THE NEW PUPILS
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Has had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar,
Not in entire forgetfulness, not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God--who is our Home.
_----Wordsworth._
WHEN school opened after the Easter holiday, the Watson family began
to attend. It was two miles to the bare little schoolhouse at the
cross-roads. The road lay straight across the prairie, green now with
the tender green of spring, and dotted thick with blue anemones. A
prairie fire, the fall before, had burned away all the old grass, and
so everywhere the country was of the richest dazzling green, varied
only in the shades--the tender, soft green of the young wheat, the
bluish green of the oat-fields, with here and there splendid groves
of poplars, making a scene which, to Pearl's eyes, was of untold
beauty.
Away to the south the Tiger Hills were veiled in blue smoke, as if
some distant prairie fire was raging through the meadows beyond.
Across the long reach of upland pasture--swiftly and almost
noiselessly--swept the mixed train of the Canadian Northern, its huge
smoke plume standing straight up in the morning air, white and gray
like billows of chiffon, suddenly changing to deepest black.
"They're stokin' up for the grade," Jimmy said, as he stood watching
it. Jimmy had not stolen rides on freight-cars without learning
something.
Danny, although not quite of school age, was with the party because
he refused to stay at home. Aunt Kate encouraged him in the idea, and
made him a pair of pants and fixed up a striped sweater of Bugsey's
for him. So Danny, fully clothed in boy's attire, was very much in
evidence.
When they were crossing the fire-guard around the school, Bugsey grew
faint-hearted and began to cry. "I'm feart he'll bate me," he
whimpered.
Bugsey had been to school in Millford, of course, but his teacher
there had been Miss Morrison, and the teacher here was a man.
Patsey showed signs of being infected with the tear-germ, too, and so
Pearlie quickly forged ahead with the unaffected members of her
party, to get them under cover before they had time to think of it.
School was called when she arrived in haste and walked up to the
teacher's desk, followed by Danny, Mary, Jimmy, and Tommy. Danny was
hiding his face in her skirts. Tommy and Jimmy were outwardly calm,
but Pearl knew that it would take very little to stampede them.
"We're coming to school, if you please," Pearl said, keeping a tight
hold of Danny.
The teacher was a man of middle-age, with heavy eyebrows and great
dignity of manner. He looked at the Watson family in silence.
"Speak to them, or they'll bolt," Pearl said, with the authority that
comes of being the eldest girl in a large family.
The teacher saw the situation and rose to it. "Come here, Johnny," he
said at a venture. "Are you a little gun-shy?"
"My name ain't Johnny, if yer meanin' me," said Jimmy, with a fine
show of courage.
Pearl introduced her flock hastily and told the teacher to hang on to
Danny while she went for the others.
When Pearl came in leading the other two boys the teacher exclaimed
in wonder.
"This'll be all until winter-time," Pearl assured him, "and then
Teddy and Billy will be comin'."
"I guess we're sure of the Government grant now," the teacher said,
smiling. He helped Pearl to convince the boys that they were in the
hands of friends, and even brought out the contents of his pocket and
searched through his desk to get Danny to take a cheerful view of
life again.
The Watson family, when they were at last settled in their new seats,
did a great deal to relieve the bareness of the dingy school-room.
All at once the room seemed to be very much alive and stirring.
While the teacher was busy with the boys, Pearl's sharp eyes were
looking over her new schoolmates. Instinctively she knew that the
pale little girl ahead of her must be Libby Anne Cavers. She had
wondered often, since coming to the farm, how Libby Anne would regard
the Watson family. Would she think that they had taken away her old
home? Impulsively Pearl leaned over and presented Libby Anne with a
new slate-rag securely anchored by a stout string to the neck of a
small bottle filled with water. This new way of slate-cleaning had
not yet reached the Chicken Hill School, where the older method
prevailed, and as a result, Libby Anne's small slate-rag was dark
gray in colour and unpleasant in character, and nearly always lent to
her less provident neighbours.
Libby Anne turned her pale face and frightened eyes toward the big
new girl, and in that glance Pearl read all her sad child history.
Libby Anne was just what she had pictured her to be, little and thin
and scared. She put her hands on Libby Anne's thin shoulders and,
drawing her back, whispered in her ear: "I like ye, Libby Anne."
Libby Anne's face brightened, though she made no reply. However, in a
few minutes she pulled the cork from the little bottle and gave her
slate a vigorous cleaning with the new rag, and Pearl knew her
oblation of friendship had been favourably received.
Mr. Donald, the teacher, was a student of human nature, as every
successful teacher must be, and before the day was over he was sure
that in Pearl Watson he had a pupil of more than ordinary interest.
At the afternoon recess he called her to his desk and asked her about
her previous school experience.
Pearl told him frankly her hope and fears. "I want to learn," she
said. "I want to know things, because I love to learn, and besides, I
have to be able to tell the boys and Mary what's what. We're awful
poor, but we're happy, and there's none of us real stupid. All we
want is a chance. I just ache to know things. Do you ever?" she asked
him suddenly.
"I do, Pearl," he answered. "I do, indeed."
"Oh, well," she said, "I guess you know all of the things I'm
thinkin' about; but I suppose the farther a person goes the more they
see that they don't know.
"That's it, Pearl," he said, smiling. "The larger the circle of
light, the larger the darkness around it."
