GOING TO SCHOOL
Elizabeth Leverett interviewed Dame Wilby beforehand. The woman came
half a day on Monday to wash and she hardly knew how to spend half an
hour, but when she found Miss Winn was going, she loftily relegated the
whole business to her.
Dame Wilby lived in an old rambling house, already an eyesore to the
finer houses in Lafayette Street, but the Dame was obstinate and would
not sell. "It was going to last her time out. She was born here when it
was only a lane, and she meant to be buried from here." Once it had been
quite a flourishing school; but newer methods had begun to supersede it.
It was handy for the small children about the neighborhood, it took them
over the troublesome times, it gave their mothers a rest, and kept them
out of mischief. And the old dames were thorough, as far as they went.
Indeed, some of the mothers had never gone any farther. They could cast
up accounts, they could weigh and measure, for they had learned all the
tables. They could spell and read clearly, they knew all the common arts
of life, and how to keep on learning out of the greater than printed
books--experience.
Dame Wilby might have been eighty. No one remembered her being young.
Her husband was lost at sea and she opened the school, worked in her
garden, saved until she had cleared her small old home, and now was
laying up a trifle every year. She was tall and somewhat bent in the
shoulders, very much wrinkled, with clear, piercing light blue eyes and
snowy hair. She always wore a cap and only a little line of it showed at
the edge of her high forehead. Her frocks were made in the plainest
style, skirts straight and narrow, and she always wore a little shoulder
shawl, pinned across the bosom--white in the summer, home-dyed blue in
the winter.
Some children were playing tag in the unoccupied lot next door. The
schoolroom door opened at the side. There were two rows of desks, with
benches for the older children, two more with no desks for the A B C and
spelling classes. The rest they learned in concert, orally. The dame had
a table covered with a gray woollen cloth, some books, an inkstand, a
holder for pens and pencils, and the never-failing switch.
"Yes," she answered to Miss Winn's explanation. "Miss Leverett was
telling about her. I was teaching school here when she was born, and
then the captain took her away to the Ingies again." Most folks
pronounced it that way. "Rather meachin' little thing--I s'pose it was
the climate over there. They say it turns the skin yellow. Let's see how
you read, sissy?"
She read several verses out of the New Testament quite to the dame's
satisfaction. Then about spelling. The second word, in two syllables,
floored her. Had she ciphered? No. Did she know her tables? No. The
capital of the state? That she could answer. When the war broke out?
When peace was declared?
"I'll ask Cousin Leverett," she answered, in nowise abashed by her
ignorance. "He tells me a great many things."
"You must study it out of books. I s'pose she's going to live here?
She's not going back to the Ingies? I heard the captain was coming
home."
"He is settling up his affairs," was the quiet answer.
Dame Wilby looked the child all over.
"You'll sit on that bench," she said. Then she rang the bell and the
children trooped in, staring at her. The little boys--four of them--were
on the seat back of her, on her seat she made the fifth. Betty Upham was
in the desk contingent.
They repeated the Lord's prayer in concert. Then lessons were given out.
The larger girls read.
"You can come and read with this class;" nodding to Cynthia.
She was not a regularly bashful child, but she flushed as the children
stared at her. They sometimes wore their Sunday white frock one or two
days at school. Cynthia was so used to her clothes, cared so little
about them that they were rarely in her mind. But this universal
attention annoyed her.
"'Tend to your books, children."
Cynthia acquitted herself finely, rather too much so, the dame thought.
She would talk to her about it. A girl didn't want to read as if she was
a minister preaching a sermon.
Then she was given a very much "dog's-eared" spelling-book to study down
a column. Another class read some easy lesson; a story about a dog that
interested her so much that she forgot to study. While the older
children were doing sums one little boy after another came up to the
desk and spelled from a book. One's attention wandered and the dame hit
him a sharp rap. Tables followed, eight and nine times; dry measure, and
then questions were asked singly. Some few missed. Cynthia followed the
spelling where they went up and down. Then the larger ones were
dismissed for recess.
"Cynthy Leverett, come up here and see how many words you can spell. You
ought to be ashamed, a big girl like you staying behind in next to the
baby class."
Cynthia's face was scarlet. Alas! She had been so interested watching
and listening she had not studied at all. But the words were rather easy
and she did know all but two.
"Now you take the next line and those two over again. See if you can't
get them all learned by noon."
The next little girl, who could not have been more than six, missed a
number. She had a queer drawl in her voice.
