MAUDE.
If Maude's mother could have looked into the school and watched her
little daughter for a day, I am sure she would have found it hard to
believe that she was the same child as the selfish, self-willed little
girl, who had made every one else miserable as well as herself if she
could not have her own way when she was at home.
School life was very hard for Maude in a great many ways, and she had
been more homesick than any of the other girls,--not so much because
she wanted to see her father and mother as because she wanted to go
where she could have her own way and do as she pleased.
All her life she had been accustomed to having her own way, and after
such training it was very hard for her to submit to the same rules to
which the other girls had to submit, and to obey her teachers. It was
a new experience to her to find that her fine clothes did not win for
her any esteem, and that unless she showed herself kind and obliging to
her schoolmates, they did not care to have anything to do with her.
It was not altogether Maude's fault that she had been so selfish; it
was partly because she had never been taught to be unselfish, and she
had grown so used to putting herself and her own comfort before that of
every one else, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to
do, and she was surprised when every one else did not do so too.
Nothing could have been better for her than to come to this quiet home
school, where she could find a friend who would take the trouble to
help her correct her faults as Mrs. Boardman did.
Maude had never really loved any one before in all her life. She had
valued others only for what they did for her, but now she was learning
to love from a better reason than that. She really tried to please
Mrs. Boardman by obeying the rules and trying to study her lessons, and
though it was hard for her to keep up with her class, Mrs. Boardman
encouraged her because she could see that Maude was really doing her
best.
If Maude grew discouraged, and began to think that it was of no use for
her to try to learn, that she would never be able to learn her lessons
and get up to the head of any of her classes, Mrs. Boardman would tell
her how much she had improved since she first came, and encourage her
to try again.
For the first few weeks Maude found herself frequently in disgrace. It
seemed almost impossible for her to understand that she must obey
without arguing the point, and that she must not be quarrelsome nor
selfish in her intercourse with the other scholars. If Maude had been
in a large school where she would not have had any one to help her, she
might not have improved so much; but in this little school, where it
was more like a family than a boarding-school, she was helped to
conquer herself just as wisely as she could have been by a wise mother.
When at last she really learned that no one cared for her father's
money nor her mother's servants, nor her own jewelry, which she was not
allowed to wear, and had to content herself with exhibiting, she began
to wish that there was something about herself which should win the
love of her schoolmates.
She had made such an unpleasant impression upon them at first that they
were not very anxious to make friends with her, but as they saw that
she was really trying to make herself pleasant, they were more willing
to invite her to join in their games and share their amusements.
She did not talk so much about her possessions, and tried to care more
about others and their happiness. But all this was hard work. It is
not an easy matter to be selfish and wilful and then all at once become
thoughtful of others, and of their comfort; and many and many a night
Maude sobbed herself to sleep, quite discouraged with the efforts she
had to make to do things that seemed to come as a matter of course to
the other girls.
Mrs. Boardman had grown to love the lonely little girl, when she saw
how much she needed a friend, and how grateful she was for the kindness
which was shown her; and sometimes she would ask Miss Chapman to let
Maude spend the night with her, when she found that the little girl was
very homesick and discouraged.
Perhaps because she had never known before what it was to have a friend
who really wanted to help her make the most of herself, Maude loved
Mrs. Boardman with all her heart, and she really tried and kept on
trying, so that she should not disappoint the one who took so much
interest in her.
Mrs. Boardman could see how the little girl improved from one week to
another, and though there was still much room for improvement, and it
might take months and perhaps years to undo the effect of Maude's early
training in selfishness, yet there was a great deal that was very sweet
and lovable in her character, hidden away under all the dross; and Mrs.
Boardman knew that if she kept on trying to improve, some day she would
be a very sweet girl, and one who would win love from all around her.
Every hour Maude learned something that was of use to her, for she had
much more to learn than many of her schoolmates. In the first place
she had always thought that work was something that belonged only to
servants, and that a lady would not know how to do anything about the
house; but here Miss Chapman insisted upon each little girl's caring
for her own room, and insisted that the work should be carefully and
well done, and the general feeling among the girls was that it was
something to be proud of when their rooms won commendation from Mrs.
Boardman.
Maude no longer felt that it was a disgrace to be obliged to make her
own bed, but on the contrary, she took a great deal of pride in making
it so well that when Mrs. Boardman went around to look at the rooms
after the girls had gone into school, she could find nothing to
reprove, but on the contrary could leave a little card with "Good"
upon the pillow.
Once a week there was a cooking-class which the girls attended in turn,
and Maude was as proud as any of the other girls could have been upon
the day when she made a plate of nice light biscuit all by herself, for
supper; and she looked forward with a good deal of pleasure to the time
when she should show her mother how much she could do.
Miss Chapman did not believe in education making little girls useless
at home, but she tried to have them taught practical things as well as
the more ornamental ones, for she wanted them to grow up useful as well
as accomplished women.
So the scholars learned to sweep and dust, to make beds, and bread and
cake, while they studied their other lessons; and when they went home
in vacation times their mothers found them very useful little maids.
Maude had not made any special friends among the girls. In her time
out of school hours she stayed with Mrs. Boardman as much as she could,
and her teacher was very kind about letting the little girl come to her
room whenever she wanted to, and curl up in the big rocking-chair and
watch Mrs. Boardman as she sat by the window in her low sewing-chair
and did the piles of mending which accumulated every week.
The boxes of cake and candy which Maude had been so anxious that her
mother should send her were not permitted to any of the scholars at
Miss Chapman's school. Perhaps one reason why they were so well, and
the doctor seldom, if ever, paid any of them, a visit, was because they
ate such good, wholesome food and were not allowed to spoil their
appetites with candy.
Once a week they had candy, and then it seemed all the nicer because it
was such a treat. A little old woman kept a candy store some little
distance down the street, and the girls were allowed to go down there
Saturday mornings and buy five cents' worth of candy. This little old
woman was quite famous among the scholars for her molasses cocoanut
candy, and they almost always bought that kind of candy.
As Ruby said to her Aunt Emma after she had been to school a few
Saturdays,--
"It looks very nice, and is good, and then you get more of it for five
cents than any other kind of candy, so it is really the best kind to
buy, you see."
The old woman always expected Miss Chapman's young ladies every
Saturday, and had nice little bags of candy all tied up, ready for
them, so that she should not keep them waiting; and if the day was
stormy, and she knew that they would not be allowed to go out, she took
a covered basketful of candy-bags up to the school, that they might
make their purchases there.
Saturday morning was a very pleasant one at school. There was a short
study hour, which was really a half-hour, and then the girls wrote
letters home, or visited each other in their rooms.
In the afternoon they put on their very best dresses, and had a nicer
supper than usual, and almost every Saturday evening the minister and
his wife came and took that meal with them.
He was not at all like the minister Ruby had known at home all her
life, and whenever she looked at him, she wondered how it was possible
for so young a man to be a minister. He never asked any of the girls
whether they knew the catechism or not, and Ruby was quite disappointed
at this, though I do not think any of the other girls wanted to say it.
Ruby was so sure that she knew it perfectly, even the longest and
hardest answers, that she was always glad of a chance to show how well
she knew it. Perhaps if the others had known it as well, they might
have been willing to say it, but as it was, they were quite satisfied
that he never asked for it; and Maude, who did not know a word of it,
and who had all she could do to learn what her teachers required of
her, would have been quite discouraged, I am afraid, if the recitation
of the catechism each week had been added to her other tasks.