The months passed. Before Eliza was aware of it, the winter had passed.
They had been strange months, filled with new experiences to the woman.
When twilight fell, Beth had always crawled up into her lap and,
snuggling close, demanded a story.
Eliza had never been fed on stories. She knew absolutely nothing about
them. She had never tried to make up any, for the demand for them had
never come.
"Tory, Adee. Tory, Adee." There was no resisting that little appeal.
There could be no denial for the tender caressing hands, and the sweet
rose-bud mouth.
"What shall I tell about?" asked Eliza pausing for a time.
"Anyfing. F'owers what talk and tell tories; efefants, and Santa Claus
and fings like that."
Eliza gasped for breath. Flowers were the only things she knew about.
She did her best with the material on hand. She told a story of a poppy
which was proud and haughty because its gown was gay and because it
stood high above the other flowers. In its pride it ignored the humble,
modest little violet which could barely raise its head above the sod.
But when the second morning had come, the petals of the poppy lay
scattered. Its glory was gone; but the violet yet smiled up from its
lowly place and gave color to all about it.
"I's booful, Adee. Tell me--a more one."
Eliza put her off. One story at bed time was quite enough. A strange
sensation of thrills had gone through her body while the story had been
growing. She had never believed herself capable of anything half so
fine. She had created something. The sensation of power was tingling
through every nerve and muscle. She did not know it; neither did the
child whose eyelids were closing in slumber; but with this experience
she had crawled from the shell of dead customs, hide-bound, worn-out
ideas and laws. There had been a real self hidden away for many years.
It had never found a way for self-expression until now.
The black silk gown had undergone renovation since the day of the
accident. A new sleeve had replaced the torn one, and the torn breadth
in the skirt had been hidden by a broad fold. It was quite as good as
ever.
The first time Eliza put it on, Beth took exception to it. The child
stood in the middle of the room at a distance from her foster-parent,
and could not be induced to come near her.
"Ug-e, ug-e dwess. Baby don't like ug-e dwess."
"Don't you like Adee's Sunday dress?" asked Eliza. The child shook her
head to and fro, and persisted in calling it "ug-e dwess".
"Then I shall wear another," said Eliza. She made her way upstairs and
Beth toddled after her. Going to the closet, the child began to tug and
pull at a cheap little gown of dimity. Eliza had paid a shilling a yard
for it the season before and had made it for "comfort". But she could
not keep the artist soul from showing in it any more than she could keep
it from showing in the living room and gardens. The neck was just a
little low and the sleeves reached just to the elbow. The ground was
white with sprigs of pale pink roses scattered over it.
"Pitty dwess--pitty dwess," Beth kept repeating. To please her, Eliza
took it down and put it on. She looked at herself in the mirror and was
better pleased with what she saw than she had been with the reflection
of the black-robed figure. While she was dressing, Beth danced about
her, exclaiming with delight at her pretty lady and the pretty dress.
So two things became fixed habits in the new household,--a story before
bedtime and the pretty dresses in place of black.
So the year passed. The Jersey cow, the chickens, the vegetables from
the summer provided for their needs. They needed little money. Wood was
supplied from the trees on Eliza's land.
Beth needed clothes; but her dresses were yet so small that little
material was needed, and the shoes were so tiny that they cost but
little.
Eliza made the little dresses. She went to the Bend for patterns and
material. She even bought a book of styles to see how a child should be
dressed. When she sat in the big living room with needle and thread,
Beth sat beside her sewing diligently at doll clothes, or cutting
fantastic shapes out of paper.
Beth quite fell in love with the pictures in the fashion plates and
selected the finest ones of all as Adee.
"'Is is Adee and 'is is Adee," she would repeat again and again, laying
her finger on the representations of splendid womanhood shown on the
pages.
Eliza began to look beyond the year. She felt now that no one would ever
claim Beth. She would have the child always. She was glad of that. She
would need money to educate her. She would need more each year as the
child grew older. So she watched the pennies closely. She wore shabby
gloves all year in order to lay the money by.
"We'll both need new clothes by summer time," she told herself.
