VALHALLA
That was the name Nan gave to the little winter home.
"Valhalla is the place where the dead warriors go, and that is what we
all of us are after the day's work is done."
Commuting at first was very tiring for both Nan and Lucy. Catching
trains was hard on their nerves and the trip seemed interminable, but in
a few weeks they fell into the attitude of mind of all commuters and
just accepted it as part of the daily routine. It became no more irksome
than doing one's hair or brushing one's teeth.
The girls made many friends on the train and before the winter was over
really enjoyed the time spent going to and from school. Billy Sutton was
Nan's devoted cavalier. He managed, if possible, to sit by her and
together they would study. He helped her with her mathematics, and she,
quick at languages, would correct his French exercises. Those were sad
mornings for Billy when the seat by Nan was taken before they reached
Preston. He cursed his luck that Preston should not have been beyond
Grantly instead of a station nearer to town. Coming home he always saw
to it that no "fresh kid" got ahead of him in the choice of seats. He
would get to the station ahead of time and watch with eagle eye for
Nan's sedate little figure; then he would pounce on her like a veritable
eagle and possess himself of her books and parcels. Thereafter no power
could have separated him from her short of the brakeman who cruelly
called out: "P-errr-reston!"
Billy's younger sister Mag was of great assistance to her big brother in
his manoeuvres. She struck up a warm friendship with Lucy, and since
the two younger girls were together, what more natural than that he and
Nan should be the same?
"How would you like me to run you over to see Lucy for a while this
afternoon?" he would ask in the lordly and nonchalant manner of big
brothers, and Mag would be duly grateful, all the time laughing in her
sleeve, as is the way with small sisters.
The only person who ever got ahead of Billy on the homeward voyage
was Count de Lestis. That man of the world with lordly condescension
permitted Billy to carry all the books and parcels and then quietly
appropriated the seat by Nan. That was hard enough, but what was harder
was to see how Nan dimpled under the compliments the count paid her, and
how gaily she laughed at his wit, and how easily she held her own in the
very interesting conversation into which they plunged. Billy, boiling
and raging, could not help catching bits of it. Actually Nan was quoting
poetry to the handsome foreigner. With wonder her schoolboy friend
heard her telling the count of how she had gone up in an aeroplane the
preceding summer and what her sensations were. She had never told him
all these things.
"And why is it you like so much to fly?" the count asked. "Is it merely
the physical sensation?"
"Oh no, there is something else. I'll tell you a little bit of poetry I
learned the other day from a magazine. That is the way I feel, somehow:
"'Well, good-by! We're going!
Where?
Why there is no knowing
Where!
We've grown tired, we don't know why,
Of our section of the sky,
Of our little patch of air,
And we're going, going!
Where?
"'Who would ever stop to care?--
Far off land or farther sea
Where our feet again are free,
We shall fare all unafraid
Where no trail or furrow's made--
Where there's room enough, room enough, room enough for laughter!
And we'll find our Land o' Dreaming at a long day's close,
We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--perhaps, who knows?
To-morrow--or the next day--or maybe the day after!
"'So good-by! We're going!
Why?
O, there is no knowing
Why!
Something's singing in our veins,
Something that no book explains.
There's no magic in your air!
And we're going, going!
Where?
"'Where there's magic and to spare!
So we break our chains and go.
Life? What is it but to know
Southern cross and Pleiades,
Sunny lands and windy seas;
Where there's time enough, time enough, time enough for laughter!
We'll find our Land o' Dreaming, so away! Away!
We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--or at least we may--
Tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe the day after!'"
Nan Carter was a very charming girl at any time, but Nan Carter reciting
poetry was irresistible. So the count found her. Her eyes looked more
like forest pools than ever and the trembling Billy was very much afraid
the handsome nobleman was going to fall into said pools. He gritted his
teeth with the determination to be on the spot ready to pull him out by
his aristocratic and well-shod heels if he should take such a tumble.
"Ah, you have the wanderlust, too! I'd like to go with you to your Land
o' Dreaming." Fortunately Billy did not hear this remark, as the
brakeman opened the door at this juncture and shouted the name of a
station.
For once Billy was glad when the brakeman finally called:
"P-err-reston!" If he had to get out, so had the hated count. He never
had taken as much of a fancy to de Lestis as the other members of the
neighborhood had, anyhow, and now he knew why he had never liked him.
"He is a selfish, arrogant foreigner," he raged on in his boyish way.
"He might have let me sit with Nan part of the way, anyhow."
Nan went home quite pleased with the interesting conversation she had
had on the train. The count was rapidly becoming a warm friend of the
family. Everybody liked him but Lucy, and she had no especial reason for
disliking him.
"He's got no time for me and I guess that's the reason," she said when
questioned. "Mag doesn't cotton to him much, either."
"Well, I should think you would be glad for Father to have somebody to
talk to," said Helen. "You and Mag are too young to have much in common
with a grown-up gentleman."
"Pooh, Miss Grandmother! I'm most as old as Nan and he cottons to her
for fair. I know why he doesn't think much of Mag and me--it is because
he knows we know he is nothing but a Dutchman."
"Dutchman! Nonsense! Dutchmen proper come from Holland and Count de
Lestis is a Hungarian."
