LEARNING.
I suppose you can hardly fancy a school where little girls were not
allowed to wear their hair as they liked; where they had to courtesy to
teachers when they left the room; and, what was still more surprising,
had to eat whatever was given to them at the table. I think that such
a school would seem so very old-fashioned nowadays that no little girls
could be found who would be willing to go to it, and even in those days
there were very few like it.
The dear old Quaker lady, Miss Chapman, taught the little girls to do
just as she herself had been taught to do when she were a little girl;
so you can easily imagine that her ways was not quite the ways of other
teachers. And yet, since her scholars were as healthy, happy,
rosy-cheeked little girls as you could find anywhere, I do not know
that any one could complain that her ways were not very good ways.
They seemed very strange to new scholars sometimes, if they had
attended other schools where the rules were not so strict; but they
very soon grew used to them, and then they did not mind them at all,
and were very happy.
If Maude had not been sitting by her friend, Mrs. Boardman, perhaps she
would have made a great fuss at dinner-time about eating the piece of
sweet potato which had been served to her.
She did not like sweet potato, and she liked the idea of having to eat
it, whether she wanted it or not, still less, and the clouds began to
gather on her face. She glanced about the table, and saw that Ruby was
having a hard time, trying to eat a dish which she did not like, and
that some of the other girls did not look very happy when they heard
the rule.
Mrs. Boardman whispered a few encouraging words to Maude, and the
little girl reflected that as long as she had really tried to be good
about some other things, she might as well try to be good about this
rule, too, and so she managed to eat the small piece of potato without
saying anything about not liking it. After the girls had eaten the
portion which was put upon their plates the first time, they were at
liberty to decline any more for that meal; so you may be sure that
Maude did not take any more.
"Don't let me forget to tell you about a boy I heard about who had to
eat something he did n't like, and came very near having to make his
whole dinner upon it," whispered Mrs. Boardman. "I don't think you can
imagine how it happened, and you can think about it while you are
eating your potato. See, it is only a little piece, and it will soon
be gone. If I were in your place, I would eat it all up first, and
then you will enjoy the rest of your dinner more when you do not have
it to think about."
Ruby did not so very much mind anything that she had to eat at dinner;
but two mornings in the week, Tuesday and Friday, there was always
egg-plant for breakfast, and for some weeks Ruby would think about it
all the day before, and talk about it the day after, until Aunt Emma
told her that she might as well eat eggplant for every meal every day,
she thought and talked so much about it.
"But I do hate it so," Ruby would say. "I don't see the use in having
to eat what one does n't like. I just can't bear it, Aunt Emma."
"But you will learn to like it after a while," Aunt Emma said. "Miss
Chapman thinks that little girls ought to learn to like everything that
is put before them, and she tries to have a pleasant variety, and not
have anything that the girls will dislike. You will see how much
easier it will be to eat your piece of egg plant in two or three weeks."
"And it just seems as if I always did get the very largest piece of
all," Ruby said in despair. "This morning you had a little teenty
piece and mine was twice as large."
"That was so you would have twice as much practice in learning to like
it, I suppose," Aunt Emma said with a smile.
After dinner was over there was a half-hour for play and then the
school-bell rang, and the girls went back into the school-room. Some
of them took music lessons, and they went one at a time to take a
lesson in the parlor from Miss Emma.
Ruby was to take music lessons, to her great delight. She had been
sure that it would be very easy, and she was quite disappointed when
she found how much she would have to learn before she could play as her
aunt did.
When school was over for the afternoon, at four o'clock, Ruby breathed
a long sigh of relief. The day had seemed a very long one to her,
though it had been very pleasant, and it seemed as if it could not be
possible that only yesterday at this time she had been on her way to
school.
"What do we do next?" asked Ruby of one of her schoolmates, as they
went into the house together.
"We all go out together for a walk," answered the little girl. "Will
you walk with me to-day? I will come to your room as soon as I am
ready."
"All right," Ruby answered, and she ran upstairs to her own room, to
put on her hat and jacket.
Every pleasant day the girls were taken out for a walk, and the
teachers took turns in going with them. To-day Mrs. Boardman was going
to take them, and Maude was very glad, because she had obtained
permission to walk with her. All the girls were very fond of Mrs.
Boardman, and they would obtain her promise to walk with them so many
days ahead that she could hardly remember all the promises she had made.
When they were all ready they started out, Ruby and Agnes Van Kirk at
the head of the little procession and Maude and Mrs. Boardman at the
end.
