A Little Girl in Old Salem - Amanda Minnie Douglas (readict books .txt) 📗

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.