THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKSMITH.
It went to the heart of the teacher to see how proudly, yet how kindly,
these mountaineers offered their hospitality. Evidently the best the
house afforded had been set before her, and the guest did all within her
power to show appreciation.
“Josey, she’s our youngest,” Mrs. Flint told her. “The other gyurls are
all married, and the boys are working away from home; but we all has
always set great sto’ by Joe; we sort o’ favored her, bein’ young an’
ambitious.”
“She is a very bright scholar,” Persis told them; “and there is no
reason why she should not do you credit. May I see her?” she asked, as
they rose from the table.
Mrs. Flint looked at her husband. “Shall the teacher go up?” She put the
question timidly.
“Why, if she don’t mind——” he began, awkwardly.
“Oh, no, I don’t mind. I think, if you don’t object, that it would be
easier to see her alone,” put in Persis.
“Poor little, rebellious, ungoverned girl!” she said to herself, as she
mounted the steep stairs to the room above.
Mrs. Flint knocked at the door. “Joe!” she called. “Joe!”
There was no answer, and she turned the knob. Then she beckoned to
Persis, who went in, and the mother withdrew. The furniture of the room
was very plain and meagre. Across the bed was thrown the figure of the
girl.
Persis laid her hand softly on the mass of red-gold hair. “Josey,” she
said, “poor little Josey, won’t you speak to me?”
The girl lifted her head and showed her eyes swollen with weeping.
“I’m so sorry for you,” whispered Persis. “I have had trouble too. Won’t
you tell me all about it?”
“Don’t! don’t!” cried the girl; “don’t talk to me that way. I ain’t
worth your wipin’ your shoes on.” She hid her face in the bedclothes
again.
“Come, come, that is not the way to talk. I, too, have known bitter
sorrow. I know how you must be suffering. I think, perhaps, I understand
better than any one else could. Won’t you tell me?” She put her arm
about the prostrate figure, and the girl sprang up.
“Oh, Miss Anne,” she cried, “how can you do it when I’ve been so bad? I
didn’t mean to get you shut up. I wonder you don’t hate me. How can you
help it?”
[Illustration: Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl.]
“I don’t hate you at all. You know I said we could help each other, if
we would.”
“Yes, I know, I know. I wanted to give in then, but—but——”
“But what?”
“They wouldn’t let me. I’d promised I wouldn’t.”
“Who are they?”
“Sid and Virgie Southall—and—and Dick.” This last in a whisper.
“And did you care so much to please them?”
“I did, but I hate ’em now, all of ’em. I know now that they look down
on me, and that they just flattered me up so’s to get me to be on their
side. Daddy said I shouldn’t go with Dick, and that made me fierce to
go, and he said I shouldn’t marry him, and I said I would. I didn’t
really, ’deed, Miss Anne, I didn’t really care so much, but daddy was so
terrible set against it, and it made me keen the other way. It was
because he was so down on Dick that I took up for him. He said he was a
wu’thless, lazy, fool man, and I stood out he wasn’t.”
“And is he?” Persis put the question gently.
“He’s lazy, and I reckon he’s pretty much of a fool, but I liked him to
like me.”
“You were flattered because he did. I see. But, dear child, you would be
very miserable married to him. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes’m. I know he’d boss me. He always tried to. I’d a given him up long
ago if daddy hadn’t been so cantankerous, and so set against me.”
“But Josey, your father loves you dearly.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He does. He is heart-broken over all this. He may not take the wisest
way of showing it, but he said as much to me.”
“Oh, Miss Anne!”
“Yes, I can assure you he has, Josey dear. You could make your father
and mother so proud of you. Why, you might teach school yourself some
day, and think how pleased that would make them. They have worked so
hard, and your mother has really needed your help. Instead of asking it,
she has done all the work, and let you go to school.”
“I know.”
“Then you will study hard after this?”
“You ain’t goin’ to let me go back to school?” Josey cried, in
astonishment.
“Why not?”
“After the way I have acted?”
“No one knows but ourselves and Dick Southall. I think your father will
settle him.” Persis remembered the grim look on the man’s face.
“Oh, Miss Anne!” Josephine fell on her knees by her teacher’s side and
humbly kissed her hand.
“There! Why, Josey, don’t.” Persis really felt embarrassed. “I am as
anxious as possible to have you come back, and help me get the school
into its former good order.”
“The Southalls can’t abide you, and they’ll do all they can to kick up a
fuss with the rest of the scholars.”
“Then we must do our very best to prevent it. I do not see why they
dislike me so much. I know Miss Sidney did want the school, but that
doesn’t seem enough to warrant such enmity.”
“Oh, don’t you know why it is? You won’t mind, Miss Anne, if I tell you?
Sid Southall thinks you cut her out with Mr. Pen Rivers.”
“Why, I never heard of such an idea!” Persis spoke her surprise.
“It’s at the bottom of all of it. It’s why Dick was agen’ you.”
“Against, you mean.”
