AN AMBUSCADE
Fran's conception of the Clinton Boarding-House, the home of jollity,
was not warranted by its real atmosphere. Since there were not many
inhabitants of Littleburg detached from housekeeping, Miss Sapphira
Clinton depended for the most part on "transients"; and, to hold such
in subjection, preventing them from indulging in that noisy gaiety to
which "transients" are naturally inclined--just because they are
transitory--the elderly spinster had developed an abnormal solemnity.
This solemnity was not only beneficial to "drummers" and "court men"
acutely conscious of being away from home, but it helped her brother
Bob. Before the charms of Grace Noir had penetrated his thick skin,
the popular Littleburg merchant was as unmanageable as the worst.
Before he grew accustomed to fall into a semi-comatose condition at
the approach of Grace Noir, and, therefore, before his famous attempt
to "get religion", the bachelor merchant often swore--not from aroused
wrath, but from his peculiar sense of humor. In those Anti-Grace and
heathen days, Bob, sitting on the long veranda of the green frame
building, one leg swinging over the other knee, would say, "Yes, damn
it," or, "No, damn it," as the case might be. It was then that the
reproving protest of his sister's face would jelly in the fat folds of
her double chin, helping, somewhat, to cover profanity with a prudent
veil.
Miss Sapphira liked a joke--or at least she thought so--as well as
anybody; but like a too-humorous author, she found that to be as funny
as possible was bad for business. Goodness knows there was enough in
Littleburg to be solemn over, what with the funerals, and widowers
marrying again, yes, and widows, too; and there wasn't always as much
rejoicing over babies as the county paper would have you believe!
The "traveling men" were bad enough, needing to be reminded of their
wives whom they'd left at home, and, she'd be bound, had forgotten.
But when one man, whether a traveler or not--even a staid young
teacher like Abbott Ashton, for instance--a young man who was almost
like a son to her--when _he_ secluded himself in the night-time--by
himself? with another male? oh, dear, no!--with a Fran, for example--
what was the world coming to?
"There they stood," she told Bob, "the two of them, all alone on the
foot-bridge, and it was after nine o'clock. If I hadn't been in a
hurry to get home to see that the roomers didn't set the house afire,
not a soul would have seen the two colloguing."
"And it don't seem to have done _you_ any good," remarked her
brother, who, having heard the tale twenty times, began to look upon
the event almost as a matter of course. _"You'd_ better not have saw
them,"--at an early age Bob had cut off his education, and it had
stopped growing at that very place. Perhaps he had been elected
president of the school-board on the principle that we best appreciate
what does not belong to us.
"My home has been Abbott Ashton's home," said Miss Sapphira, "since
the death of his last living relation, and her a step, and it a mercy,
for nobody could get along with her, and she wouldn't let people leave
her alone. You know how fond I am of Abbott, but your position is very
responsible. You could get rid of him by lifting your finger, and
people are making lots of talk; it's going to injure you. People don't
want to send their tender young innocent girls--they're a mighty
hardened and knowing set, nowadays, though, I must say--to a
superintendent that stands on bridges of nights, holding hands, and
her a young slip of a thing. All alone, Robert, all alone; there's
going to be a complaint of the school-board, that's what there's going
to be, and you'll have to look out for your own interests. You must
talk to Abbott. Him a-standing on that bridge--"
"He ain't stood there as often as I've been worried to death a-hearing
of it," growled the ungrateful Bob, who was immensely fond of Abbott.
Miss Sapphira spoke with amazingly significant double nods between
each word--"And...I...saw...only...four...days...ago--"
She pointed at the school-house which was almost directly across the
street, its stone steps facing the long veranda. "They were the last
to come out of that door. You may say she's a mere child. Mere
children are not in Miss Bull's classes."
"But Abbott says the girl is far advanced."
"Far advanced! You may well say! I'll be bound she is--and carrying on
with Abbott on the very school-house steps. Yes, I venture she
_is_ advanced. You make me ashamed to hear you."
