62CHAPTER X.CHOOSING A PROFESSION.
There was one peculiarity of Montrose Academy that had been slow to recommend itself to the parents of its pupils. That was the elective system, which was adopted after much controversy on the part of the Board of Trustees.
The more conservative insisted that the prosperity of the past had shown the wisdom of keeping strictly to a curriculum that did not allow individual choice of studies. The newer element in the Board were equally sure that to oblige a girl to go through a course of Latin and Greek, of higher mathematics, of logic and geology, who, on leaving school, would never have the slightest use for them, was simply a waste of time. A compromise was made at length, by which, for five years, the elective system should be practised, it being claimed that no shorter time could fairly prove its success or its failure; and during this period certain studies of the old course should be insisted upon. First and foremost the Bible, the others chosen to depend upon the class.
The year of Marion’s entering the school was the second of the experiment; and, after joining the63middle class and having her regular lessons assigned to her, she was not a little surprised, and in truth confused, by Miss Ashton asking her, as if it was a matter of course, “What do you intend todoin the future?” as if she expected her to have her future all mapped out, and was to begin at once her preparation for it. Miss Ashton saw her embarrassment, and helped her by saying,—
“Many of the young ladies come here with very definite plans; for instance, your room-mate Dorothy is fitting for a teacher, and a very fine one she will make! Gladys is making special study of everything pertaining to natural science,—geology, botany, physics, and chemistry. She intends when she goes back to Florida to become an agriculturist. I dare say you have already heard her talk of the wonderful possibilities to be found there. Her father is an enthusiast in the work, and she means to fit herself to be his able assistant. Susan wants to be a banker, and avails herself of every help she can find toward it.
“You see our little lame girl Helen! She is to be an artist, and devotes all her spare time to courses in art. She is in the second year, and has made wonderful progress in shading in charcoal from casts and models. She uses paints, both oils and watercolors, but those do not come in our regular course.
“If we see any special talent in a pupil in any line, we do not confine ourselves to what we can do for her, but we call in extra help from abroad.
“Kate Underwood is to be a lawyer. Mamie64Smythe has a new chosen profession for every new year, but as she is an only child, and her mother is wealthy, she will never enter one.
“I might go on through perhaps an eighth of the school, and point out to you girls who are studying with an aim. For the greater number, they are content to go on with the regular curriculum; as their only object, and that of their parents for them, seems to be to secure sufficient education to make them pass creditably through the common life of ordinary women.
“I thought you might have a definite object in view; and as you are now fairly started in your classes, and, as your teachers tell me, are doing very well, if you had a plan, you could find time to choose such other studies as would help you.”
This was new to Marion; she asked for time to think it over, which Miss Ashton gladly allowed her.
She had in her heart made her choice, but that, with all the other advantages offered, she could do anything except in a general way to help this choice forward, she had never dreamed. Her room-mates noticed how silent and thoughtful she was after her talk with Miss Ashton, and wondered what could be the cause, surely she was too faithful and far too good a scholar for any remissness that would have to be rebuked; but no one asked her a question.
It was after two days that Marion wrote her mother, and her letter caused a great surprise in the Western parsonage. This is in part what she wrote:—65
“Miss Ashton has asked me what I am todoin the future. It seems they not only give you the regular curriculum, but are ready to allow you elective studies, by which you can fit yourself for your particular future.
“I wonder if you will think me a foolish girl when I write you that, if you both approve, I should like to be a doctor! Don’t laugh! I have seen so much sickness that there was no really educated physician to relieve, and am, as you have so often called me, ‘a regular born nurse,’ that the profession, if a profession I am capable of acquiring, seems very tempting to me. There is no hurry in the decision, only please think it over, and write me your advice.”
It was not long before an answer came:—
“You are quite capable of choosing for yourself; and if you turn naturally to the medical profession, you will have our full approval of your choice.”
When Marion read this, she felt as if she had grown suddenly many years older. She looked carefully over the list of studies, to see from which she could gain the greatest help, and in a short time after her conversation with Miss Ashton she reported herself as a future M.D.
This was not a rare profession for a young girl to choose. Miss Ashton knew that already there were a number with that in view. What she doubted was, whether a quarter of them would ever carry out their intention; and this was one thing which, favoring on the whole as she did the elective system, she could but acknowledge told against it,—the uncertainty which their youth, and the natural tendency of a girl’s mind to change, gave. She had known them in one year, or even a shorter time, an enthusiast in one profession, then, becoming tired of it, and sure66another was more suited to their abilities, turn to the new choice.
