his pipe slowly. "We talked over hunting up another teacher to take the
place of the one the Dutchman hired."
"She isn't coming?" asked the little girl.
"No, she isn't coming; she's going to take a school near Sioux Falls,"
he answered crossly. "I'm tired of these teachers that pretend to the
little schools away off nowhere that they're ready to take them, when
all the while they've got their eyes peeled for a school near town. So
I've proposed to the committee that we get some one about here to take
the school--some one that won't fail us, and that can handle my young
ones, the two little chaps from the West Fork, and one or two of the
Dutchman's. That's about all the scholars there'll be this term. What do
you think about it?"
"I--I should think it would be all right," she faltered, churning so
hard that the froth climbed up the dasher, carrying pieces of fresh
butter with it and leaving them midway on the handle.
"I should think so, too," said the new settler; "and that's about the
way we fixed it up. And--well, we thought we'd offer it to you."
She got up, her color coming and going swiftly, and stood before him.
"To _me_?" she asked. "Do you mean it?"
He assented by a nod.
"Oh, it's too good to be true," she went on. "I can hardly believe it."
She began to laugh tearfully. "You see, I've--I've--" Then, at sight of
the braid lying over her shoulder, she put up her hands and gathered her
hair into a knot. "I'll take it," she said.
"Glad of that," answered the new settler, cheerily, and, with a glance
at the handle of the dasher, "I think that butter's come."
* * * * *
IT was just a week later when she rode south and took charge of the
school. The day was full of joy and misgivings. She was happy when,
with one of the new settler's babies before the chart, she could point
out the very lines the Yankton man had shown her, and hear the little
one striving to lisp and learn them. She was filled with doubts when,
having dismissed a class, the pupils looked back at her from their
seats, some mockingly, she thought, others with laughing eyes that
challenged hers. But at four o'clock, when, at the tap of the hand-bell,
they cleared their desks and sat straight with folded arms, they seemed
to have gotten over the novelty of her supervision, and marched out,
with good-bys as they passed the teacher's table, just as they had in
former terms. She rode home, feeling that her work was well begun.
The first six weeks of the term passed without incident. There had
sprung up a complete understanding between her and the children, and her
affection for them was returned with gratifying respect. Then, one
Monday morning, there entered a disturbing element.
A Polish woman, whose husband had moved his family down from Pierre to
occupy the Irishman's shack, came to the school, bringing her son, a
gawky, hangdog lad of twelve. While she recited a long account of his
past experiences with teachers, and dictated her wishes as to his
treatment by the little girl, he acted as interpreter. When she finally
departed, with admonitions and sidewise wags of the head, he shuffled
defiantly to a desk.
He occupied his first hour in slyly flipping wet-paper wads at a picture
of Shakspere pinned above him on the wall. The little girl, who was well
versed in all school tricks from her years of sitting in a rear seat,
knew what he was doing, but hesitated to speak to him. At last, seeing
that he was attracting the attention of all the other children, she sent
him to the blackboard to copy his spelling ten times.
By ingenious counting he soon completed his work, and then began to draw
pipe-stem men for the Dutchman's youngest to giggle at. He was sent back
to his desk, where he spent the time in wriggling his ears.
The little girl saw that trouble was before her,--saw, too, that her
position would be imperiled if she failed in her discipline. That night,
when the biggest brother helped her to get supper and make the beds, she
shared her fears with him.
"It's one thing to get a school," she said sorrowfully, as he tried to
comfort her; "it's another to keep it."
But next day she called the pupils to order cheerfully.
It was evident that the young Pole had been well discussed by the
children. They watched him constantly to see what new prank he was
preparing for their entertainment. He swaggered under their astonished
gaze, and insolently made requests aloud without raising his hand for
permission to speak. Just before recess, upon chancing to glance his
way, the little girl caught him tossing a note over to the other side of
the room.
She suddenly came to a halt beside his desk, and anger, strange and
almost unreasonable, possessed her. It flashed into her mind that before
her, ignorant, slouchy, indifferent, was one who, by his mischief,
threatened to deprive her of what her mother and the biggest brother had
long desired, what she herself yearned after with all the earnestness of
her soul. She could scarcely refrain from attempting to send him off
then and there! She trembled with indignation. Meeting her eyes for a
moment, he saw a dangerous glint in them, and for the rest of the
morning was more circumspect.
