CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXII

Aboutthis time the School Board in Silverton were sitting in solemn conclave, deciding who should take the vacant position in the Primary Department of the Public School, left vacant by the sudden death of the woman who had taught that department for the last twenty-five years.

The position had been open since spring, and filled temporarily by pupils from the Normal School, most of whom had not proved satisfactory to some one on the Board, although three who had made formal application for the position were now under consideration.

“Well, I have a new name I’d like to present,” said Mr. Powers, who had just entered late, and had not heard the wrangling over the three names by their various advocates. “She’s a pippin, too, and I think you’d better take her.”

“Oh, now, Powers, don’t get in any more names. We’re having trouble enough as it is,” laughed a member who was in a hurry to get home. “Let’s put these three to a vote and be done with it. I make that as a motion—”

“I object,” said Mr. Powers. “This young woman has fine recommendations. I took the trouble to look them up. She’s teaching over in Lyman’s church at that summer Bible School he’s so crazy about, and he says she’s the best teacher he ever had. Gets the kids and all that! Don’t have a bit of trouble with discipline, and has ’em right with her from the word go!”

“Where does she come from?” growled one of the men, who was trying to get his candidate voted on.

“Why, she lives in the little land office down on Bryant’s lot. Mrs. Bryant can’t get done talking about her, how much go she has, and what she can do. She’s bought that building and had it moved there. Has a lot of initiative and all that, and is right there in an emergency. It seems she saved their house from getting on fire just by keeping her head. I say that’s the kind of girl we want in our school.”

While he was speaking the new superintendent entered.

He had just been called to fill the vacancy caused by the old superintendent’s being called to a city school. He was young and good-looking and they all stood somewhat in awe of him. He had a grave manner and seemed to know just what he wanted. They all rose to greet him.

“Professor Harrington, we’ve just been trying to get this primary teacher decided upon,” said one man. “Powers here is holding us up by presenting a new name. Don’t you think we’d better just stick to the three we’ve decided upon and tried, and pick one of them? At least we know what they are.”

The young superintendent turned toward Powers.

“Who is the person in question?” he asked, looking straight at Powers and trying to find out whether he thought a recommendation from him would be worth the paper it was written upon.

“Why, her name is Radway, Miss Joyce Radway,” said Powers. “I’d like to have you see her, professor. She certainly is intellectual-looking and all that. I had the pleasure of watching her teach this morning over inthe Roberts Avenue Church. They have some kind of a religious summer school there to occupy the children during vacation, and the pastor tells me she is the best teacher they have.”

“I shouldn’t think a minister would be a very good judge of what was needed in the public schools,” piped up the advocate of one of the other applicants.

“Well, this one is. He’s making that school a success, I can tell you—has something over five hundred kiddies there regularly every day, and crazy about the school. He won’t have anybody there that isn’t a cracker-jack teacher—”

But the attitude of the superintendent suddenly drew the attention of the speaker. Professor Harrington was sitting alert, all attention, interest in his eyes.

“Did you say her name was Radway? Joyce Radway? There could scarcely be two of that name, I should think. It is rather an unusual name. If it’s the Miss Radway I know, I should say have her by all means. I’ve been hunting for her for the last two months, only gave it up because I was called here. Did she come from Meadow Brook, do you happen to know?”

“Why, I don’t know, I’m sure. I didn’t ask about that. But I can find out. Suppose I go and bring her!”

“Do,” said the professor. “I’d like to see if she is the same one. She certainly gave promise of being a rare mind. I had the pleasure of looking over her examination papers—”

But Powers had already seized his hat and gone out the door. There was a special reason why he wanted to “put one over” on the men who were sponsoring theother candidates, and he didn’t mean to lose a single chance. He went at once to the school telephone and called up Mrs. Bryant, asking her to ask Miss Radway to be ready to come back with him.

And so it was that Joyce, summoned from her preparation of the Bible-school lesson for the next day, hurried into a pretty little blue voile she had just finished and was ready when Mr. Powers arrived to go before the School Board.