One thing, however, was certain: she comforted herself by remembering, that the mental discipline which they had acquired would stay with them, even after the whim of the time had ceased to influence them.
There was an immediate effect, however, which Marion’s decision had upon her. It interested her in those of her schoolmates who were looking forward to a definite and useful future. She could recall now how often her room-mates had spoken of what they intended to do, but she had only listened to it as she had to what they said about their homes and their friends.
How it became known to them that she, too, had made her choice for the future, she wondered over; but it was not long before they began to call her “Dr!” as if she had already earned the title.
Nellie Blair Gorham she had from the first of her entering the school taken a deep interest in. The small, deformed, pale girl had a pathos in her whole appearance that touched deeply Marion’s sympathies. They were in different classes, and, so far, had come little in contact; but now she felt irresistibly drawn to the art studio during the hours when Helen was there, and, standing near, watched her as she worked.
Helen had all the shrinking sensitiveness which her misfortunes and her poverty—for she was poor—would naturally give her. Marion was strong of67body, and strong of mind, with a gentle, loving, sympathetic nature speaking from every look and action; the one, the counterpart of the other.
Marion made an immediate choice, under Miss Ashton’s instruction, of the studies that would help her in the future; and so, with redoubled interest in this school-life, she bent to her work, learning day by day the value of trying to fasten her mind upon that, and that alone.
68CHAPTER XI.VISIT OF COUSIN ABIJAH.
One afternoon when Marion’s lessons had proved unusually difficult, her room-mates noisy, and obstacles everywhere, it seemed to the diligent scholar, she answered a tap on her door, to find Etta Lawrence, the girl who waited in the hall to announce visitors, with a face full of amusement.
“There’s a man down-stairs asking for you, Marion,” she said. “He started to follow me up-stairs; and when I showed him into the parlor, and told him I would call you, he said,—
“‘’Tain’t no odds, I can jist as well go up; I ain’t afraid of stairs, no way.’ I had hard work to make him go into the parlor, and I left him sitting on the edge of a chair, staring around as if he never had seen such a room before.” Then Etta burst into a merry laugh, in which all the others but Marion joined: she stood still, looking from one of the girls to another, as if she couldn’t imagine what it all meant.
“You must go down to the parlor,” said Dorothy, seeing her hesitation.
“It’s some one from out West,” added Sue.
“Did you wish to see me?” asked Marion, looking inquiringly at the man. Page 69.Miss Ashton’s New Pupil.
“Did you wish to see me?” asked Marion, looking inquiringly at the man. Page 69.Miss Ashton’s New Pupil.
69
“Perhaps it’s your father. Hurry! hurry!” said Gladys, thinking how she would hurry if her own father had been there.
Thus encouraged, Marion, with heightened color and a rapidly beating heart, followed Etta down into the parlor, and there, still seated on the edge of his chair, twirling an old felt hat rapidly round between two big, red hands, she saw a tall, lean man in a suit of coarse gray clothes. He had grizzly, iron-gray hair, stubby white whiskers, a pale-blue eye, a brown face streaked with red.
He sat a little nearer the front edge of his chair as she entered the room, and waited for her to speak. Evidently he was not prepared for the kind of Western girl he saw before him.
“Did you wish to see me?” looking inquiringly at him.
“Be you Marion Parke?”
“Yes.”
“I am Abijah Jones, your cousin, three times removed; your great-aunt Betty told me to come out here and make a call on you. She’s set on seeing you at Thanksgiving, and I guess you’d better humor her, for she took a spite at your father cause he wouldn’t farm it, and would have an education; but she allers kind of favored him more than the rest of us, and has allers hankered after him. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m glad to see you, Cousin Abijah,” her Western hospitality coming to her rescue. “Tell me about my Aunt Betty; she is well, I hope.”70
Once launched upon the subject of Aunt Betty, between whom and himself there seemed to have been always a family war, he began to feel entirely at home in his strange surroundings, his voice rising to a pitch that resounded through the large room with a peculiar nasal twang Marion had never heard before. She saw one face after another make its appearance through the half-open door, and she knew very well this unusual visitor was giving a great deal of amusement to those who saw him.