But at noon, a full dinner, a lazy hour, and the ill-concealed
admiration of the other children put him again into a mean mood. He got
out of line in marching, and pulled the hair of one of the little
fellows from the West Fork. The little girl passed the afternoon with
her eyes upon him. When he went so far that the school was interrupted,
she walked toward him and gave him some task, or stayed beside his desk
while she was hearing a class. But though in a measure it kept him in
subjection, her power over the others, she found, was being woefully
lessened, and her discipline destroyed. At dismissal she took up her hat
and pail with a weariness that was not physical, but of the spirit, and
rode home, bowed and silent.
But, unknown to her, the Polish boy defeated his own evil ends that same
evening, and solved to her satisfaction, and to that of the committee
and the scholars, the question of her rule.
He was sent to the Swede's to inquire after a turkey that his mother
thought had strayed up the river and nested near the reservation road;
and, in asking after the hen, he departed from his errand long enough to
boast to the Swede boy of his fun at the school-house. The latter
listened to him eagerly, though quietly, grinned slyly once or twice
during the story, and at the close of it remarked, with his finger on
his nose, that he thought he had better go back to school again himself.
The following morning, when she entered, to her surprise, the little
girl found him seated in the back of the room, his lunch in a newspaper
beside him, his books in a strap at his feet. "Ay kome tow lairn again,"
he said, and then waited until she assigned him a desk.
He was so interested in the little girl that, for the first hour after
school was called, he forgot to watch the young Pole. Everywhere she
moved, he kept his eyes upon her. If she caught his glance, she saw in
it only pride and encouragement and was content.
But the young Pole, seeing that the Swede boy did not look at him,
became piqued at last and set about gaining not only the attention of
the new pupil, but of the entire school. He rummaged his pockets for a
bean-shooter, and, finding one, proceeded to let the dry beans fly,
snapping them loudly against the benches.
The anger, resentment, and mortification on the little girl's face at
his audacity made the Swede boy squirm in his seat. But he said nothing,
seemed not to watch the bean-shooting, and bided his time.
At last, interrupted in her teaching and goaded to the point of rebuke,
the little girl dismissed a class and, rising in her chair, called the
school to attention. "I am sorry to have to speak to any one before the
rest," she said, her face white, her voice almost gone with excitement;
"but I must have order." She looked straight at the young Pole.
He scraped his feet and smirked at her, at the same time flipping a bean
from between his thumb and finger. It struck the stove with a sharp ring
that brought the Swede boy to his feet. His hand was raised to attract
her attention. She nodded.
The Swede boy lowered his arm very slowly, looking about him with an air
of deprecation. "Ay doan know," he said in a low voice, "eef yo theenk
like me. Bote she"--he pointed to the little girl--"komes, takes th'
skole, lairns us. We bay gote to pay hair back." He shifted till he
stood over the young Pole. "So eef somebodey no bay gote," he added,
with a threatening note in his voice, _"ay make hame_." Then he sank to
his seat again, having for the second time in that school-room saved her
from bitter humiliation.
The next morning the school-house withstood its last throe. At ten
o'clock, in the midst of a reading-lesson, there entered the young
Pole's father. His ox-gad was in his hand; he did not remove his hat,
but strode forward to the teacher's desk, sputtering broken English.
When he came near, he shook his empty fist so close to the little girl
that she caught the scent of hay on it, for he had been throwing down
feed to his cattle.
"No touch my flesh unt blut," he cried savagely; "no touch my flesh unt
blut."
A half-recumbent figure in the rear, whose pale eyes rested upon her,
gave the little girl courage. "No one has been touched," she replied.
"But if the school is made noisy by a pupil, then that pupil will be
punished, or will leave."
The Pole raised his gad with a grunt of rage. "Eh?" he shouted, cursing
in his own tongue. He nourished his arms and stamped up and down wildly.
Of a sudden he saw the Swede boy, who had come forward and halted beside
the table. His gaze fell before the pale, half-shut eyes, his voice
lowered, and he ceased to swing his whip and swear. Then he hedged
adroitly, speaking in broken English again and giving quick looks at the
Swede boy's huge, red hands, that hung, clenched and twitching, on
either side of his stalwart person.