Bob tugged at his straw-colored mustache; he would not swear, for
whatever happened, he was resolved to lead the spiritual life. "See
here, Sapphira, I'm going to tell you something. I had quite a talk
with Abbott about that bridge-business--after you'd spread it all over
town, sis--and if you'll believe me, she waylaid him on those school-
steps. _He_ didn't want to talk with her. Why, he left her standing
there. She made him mad, finding fault with the very folks that have
taken her up. He's disgusted. That night at the camp-meeting, he had
to take her out of the tent--he was asked to do it--"
"He didn't have to stand, a-holding her hand."
"--And as soon as he'd shown her the way to Brother Gregory's, he came
on back to the tent, I saw him in the aisle."
"And she whistled at me," cried Miss Sapphira--"the limb!"
"Now, listen, Sapphira, and quit goading. Abbott says that Miss Bull
is having lots of trouble with Fran--"
"See that, now!"
"--Because Fran won't get her lessons, being contrary--"
"I wish you could have seen her whistling at me, that night."
"Hold on. So this very evening Miss Bull is going to send her down to
Abbott's office to be punished, or dismissed. This very evening he
wants me to be over there while he takes her in hand."
"Abbott is going to punish that girl?" cried Miss Sapphira; "going to
take her in hand? What do you mean by 'taking her in hand'? She is too
old! Robert, you make me blush."
"You ain't a-blushing, Sapphira," her brother assured her, good-
naturedly, "you're suffering from the hot weather. Yes, he's to punish
her at four o'clock, and I'm to be present, to stop all this confoun--
I mean this ungodly gossip."
"You'd better wear your spectacles, Bob, so you'll look old and
settled. I'm not always sure of you, either."
"Sapphira, if I hadn't joined the church, I'd say--" He threw up his
hand and clenched his fist as if he had caught an oath and meant to
hold it tight. Then his honest face beamed. "See here, I've got an
idea. Suppose you make it a point to be sitting out here on the
veranda at about half-past four, or five. You'll see Fran come
sneaking out of that door like a whipped kitten. She'll look
everlastingly wilted. I don't know whether Abbott will stuff her full
of fractions and geography, or make her stand in a corner--but you'll
see her wilted."
Miss Sapphira was highly gratified. "I wish you'd talked this
reasonable at first. It's always what people _don't_ see that the most
harm comes of. I'll give a little tea out here on the veranda, and the
worst talkers in town will be in these chairs when you bring Fran away
from Abbott's office. And I'll explain it all to 'em, and they'll
_know_ Abbott is all right, just as I've always known."
"Get Miss Grace to come," Bob said sheepishly. "She doesn't like
Fran, and she'll be glad to know Abbott is doing his duty by her.
Later, I'll drop in and have a bite with you."
This, then, was Bob's "idea", that no stone might be left unturned to
hide the perfect innocence of the superintendent. He had known Abbott
Ashton as a bare-legged urchin running on errands for his widowed
mother. He had watched him through studious years, had believed in his
future career--and now, no bold adventuress, though adopted into
Hamilton Gregory's home, should be allowed to spoil Abbott's chances
of success.
The chairman of the school-board had talked confidentially with Grace
Noir, and found her as convinced that Fran was a degenerate as was Bob
that Grace was an angel. As he went to the appointment, he was
thinking not so much of the culprit Fran, as of Grace--what a mouth,
what a foot! If all saints were as beautiful as she, religion would
surely be the most popular thing on earth.
In his official character as chairman of the board, Robert Clinton
marched with dignity into the superintendent's office, meaning to bear
away the wilted Fran before the eyes of woman. Abbott Ashton saw him
enter with a sense of relief. The young man could not understand why
he had held Fran's hand, that night on the foot-bridge. Not only had
the sentiment of that hour passed away, but the interview Fran had
forced upon him at the close of a recent school-day, had inspired him
with actual hostility. It seemed the irony of fate that a mere child,
a stranger, should, because of senseless gossip, endanger his chances
of reappointment--a reappointment which he felt certain was the best
possible means of advancement. Why had he held Fran's little hand? He
had never dreamed of holding Grace's--ah, there was a hand, indeed!
"Has she been sent down?" Bob asked, in the hoarse undertone of a
fellow-conspirator.
"No." Abbott was eager to prove his innocence. "I haven't seen a sign
of her, but I'm looking every minute--glad you're here."
Confidences were impracticable, because of a tousled-headed, ink-
stained pupil who gloomed in a corner.
