Part 1 (1/2)
Miss Prudence.
by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin.
I.
AFTER SCHOOL.
”Our content is our best having.”--_Shakespeare_.
n.o.body had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all are, three people,--the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other people knew, and the Marjorie G.o.d knew. It was a ”bother” sometimes to be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie G.o.d knew and understood she did not learn much about for years and years. At eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself--her naughty, absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that she loved story-books entirely too much, that they made her absent-minded and forgetful, and her mother's words were proving themselves true this very afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself and there was no one near to ”confess” to; she never could talk about herself unless enveloped in the friendly darkness, and then the confessor must draw her out, step by step, with perfect frankness and sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or quickly drawn breath and half inarticulate expression revealed more than her spoken words.
She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet knew the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her, she could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic undertone smothered in her laugh.
It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window, the clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red glare shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom clock pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the fire had died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks into the stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft, whispering to her as he pa.s.sed her seat that he would keep her warm at any rate. But now she was s.h.i.+vering, although she had wrapped herself in her coa.r.s.e green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor to keep them warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her unsatisfied, for she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a splendid Northern Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two sandwiches wis.h.i.+ng all the time for more. Leaving the work on her slate unfinished, she had dived into the depths of her home-made satchel and discovered two crumbs of mola.s.ses cake. That was an hour ago. School had closed at three o'clock to-day because it was Friday and she had been nearly two hours writing nervously on her slate or standing at the blackboard making hurried figures. For the first time in her life Marjorie West had been ”kept in.” And that ”Lucy” book hidden in her desk was the cause of it; she had taken it out for just one delicious moment, and the moment had extended itself into an hour and a half, and the spelling lesson was unlearned and the three hard examples in complex fractions unworked.
She had not been ignorant of what the penalty would be. Mr. Holmes had announced it at the opening of school: ”Each word in spelling that is missed, must be written one hundred times, and every example not brought in on the slate must be put on the blackboard after school.”
She had smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and p.r.o.nounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the examples were solved had dropped out of her Geography, and she had been wholly absorbed in the ”Lucy” book during the time that she had expected to study the test words in spelling. And the overwhelming result was doing three examples on the board, after school, and writing seven hundred words. Oh, how her back ached and how her wrist hurt her and how her strained eyes smarted! Would she ever again forget _amateur, abyss, accelerate, bagatelle, bronchitis, boudoir_ and _isosceles_?
Rie Blauvelt had written three words one hundred times, laughed at her, and gone home; Josie Grey had written _isosceles_ one hundred times, and then taken up a slate to help Marjorie; before Marjorie was aware Josie had written _abyss_ seventy-five times, then suspecting something by the demureness of Josie's eyes she had s.n.a.t.c.hed her slate and erased the pretty writing.
”You're real mean,” pouted Josie; ”he said he would take our word for it, and you could have answered some way and got out of it.”
Marjorie's reply was two flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”You needn't take my head off,” laughed Josie; ”now I'll go home and leave you, and you may stay all night for all I care.”
”I will, before I will deceive anybody,” resented Marjorie stoutly.
Without another word Josie donned sack and hood and went out, leaving the door ajar and the cold air to play about Marjorie's feet.
But five o'clock came and the work was done!
More than one or two tears fell slowly on the neat writing on Marjorie's slate; the schoolroom was cold and she was s.h.i.+vering and hungry. It would have been such a treat to read the last chapter in the ”Lucy” book; she might have curled her feet underneath her and drawn her shawl closer; but it was so late, and what would they think at home? She was ashamed to go home. Her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, and her mother would exclaim, ”Why, Marjorie!” She would rather that her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would say, ”Why, _Marjorie!_” Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good.
_Her_ photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself the youngest--the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips--on her sweet brow and happy lips.
It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor, the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't care if she had been kept in, anyway!
In that ”anyway” she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she said, ”I don't care,” but when she said, ”I don't care, _anyway_!”
then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful.
”I'm _through_,” she thought triumphantly, ”and I didn't cheat, and I wasn't mean, and n.o.body has helped me.”
Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that G.o.d had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't help themselves along by doing wrong and--G.o.d helped them. The suns.h.i.+ne rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for the second time to a.s.sure herself that there could be no possible mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be ”_sure_ they were all right.”
Josie Grey called her ”horridly conscientious,” and even Rie Blauvelt wished that she would not think it wicked to ”tell” in the cla.s.s, and to whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about the lessons.
By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coa.r.s.e, plaid shawl, her elbows resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump hands, with her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate.
She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this winter it had been decided that Marjorie was ”big” enough to go to school.