A MEAN ACT.
Friday was composition day--that is, the compositions written during
the week were then, after being corrected by Miss Blake, read aloud in
the school.
The names of the writers were not given, so there was no embarrassment
of that kind. Mrs. Abbott would simply take one from the pile and hand
it to one of the girls to read aloud.
On the next Friday after that rainy Saturday four had been read, and
Mrs. Abbott handed the fifth to Ellen Leigh, one of the younger girls,
who was rather celebrated for her excellent reading. She opened the
paper, which looked exactly like the others, and read:
“EUPHROSYNE, ONE OF THE GRACES.
“O, never, dear girls, let us roam as we will,
Shall we hear conversation like this!
Her ‘gimme’ and ‘haint yer’ and ‘tickled to kill’
Are treats we’d be sorry to miss.
“And nothing so graceful our eyes ever saw
As the way which she deals with her knife,
When she grapples the handle in dainty red paw,
And piles in the food for dear life.”
There were evidently more verses, but Mrs. Abbott interrupted the
reader, reaching out her hand for the paper, and, turning with surprise
to Miss Blake, said:
“Why did you allow a composition of this character to be presented for
reading?”
Miss Blake, looking greatly puzzled, declared she had never seen it
before. She then took the pile in her hand and counted. There were
twenty-one, and twenty was the number she had corrected.
Some of the girls had laughed and shown much amusement as the verses
were read, but seeing Mrs. Abbott was really angry they all looked
preternaturally sober as she turned from Miss Blake and slowly scanned
each face before her. There was a painful silence which Elfie broke by
saying in a sorrowful voice:
“Who’s made poor Mary Ann cry?”
“Yes, who?” asked Mrs. Abbott, emphatically.
“It was that naughty song Ellen read,” said Elfie. “But Mary Ann isn’t
going to say ‘tickled to kill’ any more, she isn’t.”
Elfie was generally as particular as if she had been a scholar never to
speak in school or move about, but she seemed to feel that this was a
case that demanded her assistance. She crossed over silently to where
Mary Ann sat with her face in her hands, bravely trying to keep back
bitter tears, and, throwing her arms around her, whispered comfort into
her ears.
Mrs. Abbott, looking very stern, laid the paper between the leaves of
her blank-book and, taking up another composition, asked Lily to read
it. The girls all noticed that Lily’s cheeks were painfully flushed,
and her voice was so low that she had to be asked twice to repeat a
sentence.
Mary Ann, who had succeeded in controlling her feelings, carefully
avoided looking at Lily, for she, as well as all of the school,
suspected that she was the author of the cruel verses. It was a very
hard knowledge to have, for Lily had seemed to be her friend, and there
had been times when Mary Ann had gone to her as a refuge and comforter
when others had derided her. It is a bitter blow when you learn that
you have been deceived in a friend. If Edna Tryon, for instance, who
made no pretense of being friendly, had written the lines, she might
have borne it; but Lily! The thought overcame her, and in spite of
every effort she dropped her face upon the desk to conceal the tears
that would not be kept back. Miss Blake went to her instantly, and,
obeying a look from Mrs. Abbott, led her from the room.
“Have you never heard,” asked Mrs. Abbott, in the pause which followed,
“of a rough diamond, and do you not know that one in the rough is as
pure a gem as the one that glistens on a king’s crown?”
Edna, sitting by Lily, who had resumed her seat, passed her a bit of
paper on which she had scribbled, “Rough diamonds need cutting. I think
we had better cut this one. I am ready to say I’ll never speak to her
again.”
But Lily crumpled the paper up after reading it, and took no notice
of the smile and shrug with which Edna emphasized her wit; but she
suddenly raised her hand.
“What is it, Miss Dart?” asked Mrs. Abbott, coldly; probably she too
felt a certainty that Lily was the author, although the verses were not
in her hand-writing.
“I want to tell you,” said Lily, struggling with a great lump in her
throat, “that I wrote that stuff, but I only did it to make two or
three of the girls laugh. I wrote it when we were playing a game last
Saturday, and I never meant any one to see it except two or three
girls who were in the room with me. I thought I tore it up when I
threw it in the waste-basket. Perhaps some one picked out the pieces
and copied the horrid stuff. I am awfully sorry. I like Mary Ann; I
really do, and I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world. She is a
rough diamond; she is, truly, and I knew it all the time while I was
so--so--so--horrid--” Here Lily broke down entirely and dropped into
her seat.