“Yes, ma’am, against you. And why Virgie set us all to actin’ so, and
why Sid tried to get up some sort of tales about you.”
Persis looked very thoughtful. Looking back, she remembered things which
bore out Josephine’s statements. “Well, never mind all that,” she said
after a pause, and with a return of dignity. “Can you tell me how it
happened that no one came from Mr. Temple’s to look me up?”
Josey hung her head. “Dick met Mattie and told her you wouldn’t be home
last night.”
“I suppose they thought that I had gone to Dr. Rivers’s.”
“That’s what he meant them to think.”
The two were silent a few moments, then Josey asked, “Is father very
angry, Miss Anne?”
“I’m afraid he is.”
“Will he thrash me?”
“Why, goodness! I hope not.” The idea gave Persis a shock.
“Yes, he will. I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid.” Josey hid her face in
Persis’s skirts.
“Why, you poor child, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t——” She was going to say,
“he couldn’t do such a degrading thing,” but she remembered that Mr.
Flint had expressed his opinion. However, she was determined that his
daughter should be spared such a degradation.
“Josey,” she said, “I shall ask him to forgive you. I think if you go
and tell him that you are sorry; that you and I have settled it, and
that you are to come back to school and be my best helper, that it will
be all right.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Why, certainly. Come, let us have it over with.” And, holding Josey’s
hand, she led her to her father’s presence, and took the initiative by
saying, “Mr. Flint, Josey has something to tell you.”
“I’m sorry, daddy, I _am_ sorry,” repeated the girl, in a voice full of
tears.
The father scowled. “I reckon you’ll be sorrier yet,” he remarked.
“Mr. Flint,” said Persis, her cheeks burning, “I know Josey has done
wrong, but she has confessed it, and what more can she do? She is nearly
a woman, and she is aware that she fully deserves your anger. You say
you want her to be a lady. You want her to live so you can be proud of
her. You can’t beat a girl into being a lady. Gentlemen don’t strike
women.”
The man quailed before Persis’s scornful tone. He meant to do right, but
he knew no other punishment than that which brute force could bestow.
“Miss Maitland,” he answered, “that’s a hard word for you to say, but I
see, Miss, what you mean. I reckon I ain’t always took the right way.”
“My grandmother used to say that love is the best master. Josey says you
do not love her, and she believes it.”
“Don’t love my child! Why, Joe!”
“Oh daddy, do you?” the girl asked, eagerly.
“I’ll knock down any fellow that says I don’t.”
“Oh, then——” Josey ran forward and hid her face in her father’s rough
sleeve.
“Then it’s forgive and forget all around,” Persis interposed. “If you
don’t forgive Josey, Mr. Flint, I can’t forgive you.”
“For what, miss?” he asked.
“For rousing me up at four o’clock and making me drink cold coffee.” And
the words relieved the strain, for Mr. Flint smiled, and his hand sought
the rough tawny head of his daughter.
“Come, Joe,” he said, “you ain’t had no breakfast; and I must drive Miss
Maitland home.” And then Persis knew that she had gained her point.
“You’ll be sure to be on hand early Monday morning,” Persis whispered as
she bade Josey good-bye. “I shall depend on you, you know.”
Josey nodded.
Mrs. Flint’s worn face was lighted up by a smile. “Oh, Miss Maitland,”
she said, bashfully, “I wish I could say what I feel, but, indeed,
ma’am, I’ll never forget you all, never. It’s not likely you’ll ever
want to come to our poor place again, but, indeed, I’d be so proud to
see you.”
“Why, of course I’ll come. And may I have some more of that good
egg-pone the next time?”
Mrs. Flint smiled delightedly at the gracious tactful acceptance of her
invitation.
“What do you suppose Dick Southall did with the school-house key?”
Persis asked Mr. Flint as they drove off.
“I’ll be dog-goned if I know. I’ll run back and ask Joe.” He left Persis
half-way down the lane, and came back with the information that Dick had
thrown away the key. “It’s pretty big, and I reckon we kin find it; and
if we can’t, I can easy make another. If I put my shoulder agen’ the
door I reckon it won’t stay shut long; but I thought I’d better not bust
it in this morning.”
The “bustin’-in” process was not found necessary, for the key was
discovered a short distance from the porch, in among a clump of weeds;
and the teacher went in to gather up certain books and other of her
belongings, and then she was taken on to Mr. Temple’s, although she
expostulated, and declared herself perfectly able to walk.
“Remember, Mr. Flint,” she said at parting, “no one is to know anything
about this matter. I think the trustees would best not know of it at
present. It is an affair between ourselves.”
“Joe don’t deserve that you all should screen her,” he replied; “but I’m
glad enough not to say nothin’ about it, though all the same I mean to
take it out of Dick Southall’s hide.”
Just how he fulfilled his threat Persis at that time did not learn,
although she heard that Dick Southall had left the neighborhood, and
eventually it was told her that he had married the girl near
Charlottesville. Virgie brought the news to school and announced it with
an air of triumph in the presence of Josey and Persis. The former looked
at her teacher, and gave a little laugh in which there was neither
malice nor chagrin. Joe had learned several things by that time.