Accustomed to see rude characters at the West as she was, never before had Marion met one who seemed to her so utterly oblivious of all common proprieties. She felt sure that if he remained long, the whole school would be made aware of his peculiar presence; and though she struggled hard not to be ashamed of him, and to make his call as pleasant as she could, she was much relieved when she saw Miss Ashton, who, hearing the strident voice, had come to ascertain its source.
As a New England woman, she at once recognized the type. Marion could only introduce him as her “Cousin Abijah.”
“Three times removed,” put in Cousin Abijah, without rising from his chair, only twirling his hat a little faster in Miss Ashton’s stately presence.
She held her hand out to him cordially, and when he put his great brown knotty fist within it, a dull red color came slowly into his seamed face. It was not from any want of self-respect, far from it; he71would not have been abashed if Queen Victoria with all her court in full dress had entered the room. A real out-and-out country New Englander knows no peer the wide world over.
Seating herself near him, Miss Ashton soon drew him into a pleasant conversation, to which Marion listened in much surprise. Even the man’s voice dropped to a lower pitch, and what he said lost the asperity that had made it so disagreeable. After a few minutes, she proposed to him to show him around the building, where she was sure he would find much to interest him, and, what was a very unusual thing for her to do, she went with him herself. A visitor of this kind was rare in the academy. She well knew the amusement he would create, and when they met, as they did often, groups of girls in the corridor, who stared and smiled at her uncouth companion, she silenced them by a look, which they could not fail to understand.
Kind Miss Ashton! Marion, as well as Cousin Abijah, will never forget it.
“Now, Marion,” she said, when they returned to the parlor, “I will excuse you from your next recitation, and you can take your cousin over to the neighboring city. There is a great deal for him to see there, and I will give you a note which will admit you to some of the large factories.
“You can go with him to the station, and see him off in the cars. You will come home, I know, safely and punctually.”72
Then, if Cousin Abijah had been the President of the United States she would not have bidden him a more cordial “good-by.”
Marion, strengthened by Miss Ashton’s kindness, invited her cousin before they left to visit her room. She took him through the long corridors, fully conscious that out of many doors curious eyes were peeping at them as they passed, and that smiles, sometimes giggles, followed them. Dorothy and Gladys were both there, and made him pleasantly welcome. He did not admire the view from the window, as Marion expected, for he had had far finer mountain views around him all his life; but he looked curiously at the bric-a-brac and pictures, of which the room was full, and will carry home with him wonderful stories of the Western girl’s room.
Then came the visit to Pomfret, the inspection of some of the finest mills, and of the pleasantest parts of the manufacturing city; and Marion bade this country cousin good-by, with the hearty hope that his visit had been a pleasant one.
73CHAPTER XII.THE TABLEAUX.
Friday night, the work of the week being ended, was given to the young ladies as a holiday evening, which, within bounds, was entirely at their disposal. No study was required of them, and it was generally occupied by diversions of one kind and another, in which the whole school were at liberty to join. Sometimes it was a dance, the teachers enjoying it as heartily as their pupils; sometimes it was a concert, and generally it was well worth hearing, for this academy was noted for its skilled musicians. Again, it would be a play, even Antigone not being too ambitious for these amateur actors ortableaux vivants, which never failed to be amusing.
This night was one chosen by the Demosthenic Club for their secret meetings. As its members did not like to lose any of the social fun, these meetings were held so secretly that every one in the building knew of their time and place, much to the annoyance of the club; and no one, so far, not even the club itself, was better informed of what was done and said there than Miss Ashton. It seemed to her a harmless sort of an affair. There was no difference74in the scholarship of its members, the sessions were short, no mischief followed them, and if it made the girls contented and happy it was all right.
How she came to have this perfect understanding it would be difficult to tell, only she was found, in some unknown and mysterious way, to always have the reins in her own hands, no matter how restive the colts she had to control.
The club had grown from the original number of seven, to twelve, the new members having been chosen from among the brightest and most mischievous girls in school. This made Miss Ashton wonder at their uniformly quiet behavior, and increased the vigilance of her watch.
About three weeks after the visit of Cousin Abijah, it was announced that a series of tableaux would be given on Friday evening, illustrating a poem written by Miss Kate Underwood.
Kate’s poetical abilities were well known and greatly admired by the school, even the teachers gave her credit for a knack at humorous sketches rather unusual. She was to be, perhaps, a second John Saxe, possibly an Oliver Wendell Holmes, who could tell? The gift was worth cultivating, particularly as it did not interfere with Kate’s soberer and more disciplinary studies.