"Why, hello there, Jakey!" cried Clinton, disconcerted; he had hoped
that Fran's subjugation might take place without witnesses. "What are
_you_ doing here, hey?"
"Waitin' to be whirped," was the defiant rejoinder.
"Tell the professor you're sorry for what you've done, so you can run
along," said the chairman of the board persuasively.
"Naw, I ain't sorry," returned Jakey, hands in pockets. Then
bethinking himself--"But I ain't done nothin'."
Abbott said regretfully, "He'll have to be whipped."
Clinton nodded, and sat down solemnly, breathing hard. Abbott was
restlessly pacing the floor, and Bob was staring at him unwinkingly,
when the door opened and in came Fran.
Abbott frowned heavily, but the wrinkles in his brow could not mar the
attractiveness of his handsome young face. He was too fine looking,
the chairman reflected uneasily, for his duties. His figure was too
athletic, his features too suggestive of aristocratic tastes and
traditions. Clinton wished he would thrust a pen behind his ear. As
for himself, after one brief glance at Fran, he fumbled for his
spectacles.
Fran walked up to Abbott hesitatingly, and spoke with the
indistinctness of awed humility. "You are to punish me," she
explained, "by making me work out this original proposition"--showing
the book--"and you are to keep me here till I get it."
Abbott asked sternly, "Did Miss Bull send me this message?"
"She is named that," Fran murmured, her eyes fastened on the open
page.
From the yard came the shouts of children, breaking the bonds of
learning for a wider freedom. Abbott, gazing severely on this slip of
a girl, found her decidedly commonplace in appearance. How the
moonlight must have bewitched him! Her rebellious hair hung over her
face like a shaggy mane--what a small creature to be dressed as a
woman, and how ridiculous that the skirts should reach even to her
ankles! It had not been so, on the night of destiny. He preferred the
shorter dress, but neither she nor her attire was anything to him. He
rejoiced that Robert Clinton was there to witness his indifference.
"This is the problem," Fran said, with exceeding primness, pronouncing
the word as if it were too large for her, and holding up the book with
a slender finger placed upon certain italicized words.
"Let me see it," said Abbott, with professional dryness. He grasped
the book to read the proposition. His hand was against hers, but she
did not draw away, for had she done so, how could he have found the
place?
Fran, with uplifted eyes, spoke in the plaintive accents of a five-
year-old child: "Right there, sir...it's awful hard."
Robert Clinton cleared his throat and produced a sound bursting with
accumulated _h's_ and _r's_--his warning passed unheeded.
Never before had Abbott had so much of Fran. The capillaries of his
skin, as her hand quivered warmly against his, seemed drawing her in;
and as she escaped from her splendid black orbs, she entered his brain
by the avenue of his own thirsty eyes. What was the use to tell
himself that she was commonplace, that his position was in danger
because of her? Suddenly her hair no longer reminded him of the flying
mane of a Shetland pony; it fell slantwise past the corners of her
eyes, making a triangle of smooth white skin to the roots of the hair,
and it seemed good, just because it was Fran's way and not after a
machine-turned fashion; Fran was done by hand, there was no doubt of
that.
"Sit there," Abbott said, gravely pointing. She obeyed without a word,
leaving the geometry as hostage in the teacher's hand. When seated at
a discreet distance, she looked over at Bob Clinton. He hastily drew
on his spectacles, that he might look old.
Abbott volunteered, "This is Mr. Clinton, President of the Board."
"I know," said Fran, staring at her pencil and paper, "he's at the
head of the show, and watches when the wild animals are tamed."
Clinton drew forth a newspaper, and opened it deliberately.
Fran scribbled for some time, then looked over at him again. "Did you
get it?" she asked, with mild interest.
"Did I get--_what?"_ he returned, with puzzled frown.
"Oh, I don't know what it is," said Fran with humility; "the name of
it's 'Religion'."
"If I were you," Clinton returned, flushing, "I'd be ashamed to refer
to the night you disgraced yourself by laughing in the tent."
"Fran," Abbott interposed severely, "attend to your work."