"I hav-v no trouble wid you," he said to the little girl, his manner
changing to one of apology, "bud I lick my boy mineself," and he moved
down the aisle and disappeared through the door.
His son gazed after him in amazement and disgust, gave a sniff of
contempt, and replied to the triumphant look on the little girl's face
by extracting his geography and going to work. He played his pranks no
more, and the term passed peaceably, under the mental guidance of the
little girl and the physical overlordship of the Swede boy.
* * * * *
ON the afternoon of the last day of school, when her pupils had said
their good-bys and were straying homeward laden with their books and
slates, the little girl stayed behind. And, sitting in the very place to
which in former years she had raised reverent eyes, she looked round the
building, every crack and corner of which had its memory.
On the bench by the door, close beside the leaky water-bucket, was the
same battered, greasy basin in which the neighbor woman's daughter had
placed a horse-hair one day, stoutly maintaining that in due time the
hair would miraculously turn into a worm.
The broken pointer reminded her of a certain fierce encounter when,
having confided to one of the Dutchman's seven that on the previous
Sunday the farm-house had partaken of a dish of canned frogs' legs, she
had been hailed in return as "Miss Chinaman," and the teacher had closed
the event by routing her tormentors.
She thought of the morning the Dutch children first came in leather
shoes, an occasion recalled by the pencil-marks behind the chart, where
she had stood her punishment for too much smiling.
The stove-poker brought back the terrible moment she had dared to put
her tongue against it in the icy school-room, and had had to sit with
the iron cleaving to her until the teacher warmed some water.
The peg above the coal-bins reminded her of the winter day when she
took down the well-rope and tied it to the faithful Luffree's collar, so
that, with his keener, finer instinct for direction, he could lead
teacher and pupils through a blizzard to the safety of the farm-house.
She was suddenly awakened from her day-dreams by the sound of galloping.
A horseman was approaching from the direction of the farm-house, and she
hurried to the door to see who it could be. As he came near, she ran out
joyfully to meet him. It was the colonel's son.
"They told me you were here," he cried, springing from his saddle. She
could scarcely answer him for sheer happiness, and when he brought out
her mount and they started away through the twilight, he leading the
horses, she walked beside him silently.
He told her about his trip, his months at the preparatory school, his
new friends, the wonders of the big city in which he had been living,
hardly taking a breath in his excitement as his narrative swept along.
Suddenly he became quiet and bent toward her anxiously, penitently.
"Go on," she urged; "it's fine!"
"But I've forgotten to ask you how you've been and what you've been
doing. Or whether--next year--Of course I wish awfully that you could--"
He faltered, stopped. Then, after a moment, "But you're as brave as can
be to just go right on at this school and let your teacher help you all
she can. It'll all count, you'll find, when you start in studying some
place else."
She laughed merrily. "You haven't heard," she said. Even in the dusk he
could see that her face was beaming.
"Heard what?" he asked.
"That I've been going to school, but--not in the way you think."
He halted in the road. "What do you mean?"
"I've been teaching."
* * * * *
IT was a long way from the school to the farm-house, yet the colonel's
son and the little girl had so much to tell each other that they were
not done even when the lane was reached. So they paused in its gloom,
under the budding ash-boughs. A red-breasted thrush, just returned to
his old haunts, twittered inquiringly at them from a twig above, and the
horses nickered and champed on their bits. But they heard only each
other until, having lighted the lamp in the sitting-room, the biggest
brother strolled toward them, singing a gay love-song.
XIX
TOWARD THE RISING SUN
THE big brothers sat in a sullen circle about the sitting-room table,
the eldest smoking, the biggest studying his fingers, the youngest
whittling jackstraws. Near, silent and troubled, hovered the little
girl, watching the three who, like the Fates themselves, seemed to be
settling her destiny.
"So you don't want her to go," said the biggest, taking up the
discussion where it had been dropped a few moments before; "though you
know it was mother's last wish, an' that the youngster's always wanted
it. Well, your reasons; let's hear 'em again from first to last."