"What did I tell you, Jane Mason? And you have missed more than two.
Hold out your hand!"
The switch came down on the poor little hand with an angry swish.
Cynthia winched.
"Now you go back and study. No going out to play for you this morning.
Jane Mason, you're the biggest dunce in school."
The two other girls did better. Then the bell rang and the girls came in
with flushed and laughing faces.
Cynthia studied her two words over until they ceased to have any
meaning. At twelve they were all dismissed.
"Isn't she a hateful old thing?" said Janie Mason, when they were
outside of the door. "I wish I was big enough to strike back. I don't
like school anyhow. Do you?"
"I--I don't know. I have never been before."
Several of the other girls swarmed around her with curious eyes.
"What a pretty frock!" began Betty Upham. "I suppose it's your Sunday
best, with all that work."
"Betty said you were an Injun," said another. "I never saw an Injun who
didn't have coarse, straight, black hair, and yours is lightish and
curls. I'd so love to have curly hair."
"I'm not the kind of Indians you have here," she returned indignantly.
"I was born right here in Salem. I've lived in Calcutta and in China,
and been to Batavia, and ever so many places."
"Then you ain't an Injun at all! Betty, how could you?"
"Well, that's what some of them said. Maybe your mother was an Injun!"
looking as if she had fixed the uncertain suspicion.
"No, she wasn't. She lived here part of the time. She was born in
Boston."
They glanced at each other in a kind of upbraiding fashion.
"And you had to be put with the little children! Aren't there any
schools in that place you came from? It's a heathen country. Our
minister prays for it. Don't you have any churches either? What do
people do when they are grown up if they never go to school?"
"Are you coming stiddy?"
"Is Mr. Chilian Leverett your real relation?"
"Oh, tell me--have you any other frock as pretty as this? My sister
Hetty has a beautiful one, all lace and needlework. She's saving it to
be married in."
"Martha, I dare you to a race!"
Two girls ran off as fast as they could. Betty Upham caught Cynthia's
arm.
"I didn't say you were a real Injun. Debby Strang always gets things
mixed up. But it is something queer----"
"East India;" in a tone of great dignity.
"Where the ships are coming from all the time? Is it prettier than
Salem?"
"It's so different you can't tell. We do not have hardly any winter. And
there are vines and flowers and temples to heathen gods, and the people
_are_ yellow and brown."
"Do you suppose you will ever grow clear white?"
Cynthia had half a mind to be angry. Even Miss Elizabeth was fair, and
Miss Eunice had such a soft, pretty skin.
"There, that's your corner. You're coming this afternoon?"
"Oh, I suppose so."
Miss Elizabeth was all bustle and hurry. It was clouding up a little. It
hadn't been a real fair day, and the hot sun had dried the clothes too
quick. She liked them to bleach on the line, it was almost as good as
the grass. And Miss Drake couldn't stay and iron, they had sickness over
to the Appletons and she had to go there. Everything was out of gear.
"I'd help with the ironing, if you would like," said Miss Winn.
"Well, the ironing isn't so much;" rather ungraciously. "You see, there
were four blankets. I never touch an iron to them, but shake them good
and fold them, and let them lay one night, then hang them on the line in
the garret. The bulk of it was large. And a good stiff breeze blows out
wrinkles. The wind hasn't blown worth a Continental;" complainingly.
"Did you like the school?" Miss Winn inquired in the hall.
"No, I didn't. And I don't seem to know anything;" in a discouraged
tone.
"Oh, you will learn."
It was warm in the afternoon. Two of the boys were decidedly bad and
were punished. They positively roared. Cynthia spelled, and spelled, and
studied--"One and one are two," "one and two are three," and after a
while it dawned on her that it was just one more every time. Why, she
had known that all the time, only it hadn't been put in a table.
It grew very tiresome after a while. She asked if she couldn't have
recess with the big girls, but was sharply refused. In truth the good
dame grew very weary herself, and was glad when five o'clock came and
she could go out in the garden and recruit her tired nerves.
The stage was stopping at the door. Oh, how glad she was to see Cousin
Leverett. He smiled down in the flushed face.
"How did the school go?" he asked.
She hung her head. "I don't like it. I have to be with the little class
because I don't know tables, but I learned all the one times. That was
easy enough when you came to see into it. But--nine and nine?"
"Eighteen," he answered promptly.
"And you answered it right offhand!" She gave a soft, cheerful laugh.
"Oh, do you suppose I shall ever know so much?"
