231CHAPTER XXXIII.SPRING VACATION.
The bright light of a sunny day has a wonderful influence in quieting fears, and the next morning when Susan waked and found her room cheerful, everything looking natural and pleasant, her first feeling was one of shame for all she had suffered the night before. Nothing was easier now than to make herself believe she had been foolish in her suspicion of Marion; indeed, it was not long before she had made herself almost sure that Marion knew nothing about the stolen story, that she had wronged her in suspecting, even if she did, that she would be mean enough to betray her. For the first time since she copied it, she treated Marion not only kindly but affectionately, much to Marion’s surprise, for she knew how near she had come to betraying Susan, and remembered Miss Ashton’s saying, “If you do not choose to tell me what is the matter with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself.” Would she watch her? Could she ever in any way find out about “Storied West Rock”? “At any rate,” Marion comforted herself by thinking, “it will not be232through me; but I wish I had not said even what I did.”
She wondered over Susan’s advances, and met them coldly, shamefacedly. “If you only knew,” she said to herself, “how different you would act!”
Very important as these events seem to those particularly engaged, they make little apparent difference in the life of a large school.
Marion again made faulty recitations, and again her teachers were troubled by them; but Susan, having in a measure, she could hardly understand how, been thrown off her fears, was unusually brilliant in her classes, winning what she valued so much, words of approbation from her teachers.
The school work went on now with much success. The holiday break-up was fairly over. Washington’s Birthday was not celebrated other than with an abundance of little hatchets of all designs and colors. Easter was too far away, and theanimusof the school was for quiet study. Even the club held meetings less often. The two girls who had been the chief planners of whatever mischief originated from it, Mamie Smythe and Annie Ormond, were on their best behavior, knowing full well that another misdeed, no matter of what character, meant expulsion.
Upon these weeks preceding the Easter vacation, Miss Ashton had learned to rely for the best part of the year’s work; so uneventfully, with the exception of now and then some slight escapade on the part233of the pupils, the term rolled on to its spring rest.
Easter came in the early part of April this year, but the season was backward, even snowstorms coming now and then; and fierce winds, more like March than April, forbade any hunting for early flowers, or looking, as so many longing eyes did, for the swelling of the bare branches of the trees, or the first shadowing of the green tassels that waited to show themselves to warm sunbeams.
There were no examinations in this school, or marking the grade of scholarship; but for all that, there was never a doubt who were the best scholars, or who would have taken the prizes if any had been given.
A week before Easter, Marion received a letter from her Aunt Betty, inviting her to spend the coming recess with her; but she declined it, asking that the visit might be deferred until the long summer vacation, when, as she was probably not to return home, she should be very glad to come. Evidently Aunt Betty had forgotten whatever was unpleasant in the Thanksgiving visit, and to be among the mountains through some of the hot summer weeks seemed to Marion would be pleasant indeed. But when the vacation came, and she found herself with only a few other girls almost alone in the great desolated building, she more than once regretted her decision.
A pleasant young teacher of gymnastics, Miss234Orne, was left in charge, but she was tired, and more anxious to rest than to amuse the girls, so they were left pretty much to themselves, and passed the ten days of vacation in the best way they could.
“Girls will be girls,” that was what Miss Ashton said when the pupils who had been at home came back with their summer outfits, and she found the whole attention of the school given for a few days to their examination and comparison.
“If I could hear you talk half as much about any branch of study, or your art lessons, as I hear you talk about your new clothes,” she said with a pleasant laugh, “I should be delighted; but I suppose nothing seems more important to you now than the fashions, and, on the whole, I don’t know but I am glad of it.”
It was this interest in their many-sided life that gave Miss Ashton her great influence over them. The girls would take articles of apparel to her for her inspection, and find them doubly valuable if they met with her approval.
There was one set whose wardrobes were objects of especial interest: those were the graduating class. Next to her bridal dress, there seems to be no other that is thought so much of, not only by the girl, but by her parents.
