“Make up the bed in the north room, Hetty,” said my aunt; “it’s
our turn to board the schoolmaster this week. You needn’t put on the
best sheets: these book-learning folks are always wool-gathering. He
never’ll know the difference. What a hungry set these schoolmasters
are, to be sure: it keeps a body all the time cooking. A bushel of
doughnuts is a mere circumstance. When the last master was here, our
winter barrel of cider went off like snow in April. I hope Jonathan
learned enough at school to pay for it, but I have my doubts: he trips
in the multiplication table yet. Your uncle and I think that this
boarding schoolmasters is a poor business--a losing bargain. He says
I must put less on the table, but it is no use to try that game with
George Grey. He’s as independent as Adam in Eden, before the serpent
and his wife got in. He’d just as lief call for anything he wanted as
not, and somehow or other, when he does, I always feel as if I had no
choice about bringing it. That eye of his always makes me think of
forked lightning; and yet he’s kindly spoken, too. He is as much of a
riddle to unravel, as one of Parson Jones’ doctrinal sermons. But, go
make his bed, Hetty, and mind you stuff a few rags in that broken pane
of glass over it. I spoke to your uncle about getting it mended, but he
said warm weather would be along in three months, and that’s very true,
Hetty. Hist! your uncle is calling you. He says he is going out in the
barn to thresh, and if Peter Tay comes up the road, and stops in here
again, for him to subscribe towards the minister’s new cloak, you must
say that he has gone to Jifftown, and will not be home for a week at
least. Now don’t forget, Hetty: people seem to think one earns money
now-a-days on purpose to give away. A new cloak! humph! I wonder if the
Apostle Paul’s hearers ever gave him a new cloak? I wonder if John the
Baptist ever had a donation party? Don’t the minister have his salary,
two hundred dollars a year--part in produce, part in money; paid
regularly, when the times ain’t too hard? Go make the school-master’s
bed now, Hetty. One pillow will do for him. Goodness knows he carries
his head high enough when he is awake. I shouldn’t wonder if he had
been captain or colonel, or something, some muster day.”
The schoolmaster! Should I be permitted to go to school? or should I
be kept drudging at home? Would this Mr. Grey think me very ignorant?
I began to feel as if his forked-lightning eyes were already on me.
My cheeks grew hot at the idea of making a blunder in his awful
presence. What a miserable room my aunt had provided for him! If I
could but put up some nice white curtains at the window, or get him a
cushioned chair, or put in a bureau, or chest of drawers. It looked
so comfortless--so different from the welcome my dear old father
was wont to give to “the stranger within the gates;” and now memory
pictured him, as he sat in the old arm chair, and I knelt again at the
low foot-stool at his feet, and his hand strayed caressingly over my
temples, and I listened to old continental stories, till the candle
burned low in the socket, and only the fire-light flickered dimly on
the old portrait of General Washington, and on my father’s time-worn
face.
My aunt’s shrill voice soon roused me from my reverie. Dinner time
had come, and with it Mr. Grey--a gentlemanly young man, of about
two and twenty, with a bright, keen, blue eye, and a frank, decided,
off-hand manner, that seemed to me admirably in keeping with his erect,
imposing figure and firm step. Even my uncle reefed in a sail or two in
his presence, and my aunt involuntarily qualified her usual bluntness
of manner. I uttered a heartfelt thanksgiving when dinner was over.