"There'll not be much. We'll get along on little."
Indeed they needed little. The people about them had enough to keep them
warm--and no more. So Eliza and the little girl needed, for the time,
only necessities. The flowers which filled the bay windows; the great
fire-place with its burning, snapping logs; Old Jerry, the cat, who made
up the domestic hearth; Shep, the dog, who played guard to them, and the
stories at twilight were sufficient to develop the cultural, sentimental
side of life.
During the winter, few callers came. The roads were not good. Sometimes
for days the drifts would fill them. It was impossible to go out at
night, for no way was lighted. There were services of some kind each
Sunday morning; Sunday-school and prayer meeting combined. Twice a month
the supply minister came from one of the adjoining towns and held
regular services, yet in spite of being alone, these two were never
lonely.
The following summer, Eliza found that she would find an unexpected
expense in her household account. The sugar box was emptied more quickly
than ever before. Sometimes, she would fill a sugar bowl after the
midday meal and would find it empty before supper time.
Yet Beth did not care for sugar. She would not touch it in her victuals,
if it were there in sufficient amount to be noticeable.
One afternoon, Eliza found Beth standing on a chair before the shelf
which bore the household supplies. Her little fists were crammed with
sugar.
"What are you doing with it, Beth?" asked Eliza.
"I'se feed'n em. Ey wikes it. Tome and see."
She made her way out the back door, crossed the yard and garden to
where, at the border of the woodland, was a slight elevation.
Eliza followed. The slopes of the hill were alive with ants hurrying to
and fro, each carrying a burden. Round about the entrance to the ant
hills, Beth had made a circle of sugar.
"Ey wike it so. Ey is so very hungry." Eliza did not scold her. She
herself had been repressed along such lines when she was a child.
Although she had long since forgotten the experience, the sympathy and
understanding still remained with her.
Later she explained to Beth about not helping herself from the household
store. She compromised, however, by promising to fill, and place where
Beth could reach it, a small tin cup of sugar with which to feed the
ants for the day.
Two years passed in such fashion. There came a time when Beth was
undoubtedly of school age. The township school was a mile or more from
the old Wells place.
Eliza thought little of that. A mile meant little to one accustomed to
walking. She remembered something of the conditions of the school in her
own childhood. She herself had been of such a nature that she had not
been contaminated. Her presence had repudiated all that was not pure and
fine. From the standpoint of a woman, she saw the matters in a different
light. She visited the school several times. Forty children were packed
in one small room. There were classes from primary to grammar grades.
The poor little tots in the chart class sat on hard seats until their
backs ached. At recess and noon--almost all carried their dinners--they
were turned out to play without restraint, the rough and boisterous with
the gentle and timid, the vicious and unruly of older age with the
tractable little folks whose minds were as a sheet of clean paper upon
which no impression had been made.
Miss Eliza decided then that that particular school was not what she
wished for the little girl she was to train for womanhood. For some
months, she had learned all she could of new methods of teaching. For
the first time in her life, she knew that the A, B, C's were out of date
and that children were taught after a different fashion.
The school at the Bend had grown during the last five years. A
supervisor with new ideas, and trained progressive teachers were making
the grades equal to the best in the country. Eliza had heard of the
work. Because she was interested, she had questioned and investigated.
The Bend was too far away for a child of Beth's age to walk alone, but
Eliza was not one to give up easily.
"If the main road's closed against me, I'll find a foot-path or--I'll
break a way through the underbrush," she was accustomed to say. She did
that very thing now.
She visited the primary grades at the Bend. She sat an entire afternoon
drinking in everything she could about teaching children. When the
pupils were dismissed, she talked long with Miss Davis.
This teacher, who thought only of the help she might be to the child,
copied the work she had laid out for the month, gave a first reader and
slate to Miss Eliza, and explained how "Willie has a slate" should be
taught for the first lesson.
Eliza started in her work. At the close of each month she visited Miss
Davis and copied the teacher's plan for the next four weeks. So the
second year of Beth's life with Miss Eliza passed. The child learned the
numbers to twelve. She knew the stories which the first grade children
should know, and she read the reader through from cover to cover. Added
to this was a vocabulary of fifty words which she could write.