Persis felt quite weak and exhausted when she reached home after the
strain upon her which the last twenty-four hours had brought, and she
was glad that it was Saturday and that she had no special duties to
perform.
“You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you driving up
with Jake Flint this early in the morning,” said Mrs. Temple. “How in
the world did you happen to come with him? I thought you were at Dr.
Rivers’s.”
“No; I went to the Flints’,” returned Persis, coolly.
Mrs. Temple stared. “You went there! Well, if that don’t beat me out. I
shouldn’t think they were your kind of people. Not that Jake Flint isn’t
a good, honest man, and his wife a hard-working, nice, good woman, but
they come of a real common family, not the kind you’re used to
associating with.” Mrs. Temple had a great deal of pride in Miss Anne.
“I judge they are not the most cultured persons in the world,” returned
Persis; “but a teacher has certain duties to perform, and Josey needed
me.”
“Josey, yes, she’s a pretty thing; and I’ve seen her look quite the
lady, and Dick Southall thinks so. His family are dead set against it.”
“No more than hers.”
“The Southalls are ’way above the Flints.”
“In point of family, perhaps; in point of morals, I doubt it. Josey is
worth a dozen of Dick Southall.”
“I reckon you’re right, but ’tisn’t every one that thinks so down this
way.”
“No; money counts for the most in some places, family in others; morals
come first in very few, I often think.” And Persis went up to her room
thinking that she could boast of neither family nor money, “and
sometimes I doubt about the morals,” she sighed. “Sometimes I think
that, after all, I may have done very wrong to leave home, and yet—I
believe I am doing a little good, and am learning that to merge the Ego
into universal good is to gain a power that will live through the ages.
What is it Emerson says?—
“‘Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.’
I mean to do all I can to make a fine woman out of Josey. Heigho! I’m
glad there is no school to-day, and that my only duty is to darn my
stockings. Atlas must have grown very weary of carrying the world on his
shoulders.”
Virgie Southall was surprised and provoked on Monday morning to find
that her strongest ally had deserted to the enemy. She cared nothing
whatever for Josey, and would have scorned her as a sister-in-law, but
as a means to an end she was worth cultivating. However, Josey withstood
all overtures, and acted so decorously and sedately that even the boys
opened their eyes, and Joshua Harman, who at one time had secretly
admired the blacksmith’s daughter, began to return to his allegiance.
Persis resolved to make more of a companion of Josey. She loaned her
books and magazines, gave her hints about her dress and her deportment,
showed her that simplicity need not express either poverty or
inelegance, and that cheap, flimsy materials elaborately trimmed display
a vulgar ostentation which stamps the wearer as possessing an
uncultivated taste. The country girls, unfortunately, were most of them
inclined towards flashiness, and adorned their cheap, badly cut garments
with coarse trimmings which only added to their lack of grace. “If you
want to look like a lady,” Persis told Josey, “you must dress quietly.
Only wealthy persons can afford startling costumes. If you have any
money to spend, put it all in the best material you can buy, and never
mind the garnishing. Let your frocks fit well, and you will look all
right.”
Josey did at first secretly rebel, but even though she could not always
perceive it, she made up her mind that what her teacher said was bound
to be right, and she expanded like a flower under the warmth of a
woman’s loving influence, so that even the trustees noticed her
improvement in every direction.
More than once Persis went to the Flints’ and spent a Saturday.
Sometimes the big, rough sons, or the hard-working married daughters
would come shyly in, having walked a long distance to get a sight of
Josey’s teacher, who was so wonderful. By degrees the school slipped
back to its former record for orderliness, the only really rebellious
spirit being Virginia Southall, who maintained a scornful mien.
There were some minor offences committed,—as in what school are there
not?—but on the whole Persis felt quite proud of her little flock.
“I always meant to be a journalist or a writer,” she told herself, “and
yet here I am, a country school-teacher, in a mountain district at that,
and miles removed from a city. It might be a worse lot,” she concluded.
Yet ever that underlying longing for home existed, and she knew that
sooner or later she must yield to its controlling force. Once she read
in her home paper that Professor Holmes was ill with the grippe, and she
could scarcely restrain the impulse to fly. “But who will take my place
here?” she said to herself. “I owe a duty in this spot. I have chosen it
deliberately.” And she stayed, watching eagerly for the news which
announced Mr. Holmes’s recovery. Several times she saw Mellicent’s name
mentioned among the society items, and one day she came across a little
piece of news which interested her greatly: “The engagement of Miss
Patty Peters, of Washington, to Mr. Wilson Vane, of this city, is
announced.”
“I knew that would come,” exclaimed Persis. But it had the effect of
making her absent and dreamy for the rest of the day; it brought back so
vividly all the dear old times, the old friends. Patty, cheerful little
Patty. “What a mockery for me to have joined the Cheerful Three!” sighed
Persis. “There is more than time stretched between me and my old
friends. It can never, never be the same again.”
[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]