In a few minutes, she stood, at last, before Professor Harrington, who had wasted many precious hours of his time, to say nothing of telephone charges and letters, trying to locate this special teacher, and when she finally stood before him he looked into her clear blue eyes and said to himself, “That’s the girl I want.” And aloud, to the School Board, he said gravely:

“I feel sure, from what I know of Miss Radway’s work, that she is eminently fitted to teach in our school.”

Joyce lifted astonished eyes to the fine, scholarly face and didn’t in the least recognize him. But she had sense enough left in spite of her perturbation not to say so, and in a few minutes she was dismissed from the room and the vote was carried in her favor.

The fact was, every man of them was prepossessed in her favor so soon as he looked into her eyes, and the three bobbed-haired candidates hadn’t a chance, with her on the spot.

“But I thought she was a cook!” said one wife when her husband got home from the School Board meeting and told her about the election of the new teacher. “Mrs.Powers told me she got dinner for her one night when she had company.”

“I asked Powers about that,” her husband answered. “It seems she just did it to help them out when she first came, while she was looking for a job. Powers said he never tasted such cooking. His wife offered her twenty-five dollars just to stay and cook dinner on Sunday for some guests and she wouldn’t do it.”

“Well, I don’t blame her. Mrs. Powers is very unpleasant to get along with, all the maids say. But it does seem strange to hire a cook to teach in the school. I think we’ll send Genevieve to a private school this fall.”

“No, we won’t send Genevieve to any private school, not if I have anything to say about it, and I guess I’d have to pay the bills. Not while I’m on the School Board either. How do you think that would make me look?”

“You could resign. You could say you didn’t approve of having cooks teach our children.”

“Well, I do approve. It’s a pity Genevieve couldn’t learn to cook too. I’ve seen this girl and I want my children under her. I count it a privilege to have them under her. I like her looks. She doesn’t paint her face, nor bob her hair, nor wear clothes way up to her knees. And she doesn’t wear dangle-dangles in her ears, nor pull out her eyebrows. She wears neat, sensible, pretty things and looks like a good girl, and that’s the kind we want our little children under. That Miss Harlow you wanted me to vote for makes eyes at every man that comes near her, married or single. This girl tends to her business and knows what she’s about. I voted for her, and I mean to stick by her. Now! I want it understood thatshe isnot a cook. She may knowhowto cook, but that talk about her being a cook doesn’t go another step from this house! Understand? If it does, there’s going to be a big overhauling somewhere.”

“Oh, of course, if you’ve taken her up,” said his wife disagreeably. “It seems she has all the men on her side even if she doesn’t make eyes at them.”

“She doesn’t need to. She’s a good girl and she doesn’t want ’em; and that’s the kind the children ought to have.”

So Joyce was established in the Primary Department of the Silverton School, under the very immediate supervision of the new superintendent, who paid her marked attention from the first, to her evident embarrassment.

Joyce was not averse to having friends, nor to going out and having good times like other girls, but it happened that the very first thing this luckless young man asked her to was a dance, and she had to tell him she didn’t dance.

Joyce didn’t like to go around flaunting her principles, and never talked about those things unless she had to, but he argued the question with her. He certainly wanted to take her to that dance. But when it came to arguing, Joyce just smiled and said she was sorry to seem ungracious, but she didn’t care to learn to dance. Well, would she go to an orchestra concert in the city with him then? Yes, she said she would enjoy that. So they went. But he, poor soul, felt himself called upon to bring Joyce into a better way of thinking about the dancing, “a more modern view,” he called it, and they certainly did not get on very well.

Then he told her how he had hunted for her in MeadowBrook, and how he had admired her from seeing her just once; how she was different from other girls, that was what he admired about her; and Joyce looked up with a smile and said:

“Then why are you trying to make me over just like all the rest?” He looked at her a moment embarrassedly, and then began to laugh.

“No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe I do want to. I like you just as you are.” After that they talked about books, and summer, and the beautiful meadows about Meadow Brook, and they seemed quite good friends. He asked her why she ran away, and she said evasively, that it was hard for her to stay where she and her aunt had been happy so many years, and she felt it would be better for everybody if she went, and went quietly, without waiting to bid all her dear friends good-bye. She saw he had not been intimate with any of her intimate friends, and rightly surmised that he had not heard anything peculiar about her going.