"What'll she do with all this eddication she's hankerin' for?" demanded
the eldest, flashing angry eyes around. "Tell me that."
"Huh!" grunted the biggest, and he threw back his head with a hearty
laugh. "Well! well!" he exclaimed, when he could speak; "_that's_ what's
worrying you, is it! Jus' let me ask _you_ something. Did you ever hear
of anybody in your life that had an eddication fastened on to 'em an'
didn't know what t' do with it? What'll _she_ do with it? Wait till
she's _got_ it. Then she an' me'll sit down an' tell you a-a-all about
it."
There was a note of ridicule in his voice that fired the eldest, who
made no reply, but struck the wooden bowl of his pipe so savagely
against his boot-heel that it split and fell from its stem. Then he
turned upon the youngest with a wave of the hand that commanded an
opinion.
"Yes, what've _you_ got to say?" inquired the biggest, also turning.
The youngest shrugged his shoulders. "You two run the business to suit
yourselves," he said; "I wash my hands of it." He began another
jackstraw without glancing up.
"That's good," said the biggest; "that counts you out." He tilted his
chair around until he faced the eldest. "I'm no dog in the manger," he
continued; "I didn't have a chance to learn more than the law allows, or
to go to a city school. But I wanted to, bad enough. That's why I know
how _she_ feels." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the little
girl. "I'm for her goin'; an', whatever comes of it, I'll stand by her.
Books is all she wants--let her have 'em. We ain't got no right to hold
her back."
"She can have 'em here," interposed the eldest.
"Yes, along with work that's too hard on her. You wouldn't think of
puttin' a fine animal like the blue mare on the plow; no, of course you
wouldn't. There's some horses born for teamin' an' some for high-toned
carriage pullin'. It happens in this case we ain't talkin' about a draft
plug." He was trembling in his earnestness. After a pause he went on.
"She might stay here. That's right. But she'd never have a cent to call
her own 'less she earned it teachin'. Some way or other, the boys in a
family always think they own the farm; girls ain't got no share, no
matter how hard they've drudged around the kitchen or the garden, or
even in the fields. They can take anything that's given 'em till they
marry; or they can hang around an' play nurse-girl an' kitchen-girl to
their brothers' wives."
"I've always noticed," broke in the eldest, changing his ground, and
ignoring what the biggest said, "that every country girl who goes to
town polishes herself up like a milk-pan till she's worn off the prairie
look, an' then she marries some dude with a head like an addled egg."
The biggest threw the little girl a swift, roguish glance. "I ain't
afraid of the dude part of it," he said; "I'm willin' to trust her
taste, anyway. I don't have to live with him; neither do you."
"Do you mean to say," asked the eldest, giving the table a blow with his
fist, "that you think a city's the place for a girl, friends or no
friends? Nobody's goin' to look after her, when she leaves here, as
careful as we do."
"The bishop," suggested the little girl, advancing almost imploringly.
"The bishop!" sneered the youngest.
"I thought you washed your hands of this," reminded the biggest, with a
look that instantly quieted the youngest; "I guess maybe you didn't get
'em clean. At any rate, you'd better jus' make jackstraws." He faced the
eldest again.
"I say the city's no place for her," the latter continued hotly. He
pointed through the open door to where, above the ash-trees, a hawk was
pursuing a field-sparrow that vainly, by sudden dips and rises, strove
to escape its enemy. "You see that?" he cried. "Well, in every city
there's a thousand hawks with their claws out waiting to swoop down on
them that don't watch. She'd better not go, I say. She'll be safe and
happy here. It was so long since mother'd seen a big place she forgot
how it is there. It's not too late to stop gettin' ready. You'd better
stay." He stood up and whirled about upon the little girl.
The biggest brother gave a dissenting shake of the head. "She'll be safe
enough," he said. "It's only when a little bird gets careless that the
hawk gets him. What do _you_ know about a city, anyhow?"
"The hardware man says--" began the eldest.
The biggest cut him short. "There's some people in this world that can't
do a lick of good," he said, "but they can do any amount of mischief.
That hardware man's one of 'em."
"She ain't got enough money to last her more 'n six months," the eldest
asserted, once more changing ground.
"I've got what I've just made teaching," said the little girl.
