BELLE-ANN VISITS LEXINGTON
One evening after class hours, Belle-Ann was in her room engrossed in
the pages of her grammar when Miss Worth entered. As the girl leaned
over her book, her black curls tumbled about her face, she did not look
up until Miss Worth spoke.
"Belle-Ann," said Miss Worth, with a twinkle in her clear eyes. "I see I
shall be obliged to lock all your books up in the closet."
"And I shan't complain if you-all allow me to carry the key," returned
Belle-Ann.
"But I would guard the key, dear," declared her teacher, pushing the
grammar aside and drawing Belle-Ann over to a sofa.
"But I can whittle--Lem taught me to whittle--I can make lots of funny
things--and I would make a key with my pencil knife and open the door."
"Then I would take away your wooden key and lock you, together with your
books, in the closet."
"Then I would pull the shortest hair from my crown and blow on both ends
and make a wish and turn into an elf--no, a gnome,--no, that isn't it
either--anyhow, I would turn into something very thin and flat and slide
out under the door."
"But you couldn't get your books out, dear--and it would be too lonesome
and dark to study in the closet."
"But I would catch some fire-flies out thah and slide back under the
door--then I would have a light, and when I study I don't get lonesome."
"Then a sad thing would happen, my dear--I would be compelled to switch
you----"
Belle-Ann vented a peal of pent-up glee and pulled the prematurely white
head toward her.
"Then I would kiss you thah and thah and thah--I would do what you
always tell me--I would give good for evil--and I would not switch you
back, and would only squeeze you hard--like this----"
The woman in turn touched the dimpled, mischievous face fondly and
kissed the red mouth, so temptingly close to her. Miss Worth the while
had held a free hand behind her and in this hand she secreted something.
"I really didn't come in to frolic, Belle-Ann," she said. "I came to
tell you something--rather to ask you to do something for us."
"Who's us, Miss Virginia?" quizzed Belle-Ann, her roguish, child-like
curiosity superseding her levity.
"I mean for me--of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel
Tennytown--in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already
know, I have private means and an income that accumulates until I hardly
know at times where to place it."
Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's
low brow.
"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a
hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done--and
we feel--I feel that you have gifts and natural aptitudes that should
not be neglected--and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you
to borrow some money from me."
Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she
studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.
"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need
money--deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of
that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send
more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia--but----"
The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the
eloquent eyes protesting.
"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly,
Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a
position to afford you the kind of training and education that your
energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress,
you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer
you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I
well know that you are not the girl to grow vain--but your voice has
always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if
your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical
instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very
shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for
your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning--and
eventually you can go abroad--to Germany--and the means will be
forthcoming!"
"You mean--mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.
"Yes."
"Alone--by myself?" she ejaculated.
"Well, we can't tell--I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an
amused smile.
As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her
comprehension, an efflux of joy and gratitude bubbled up from the girl's
heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She
sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and
her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon
a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her
child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into
a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own
humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled
and overwhelmed her senses.
Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now
moist and brimming with love, gratitude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her
bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon
her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the
woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the
neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered
words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.
"But can I be worth it--could I ever--ever--be worth it? Besides, I
could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.
"Surely you can, sometime--you will have money of your own--that is, you
may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat
up straight.
"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.
"Yes--you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty
Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your
voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that
of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the
fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to
have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection--and who can
tell--you may in time become a prima-donna."
Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent
to her an attitude of listening to some seductive melody coming from
afar.
"Prima-donna--prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly.
"Prima-donna--but don't tell me--let me find it, Miss Worth--I am not
sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and
returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and
swiftly.
"P-r--p-r-i--prima--prima-donna--heah, I have it," she said.
"'Prima-donna--the principal female singer in an opera;'--and do they
make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.
"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amusement. Belle-Ann
reflected for a moment.
"Maybe--fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.
"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that
some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."
"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.
"Yes."
Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment
touched her pretty oval features.
"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands
hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week--I just
know I couldn't."
Miss Worth laughed outright--then kissed her twice.
"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth
cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann
showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.
"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them
immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city
society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to
have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to
the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns
made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth
dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was
utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight
were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and
rapture.
The mere anticipation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled
Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.
She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the
prospect of possessing herself of an assortment of pretty modern dresses
for which her girl-heart now yearned,--particularly since she came to
the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls
who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss
Ackerman.
And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up
before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes
sparkle with anticipation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she
was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot
the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.
That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings
that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that
her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and
bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At
eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the
ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and
Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.