It would be idle, perhaps out of place here, to say how much display and foolish extravagance there is at such a time. Where it can be well afforded, it is of comparatively little importance, but a great deal of heartache might be avoided, if the simplest235costume were decided to be the most suitable. Parents whose means have been tried to the utmost to give their child the advantages of the school, who have never hesitated over any labor or self-denial in order to accomplish it, find themselves at last called to confront the question of dollars, hardly earned or saved, squandered on a dress almost worthless for future use, on pain of seeing their child mortified and unhappy because she cannot, on this eventful occasion, look as well as the others. Even Miss Ashton’s influence, great as it was, had failed to accomplish any good result in changing this long-established custom; and for reasons best known to themselves, the present senior class had voted in their class meetings to make their graduation day one long to be remembered in the annals of the school.
236CHAPTER XXXIV.NEMESIS.
Until this year this academy had had a salutatory and a valedictory in the same way they did at Atherton Academy, given for the best scholarship as it was there; but as this was considered a finishing school, differing therefore from the boys’ school, which was only preparatory for other and higher education, it had been decided to change the graduating exercises to the four best essays, read by their writers, an address by some distinguished orator, music, and the giving of diplomas.
All the graduating class were expected to write an essay, the Faculty to judge of their merits, and to choose from among them four of the best.
Not only the interest of the class, but of the whole school, was intense on the writing of these essays. The literary merit of the teaching was to be shown by them; and as no graduating class ever comes to its commencement without pride in, and love for itsalma mater, so it seemed as if the future reputation of the academy must depend upon the way this class acquitted itself.
If it had been a boys’ school, bets would have run237high on the supposed best writers; here there was nothing of the kind, only those who had done well whenever compositions had been read to the school were chosen as girls of especial interest, watched,fêted, praised, encouraged, in short, prematurely made heroines of.
Among the most conspicuous was Susan Downer. Though so little had been said of late of her success in writing “Storied West Rock,” it was now recalled; and, as the weeks flew by before commencement, she was daily, sometimes it seemed to her hourly, reminded of it, and importuned to be sure and do as well now.
Poor Susan! She knew how really unable she would be to do anything that would compare with it. Over and over again she made the attempt; but as writing was not one of her natural gifts, and as now, whenever she tried even to choose a subject, the theft came up before her, and she went through the whole, from the first temptation to the last crowned success, she could think of nothing else but the inevitable punishment that somewhere and at some time was waiting for her.
There was but one hope she thought left for her, to see her brother Jerry, and tease him into giving her one of his essays, that she might use it as it was if possible, if not, with alterations that would make it suit the occasion. She would tell him that she only wanted to read it and get some hints from it, and once in her possession, she could do as she pleased.238
When she received his note refusing her invitation to come to the academy, her disappointment and her helplessness may be readily imagined, for she had allowed herself to depend upon him.
To write to him for an essay she knew would be useless; he would only laugh, and say,—
“Nonsense! what does Sue want one for?” but if he were with her, he was so kind and good-natured, he would do almost anything she asked.
But one thing now remained. Miss Randall, their teacher in rhetoric, who had the charge of the essays, gave subjects to those who wished them; she could apply to her, and perhaps find in the library something to help her.
Miss Randall gave her, remembering her former success, and hoping she would do even better now, an historical subject, “The Signal of Paul Revere.”
“There have not been more than a hundred poems written on the same subject,” she said in a little talk she had with Susan; “but if you can write poetry, and succeed, all the better for Montrose Academy. We will send it to the newspaper, and it may be the beginning of making your name famous.”
What a temptation to a girl like Susan!
If—onlyIFshe could find one of those hundred or more poems, find perhaps the whole of them, and make rhymes (easy work that), and be “famous,” what a glorious thing it would be!
Here was, alas, no repentance, or even fears of doing wrong. It almost seemed as if the new temptation239had obliterated memory of the old theft, and she was about to enter upon what she had always longed for, a career of fame.
She began to haunt the library, particularly the shelves of American poetry; but there was nothing to be found that had special reference to Paul Revere, not one of “the hundred and more pieces.”
In this way she wasted a great deal of precious time, until, disappointed and discouraged, she was about asking for another subject, when she came upon a volume of collections of poetry written on the late war, and a sudden thought that this might be made to answer the same purpose unfortunately struck her. She had read this kind of poetry but little; but had enough literary taste to make her choose one of the very best, consequently most popular and well known, for her model. “Model,” she said to herself when, delighted, she found how easily she could use it with alterations.