"Well, he can talk Dutch like a Prussian, anyhow. You oughter hear him
jabbering with that German family that live over near Preston. He brings
old Mr. Blitz newspapers all the time and they laugh and laugh over
jokes in them; at least, they must be jokes to make them laugh so."
"Of course the count speaks German. He speaks a great many languages,"
declared Helen with the dignified air that she thought necessary to
assume when she and Lucy got in a discussion.
"Well, what's the reason he ain't fighting for his country? Tell me
that! Mag says that Billy says that if his country was at war you
wouldn't catch him buying farms in strange countries, like this de
Lestis. He says he'd be in the fight, if he couldn't do anything but
beat a drum."
"But you see he is not in sympathy with the cause, child. All of the
Austrians and Hungarians are not on the Kaiser's side. A whole lot of
them believe in a more democratic form of government than Emperor
William wants. The count explained all that to Father. He says he
could not conscientiously fight with Prussia against democracy."
"All that sounds mighty fine but I like men that fight," and Lucy
tossed her head. "Me and Mag both like men that fight."
"Mag and I," admonished Helen.
The gentleman in question had just been off on a business trip. He had
much business in New York and Washington and sometimes made flying
visits to Chicago. He was interested in a land agency and was hoping to
import some Hungarian and Serbian families to the United States. He had
bought up quite a tract of land in Virginia, making cash payments that
showed he had unlimited means.
"They make excellent servants," he told the Misses Grant, "far superior
to your negroes. The Serbs are especially fine farmers. It is really a
nation of yeomen. They could make the barren tracts of Virginia blossom
like the rose."
"Well, bring them over then." The sisters almost agreed about this but
they had a diverging point in that Miss Ella thought she would rather
have a family of Hungarians, since that was the count's nationality;
while Miss Louise fancied some Serbs, because they were at least
fighting on the side of the Allies.
But to return to "Valhalla."
Douglas did not at all approve of the name Nan had given the little
home. "I am not a dead warrior when the day is over nor do I mean to be
one ever," she declared.
She started in on her winter of teaching with all the energy and vim of
the proverbial new broom. She gloried in the fact that she was able to
turn her education to some account; and while the remuneration of a
country school teacher is certainly not munificent, it helped a great
deal towards the family expenses.
The rent from the Carters' pretty home in Richmond was all they had to
live on now, except for a small sum in bank left over from the camp
earnings. It would be possible to manage if no clothes had to be bought,
and one and all promised to do with last year's suits.
Only a born teacher could make a real success of a country school where
thirty children must be taught in all grades up to high-school standing.
It took infinite patience, boundless good humor, and a systematic saving
of time, together with a keen sense of fun to get Douglas over each day.
She found the school in a state of insurrection, due to having proved
too much for the first teacher, who had found urgent business
elsewhere, and then for a series of substitutes until the present
incumbent, Miss Douglas Carter, was installed.
She made a little speech the first morning, telling the pupils quite
frankly that this was her first year of teaching but that it was not
going to be her last; that she was determined to make good and she asked
their help; that she was willing to give them all she had in the way of
knowledge and strength but that they must meet her half-way and do their
best. She gave them to understand from the very first that she intended
to have good order and that obedience was to be the first lesson taught.
Most of the children fell into her plans with enthusiasm. Of course
there were the reactionaries who had to be dealt with summarily. Bobby
was one of them. He was very difficult to manage in school. Never having
been under the least restraint before in all of his seven years, it was
hard on him to have to sit still and pretend to study, and he made it
harder on Douglas. The faction opposed to government in any form egged
him on. They laughed at his impertinent remarks to the teacher and
bribed him to do and say many outrageous things.
Poor Douglas was tempted to confess herself beaten as far as her little
brother was concerned and give up trying to teach him. He was rather
young for school, she almost fooled herself into believing; but there
was a sturdiness and determination in Douglas Carter's make-up that
would not let her succumb to difficulties.
"I will succeed! He shall learn! My pupils must respect me, and if I
can't make my own little brother obey me, how can I expect to control
the rest of them?"
She asked herself what she would do with any other pupil, not her
brother, who gave her so much trouble.
"Write a note to his mother or father, of course," she answered.
"But I can't bear to bother Father, and Mother would blame me and no
doubt pet Bobby. I'll write a note to Dr. Wright and his disapproval
will hurt Bobby more than anything that could happen."
And so she wrote the following letter to Bobby's employer:
_Preston, Va., R. F. D. Route 1.
November 1, 1916._
DEAR DR. WRIGHT:
I am sorry to inform you that your chauffeur, Robert Carter, Jr.,
is misbehaving at school in such a way that his teacher is afraid
he will have to be expelled. She has done everything in her power
to make him be more considerate but he is very, very naughty and
tries to worry his teacher all the time.
Very sincerely,
DOUGLAS CARTER.
Dr. Wright telephoned that he would be down to see them on Saturday
after receiving Douglas's note; but the message was sent via Grantly,
as the Carters had no telephone, and Miss Ella and Miss Louise could
not agree just what his name was or when he said he was coming. So the
matter was lost sight of in the wrangle that ensued and the word was
not delivered until too late.