"There was a time when I didn't know it."
"Truly?" She looked incredulous.
"Truly. And I had quite hard work remembering to spell correctly."
"I studied two lines. This morning I missed two words, but this
afternoon I knew them all. And I can't write on the slate. The pencil
wabbles so, and then it gives an awful squeak that goes all over you.
And I can't do sums. And there's all the tables to learn. And I don't
like the teacher. I wish Miss Eunice could teach me. Or maybe Rachel
might."
"I might help you a little. But you read well?"
"She said it was too--too"--she wrinkled up her forehead--"too affected,
like a play-actor."
"Nonsense!" he cried disapprovingly. "We will see about some other
school presently. Would you like to take a walk with me? I'm tired of
the long stage-ride."
"Oh, so much!" She caught one hand in both of hers and gave a few skips
of joy.
"Let us go over to the river."
Of course, he should have gone in and announced their resolve. But he
was so used to considering only himself, and he realized that it must
have been a tiresome day to her. They went over Lafayette Street, which
was only a lane, and then turned up the stream.
Oh, how sweet the air was with the odorous dampness and the smell of
new growths, tree and grass. The sun, low in the west, slanted golden
gleams through the tree branches which chased each other over the grassy
spaces, as if they were quite alive and at merry-making. There were
sedgy plants in bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit, and what might have been a
lily, with a more euphonious name. Iridescent flies were skimming about,
now and then a fish made a stir and dazzle. Squirrels ran up and down
the trees and chattered, robins were singing joyously, the thrush with
her soft, plaintive note. She glanced up now and then and caught his
eye, and he felt she was happy. It was a delightful thing, after all, to
render some one truly happy. Perhaps children were more easily
satisfied, more responsive.
"Oh," he said presently, "we must go back or we will lose our supper,
and Cousin Elizabeth will scold."
"I shouldn't think she would dare to scold you;" raising wondering eyes.
"Why not?" He wondered what reason she would give.
"Because you are a man."
"She scolds Silas."
"Oh, that is different."
"How--different? We are both men. He is quite as tall as I."
"But you see--well, he is something like a servant. She tells him what
to do, and if he doesn't do it right she can find fault with it. But
you are--well, the house is yours. You can do what pleases you."
"Quite reasoned out, little one;" and he laughed with an approving
sound.
"It's curious that you scold people you like, and other people may do
the same thing and--is it because you don't dare to? If it is wrong in
the one place, why not in the other?"
"Perhaps politeness restrains us."
"I don't like people to scold. Miss Eunice never does."
"Eunice has a sweet nature. Doesn't Miss Winn ever scold you?"
"Well--I suppose I am bad and wilful sometimes, and then she has the
right. But when you do things that do not matter----"
Miss Winn was walking in the garden. Cynthia waved her hand, but walked
leisurely forward.
"I couldn't imagine what had become of you."
"It was my fault," interposed Chilian. "I met her at the gate and asked
her to go for a walk."
"And with that soiled apron!"
"That came off the slate. I hadn't any desk. It was hard to hold it on
my knee."
"You might have come in for a clean one. Run upstairs and change it."
But she was destined to meet Cousin Elizabeth in the hall. The elder
caught her arm roughly.
"Where have you been gadding to, bad girl? Didn't you know you must
come straight home from school? Here we have been worried half to death
about you, and I'm tired as a dog, trotting 'round all day. You deserve
a good whipping;" and she shook her. She would have enjoyed slapping her
soundly. But Chilian entered at that instant.
"She is going upstairs for a clean apron," he said. "I took her off for
a walk."
"She might have asked whether she could go or not," snapped Elizabeth.
"She's the most lawless thing!"
"It was my place. Don't blame the child!"
"Well, supper's ready."
She didn't have her apron on quite straight and her hair was a little
frowsy. Elizabeth had proposed it should be cut short on the neck for
the summer, but Miss Winn had objected.
"Such a great mop! No child wears it!"
Cynthia came in quietly and took her place. After her first cup of tea
Elizabeth thawed a little, enough to announce that two of the Appleton
children were ill, they thought with scarlet fever.
Chilian expressed some sympathy.
"And how was the school, Cynthia? We thought you might have been kept in
for some of your good deeds, as children are so seldom bad."
"I--I didn't like it," she answered simply.
"Children can't have just what they like in this world," was Elizabeth's
rejoinder.
"Nor grown people either," was Chilian's softening comment. Then he
changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them
a visit, coming on some Saturday.
