pleasant, except the
sweet and patient face of Agnes and the memory of Jo, who were always my
friends, and who protected me when I did not deserve it, and loved me in
spite of all my faults.