Miss Ashton did not think it necessary to see the poem. It was probably witty, if not wise, and wisdom need not intrude its grave face always into the freedom of the Friday nights; indeed, she rather winked75at the performance, as she and her associate principal were to be out of town on that night, and “high fun” in the hall served to keep the girls from any more serious mischief.
All the club were pledged to the most profound secrecy as to what the tableaux were to be; and, for a wonder, there were no revelations made, even to the “dear, intimate friend,” who was not a member, and who generally shared the most “profound secret,” no matter from what source it emanated.
After evening prayers, the hall was given to the club, and as every arrangement had been made previously for the decoration of the stage, the work was completed and the doors thrown open at an early hour.
The hall was soon filled, and the buzz of expectation began long before the curtain was raised; when it was, it showed an interior of a farm kitchen of the olden times. Clothes-bars had been skilfully placed so as to represent a low ceiling, and from them depended hams wrapped in brown paper coverings, sausages enclosed in cloth bags, herbs tied in bunches and labelled in large letters, “Sage, Camomile, Fennel, Dock, Caraway.”
There were ears of corn, sweet, Indian, pop, likewise labelled; tomatoes, strung in rows to dry, and strings also of newly sliced apple.
Under this motley ceiling the room showed plainly it was the living-room of the house. There was a large cooking-stove that shone so you might have76seen your face in it, a row of wash-tubs, leaning bottom side up against the wall, two wooden pails and three tin ones, standing on a shelf over the tubs, and these in close proximity to the only window in the room. Just before this window was a small table with a Bible, a well-worn one, on it, and a pair of steel-bowed spectacles. One yellow wooden chair, and what was called “a settle” near the stove, a large cooking-table, and one more chair, made the furniture of the room.
Before this table sat an old woman, dressed in a black petticoat, and a red, short gown that came a little below her waist. She wore a cap that fitted close to her head, made of some black cloth, innocent of bow or frill; from under it, locks of gray hung down about her face and neck. She had a swarthy skin, two small eyes, hidden by a large pair of glasses, a mouth that kept in motion in spite of the necessity of stillness which a tableau is supposed to demand, as if she were reading the letter she held in her hand aloud. The laugh and clapping which this scene called forth had hardly subsided when, from behind a hidden corner of the stage, a sweet, clear voice began to read the descriptive poem.
“It’s Kate Underwood herself,” was whispered from seat to seat. “There’s no other girl in school that can read as well as she can.”
The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she77was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for “Kate Underwood,” who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there ever any before one-half so good?
Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or done that could injure the feelings of any one, to Marion Parke it seemed an unkind take-off of her cousin during his recent visit to her.
Something in the tall, gaunt girl, in her rough, coarse dress, in the grotesque awkwardness of her movements, reminded Marion of Cousin Abijah; and while she had laughed with the others, and had refused to allow her feelings to be hurt, she left the hall uncomfortable and unhappy, wishing he had never come, or that all the school had shown the kind consideration of Miss Ashton; nor was she helped in the least when she heard Susan telling in great glee how the whole plan had come to them after the visit of that uncouth old cousin of Marion Parke.
78CHAPTER XIII.GLADYS LEAVES THE CLUB.
Dorothy was the first to see Marion at the door of their room after the tableaux. She hoped she had not heard what Sue had said, but that she had she could not doubt when she saw the pained expression on Marion’s face. In the after discussion of the entertainment, Marion took no part, but went quietly to her bed, with only a brief “good-night.”
“They have hurt her feelings, and they ought to have been ashamed of themselves,” said kind Dorothy to the two members of the club sitting beside her. “Girls, if that is what you mean to do in your Demosthenic Club, I am most thankful I never joined it, and the sooner you both leave it the better.”
“Grandmarm!” said Sue, her hot temper flashing into her face, “when we want your advice, we will ask it.”
“What’s up, Dody? Whose feelings are hurt, and who ought to be ashamed of themselves?” asked Gladys. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“About Marion and the Demosthenic Club!” answered Dorothy briefly.79
“What for? What has Marion to do with the club?”
Dorothy looked straight into Gladys’s face for a moment. Whatever other faults Gladys had, she had never, even in trifles, been otherwise than honest and straightforward. There was nothing in her face now but surprise; so Dorothy, much relieved that she was not a partaker in the unkindness, explained to her that, as Susan had just told them, the club had taken Marion’s country cousin for a butt, and had made him, with the old aunt,—the knowledge of whom must have come to them from some one in their room,—the characters in the farce; and that Marion, coming into the room just as Susan was telling of it, had heard her; and it had hurt her feelings.