"Have you any lesson to learn?" he asked of Cynthia. "If so, bring your
book and come to my room."
"Oh, thank you!" Her face was radiant with delight.
Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and
study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside
the gate under the great clump of ribbon grass. If only Cousin
Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough.
She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never
presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered
at.
The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that
puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in
making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed
instead of writing.
"Oh!" she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, "I wish I could come
to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar."
"But you ought to be with little girls."
"I don't like them very much."
Then Miss Winn came for her. "You are very good to take so much
trouble," she said.
"Oh, I like you so much, so much!" she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as
well as her lips.
He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in
her impetuous fashion that he should kiss her. She had never offered the
caress since. She was not an effusive child.
Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have
managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on
the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her.
He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad
on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not
at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did
not feel sorry.
"You're a great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a button,"
he said scornfully. "I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it,
see if I don't."
Thursday was unfortunate and she was kept in for some rather saucy
replies. When she returned they were in the sitting-room and had been
discussing some household matters. She surveyed them with a courageous
but indignant air.
"I've quit," she exclaimed. "I'm not going there to school any more."
She stood up very straight, her eyes flashing.
"What!" ejaculated Cousin Elizabeth.
"Why, I've quit! She wanted to make me say I was sorry and beg her
pardon, and she threatened to keep me all night, but I knew some of you
would come, at least Rachel."
"And I suppose you were a saucy, naughty girl!"
"What happened?" asked Chilian quietly.
"Why, you see--I went up to her table with the figures I had been making
on my slate. I'd done some of them over three times, for Tommy Marsh
joggled my elbow. Then I went back to my seat. We're crowded now, and I
went to sit down and sat on the floor. I do believe Sadie Green did it
on purpose--moved so there wasn't room enough for me to sit. And Tom
laughed, then all the children laughed, and Dame Wilby said, 'Get up,
Cynthy Leverett,' and I said 'My name isn't Cynthy, if you please, and I
haven't any seat to sit on if I do get up.' And then the children
laughed again, and I don't quite know what did happen, but I was so
angry. Then she said all the children should stay in for laughing. She
called me to the desk and I went. The slate was broken and I laid it on
the table. Then she said wasn't I sorry for being saucy, and I said I
wasn't. It was bad enough to fall on the floor, for I might have hurt
myself. Then she took up her switch, and I said: 'You strike me, if you
dare!' Then she pushed me in a little closet place, and there I staid
until after school was out. Then she said, 'Would I tell Miss Leverett
to come over?' and I said Mr. Leverett was my guardian and I would tell
him, but I wasn't coming to school any more, and that Tommy Marsh
pinched me and pulled my hair, and called me wild Indian. And so--I've
quit. You can't make me go again. I'll run away first and go on some of
the boats."
There was a blaze of scarlet on her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire,
but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have
broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture
she made--small, dark, and spirited.
"No," he exclaimed, "you need not go back." Then he rose and took her
hand that was cold and trembling. "You will not go back. Let us find
Miss Winn----"
"Chilian!" warned Elizabeth.
He led Cynthia from the room, up the stairs. Miss Winn sat there sewing.
She clasped her arms about him, he could fairly feel the throb in them.
"Oh," she cried with a strange sort of sweetness. "I love you. You are
so good to me, and I have told you just the truth."
Then she buried her face on Miss Winn's bosom.
Chilian went downstairs. He laughed, yet he was deeply touched by her
audacity and bravery.
"Elizabeth," he announced; "I will see Mrs. Wilby. Let the matter die
out, do not refer to it. I did not think it quite the school for her. We
will find something else."
"Chilian, I must make one effort for you and her. Going on this way will
be her ruin. I should insist upon her going back to school and
apologizing to Mrs. Wilby. I wouldn't let a chit like that order what a
household of grown people should do and make them bow down to her. You
will be sorry for it in the end. You have had no experience with
children, you have seen so few. And a man hasn't the judgment----"
His usually serene temper was getting ruffled, and with such characters
the end is often obstinacy.
"If she is to make a disturbance here, become a bone of contention with
us, I will send her away. Cousin Giles is taking a great interest in
her. There are good boarding-schools in Boston, or she and Miss Winn
could have a home together under his supervision. There is enough to
provide for them."
"And you would turn her over to that half-heathen woman!" in a horrified
tone. "Then I wash my hands of the matter. Send her to perdition, if you
will."