Fran bent her head over the desk, but was not long silent. "I don't
like _a-b-c_ and _d-e-f,_" she observed with more energy than she had
hitherto displayed. "They're equal to each other, but I don't know
why, and I don't care, because it doesn't seem to matter. Nothing
interests me unless it has something to do with living. I don't care
how far Mars is from the earth--if it was next door, I wouldn't want
to leave home. These angles and lines are nothing to me; what I care
for is this time I'm wasting, sitting in a stuffy old room, while the
good big world is enjoying itself just outside the window." She
started up impetuously.
"Sit down!" Abbott commanded.
"Fran!" exclaimed Robert Clinton, stamping his foot, _"sit down!"_
Fran sank back upon the bench.
"I suspect," said Abbott mildly, "that they have put you in classes
too far advanced. We must try you in another room--"
"But I don't want to be tried in rooms," Fran explained, "I want to be
tried in acts--deeds. Until I came here, I'd never been to school a
day in my life," she went on in a confidential tone." I agreed to
attend because I imagined school ought to have some connection with
life--something in it mixed up with love and friendship and justice
and mercy. Wasn't I silly! I even believed--just fancy!--that you
might really teach me something about religion. But, no! it's all
books, nothing but books."
"Fran," Abbott reasoned, "if we put you in a room where you can
understand the things we try to teach, if we make you thorough--"
"I don't want to be thorough," she explained, "I want to be happy. I
guess all that schools were meant to do is to teach folks what's in
books, and how to stand in a straight line. The children in Class A,
or Class B have their minds sheared and pruned to look alike; but I
don't want my brain after anybody's pattern."
"You'll regret this, Miss," declared Clinton, in a threatening tone.
"You sit down. Do you want the name of being expelled?"
"I don't care very much about the names of things," said Fran coolly;
"there are lots of respectable names that hide wickedness." Her tone
changed: "But yonder's another wild animal for you to train; did you
come to see him beaten?" She darted to the corner, and seated herself
beside Jakey.
"Say, now," Bob remonstrated, pulling his mustache deprecatingly,
"everybody knows I wouldn't see a dog hurt if it could be helped. I'm
Jakey's friend, and I'd be yours, Fran--honestly--if I could. But
how's a school to be run without authority? You ain't reasonable. All
we want of you is to be biddable."
"And _you!"_ cried Fran to Abbott, beginning to give way to high
pressure, "I thought you were a school-teacher, not _just_, but
_also_--a something very nice, also a teacher. But not you. Teacher's
all you are, just rules and regulations and authority and chalk and
_a-b-c_ and _d-e-f."_
Abbott crimsoned. Was she right? Was he not something very nice plus
his vocation? He found himself desperately wishing that she might
think so.
Fran, after one long glowing look at him, turned to the lad in
disgrace, and placed her hand upon his stubborn arm. "Have you a
mother?" she asked wistfully.
"Yeh," mumbled the lad, astonished at finding himself addressed, not
as an ink-stained husk of humanity, but as an understanding soul.
"I haven't," said Fran softly, talking to him as if unconscious of the
presence of two listening men, "but I had one, a few years ago--and,
oh, it seems so long since she died, Jakey--three years is a pretty
long time to be without a mother. And you can't think what a fault-
blindest, spoilingest, candiest mother she was. I'm glad yours is
living, for you still have the chance to make her proud and happy,...
No matter how fine I may turn out--do you reckon I'll ever be admired
by anybody, Jakey? Huh! I guess not. But if I were, mother wouldn't be
here to enjoy it. Won't you tell Professor Ashton that you are sorry?
"
"Fran--" Abbott began.
Fran made a mouth at him. "I don't belong to your school any more,"
she informed him. "Mr. School-Director can tell you the name of what
he can do to me; he'll find it classified under the E's."
After this explosion, she turned again to the lad: "I saw you punch
that boy, Jakey, and I heard you say you didn't, and yet it was a good
punch. What made you deny it? Punches aren't bad ideas. If I could
strike out like you did, I'd wait till I saw a man bullying a weaker
one, and I'd stand up to him--" Fran leaped impulsively to her feet,
and doubled her arm--"and I'd let her land! Punching's a good thing,
and, oh, how it's needed....Except at school--you mustn't do anything
human here, you must be an oyster at school."