Ruby felt very important as she looked up at the window and waved
good-by to her aunt. It was great fun going out to walk this way, with
a whole string of girls behind her, instead of going down the road with
a hop and a skip and a jump to Ruthy's house. If Ruthy could only be
here, and if at night she could kiss her mother and father good-night,
Ruby was quite sure that she would think boarding-school quite the
nicest place in the world.
They had a very pleasant walk. They went down the winding road,
bordered upon either side with wide-reaching elm-trees, and then turned
down towards the river. After they reached the path that wound beside
the water Mrs. Boardman let the girls break their ranks, and run about
and gather some of the wild flowers and feathery grasses that grew
there in such profusion.
Ruby gathered a beautiful bunch of plumy golden-rod for her Aunt Emma,
and when she went to look for Agnes, she displayed it triumphantly.
"Just see what a beautiful bunch of goldenrod I have," she exclaimed in
delight. "Won't Aunt Emma be pleased? But have n't you got any
flowers, Agnes? Why, what have you been doing? I thought you were
looking for flowers too."
Agnes opened a paper bag, which she had loosely twisted together at the
top, and which seemed to be empty, and said,--
"No, I did not get any flowers, but just see what a beautiful
caterpillar I have. Is n't that lovely?"
Ruby peeped into the bag, and saw a large mottled caterpillar walking
about upon a leaf, apparently wondering where he was, and doubtless
thinking that the sun had gone under a cloud, since he could not see it
anywhere.
"Is n't he a beauty?" repeated Agnes, in delighted tones, taking
another look at her prisoner herself, and then twisting the bag
together again.
Ruby hesitated. She did not like to say that she thought it was the
very ugliest caterpillar she had ever seen, and that if Agnes really
wanted a caterpillar she would have thought that one of the fat brown
ones that she could find anywhere around the school would have been
nicer, and yet Agnes seemed to admire it so much she really felt as if
she ought to say something.
"Well," she said at last, as she found that Agnes was waiting for her,
"I think it is certainly one of the biggest caterpillars I ever saw.
What are you going to do with it? I don't see what you like
caterpillars for."
"Oh, it is n't for myself," Agnes answered. "It is for Miss Ketchum.
She is very fond of studying about bugs and caterpillars and everything
of that kind, and nothing makes her quite as happy as to have a nice
new caterpillar to watch."
"What does she do with them?" asked Ruby.
"She puts them in little boxes with thin muslin over the top, or
mosquito netting, so that she can look through and watch them, and she
feeds them every day with leaves or something else that they like, and
then after a while they spin themselves all up into cocoons, and go to
sleep, and then by and by a beautiful butterfly comes out. Oh, Miss
Ketchum just loves caterpillars."
"I wish I had a caterpillar for her," said Ruby. "Well, I will get one
for her the very next time I see one, as long as she likes them so
much. I never heard of any one liking caterpillars before, though, did
you?"
"No, I don't know as I did," said Agnes. "But I think I shall like
them very much too before long, for I like to watch the butterflies
come out, and I like to keep looking out for new caterpillars. I don't
think I would like to bother taking care of them as Miss Ketchum does,
but perhaps I won't mind that after a while. She has such a nice book
about them."
Miss Ketchum was very much pleased with the new specimen when Agnes
gave it to her, after the girls got home from their walk, and Ruby
looked with great interest at the little boxes in which captive
caterpillars were walking about, apparently feeling at home and very
happy as they nibbled at their nice fresh leaves, or sunned themselves
upon the netting.
"Isn't Miss Ketchum nice?" said Agnes, as the girls went up to their
own rooms. "Some of the girls don't like her as well as they do the
other teachers, but I do. She is always so kind about helping one with
lessons, and she never gets cross unless she has one of her bad
headaches, and then I should think she would be cross, for the girls
tease her. She was so kind to me when I first came that I just love to
get her caterpillars or do anything else I can for her."
"She was so glad to get that new one, was n't she?" said Ruby. "I will
help you get some for her, Agnes, the very next time we go out walking.
We will walk together, and then we can both watch for them."
"That will be ever so nice," said Agnes. "You see most of the girls
make fun of Miss Ketchum because she wears those little curls on her
forehead, and is absent-minded sometimes, and likes caterpillars so
much, and it will please her ever so much if you like her, and help her
instead of laughing at her."
It had not occurred to Ruby before that she could please any of the
teachers by showing them little kindnesses and being thoughtful of
them, and she remembered remorsefully how she had laughed during recess
when one of the girls had drawn on her slate a funny caricature of Miss
Ketchum, with the two little curls that she wore on each side of her
forehead standing up like ears, and her glasses on crookedly. She made
up her mind that she would never laugh at her teacher again, but try to
help her in every way she could by being good herself and setting
others a good example.