No miser was ever made more happy by a bag of gold than she by this discovery. “Famous! famous! An honor to Montrose Academy!”
In the end, when her poem was ready for Miss Randall’s examination, she read it aloud to her room-mates, and their astonishment and delight over her success they were too generous to withhold.
Dorothy had worked very hard on her essay. It was carefully and well done; but Gladys’s, short, brilliant, straight to the point, without pause or repetition, was an effort of which an older, more accustomed writer need not have been ashamed.240
But neither of these, they decided, could hold any comparison with Susan’s. It was Marion who, though she did not recognize the poem, could not forget “Storied West Rock,” that listened with a troubled face, and only added a few faint words to those of the others’ praise.
“She is an ugly, jealous old thing!” Susan made herself think, as she watched her narrowly; but then would come the thought, “I wonder if she suspects me?” remembering the story, and a cloud fell instantly over the bright sky of her hopes. But she was not to escape so easily; when she carried her poem to Miss Randall, she only glanced at the heading and down over the neatly written page, without reading a line, then said, “Come to me to-morrow afternoon at three, and we will read and correct it together. I hope you have made a success of it.”
Susan almost counted the hours until three came; then, proud and happy, she presented herself at Miss Randall’s door.
The teacher had the poem on a table before her, and by its side a book, the covers of which Susan recognized at once as being the volume from which she had stolen the poem.
“Sit down, Susan,” said Miss Randall gravely.
Then without another word she began to read first a line of Susan’s poem, then one from the poem in the book, pausing over the changed words, to substitute the one for the other.
In truth, the changes were very few, how few241Susan had not realized until they were thus set before her.
“This is hardly what might be called a parody,” Miss Randall said as she ended, looking gravely into Susan’s face. “I suppose you had no idea of passing it off as your own work?”
How inevitably one wrong act leads to another! There is an old saying that “one lie takes a hundred to cover it,” and it is true.
Susan had confidently expected this to pass for her own; but now, without a moment’s hesitation, looking Miss Randall fully in the face, with a pleasant smile she said,—
“Oh, no, Miss Randall! I knew you would recognize it; you are too good a teacher of literature not to suppose you would be familiar with such a fine poem as that. I thought if I made a successful parody, it would be better than any poor thing I could write myself.”
Miss Randall was for a moment staggered. Was the girl telling her the truth, or was it only a readily gotten-up excuse? She waited a moment before she answered, then she said coldly,—
“This will not pass at all. I am sorry you have wasted so much time upon it; you will begin at once upon your essay, and, for fear you will be tempted to use some thoughts not your own, I will change the subject. You will write an essay on ‘Truth.’ Good-afternoon.”
“Miss Ashton!” said Miss Randall, presenting242herself, a few moments after Susan’s departure, in the principal’s room. “I am afraid Susan Downer never wrote that excellent story, ‘Storied West Rock.’ I always have wondered over it, for it was far superior to anything else she has done since she has been in school, and now, I am sure, though she denies it in a very plausible way, that she has copied a poem, with only a few immaterial changes to make it fit her subject, intending to palm it off for her own.”
Miss Ashton did not answer at once; she was busy thinking. With the other teachers, her surprise had been great at the ability Susan had shown in the story; and now, instantly, she connected this report of Miss Randall’s with Marion’s embarrassed mention of Susan’s name, and her own intention to discover what was wrong. Perhaps Susan had stolen it, and Marion had become acquainted with the theft. It was not impossible, at any rate she must inquire into it, so she said to Miss Randall.
A day or two was allowed to pass before any further notice was taken of it, then Miss Ashton had decided to spare Marion, and call Susan directly to her. Susan had word sent to her that she was wanted in the principal’s room, and obeyed the summons with a heavy heart.
“Susan!” said Miss Ashton, “I am willing to believe that you copied your poem with the innocent intention of passing it off as a parody, and that you really did not know it could not be accepted, but there is one other thing that troubles me. Some time ago you wrote an excellent story called ‘Storied West Rock;’ was that yours, or another parody?”
Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word.—Page 343.Miss Ashton’s New Pupil.
Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word.—Page 343.Miss Ashton’s New Pupil.
243
Susan! Susan! Tell the truth now; tell it at once, simply, honestly. Do not conceal even how you have suffered from it, not even how unkind and cross you have been to Marion. Own it all at once, quickly, without giving the tempter even a chance to tempt you! Don’t you know, don’t you see, how much your future depends upon it?
Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word.
In the silence of the room you could have heard a pin drop.
Miss Ashton was answered. When she spoke there was tenderness and deep feeling in her voice.
“Will you tell me the truth, Susan?” she said. But Susan did not answer; she only burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, and after waiting a few moments in vain for it to subside, Miss Ashton added, “You had better go to your room now. I hope you will come soon to me, and tell me the whole truth.”
Susan rose slowly, lifting her swollen and discolored face up to Miss Ashton with an entreating look the kind principal found it hard to resist; but she did. She held the door open for Susan to pass out, and watched her go down the corridor with a troubled heart.
244CHAPTER XXXV.FAREWELL WORDS.
There was little difficulty when the time came in deciding the four essays to be chosen. Kate Underwood’s was in most respects the best, and would take the place usually filled by the valedictory. Dorothy Ottley’s was the next strongest, and by far the most thoughtful. To no one’s surprise as much as to her own, Gladys Philbrick’s was the most brilliant, and Edna Grant’s, the best scholar in English literature, the most scholarly.
So the important question was settled a week before commencement, and the young ladies were given their choice, either to read their pieces or to speak them.
Greatly to the surprise of the teachers they all chose to speak them, and the elocution teacher was at once put to drilling them for the occasion.
The choice was pleasantly accepted by the school. Every one of the four were favorites, and whatever disappointment the rejected essayists felt, they kept wisely to themselves.
Susan Downer’s essay on “Truth” was a miserable failure, and a disgraced future was the only one she could see opening before her.245
She could not summon courage to make a confession to Miss Ashton; she decided, after hours and hours of troubled and vexatious thought, to be silent, trusting to her speedy removal from the school to silence all further questionings.
Such a busy week as this was now at the academy! The mail brought every day piles of letters to teachers and scholars, which must be answered. Invitations were to be sent. All the preliminaries of a great gathering were to be attended to, and both the excitement and the listlessness attendant on a closing year were to be met and combated.
It would be interesting if we could tell the story of each individual during this eventful period, but it would fill a whole volume by itself, so we must be contented by telling simply of those with whom we have had the most to do.
Miss Ashton tried as far as she could, with so much else to attend to, to have a little personal conversation with every pupil who had been under her care for the year. Sometimes she saw them alone, sometimes she took them in classes, according to the importance of what she had to say. Before talking with Marion she sent the following short letter to her mother:—
My dear Mrs. Parke,—I should esteem it a personal favor if you would allow your daughter Marion to remain with me free from expense to you for another year. She has proved in all regards not only an excellent scholar, but, as I wrote you before, the influence of her lovely Christian character has been of great value to me. I shall246be glad to do all I can to help her into the influential and well-balanced future I see before her. You need have no fear that a feeling of indebtedness to me will be a burden to her, delicate as her feelings are. I propose, by putting her at the head of my post-office department, to fully repay myself for all she will receive. This will not interfere with her studies or her needed recreation, but will come at hours she can easily spare.
Hoping this will meet with your cordial approbation,
Truly yours,A. S. Ashton.
It was not until an answer to this had been received that Miss Ashton sent for Marion to come and see her. Marion had in the mean time a letter from her mother, asking if she wished to remain. To which Marion had answered, “Yes! Yes!” So now all Miss Ashton had to do was to tell Marion how satisfied she was both with her and the arrangement, and Marion to tell her kind teacher of her delight in remaining.
Gladys was to return with her father after a pleasant summer spent at Rock Cove, and to her, Miss Ashton had much wise advice to give regarding her future. A motherless child, an indulgent, though wise father, no brothers or sisters, only a crowd of worshipping dependents; probably not to another girl in the whole school was there to come years which would test the character as hers was to be tested.
Excellent advice was given; the question was, Would it be followed?