It did occur to her that he might write back sometime and speak about her to some one, but it seemed rather unlikely; and she was going to write home pretty soon anyway, so she thought no more of the matter.

A very pleasant friendship sprang up between Joyce and John Harrington. Not that there was anything sentimental about it, as yet. John Harrington might express his admiration of a girl, but that was all until he was quite sure of himself; also quite sure of her. It was one thing to run after a new teacher with all his heart. It was quite another thing to commit himself personally. Harrington was a most judicious young man. He wouldnot have been called to take charge of the Silverton School if he had not been. He was well satisfied in his mind as to his own feelings toward Joyce, but it was not yet time to commit himself. Joyce needed molding and modifying. She needed modernizing somewhat before she would be fitted to become the wife of a superintendent. So he set himself to mold and modernize her.

Joyce was simple-hearted and happy. She loved her work, and she was having a good time. The superintendent did not pick her out to focus his entire attention upon her and make her an object of jealousy, therefore she enjoyed the occasional trips to the city to hear some fine music, and the constantly kindly helpfulness of the young man as her head in the school. Things were going well with her, and she thanked God every night.

Somehow, however, with Harrington’s advent there had come so many new things that her time was more than filled. The letters she had planned to write to Meadow Brook were still unwritten, and the more she thought about them (usually at night, after she had got to bed, and was reviewing the day), the harder they seemed to write. How to explain her going, what to say about Nan and Gene. It would be so disagreeable if Nan should take it into her head to come after her and coax her to come back and live with them. Nan hated housework, and she could not help knowing that she was valuable to her in that way. No, she was not yet ready to write home.

So the days drifted by, full of hard work, and pleasantness. She loved her young pupils and they loved her. Often they invited her to their homes, and here she met many pleasant people who showed themselves as more thanfriendly. She could have spent every evening in a merry round if she had chosen. But, here again, the fact that she was a very old-fashioned girl, and neither danced nor played bridge nor mah jong, nor could be persuaded to learn, set her apart, and saved many evenings for reading and study and necessary sewing. People tried to persuade her at first, laughed at her, and cajoled her, but she remained sweetly firm, yet without preaching to them, and they finally, good-naturedly, let her alone.

Sometimes she had little gatherings of two or three people in her wee house, and served them chocolate and delectable little cakes, or Welsh rarebit or hot pancakes made on her little electric grill. Harrington was occasionally included in these gatherings, but she never received young men alone. She told them they could not come without some woman friend with them. They laughed at her old-fashioned ideas, but they went away and found some quiet elderly friend and came again. Joyce’s home began to have a reputation all its own, showing a girl could live alone and yet keep free from all the unconventions of the modern world. If any one grew troublesome there was always Mrs. Bryant to whom she might call, and Mrs. Bryant understood and always happened in whenever she knew Joyce had a caller who might want to stay alone.

So the fall passed and the winter entered in.

Jim had finished the chimney and fireplace, and the little room was warm and cosy, even on a bitter November evening with the wind howling outside.

It had not taken Harrington long to find out which was the most influential and intellectual church in thecommunity and to connect himself with it. Thereafter, he set about bringing Joyce to go with him sometimes. He felt if she could but listen to the wise and modern thoughts of this most learned divine, who preached at his chosen church, it would be easier to win her from some of her narrow views. But when he asked her to go to church with him, one evening, she told him she could not leave her own, that she had asked her Sunday School class to go with her that night. When he said, then they would go the next Sunday night, she looked at him with her clear eyes and said:

“I’m sorry to have to say no again, but I cannot go to that church at all. That minister dishonors my Lord, and I do not feel I can ever listen to him again.”

He told her it sounded pharisaical for a young girl like herself to set up to criticise a man of the minister’s years and standing. Didn’t she know that the great denomination for which he stood was back of him, and that they knew better than she did, a young girl with little experience? Besides, what about that Bible verse that said you mustn’t speak evil of dignitaries? She had been taught by dear old-fashioned people, and it was beautiful to look back on such an upbringing, but, of course, it wasn’t progress to stay just where her forefathers had stood. She ought to go on to higher realms of thought. It wasn’t Christian to stand still. Things were not as they used to be. Science and art and everything else had progressed and grown, why should not religion? Men had learned more of God, and grown wiser. They had learned that He was not the same God their fathers had supposed.