Now, strange as it may seem, it was nevertheless true that the club, knowing Gladys well, and how impossible it would be for her to do anything that might injure another, had carefully kept from her any direct participation in it. She knew in a general way what was to be done, but was ignorant of particulars.
No sooner had the whole been made known to her, than without a word, though it was after the time when the girls were allowed to leave their rooms, without the slightest effort to move softly, she passed the doors of several teachers, up into another corridor, not stopping until she tapped at Jenny Barton’s room.80
The tap was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words spoken aloud, to the impatient Gladys.
She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out, and there was no one to be seen.
“Why, Gladys Philbrick!” she exclaimed crossly, pulling Gladys hastily in; “you frightened us almost out of our wits. Girls! it’s only Gladys!”
Out from under the beds and from the closets in the two bedrooms crept one after another the girls of the club. All were there but Susan and Gladys; and they would have been invited, but it was well known that if Gladys broke a rule of the school, she never rested until she had made full confession to one of the teachers. She was not to be trusted in the least; and, of course, Susan could not be invited without her, so the knowledge of the spread which was to succeed the tableaux had been carefully kept from them. No wonder at Jenny’s reception of her!
Somewhat staggered by this, and by the appearance of the hidden, laughing girls, Gladys stood for a moment staring blankly around her, then she asked, singling Kate Underwood out from among the others,—
“Kate! did you write that poem to make fun of Marion Parke’s country cousin?”81
“Why do you ask?” answered Kate, turning brusquely upon Gladys.
“Because, if you did, and if, as Sue says, you got up those tableaux to make fun of him, I think you are the meanest girl in the school; and as for the club—a club that would do such a thing, I wouldn’t be a member of a moment longer, not if you would give me a million dollars!”
“Well, as we have no million to give you, and wouldn’t part with even a copper to have you stay, you can have your name taken off the roll any time,” said the president majestically.
“All right, it’s done then; but my question is not answered. Kate Underwood, did, or did you not, intend to make fun of Marion Parke’s cousin?”
“When I know by what right you ask me, I will answer you; until then, Gladys Philbrick, will you be kind enough to speak in a lower voice, unless you wish to bring some of the teachers down upon us, or perhaps you will report us to Miss Ashton; I think she has just come in the late train, I heard a carriage stop at the door.”
“You want to know my right?” answered Gladys, without taking any notice of Kate’s taunts. “It’s the right of being ashamed to hold a girl up to ridicule for what she couldn’t help, and a girl like Marion Parke. I hoped you could say you didn’t mean to; but I see you can’t.” Then Gladys, without another word, left the room, leaving behind her a set of girls who, to say the least, were not in a82mood to congratulate themselves on the events of the evening.
The spread was hastily put on the table again, but it was eaten by them with sober faces and troubled hearts.
“Well,” said Sue, as Gladys came noisily into their room, “now I suppose you’ve made all the girls so mad they will never speak to me again.”
“I have told them what I think of them,” and Gladys looked at Sue askance over her shoulder as she spoke, “and I advise you to quit a club that can be as unkind as this has been to-night.”
“When I want your advice I will ask it; I advise you to keep it until then. Whom did you see?”
“All of them, hiding under beds and in closets.”
“That means a spread without leave, and we not invited. You’re a tell-tale Gladys; they are afraid of you.”
“Good!” said Gladys with a scornful laugh.
“Girls,” said a gentle voice from the bedroom door, “don’t mind; it’s foolish in me I dare say, and—and the tableaux were real funny,” and an odd attempt at a laugh ended in a burst of tears.
In a moment both of Gladys’s arms were around Marion’s neck.
“You dear, darling old Marion,” she said, whimpering herself.
“Too much noise in this room!” said Miss Palmer’s voice at their door. “I did not expect this, Marion! Dorothy, what does it mean?”83
“We are going to bed, Miss Palmer,” said Dorothy, opening the door immediately. “It was about the tableaux we were talking.”
“You should have been in bed half an hour ago; I am sorry to be obliged to report you. Let this never happen again. Your room has been in most respects a model room until now.”
Not a girl spoke, and if Miss Palmer had come again fifteen minutes later, she would have found the gas out and the girls in bed.
84CHAPTER XIV.KATE UNDERWOOD’S APOLOGIES.