Pearl pondered a minute.
"That's just what I've often thought, but I didn't know how to say
it. Well," she went on, "I often wonder what makes the wind blow, and
what makes you fall when you step off things, and how does the hail
come when it's scorchin' hot; and I've often wondered what holds the
clouds up, and I'd like to know what's goin' on, and what people
think about things."
She stopped suddenly, and looked closely into his face. She had to be
sure of a sympathetic listener.
"Go on, Pearl," Mr. Donald said, kindly. "I am interested. Tell me
what else you are wondering about."
"Well," she said, "I'll tell you the biggest wonder I have. I would
not tell it to every one, for if they've never thought of it it is
just as well for them, for there's a danger of thinkin' too far in
it. I am wonderin' often why God let the bad men crucify the dear
Lord, and Him that kind and sweet and gentle. I often think about it
at night, and can't sleep. I think about all the angels, big
strappin' fellows, flyin' around the cross, feelin' so sorry for Him,
and just wantin' so bad to hold Him up in their arms, but knowin'
they dassent interfere without orders, and I often imagine to meself
that the word did come to the angels to jump in and save Him, and I
can just see how tender they would lift Him down from the cross, and
the two poor fellows with Him, and they would float away off into the
blue sky, leaving the bad people down below, the soldiers and the
high priests and all of them, gawkin' up, wid their mouths open,
watchin' them growin' smaller and smaller, until they were gone clean
from sight; and then Pilate would say to them: 'Didn't I tell you to
watch what you were about? Let me tell yez, ye have put your foot in
it good and plenty this time.' But then I think of what really did
happen, and it just breaks my heart to think of it."
Pearl's tears overflowed her eyes, but she wiped them away and went
on steadily. "I wonder if you could tell me why it happened, Mr.
Donald. I know God did it for the best. I am not sayin' a word
against Him, mind ye, for I know what He's like, and how good He is,
and all; but it was awful to let our Lord die that like."
Mr. Donald felt his own heart strangely moved at the little girl's
distress.
"I am not very well up in these things, Pearl," he said; "but if He
hadn't died he could not have shown us the resurrection."
"Oh, I don't mind Him dyin'," said Pearl quickly. "Everybody has to
die, and when they've lived right and done the best they could for
every one, it is just glorious to die and go home. It's just like
people comin' home from college with their examination papers marked
high, and their certificates and medals to show how hard they worked;
or I guess it's more like soldiers comin' home all tired out, and
sunburnt, showing their scars--we can show our hands all hard with
work for other people, and our faces cheerful and patient. That's
what'll count up there, I guess. It's all right to die, but I can't
see why He had to die that way--it was terrible, and it wasn't comin'
to Him."
"Perhaps it was to show us how much He loved us," the teacher said
gently.
"He shows us that in lots of ways," Pearl said. "He says He loves us,
and ye can't live one day without feelin' that there's love in the
world, and I'm sure it didn't come from anywhere else but God--oh,
no, it didn't need, that to show us."
The teacher was looking at her in wonder.
"I tell you what to do, Pearl. Ask Mr. Burrell; he'll be able to tell
you."
After school that night Pearl opened the theological discussion
again.
"Mr. Donald," she said, "don't you think we should try to get some
one to preach here and have a Sunday-school? These children here,
except Lib. Cavers, don't know anything about the Bible. I've been
asking them about Easter Sunday. They don't know anything about it,
only it's a time to see how many eggs you can hold, and they think
that God is a bad word It would just be fine if we could have a
Sunday-school and learn verses. Our Jimmy got a black Testament
for fifty verses, said exactly like the book. You would be
superintendent, wouldn't you?"
Mr. Donald coloured painfully. "I don't know, Pearl--we'll see," he
said evasively.
That night when he went back to his boarding-place--the big brick
house on the hill--he was strangely disturbed and troubled. He had
told himself years ago that religion was a delusion, a will o' the
wisp. But there was something in Pearl's face and in her words that
seemed to contradict the logic of his reasoning.
Charles Donald was a man who tried hard to make a stoic of himself,
to convince himself that he was past feeling the stings of evil
fortune. He had suffered so deeply that he told himself that nothing
could ever hurt him again. A spiritual numbness had come upon him,
which he took to be the compensation for the variety of hard knocks
he had experienced. He was a genial, pleasant, gentle man, but his
face bore that look of settled sadness that comes into the eyes of
people for whom the world has held an awkward hour.
He was regarded by the people in the school district as a good
teacher, and, indeed, he had quite conscientiously put before his
pupils as much of the curriculum as they could conveniently grasp. He
was kind and patient with his pupils always, but he had never exerted
himself to change their outlook upon life, or to put nobler ideals
before them.
"They are happier as they are," he often thought to himself. "The ox
in the field, so long as the grass is good, is happier than most of
us with all our wisdom, and well he should be, for his days are free
from care, and when his days are over there's the quick blow and the
sharp knife, and that is not so bad."
But after Pearl came to school, he found himself going over his
neglected library to find the books that would throw light on the
many questions that she brought forward, and every evening he went
carefully over the lessons, taking a distinct pride now in making
them of interest to her.
In this way, having more to employ his thoughts, he soon began to
think of the past less sadly. Pearl's optimism was contagious.