For Dorothy there was less doubt. Miss Ashton247had already found a school for her, where, excellently well-fitted, she could begin in the fall her career as a teacher. Of her success, only Dorothy felt a doubt.
Susan Downer, Miss Ashton had put off seeing until the last, hoping the girl would come herself and confess, if there was anything to confess; but as day after day went by, Susan shunning her when she could, and when she could not, passing her with averted face, Miss Ashton saw she must take the matter into her own hands and settle it one way or other; to ignore was to condone it. It was, therefore, only a few days before the close of the term when Susan, who had grown almost buoyant in her hope of escape, found herself summoned to what she was sure was to be her final trial.
“She can’t expel me now,” she said to herself triumphantly as she went to the room, “and she can’t withhold my diploma, for that is for scholarship, and I stand well there, so I’m safe at any rate.”
Still it was a trembling, pale girl that answered Miss Ashton’s “Come in.”
“I do not want you to leave me uncertain both of your truth and honesty,” she said gently. “I have been waiting, hoping you would come to me of yourself, but as you have not, Idemandnow an answer to my question. Did, or did you not write ‘Storied West Rock’?”
“I d—i—d.”
Before she had time to finish the answer, Miss Ashton had said emphatically, “not; I know the248truth, Susan! I want to spare you the falsehood I see you are about to tell.”
“I am not going to ask you where you found the story; I only want you to see, and see so plainly that you can never forget it, how small and mean a thing such a deceit, or any deceit, is, and how sure in the end to turn to the injury of the one who commits it. Of all the class that are to leave me, you, Susan Downer, carry away with you my greatest anxiety for your future. God help and save you, you poor child!”
Miss Ashton’s voice had tears in it as she ceased speaking, and those, more than any words she had spoken, reached and moved the girl before her.
“O Miss Ashton! Miss Ashton!” Susan cried, rushing to her, and throwing both arms around her neck. “Do,do,do, please forgive me? It was Marion Parke’s book, and I thought no one would ever know. I’ve been so sorry. I’d have given worlds, worlds,worlds, if I had never seen it! O Miss Ashton, what shall I, shall I do?”
“Ask God to forgive you,” Miss Ashton said solemnly. “It is another and a greater judge than I that has the power to do so. If I were only sure,” but she did not finish her sentence, she only loosened Susan’s arms gently from around her neck, then said “good-by” to her, and watched her once more as she went away down the corridor.
“And Marion Parke knew it all the time, but would not tell on Susan,” she said to herself as she249turned back into her room. “Marion is a girl to be depended upon, I am glad she is to stay with me.”
“Kate Underwood,” she said, when Kate’s time came for the farewell counsel, taking both of the girl’s hands in hers, “I’m proud of you. You have done of late what many older and wiser persons have failed to do,—learned the lesson, which I hope has been learned for your lifetime, that there is no fun in things, however written or spoken, that hurt other’s feelings. I have seen you many times thoughtful and tender, when your face was alive with the ridiculous thing you saw or heard. Kate, I feel so much safer to let you go from me now than I should have six, even three months ago. Tell me, will you try not to forget?”
“I’ll be good as long as I live. I’ll never make fun, no, not even of myself,” burst out Kate, “though now I’m dying to get before a mirror and see how I must have looked when you thought me so thoughtful. Was it so, Miss Ashton?” and Kate made up a face which a sterner rebuker than her teacher could not have seen without a smile.
“There’s no use, Kate,” she said; “go now, only don’t forget.”
And Kate made a sweeping courtesy and disappeared.
With Mamie Smythe she had a long talk, not one word of which did either divulge. In that hour it would be safe to say Mamie learned some life-lessons which it will be hard for her to forget.250
And so the time passed on. Recitations ceased four days before commencement, and the girls, those even who thought themselves over busy before, found every hour brought a fresh claim upon their time.
“Our bee-hive,” Miss Ashton called it, and the girls called her the “queen bee,” and made many secret plans about the various gifts they were to give her the last night of the term. The ceremony this year was to be a public one, therefore of great importance.
251CHAPTER XXXVI.WOMEN’S WORK.
The night before commencement Miss Ashton had reserved for the reading of notices of woman’s work and success. This she did at that time, because she wished her pupils to carry away a full belief not only in their own abilities, but also in the position which, with diligence, these abilities would enable them to reach.