"Aw-right," said Jakey, with a glimmering of comprehension. He seemed
coming to life, as if sap were trickling from winter-congealment.
Bob Clinton, too, felt the fresh breeze of early spring in his face.
He removed his spectacles.
"The first thing I knew," Fran said, resuming her private conversation
with Jakey, "I had a mother, but no father--not that he was dead, oh,
bless you, he was alive enough--but before my birth he deserted
mother. Uncle turned us out of the house. Did we starve, that deserted
mother and her little baby? I don't look starved, do I? Pshaw! If a
woman without a cent to her name, and ten pounds in her arms can make
good, what about a big strong boy like you with a mother to smile
every time he hits the mark? And you'd better believe we got more than
a living out of life. Mother taught me geography and history and the
Revolutionary War--you know history's one thing, and the Revolutionary
War is another--and every lesson she gave me was soaked with love till
it was nearly as sweet as her own brave eyes. Maybe I wouldn't have
liked it, if I'd had to study on a hard bench in a stuffy room with
the world shut out, and a lid put on my voice--but anything's good
that's got a mother in it. And tell these gentlemen you're sorry for
punching that boy."
"Sorr'," muttered Jakey shamefacedly.
"I am glad to hear it," Abbott exclaimed heartily. "You can take your
cap to go, Jakey."
"Lemme stay," Jakey pleaded, not budging an inch. Fran lifted her face
above the tousled head to look at Abbott; she sucked in her cheeks and
made a triumphant oval of her mouth. Then she seemed to forget the
young man's presence.
"But when mother died, real trouble began. It was always hard work,
while she lived, but hard work isn't trouble, la, no, trouble's just
an empty heart! Well, sir, when I read about how good Mr. Hamilton
Gregory is, and how much he gives away--to folks he never sees--here I
came. But I don't seem to belong to anybody, Jakey, I'm outside of
everything. People wouldn't care if I blew away with the dead leaves,
and maybe I will, some fine morning--maybe they'll go up to my room
and call, 'Fran! Fran!'--and there'll be no Fran. Oh, oh, how happy
they'll be _then!_ But you have a home and a mother, Jakey, and a
place in the world, so I say 'Hurrah!' because you belong to somebody,
and, best of all, you're not a girl, but a boy to strike out straight
from the shoulder."
Jakey was dissolved; tears burst their confines.
One may shout oneself hoarse at the delivery of a speech which, if
served upon printed page, would never prompt the reader to cast his
hat to the ceiling. No mere print under bold head-lines did Abbott
read, but rather the changing lights and shadows in great black eyes.
It was marvelous how Fran could project past experiences upon the
screen of the listener's perception. At her, "When mother died,"
Abbott saw the girl weeping beside the death-bed. When she sighed, "I
don't belong to anybody," the school-director felt like crying, "Then
belong to me!" But it was when she spoke of blowing away with the dead
leaves--looking so pathetic and so full of elfish witchery--that the
impression was deepest. It almost seemed possible that she might fade
and fade to an autumn leaf, and float out the window, and be lost--
Clinton had an odd impulse to hold her, lest she vanish.
Fran now completed her work. She rose from the immovable Jakey and
came over to Abbott Ashton, with meekly folded hands.
He found the magic of the moonlight-hour returning. She had mellowed--
glowed--softened--womanized--Abbott could not find the word for it.
She quivered with an exquisiteness not to be defined--a something in
hair, or flesh, or glory of eye, or softness of lips, altogether
lacking in his physical being, but eagerly desired.
"Professor Ashton," she spoke seriously, "I have been horrid. I might
have known that school is merely a place where young people crawl into
books to worm themselves from lid to lid, swallowing all that comes in
the way. But I'd never been to school, and I imagined it a place where
a child was helped to develop itself. I thought teachers were trying
to show the pupils the best way to be what they were going to be. I've
been disappointed, but that's not your fault; you are just a system.
If a boy is to be a blacksmith after he's grown, and if a girl in the
same class is to be a music-teacher, or a milliner, both must learn
about _a-b-c_ and _d-e-f_. So I'm going away for good, because, of
course, I couldn't afford to waste my time in this house. I know the
names of the bones and the distances of the planets are awfully nice,
but I'm more interested in Fran."