“I hope this will teach you to hold in check the sin that doth so
easily beset you,” said Mrs. Abbott, gravely. “It is a sin to trifle
with other people’s feelings for the sake of having a little amusement.
I think we must all admire your ready candor in trying to atone in
a small degree for your fault by acknowledging it. And I hope your
example will be followed at once by the person who copied your lines
and placed them with the compositions.”
A solemn silence pervaded the room, and the girls looked round at each
other; but the culprit did not avail herself of the opportunity of
confession.
“I am still waiting,” said Mrs. Abbott, but no one spoke. “Perhaps,
then, we can find out in some other way. If any one present knows or
suspects who copied these verses I wish her to raise her hand.”
No one lifted her hand.
“Some one knows,” said Mrs. Abbott, sternly, “and I think the one who
committed the offense would feel better to confess it; but if she is
not courageous enough to face us all let her come to me alone this
evening.”
But the offender preferred keeping her secret, and no advantage was
taken of Mrs. Abbott’s invitation, and she passed the twilight hour
alone, pondering sadly on the troublesome elements that were disturbing
her school.
Further reference was made to the subject a few days later, when
Mrs. Abbott announced that although she did not know herself who the
offender was she had learned that Mary Ann saw one of the scholars put
a paper the size and shape of the compositions into the pile before
school began on Friday morning.
“But no persuasions,” she continued, “will make Mary Ann tell me who
the girl was.”
“Confessing my part of that mean transaction,” said Lily, as soon as
the girls were alone together, “was no fun, and ‘the party or parties
unknown,’ as the papers I copy for papa say, who brought me to open
disgrace have my sincere contempt. I never felt so small in all my life
as I did when I saw poor Mary Ann all broken up by my wicked poetry. I
should like to have hired a mouse-hole and gone to housekeeping in it
with the front door shut and never been heard of again. I think we have
all of us been too dreadful for any thing. Now, why have we treated
her so? She is one of the smartest, brightest girls in school; she’s
as good as gold, as true as steel, and as bright as silver--in short,
she’s a rough diamond.”
“According to you she belongs to the mineral kingdom,” sneered Edna;
“but she’s as common as copper, if you’ll allow there is any base metal
about her.”
“Copper isn’t bad if you have plenty of it in the shape of pennies,”
said Katie, sagely.
“I don’t allow that there’s any base metal about her,” said Lily; “and
I don’t see why we are all so mean to her. Every one of us has had
proofs enough of her good-nature.”
“That’s so,” assented a number of voices in accord.
“And, as far as I can see, there’s nothing against her except her
back-country bringing up and her funny way of talking. Why, dear me,
dialect is all the fashion in stories; what makes us despise it so in
real life?”
“Mary Ann is getting over her dialect very fast,” said Addie Mason. “I
don’t think she talks very differently from the rest of us now.”
“No, she does not,” said Lily; “and that makes it all the worse for
me to have written that stuff; and she doesn’t eat with her knife any
more, either.”
“I think the one who put that poetry on Mrs. Abbott’s desk was fifty
times worse than you,” said Bell Burgoyne.
“So do I,” said several who were brave enough to condemn the action,
although it was generally supposed to be Edna who did it.
Her face grew very dark now.
“It’s a great row about nothing,” she said, “and I don’t think girls
who are born ladies ought to be expected to associate with such vulgar
folks.”
“I say again that Mary Ann is not vulgar; and look here, girls, let’s
rechristen her. Half the trouble is in that absurd name, Mary Ann
Stubbs; but we can change her first name to Marion!”
The girls, who were honestly ashamed of the passive or active parts
they had taken on many occasions in persecuting poor Mary Ann, received
the proposal with applause, and by general consent the old name was
dropped, and soon both teachers and scholars said “Marion”--all but
Edna; she could not be persuaded to say any thing but Mary Ann, and,
as a general thing, she took the trouble to use the last name too,
pronouncing Stubbs with a scornful emphasis that was very bitter in its
wearer’s ears.