The whole school gathered in the hall. Miss Ashton had requested that the notices should be handed in to her a few days previous. Now she said, “Young ladies, I am both surprised and pleased at the readiness and faithfulness with which you have responded to my request. I have here,” lifting a pretty, ribbon-tied basket, “at least one hundred different notices! Just think!one hundredinstances in which women have tried, and have succeeded in earning not only a respectable, but a successful livelihood. This fact speaks so well for itself, that all remaining for me to do is to read you some of these notices. I must make a selection from among them, and the first one I will read I am sure will interest you:—
“‘Mlle. Sarmisa Bileesco, the first woman admitted252to the bar in France, is said to have taken the highest rank in a class of five hundred men at the École du Droit, Paris, where she studied after receiving the degree of Bachelor of Letters and Science in Bucharest. She has begun to practise law in the latter city, where her father is a banker.’
“Here is another one in the same profession:—
“‘Mrs. Tel Sone is a leading lawyer in Japan, and has a large and profitable practice.’
“‘Miss Jean Gordon of Cincinnati, upon whom will be conferred the degree of Ph.G. at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has earned the highest average ever attained by any woman graduate of that institution. Out of one hundred and eighty-four graduates of this year, only six obtained the highest rating of “distinguished.” Miss Gordon was one of the six. She was the only woman in her class, and had to contend with bright young men.’
“Miss Gordon, I think,” remarked Miss Ashton, “has a distinguished future before her.
“‘Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.’
“‘Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals.’
“‘An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum into ten thousand cubic feet of gas.’
“‘Another woman has constructed a machine which will make as many paper bags in a day as thirty men can put together.’253
“‘An invention which you hardly would have expected from a woman, is a war vessel that is susceptible of being converted off-hand into a fort by simply taking it apart.’
“‘Chicago, March 25. Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston wins the one thousand-dollar prize offered for the best design for the woman’s buildings of the World’s Fair.’” (A sensation among the scholars, which pleased Miss Ashton). “‘Miss Lois L. Howe, also of Boston, was second, five hundred dollars, and Miss Laura Hayes of Chicago gets the two hundred and fifty dollars offered for the third best design.
“‘Miss Hayden is a first-honor graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Howe is from the same institution. Miss Hayes is Mrs. Potter Palmer’s private secretary.
“‘As soon as the awards were made, Miss Hayden was wired to come to Chicago immediately and elaborate her plans. The design is one of marked simplicity. It is in the Italian renaissance style, with colonnades, broken by centre and end pavilions. The structure is to be 200 × 400 feet, and 50 feet to the cornice. There is no dome. The chief feature of ornamentation is the entrance.’
“I am glad to tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this institute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women. This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a class supper, going254to it matronized by Mrs. Walker, the wife of the president.
“One other thing I want you to remark. These three young ladies, by their ability, and the success which is the fruit only of faithful study, have done more for women’s advancement than has been accomplished for years.
“A man who is a successful architect occupies an important and proud position; that a woman can do the same is no small help in the struggle she is now making.
“I recommend them to you as examples, particularly as I know there are a number among you who will not be content to let graduation from this school end your educational life.
“The next I shall read you is a notice of women as journalists:—
“‘Let me give you a fact about women as journalists in my own office,’ said the editor of one of the largest dailies to me a few days ago.
“‘Five years ago I employed one woman on my staff, to-day I have over twenty, and the best work which appears in our papers is from the pen of women writers. Of course you cannot give women all sorts of commissions; but if I want a really conscientious piece of work done nowadays, I give it to one of our women. I find absolutely they do their work more thoroughly than do the men.’
“Young ladies, it has always been complained of255women that, though they are quicker, guided by instincts that act promptly and for the greater part correctly, they are not patient or thorough. Now, as I have told you so often that it must sound trite to you to have me repeat it, it is only patient thoroughness that wins. I am glad to have this editor of one of our largest dailies give this indubitable testimony that wecanbe thorough if we will. For those of you who neither wish nor expect to continue study any further, I will read the opportunity offered for a bucolic life:—
“‘Miss Antoinette Knaggs, a young woman with a good collegiate education, owns and manages a farm of two hundred acres in Ohio. She says she made money last year, and expects to make more this year. “I have tried various ways of farming,” she says, “but I find I can get along best when I manage my farm myself. I tried employing a manager, but I found he managed chiefly for himself. Then I sub-let to tenants, and they used up my stock and implements, and the returns were unsatisfactory. So I have taken the management into my own hands, planting such crops as I think best, and I find I am a very good farmer, if I do say it myself.’”