The biggest shook a warning finger at her. "I'm runnin' this
parley-voo," he laughed. Then he became serious again. "She's got what
she's jus' made teachin'," he agreed. "Well, that won't last her long.
So--" He hesitated, arose, and began to walk the floor nervously.
"Course," he faltered, "I bought that quarter-section from the Swede.
But I don't need it more 'n a cat needs two tails. Jus' bought it to be
a-doin'. So--I've concluded to call the bargain off, and buy some land
later on. The--the--youngster can have the little pile I've got."
For a moment no one spoke. Then the little girl put out her arms, and
the biggest brother drew her to him. "That's the way we've settled it,"
he said. His voice was husky, his eyes overflowing. "I want to help her
get away. An'--an'--Heaven knows how I am going to miss her. You two'll
not feel it as I will." He buried his face in her shoulder. Finally he
spoke again. "Next year, when her money runs out, she'll have my share
of the crop and herd; an' _every_ year she'll have my share till she's
through an' ready to do something for herself. Then I'll buy that
quarter-section. It belongs to the Swede boy. He'll keep it to sell it
to me any time in the next ten years. He says so; that's _his_ part
toward helpin' her."
"Oh, dear old brother," whispered the little girl, "thank you! thank
you!" She was dangerously near to tears and could say no more.
"We've decided," said the biggest, "that we might as well get this thing
over. So--so--she's goin' to-day."
"To-day?" The eldest and the youngest almost shouted in their surprise.
"Yes, to-day," repeated the biggest. "She's goin' to do a little
studyin' this summer; now, I'm goin' to hitch up," he added, as he
kissed the little girl and went out.
The eldest and the youngest remained beside the table, the former
battling with disappointment and sorrow, the latter suddenly wrathful
and concerned. As they sat there, the little girl packed a few last
garments into a leather satchel and put on her hat and coat. Then she
climbed the stairs to the attic to tell the low, bare room good-by.
Ever afterward, when she thought of the farm-house, it was the attic
that first pictured itself in her mind, for the rooms below had seen
many improvements since her birth-night over fifteen years before, but
the attic had remained unchanged. Above the litter of barrels and boxes
that covered the western half of the floor, hung the Christmas trimmings
in their little bag; seeds for the spring planting, each kind done up
separately; strings of dried peppers; rows of cob-corn, suspended by the
shucks; slippery-elm, sage, and boneset in paper packages; unused
powder-horns; and the big brothers' steel traps. To the east of the
stovepipe were their beds, covered with patchwork quilts made by the
mother, and the boxes in which they kept their clothes and trinkets.
The little girl halted sadly beneath the slanting rafters to look round.
When she finally turned away to descend, she had to feel her way
carefully, though the morning sun, but lately risen, was pouring in its
light.
The farewells in the sitting-room were soon over. With many a promise to
write, with fond pats to the dogs that crowded about her hoping she
would take them on her drive, with tender kisses on the pillows of the
old canopied bed, and glances behind, she went out into the frosty air
and took her seat in the buckboard.
Her face was calm and her eyes were dry as they drove out of the yard.
She was bravely fighting down her grief at leaving, and she looked back
again and again to wave her hand to the eldest and the youngest, who
were standing outside the kitchen, swinging their hats in tardily
repentant and approving response.
At sight of the carnelian bluff, she suddenly sat very still, and a pang
shot through her heart. Looking down at the well-worn, weed-bordered
road, she remembered the November morning when, with even deeper sorrow,
she walked behind her who was never to pass through the corn again.
Opposite the bluff the biggest brother stopped the buckboard and the
little girl stepped down, crossed the half-thawed drifts that still lay
on the western slope, and went up to the graves. A brisk wind was
blowing over the plains and shaking the scent from the first wild
prairie-violets that dotted the new grass.
She paused but a moment at the pipestone cross, but beside the other
grave she knelt and looked long and lovingly at the white headboard. The
chaplain had put it up the day after the funeral, and had lettered on it
in black:
MOTHER
"Blessed are the pure in heart."
A few minutes later she joined the biggest brother, and the buckboard
hurried on. She did not look around at the house or bluff until the
highest point between the track and the farm was reached. Then, as if he
read her wish, the biggest brother again drew rein.