The scholars noticed that when Miss Ashton came into the hall a few nights after the Friday evening tableaux she looked very grave.
“What’s gone wrong? Who has been making trouble? Look at the girls that belong to the Demosthenic Club! I’m glad I am not a member!”
These, and various other remarks, passed from one to the other, as Miss Ashton walked through the hall to her seat on the platform.
It was the hour for evening prayers. Usually she read a short psalm, but to-night she chose the twelfth chapter of Romans, stopping at the tenth verse, and looking slowly around the school as she repeated,—
“‘Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.’” Then she closed her Bible and repeated these verses:—
“‘These things I command you, That you love one another. Let love be without dissimulation. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. By love serve one another. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. And I pray85that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
“‘But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
“‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.’
“I hesitate,” said Miss Ashton, after a moment’s pause, “to add anything to these expressive and solemn Bible words. They convey in the most forcible way what seems to me the highest good for which we can aim in this life,—the perfection of Christian character.
“I presume you all realize in some degree the world we make here by ourselves. Set apart in a great measure from what is going on around us, closely connected in all our interests, we depend upon each other for our happiness, our growth, our well-being. We are helped, or we are hindered, by what in a large sphere might pass us by. Nothing is too small to be of vital importance to us; the aggregate of our86influences is made up of trifles. I have said this same thing to you time and time again, and yet I am sorry to find how soon it can be forgotten. If I could impress upon you these tender, beautiful gospel truths I have repeated, I should have had no occasion to detain you to-night. You would all of you have been bearing one another’s burdens, instead of laying one upon delicate shoulders.
“‘Taught of God to love one another.’ Do those learn the lesson God teaches who, without, we will say, bearing any ill-will, injure the feelings of others? It may be by unkind words; it may be by an intentional rudeness; it may be by neglect; it may be by a criticism spoken secretly, slyly, circulated wittily, laughed at, but not forgotten. ‘The ways that are unlovely;’ how numerous they are, and how directly they tend to make hearts ache, and lives unhappy, no words can tell!
“Young ladies, if your lives with us sent you out into the world, first in accomplishments, thoroughly grounded in the elements of an education, that after all has only its beginning here, leaders in society, and yet you wanted the nobility of that love which the Bible claims is the fruit of the spirit, we should have to say, we have ‘labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught.’ I wish I could see among you that tenderness of spirit that would shrink as sensitively from hurting another, as it does from being hurt yourselves. I am looking anxiously for it in this new year. I am looking hopefully for it; you will not disappoint me I am sure.”87
Then she asked them to sing the hymn “Blest be the tie that binds,” made a short prayer, and waited before leaving the room for the hall to be cleared. It was well she did; for no sooner had the last girl left the corridor, before Kate Underwood came rushing back to the platform, and catching hold of Miss Ashton’s hand said,—
“I didn’t do it, Ididn’tdo it, Miss Ashton, to hurt Marion Parke’s feelings! I like her so much; I think she is—is, why is about the best girl in the whole school. I only meant—why I meant he was such an old codger it was real funny; I thought it would make a nice tableau, and I never thought Marion would recognize it: I wouldn’t have done it for the world!”
Then she stopped, looked earnestly in Miss Ashton’s face, and asked,—
“Do you believe me, Miss Ashton?”
Now, Miss Ashton knew Kate to be a very impulsive girl, doing many foolish, and often wrong things, only sometimes sorry for them, so she did not receive her excited apologies with the consideration which they really deserved.
She said, perhaps a little coldly,—
“I am glad you have come to see the matter both more kindly and reasonably, Kate. Yes! I do believe you: I do not doubt you feel all you say; but, Kate, you are so easily tempted by what seems to you fun. I can’t make you see, fun that becomes personal in a way to injure the feelings of any one ceases to be88fun, becomes cruelty. There is a great deal of that in this school this term. Hardly a day passes but some of the girls come to me crying because their feelings have been wounded, and I am truly grieved to say, you are oftener the cause of it than any other girl. To be both witty and wise is a great gift; to be witty without being wise is a great misfortune; sometimes I think it has been your misfortune. You are not a cruel girl. You are at bottom a kind girl; yet see how you wound! You didn’tmeanto hurt Marion Parke; you like her, yet you did: you made fun of an old country cousin, whose visit must have been a trial to her. You are two Kates, one thinks only of the fun and theéclatof a witty tableau; the other would have done and said the kindest and the prettiest things to make Marion Parke happy. Which of these Kates do you like best?” Miss Ashton now laid her hand lovingly over the hands of the excited girl, who answered her with her eyes swimming in tears, “Your kind, Miss Ashton.” Then she put up her lips for the never-failing kiss, and went quietly away, but not to her own room.