“Said the daughter of a New Hampshire farmer to me a few days ago,” continued Miss Ashton, “‘When my father died my mother took the control of our whole large farm into her own hands. She managed so well that we have sold our farm and256moved down to suburban Boston, where we can command the literary advantages she has taught us not only to prize but to love.’ The collegiate education fitted Miss Knaggs to be a better, wiser farmer. I hope if it shall be the choice of any of you, you will find yourself abler for your life here.”
“I am sure we shall,” thought a Dakota young lady, whose father’s broad ranch covered many a goodly acre, and whose secret wish had always been to own a ranch of her own.
“There seems to be no profession now from which a woman is shut out, though we hear of fewer among lawyers than in any other profession. I find only one more among all these notices. ‘Fourteen women were graduated from the university of New York Law School last night, among the number being Mrs. George B. McClellan, daughter-in-law of the late General McClellan.’ But I well know there have been women associated with their husbands in the law. Women also with their own offices, doing a large and important business.
“In England, civil service is open to them; and though it does not correspond of course with our law, still the same strict education is needed for success.
“Here is a paper which states the terms on which ladies enter the civil service.
“‘They enter as second-class clerks, receiving $325 a year, rising by fifteen dollars a year to $400. Here the maximum, which is certainly small, is reached;257but there is promotion by merit to clerkships, rising to $550 a year, and a few higher places, which go up to $850. Three lady superintendents each receive up to $2,000, and four assistant superintendents each $1,000. The work is not difficult, and the hours are seven a day. An annual holiday of a month is allowed.’
“These wages are no larger than would be paid here for the same services. I know women have no difficulty, if once elected, in filling clerkships and secretaryships, and they even have important places in the treasury department at Washington. A very telling record might be, probably has been, made of their successes there.
“In the medical profession we all know how rapidly they have risen to the front. Stories that sound almost fabulous are told of the income some of the most talented receive; and to show the popularity this new movement has attained, it is only necessary to state that at the present day it would be hard to find a town, north, south, east, or west, which has not its woman doctor. The medical colleges have large classes of them; and in Europe names of many American girls, if they do not lead in number, do at least in ability.”
Here there was a resolute stamping and clapping, which pleased Miss Ashton too much for her to attempt to stop it.
“If I had more time I could tell you some wonderful but entirely true stories of difficult surgical operations258being performed in foreign hospitals by young American women in so remarkable a way that they excited not only the applause of the fellow-students, but won prizes.
“As this is only one of the professions, I must hurry on to the ministry. We all know that in some of our denominations there are numbers of women who occupy the place of settled minister, and do well. On the whole, however, they may be considered more successful as lecturers, Bible-readers, and elocution teachers; and then there is a wide open field to them as actresses and singers; indeed, no public or private way of earning a livelihood or a reputation is denied them.
“Teaching always has been theirs, and year after year the profession becomes more and more crowded and the requirements for good teachers more strict. Many of you, young ladies, I find are looking forward to this in your immediate future. I need not here urge upon you the necessity of being well prepared when your day for examination comes. I have held it up before you during all the past year.
“This is an incomplete list of the great things which I expect you young ladies of the graduating class to perform. I would not, however, on any account, forget that broad and specially adapted woman’s work,—the different philanthropic schemes with which this nineteenth century abounds.
“So many are in women’s hands; like women’s boards of missions, children’s hospitals, homes for259little wanderers, young women’s Christian homes, young women’s industrial union, North End missions, Bible-readers, evangelists, flower committees for supplying the sick in charity hospitals, providing excursions for poor children, providing homes in the country for the destitute and orphan children, society of little wanderers, newspaper boys’ home, boot-black boys’ home.