"But, Fran," Abbott exclaimed impulsively, "don't you see that you are
holding up ignorance as a virtue? Can you afford to despise knowledge
in this civilized age? You should want to know facts just because--
well, just because they are facts."
"But I don't seem to, at all," Fran responded mildly. "No, I'm not
making fun of education when I find fault with your school, any more
than I show irreverence to my mother's God when I question what some
people call 'religion'. I want to find the connection--looks like it's
lost--the connection between life and--everything else. It's the
connection to life that makes facts of any value to me; and it's only
in its connection to life that I'd give a pin for all the religion on
earth."
"I don't understand," Abbott faltered.
She unfolded her hands, and held them up in a quaint little gesture of
aspiration. "No, because it isn't in a book. I feel lost--so out in
space. I only ask for a place in the universe--to belong to
somebody..."
"But," said Abbott, "you already belong to somebody, since Mr. Gregory
has taken you into his home and he is one of the best men that ever--"
"Oh, let's go home," cried Fran impatiently. "Let's all of us skip out
of this chalky old basement-smelly place, and breathe the pure air of
life."
She darted toward the door, then looked back. Sadness had vanished
from her face, to give place to a sudden glow. The late afternoon sun
shone full upon her, and she held her lashes apart, quite unblinded by
its intensity. She seemed suddenly illumined, not only from without,
but from within.
Abbott seized his hat. Robert Clinton had already snatched up his.
Jakey squeezed his cap in an agitated hand. All four hurried out into
the hall as if moved by the same spring.
Unluckily, as they passed the hall window, Fran looked out. Her eyes
were caught by a group seated on the veranda of the Clinton boarding-
house. There were Miss Sapphira Clinton, Miss Grace Noir, and several
mothers, sipping afternoon tea. In an instant, Fran had grasped the
plot. That cloud of witnesses was banked against the green weather-
boarding, to behold her ignominy.
"Mr. Clinton," said Fran, all sweetness, all allurement, "I am going
to ask of you a first favor. I left my hat up in Miss Bull's room
and--"
"I will get it," said Abbott promptly.
"Lem _me!"_ Jakey pleaded, with fine admiration.
"Well, I rather guess not!" cried Bob. "Think I'll refuse Fran's first
request?" He sped upstairs, uncommonly light of foot.
"Now," whispered Fran wickedly, "let's run off and leave him."
"I'm with you!" Abbott whispered boyishly.
They burst from the building like a storm, Fran laughing musically,
Abbott laughing joyously, Jakey laughing loudest of all. They sallied
down the front walk under the artillery fire of hostile eyes from the
green veranda. They continued merry. Jakey even swaggered, fancying
himself a part of it; he regretted his short trousers.
When Robert Clinton overtook them, he was red and breathless, but
Fran's beribboned hat was clutched triumphantly in his hand. It was he
who first discovered the ambuscade. He suddenly remembered, looked
across the street, then fell, desperately wounded. The shots would
have passed unheeded over Abbott's head, had not Fran called his
attention to the ambuscade.
"It's a good thing," she said innocently, "that you're not holding my
hand--" and she nodded toward the boarding-house. Abbott looked, and
turned for one despairing glance at Bob; the latter was without sign
of life.
"What shall we do?" inquired Fran, as they halted ridiculously. "If we
run for it, it'll make things worse."
"Oh, Lord, yes!" groaned Bob; _"don't_ make a bolt!"
Abbott pretended not to understand. "Come on, Fran, I shall go home
with you." His fighting blood was up. In his face was no surrender,
no, not even to Grace Noir. "Come," he persisted, with dignity.
"How jolly!" Fran exclaimed. "Shall we go through the grove?--that's
the longest way."
"Then let us go that way," responded Abbott stubbornly.
"Abbott," the school-director warned, "you'd better come on over to my
place--I'm going there this instant to--to get a cup of tea. It'll be
best for you, old fellow, you listen to me, now--you need a little
er--a--some--a little stimulant."
"No," Abbott returned definitely. He had done nothing wrong, and he
resented the accusing glances from across the way. "No, I'm going with
Fran."
"And don't you bother about him," Fran called after the retreating
chairman of the board, "he'll have stimulant enough."