There was something truly noble in the girl, after all. She went to Marion’s door and, knocking gently, asked if Marion would walk with her to the grove.
Much surprised, but pleased, Marion readily consented, and the two went out in the early darkness of an October night alone, the girls whom they met in the corridors staring at them as they passed.
Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate’s neck, kissing her over and over again.—Page 89.
Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate’s neck, kissing her over and over again.—Page 89.
89
“Marion!” said Kate, “I ask your pardon a thousand, million times! I never,nevermeant to hurt your feelings! I forgot everything but the fun I saw in the old farm-scenes, and the new fashionable school-girl out for a vacation; I did truly. I—I don’t say it would ever have occurred to me if that cousin of yours hadn’t come here, because that wouldn’t be true, and I’m as bad as George Washington” (with a little laugh now), “I can’t tell a lie; but can say that I never would have written one word of that miserable farce if I had ever dreamed it would have hurt your feelings: will you forgive me?”
Marion had listened to this long speech with varying emotions. As we know, she had been wounded by the tableaux, but her feelings had been exaggerated by her room-mates, and if the matter had been dropped at once she would probably soon have forgotten it. Kate’s apology filled her with astonishment. How could it ever have come to her knowledge that she had been wounded, and how came she to think it of enough importance to make an apology now.
Instead of answering, Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate’s neck, kissing her over and over again.
Kate, surprised in her turn, returned the kisses with much ardor.
It was a girl’s forgiveness, and its recognition, without another word.90
Then they walked down into the grove, their arms around each other’s waists, and the belated birds, scurrying to their nests, sang evening songs to them.
On the side of the little lake that nestles in the midst of the grove, two petted frogs, grown large and lazy on the sweet things with which their visitors so freely regaled them, heard their steps, hopped up a little nearer to the well-worn path, and saluted them with an unusually loud bass.
Whether it was the influence of Miss Ashton’s words, or the generous act of apology,—the noblest showing of a noble mind that has erred,—it would be hard to tell; but, certain it is, Kate Underwood had learned a lesson this time which, let us hope, she will never forget.
When Marion went back to her room it was quite time for study hours to begin; but her room-mates had so many questions to ask about Kate’s object in inviting her out to walk, that a good half-hour passed before they began their lessons.
Marion did not feel at liberty to repeat what Kate had said, and so she frankly told them.
91CHAPTER XV.MISS ASHTON’S FRIDAY NIGHT.
Miss Ashton, a little timid from the use made of the liberty she had given for the Friday night entertainments, decided for a time to take the control of them into her own hands, and as something novel, that might be entertaining, she proposed that the school should prepare original papers, to be read aloud, the reading to be followed by “a spread” given by the Faculty. She made no suggestion with regard to the character of the papers to be sent in, other than to say that she knew very well there were some good writers in the school, and she should expect every one to do her best.
This proposal was gladly accepted. The girls clapped when she had finished, and some began to stamp noisily, but this a motion of the principal’s hand checked.
There began at once to be conjectures as to whose piece would be the best. Nine-tenths of the girls agreed it would be Kate Underwood, the other tenth were for Delia Williams, who, when she tried for an honor, seldom failed to secure it; and hadn’t she once written a piece on Robert Browning, of which92not a scholar could understand a word, but which, it was reported, Miss Ashton said “was excellent, showing rare appreciation of the merits of a great poet”?
One thing was certain, there was hardly a girl in school who had not, before going to bed that night, wandered around in her dazed thoughts for some subject upon which she could write in a way that would surprise every one.
Lilly White, the dunce of the school, had hers written by the beginning of study hours. It covered three pages of foolscap paper, and had at least the merit of being written on only one side.
Among the few books Marion Parke had brought from her Western home, was an old magazine, printed by a Yale College club, and edited by her father when he was a member of the college.
This had in it one short story suggested by the West Rock at New Haven. In this rock was a rough cave, and here, tradition said, the regicides Goff and Whalley hid themselves from pursuit, after the murder of Charles I. The story was well told, not holding too rigorously to facts, but at the same time faithful enough to real incidents to make it not only interesting but valuable.
