AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE
It was scarcely dusk on Saturday when Lucas drove into the side yard
at Hillcrest with the ponies hitched to a double-seated buckboard.
Entertainments begin early in the rural districts.
The ponies had been clipped and looked less like animated cowhide trunks
than they had when the Bray girls had first seen them and their young
master in Bridleburg.
"School teacher came along an' maw made Sairy go with him in his buggy,"
exclaimed Lucas, with a broad grin. "If Sairy don't ketch a feller 'fore
long, an' clamp to him, 'twon't be maw's fault."
Lucas was evidently much impressed by the appearance of Lyddy and 'Phemie
when they locked the side door and climbed into the buckboard. Because of
their mother's recent death the girls had dressed very quietly; but their
black frocks were now very shabby, it was coming warmer weather, and the
only dresses they owned which were fit to wear to an evening function of
any kind were those that they had worn "for best" the year previous.
But the two girls from the city had no idea they would create such a
sensation as they did when Lucas pulled in the ponies with a flourish
and stopped directly before the door of the schoolhouse.
The building was already lighted up and there was quite an assemblage of
young men and boys about the two front entrances. On the girls' porch,
too, a number of the feminine members of the Temperance Club were grouped,
and with them Sairy Pritchett.
Her own arrival with the schoolmaster had been an effective one and she
had waited with the other girls to welcome the newcomers from Hillcrest
Farm, and introduce them to her more particular friends.
But the Bray girls looked as though they were from another sphere. Not
that their frocks were so fanciful in either design or material; but there
was a style about them that made the finery of the other girls look both
cheap and tawdry.
"So _them_ stuck-up things air goin' to live 'round here; be they?"
whispered one rosy-cheeked, buxom farmer's daughter to Sairy
Pritchett--and her whisper carried far. "Well, I tell you right now I
don't like their looks. See that Joe Badger; will you? He's got to
help 'em down out o' Lucas's waggin'; has he? Well, I declare!"
"An' Hen Jackson, too!" cried another girl, shrilly. "They'd let airy one
of us girls fall out on our heads."
"Huh!" said Sairy, airily, "if you can't keep Joe an' Hen from shinin'
around every new gal that comes to the club, I guess you ain't caught 'em
very fast."
"He, he!" giggled another. "Sairy thinks she's hooked the school teacher
all right, and that he won't get away from her."
"Cat!" snapped Miss Pritchett, descending the steps in her most stately
manner to meet her new friends.
"Cat yourself!" returned the other. "I guess you'll show your claws, Miss,
if you have a chance."
Perhaps Sairy did not hear all of this; and surely the Bray girls did
not. Sairy Pritchett was rather proud of counting these city girls as
her particular friends. She welcomed Lydia and Euphemia warmly.
"I hope Lucas didn't try to tip you into the brook again, Miss Bray,"
Sairy giggled to 'Phemie. "Oh, yes! Miss Lydia Bray, Mr. Badger; Mr.
Jackson, Miss Bray. And this is Miss Euphemia, Mr. Badger--_and_ Mr.
Jackson.
"Now, that'll do very well, Joe--and Hen. You go 'tend to your own girls;
we can git on without you."
Sairy deliberately led the newcomers into the schoolhouse by the boys'
entrance, thus ignoring the girls who had roused her ire. She introduced
Lyddy and 'Phemie right and left to such of the young fellows as were not
too bashful.
Sairy suddenly arrived at the conclusion that to pilot the sisters from
Hillcrest about would be "good business." The newcomers attracted the
better class of young bachelors at the club meeting and Sairy--heretofore
something of a "wall flower" on such occasions--found herself the very
centre of the group.
Lyddy and 'Phemie were naturally a little disturbed by the prominent
position in which they were placed by Sairy's manoeuvring; but, of
course, the sisters had been used to going into society, and Lyddy's
experience at college and her natural sedateness of character enabled
her to appear to advantage. As for the younger girl, she was so much
amused by Sairy, and the others, that she quite forgot to feel confused.
Indeed, she found that just by looking at most of these young men, and
smiling, she could throw them into spasms of self-consciousness. They
were almost as bad as Lucas Pritchett, and Lucas was getting to be such a
good friend now that 'Phemie couldn't really enjoy making him feel unhappy.
She was, indeed, particularly nice to him when young Pritchett struggled
to her side after the girls were settled in adjoining seats, half-way up
the aisle on the "girls' side" of the schoolroom.
These young girls and fellows had--most of them--attended the district
school, or were now attending it; therefore, they were used to being
divided according to the sexes, and those boys who actually had not
accompanied their girlfriends to the club meeting, sat by themselves
on the boys' side, while the girls grouped together on the other side
of the house.
There were a few young married couples present, and these matrons made
their husbands sit beside them during the exercises; but for a young man
and young girl to sit together was almost a formal announcement in that
community that they "had intentions!"
All this was quite unsuspected by Lyddy and 'Phemie Bray, and the latter
had no idea of the joy that possessed Lucas Pritchett's soul when she
allowed him to take the seat beside her.
Her sister sat at her other hand, and Sairy was beyond Lyddy. No other
young fellow could get within touch of the city girls, therefore, although
there was doubtless many a swain who would have been glad to do so.
This club, the fundamental idea of which was "temperance," had gradually
developed into something much broader. While it still demanded a
pledge from its members regarding abstinence from alcoholic beverages,
including the bane of the countryside--hard cider--its semimonthly
meetings were mainly of a literary and musical nature.
The reigning school teacher for the current term was supposed to take
the lead in governing the club and pushing forward the local talent.
Mr. Somers was the name of the young man with the bald brow and the
eyeglasses, who was presiding over the welfare of Pounder's District
School. The Bray girls thought he seemed to be an intelligent and
well-mannered young man, if a trifle self-conscious.
And he evidently had an element that was difficult to handle.
Soon after the meeting was called to order it became plain that a group
of boys down in the corner by the desk were much more noisy than was
necessary.
The huge stove, by which the room was overheated, was down there, its
smoke-pipe crossing, in a L-shaped figure, the entire room to the chimney
at one side, and it did seem as though none of those boys could move
without kicking their boots against this stove.
These uncouth noises interfered with the opening address of the teacher
and punctuated the "roll call" by the secretary, who was a small, almost
dwarf-like young man, out of whose mouth rolled the names of the members
in a voice that fairly shook the casements. Such a thunderous tone from
so puny a source was in itself amazing, and convulsed 'Phemie.
"Ain't he got a great voice?" asked Lucas, in a whisper. "He sings bass in
the church choir and sometimes, begum! ye can't hear nawthin' but Elbert
Hooker holler."
"Is _that_ his name?" gasped 'Phemie.
"Yep. Elbert Hooker. 'Yell-bert' the boys call him. He kin sure holler
like a bull!"
And at that very moment, as the bombastic Elbert was subsiding and the
window panes ceased from rattling with the reverberations of his voice,
one of the boys in the corner fell more heavily than before against the
stove--or, it might have been Elbert Hooker's tones had shaken loose the
joints of stovepipe that crossed the schoolroom; however, there was a
yell from those down front, the girls scrambled out of the way, the smoke
began to spurt from between the joints, and it was seen that only the
wires fastened to the ceiling kept the soot-laden lengths of pipe from
falling to the floor.