Miss Eliza was happy. The child had ability to learn. Eliza had a great
admiration for book knowledge. She had lacked so much in that line
herself. It was the unattainable to her; consequently she put great
value upon it.
Miss Davis and her corps of teachers taught Eliza more than methods in
teaching first grade work. They were fully as old as Eliza herself; but
they wore gowns which were quite up-to-date. They arranged their hair to
bring out the very best of their features.
They talked about skating and literary clubs, and calls, and afternoon
teas. One had even gone out with her pupils and coasted down hill, and
not one was shocked or even thrilled when she related it.
Eliza listened. She was not a dullard. To use the vernacular of
Shintown, "Eliza Wells was no one's fool, in spite of her queer old
ways." Her queer old way was loving flowers, giving artistic touch to
the dullest places.
She showed her best qualities now in listening and culling the best from
these teachers whose opportunities were broader and whose lives were
fuller than hers had been.
They found her enjoyable; for she had a quaint wit, and a refined,
gentle manner.
That night when she went home to Beth, she cuddled her close in her
arms.
"What story to-night, Adee dear?" was the first question.
"A make-believe story which is really true," she said.
Beth gave a little sigh of satisfaction. The make-believe stories which
were true were better even than fairy stories which never can be true.
This was the story she told:
_The Wood Baby_.
Once upon a time, the angels brought from heaven a little child and
placed her in a little house in the woods and gave her a plain old
farmer and his wife as parents.
The hut in which they lived was small--only four bare walls, a door and
a window. It was night when the angel carried the child to its new home.
The child was asleep. It lay in slumber in the arms of its mother. The
neighbor folk came and looked at it, and spoke dolefully of the cold,
unpleasant world into which it had come.
The child awakened, but it did not open its eyes. It lay and listened.
"It's only a poor bare hut with smoke-covered walls that I have to give
as a home for my baby," the mother was saying.
"It will find only work and trouble here," a neighbor wailed. "It's a
hard, hard life."
The baby heard, and being nothing but a baby and knowing nothing of the
world, believed what it heard. It grew as the days and months passed.
The time came for it to walk, but it would only creep upon the floor. It
would not raise itself on its feet to look from the window. It would not
open its eyes. It had never done so since the night that the angel had
carried it to its new home.
Years passed. The baby, now a woman in years, moved about between the
four walls which its great-grandparents had built. Yet she opened not
her eyes; she never let a ray of light enter.
"What is the use?" she told herself. "Is not the world dark and
miserable and barren? Why should I look at anything which is so
painfully homely? As to walking, why should I take the trouble? I cannot
go beyond this hut which my great-grandparents built. Creeping will do
very well."
Then one morning something happened.----
Eliza paused in her story. She knew what effect it would have on her
listener. Beth immediately sat bolt upright with her eyes brimming with
interest and curiosity.
"What happened?" she cried. She gave a little gasp for breath, she could
wait no longer.
"Something happened," continued Eliza. "It was a beautiful morning, but
the woman did not know it. Suddenly she heard a song of a bird at her
door. She did not know it was a bird; but the sound was sweet, alluring,
enticing. She listened an instant. Then she got upon her feet and
hurried to the door and flung it wide open.
"A wonderful sight met her eyes. A world, a glorious world with ripening
grain, exquisite coloring of flowers, soft breezes laden with the most
delicate perfume, and the song of birds everywhere."
"And then--then what did she do?" asked Beth.
"For a time, she stood and felt sorry for herself that she had kept
herself blind for so long. Then she said, 'But here is all this beauty
for me to enjoy--me and the little song-bird which made me open my
eyes.' Then she took the bird in her hand and held it close up to her
cheek, and went with it out into the beauty of the world, and the little
bird sang all the while."
"O-o-h," sighed Beth. "That is beautiful. Who was the baby the angels
brought. Who was the woman? Did you know them?"
"I was both the babe and the woman, and you the little song-bird that
called me out to see the sunshine and hear the music."