These were tender and touching scenes of a wife and a betrothed, who, through dangers of discovery and arrest, carried food and papers to the fugitives.
The story had always been a great favorite of Marion’s. One day when she felt homesick she had taken it out, read it, and left it on the top of her93table, under her Bible. Being very busy afterwards, and consequently the homesickness gone, she did not think of it again; she did not even notice that it had been abstracted from the table and another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place.
If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it. The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary importance. “What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?” These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see.
It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still.
Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole, disappoint her; that one delighted her.
She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come94from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,—its public reception.
The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on her own account, or on that of her “dearest friend.”
There were essays on friendship, love, generosity, jealousy, integrity, laziness, hope, charity, punctuality, scholarship, meanness. On youth, old age, marriage, courtship, engagement, housekeeping, housework, the happiness of childhood, the sorrows of childhood, truth, falsehood, religion, missionary work, the poor, the duties of the rich, houses of charity, the tariff, the Republican party, the Democratic party, woman’s suffrage, which profession was best adapted to a woman, servants, trades’ unions, strikes, sewing-women, shop-girls, newspaper boys, street gamins, the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, Queen Victoria and the coming Republican party into the government of England, the bloated aristocracy, American girls as European brides, the cruelty of the Russian government, Catholic religion, Stanley as a hero, Kane’s Arctic adventures.
Miss Ashton had made a list of these subjects as she looked over the essays, and when she read them aloud, the school burst into a peal of laughter.
She said, “I cannot, in our limited time, read all95of these to you. I will give you your choice, but first, let me tell you what remains. There are six poems of four and five pages length. The subjects are:—
“The Lost Naiad; Bertram’s Lament; Cowper at the Grave of His Mother; A New Thanatopsis; Ode to Silence; Love’s Farewell.
“I promise you,” she said, “you shall have these, if nothing more.”
A slight approbatory clapping, and she went on:—
“If I am to read you the titles of the stories I have on my desk, it will go far into the alloted time for these exercises; but, as some of you may think they would be the most interesting part, I will give you your choice. Those in favor, please hold up their hands.”
Almost every girl’s hand in school was raised, so Miss Ashton went on:—
“Bob Allen’s Resolve; The Old Moss Gatherer; Lady Jane Grey’s Adventure; The Brave Engineer; How We didn’t Ascend Mt. Blanc; Nancy Todd’s Revenge; Little Lady Gabrielle; Sam the Boot-black; Christmas Eve; Thanksgiving at Dunmoore; New Year at Whitty Lodge; Poor Loo Grant; Jenkins, the Mill Owner; Studyhard School; Storied West Rock; Phil, the Hero; How Phebe Won Her Place; Norman McGreggor on his Native Heath; Our Parsonage; How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire; The Sorrows of Mrs. McCarthy.
“These are all,” and Miss Ashton laughed a merry96laugh as she turned over the pile. “I am much obliged to you for your ready and full answer to my proposal. If I am a little disappointed at the literary character of some of the work, I am, as I have said, pleased by your ready response. If I should attempt to read them all, we should be here at a late hour, and lose our spread, so I will give you the poems, as I promised, and as many of the essays and stories as I can crowd into the time previous to nine o’clock.”
Miss Bent, who was the teacher of elocution, now stepped forward, and out of a pile separated from the larger one of manuscripts took up and read the six poems; then followed, in rapid succession, essays and stories, until at ten minutes before nine, the school having evidently heard all they wished with the spread in prospect, Miss Ashton said,—
“I have reserved the best—by far the best—of all these contributions for the last. Miss Bent will now read to you ‘Storied West Rock!’”
Miss Bent began immediately, and though the hands of the clock crept on to fifteen minutes past nine, not a girl there watched them; all were intent on the absorbing interest of the story.
When it was finished, Miss Bent said, “This is so excellent that I feel fully justified in departing from the promise Miss Ashton made you, that your pieces should not have the name of the writer given; with her leave, it gives me great pleasure to say, this touching and excellently written story was composed by one of our own seniors, Susan Downer.”97
“Three cheers for Susan Downer!” cried Kate Underwood, springing from her seat; and if ever boys in any finishing school gave cheers with greater gusto, they would have been well worth hearing. Even Susan found herself cheering as noisily as the rest, and would not have known it, if Dorothy, her face radiant with delight, had not stopped her.
Then followed the spread, “the pleasantest and the best one that was ever given in Montrose Academy,” the girls all said.