Her answer was to look at him steadily with rising color, and repeat:

“‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.’ And I’m not speaking evil of dignitaries. I’m telling you he dishonored my Lord. The Bible says, ‘From such turn away.’”

“Oh, now, don’t you think you are pressing a point too far?” he said. “Of course Christ is the same, it’s our views of Him that have changed. We have grown, and are able to see Him in a bigger, broader sense, as a grand example for the whole world; not just a little personal God who attends to each detail of our life.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t care much about Him if He wasn’t personal, and didn’t care for the details of my life,” she said. “I take great pleasure in that verse: ‘He knoweth the way that I take,’ and ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered,’ and ‘Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.’ And my God isn’t a little one, either, because He attends to all the details. He wouldn’t be a God at all if He didn’t.”

“I certainly wish I had your memory,” said the young man with a look of admiration. “You have a fine mind. You would have made a good lawyer. But I hate to see you so narrow. It isn’t like you in other things to be narrow.”

“Enter ye in at the strait gate,” began Joyce thoughtfully. “For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

“And so you are actually priding yourself on beingnarrow!” He spoke almost angrily. It was annoying to have her so stubborn, so ignorant of modern ideas, so bound by these old traditions.

“No,” she said sadly. “Those are not my words. They are my Lord’s. I didn’t make them. I’m only telling you why I’m narrow, as you say.”

“Well, if you’d only go to a respectable church, and hear some really good teaching along intellectual lines I feel sure you are bright enough and open-minded enough to give up these silly, pharisaical ideas. They are really too egotistical for a sweet young girl like you.”

Joyce lifted her eyes sadly to his.

“You don’t understand because you can’t,” she said. “Your eyes are blinded. There are a great many people like that nowadays. I didn’t know it till I came away from Meadow Brook. I didn’t understand what the verse meant when it said that the natural man could not understand the things of the Spirit. Now I know. You can’t understand because you haven’t been born again.”

The young man made an impatient movement.

“Oh, I dislike that phrase. Please don’t use it. It’s so ridiculous to talk that way in this age of the world.”

“Jesus Christ used it,” said Joyce quietly.

“Well, it isn’t a thing to be talked about,” he said crossly. “How should you set up to say I’m not ‘born again’ as you say it?”

“Because you don’t understand. Because you can listen to a minister who doesn’t believe that Jesus died to shed His blood to wash away our sins. Because you can listen to a man who can dare to say that they called Jesus divine because they couldn’t think of any other wordto use, and who said the blind man only thought he was blind, and Jesus just waked him up to open his eyes and use them. I heard him say all those things, and I can’t go and listen to him any more. It is dishonoring my Lord to hear him.”

“Well, I think the person that brought you up was awfully to blame,” he said with contempt in his voice. “To saddle anybody with as many hidebound doctrines as you seem to have is a sin. Whoever it was will have to answer for it some day. You have an unusually fine mind, and if you would once give up these foolish legends and prejudices with which your mind is filled you would be a brilliant woman with a great future before you.”

Joyce stood up and looked at him gravely, her eyes brilliant, her cheeks flushed.

“I may not be a brilliant woman,” she said sweetly, “but I certainly have a great future before me. I’m going to live and reign with Jesus Christ some day, and I don’t really think it matters so very much whether I’m brilliant down here or not with that in view. But you’ll have to excuse me from any further talk on this subject. You have cast a slur on my faith and we really haven’t anything in common when you do that. Iknowmy Christ, and you don’t seem to. I must go now.”

She swept out of his office, whither he had summoned her on pretext of consulting her about some of her scholars who were to be promoted. There was something so final about her going that it quite depressed him, and after a night’s wakefulness he went to see her, and had the good grace to apologize to her, and to say he would like her to try and show him what she meant by her faith.

“If you will come to the church where I go you will find out much better than I can teach you,” she said, for she did not more than half believe that he wanted to know.

So he agreed to go with her the following Sunday evening, and she began to mention his name in her prayers as she knelt in the moonlight in her little room. “Dear Father, show me how to make him understand,” she prayed. But always her prayer ended with: “Find Darcy please, and don’t let him lose the way home, for Christ’s sake.”

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