“It is possible for me to name but a small part of them, but those of you who have the means of helping any one of these objects named, or any of the many others, will remember, I hope, that wonderful cup of cold water which, given, shall give to the giver the rich reward.
“This will probably be my last opportunity to speak to you alone as my school. Let me thank you heartily for all you have done this year, and some of you for four long years, to make our life together pleasant, and we hope acceptable to our great Taskmaster. I wish you now, for myself and all the other teachers, a pleasant vacation, and a safe return to those of you who are to come back to us.”
There were many quiet tears shed among the girls, and Miss Ashton’s eyes were not quite dry.
260CHAPTER XXXVII.COMMENCEMENT.
Commencement morning rose upon Montrose clear, bright, and hot. Almost with the first dawn of the early day the hum of busy preparation began. Every hour of the previous day and night had brought parents and friends, some from great distances, to attend the celebration.
The quiet town swarmed with strangers, all with faces turned toward the large brick building which, standing boldly prominent on its hill, had a welcoming look, as if the roses around it, that filled the air with their delicious fragrance, had blossomed that morning in new and charming beauty.
The lawn, plentifully besprinkled with small flower-beds, was elsewhere one broad sheet of velvet green; and the blossoms of every variety and every hue crowded the beds so cheerfully, so merrily, that many parents lingered as they passed them, their hearts warming at the sight of the Eden in which their daughters had lived.
Commencement exercises were to be held in the large hall, to which ushers appointed for that purpose took all the visitors before the entrance of the261school, so it really made quite an imposing show when Miss Ashton, arm in arm with the president of the Board of Trustees, came slowly in, the gentlemen composing the board following, then the teachers, and after them the pupils in their gay holiday dresses. The senior class, of course the most prominent, coming onto the stage with the other dignitaries.
There was nothing of peculiar interest in the exercises that followed. Commencements all over the country are much the same. The four young ladies who were to read their essays acquitted themselves well. Gladys, to her father’s great delight, with her soft Southern voice, her sparkling face, and her easy, self-possessed, graceful ways, was the undoubted favorite. A storm of applause followed the reading, and bouquets of flowers fell around her in great profusion.
It was the bestowing of the diplomas that attracted the most attention.
There was something touching in the gentle smile of the aged president as, calling each member of the class by her name, he spoke a few Latin words and handed her the parchment that made her for life an alumna of Montrose Academy. It was almost as if he had laid his hand on her head in benediction.
The pleasant dinner that followed was the next marked event of the day. To this all the school, and as many invited guests as could be accommodated, sat down, and the large hall was full of the cheerful262voices of those who had come to congratulate and those who were congratulated. Nothing could have made a more fitting ending to the home-life of the busy year; so many kindly, cheering words spoken, so much of hearty encouragement for the coming year.
Pupils and teachers, some of them together for the last time, but hardly among them an exception to the tender affection which bound them together.
Susan Downer had been graduated. She held her diploma in her hand as she went off the stage with the others, but she was far from happy. “Miss Ashton is glad to have me go,” she thought. “She neither respects nor loves me.”
No one noticed her dejection. Amidst the general happiness she seemed to herself forgotten, almost shunned. “And I had hoped,” she thought, “to make this such a triumphal day!”
It would be idle to waste any sympathy on Susan. There is an old adage, “As you make your bed, so must you lie in it.” She had done a dishonorable, untrue thing, and had repented only over its consequences.
It is very sad but true, that what we have once done, or left undone, said, or not said, can never be recalled. No repentance can efface its memory; no tears can blot it out; and only one, the great, kind Father, can forgive.
Susan to the last day of her life will have that act clinging to her. She can never forget it.263
The moral is obvious, needing no words to make it plainer.
Immediately after dinner the school broke up and the departures began.
The farewells that were spoken, the tears that were shed, the oft-repeated kisses that were given, it would be difficult to tell.
By twilight the large building began to have a desolated look. Miss Ashton, pale and tired, stood bravely in a doorway, kissed and wiped away tears, and silently blessed pupil after pupil in rapid succession.
The Rock Cove party considerately made their farewells brief, and taking Marion with them hurried to the evening train that was to carry them home. Then down over the building settled the beautiful June twilight, and the year of study was over.