Part 26 (1/2)

”This morning the weather was wreathed in smiles.

And we, correspondingly gay, a.s.sembled together from several miles To welcome our Opening Day.”

”The children were plastic in body and mind.

Their faces and pinafores clean; And persons scholastic, in accents refined.

With eloquence pointed the scene.”

”Blest scene! as its features we fondly recall, Come let us give thanks to the Lord!

The Parents, the Teacher, the Managers all, Including the Clerk to the Board!”

BOOK III.

CHAPTER XVI.

AUNT BUTSON CLOSES SCHOOL.

Next morning when Hester arrived at the school she found Mr. Sam waiting for her, with Myra, Clem, and a lanky, freckled youth of about sixteen, whom he introduced as Archelaus Libby. She could not help a smile at this odd name, and the young man himself seemed to be conscious of its absurdity. He blushed, held out his hand and withdrew it again, dropped his hat and caught it awkwardly between his knees. Myra (who had made the sign of the cross as Hester entered) stood and regarded him with a cold, contemptuous interest. Her uncle presented the poor fellow with a proprietary wave of the hand, as though he had been a dumb animal recently purchased.

”I telegraphed to Liskeard on my own responsibility. The Managers may take me to task; but I felt it to be imperative that you should have a male teacher to support you, and at once. At all costs we must prevent a repet.i.tion of such scenes as yesterday's.”

Doubtless he had done Hester a service, and she tried to express her thanks, but did not succeed very well. To begin with, her spirit being roused, she desired no help; and to judge by Mr. Archelaus Libby's looks, the help he could give promised to be ineffective. She did not say this, of course; and he gazed at her so wistfully that she reproached herself for thinking it.

Mr. Sam had no such scruples. ”I telegraphed to Liskeard,” he repeated.

”There was no time for a personal interview.” (He paused, with a deprecating wave of the hand, as who shall say, ”And this is what they sent.”) ”If,” he continued, ”you find him unequal to maintaining discipline, we--ha--must take other steps. In other respects I find him satisfactory. He tells me he is of the Baptist persuasion, a believer in Total Immersion.”

Hester saw Myra's mouth twitching. She herself broke into merry laughter.

”I hope it won't be necessary to go that length,” she answered.

”We will do our best, at any rate.” She held out her hand again, and Archelaus Libby grasped it warmly.

On the whole, Archelaus Libby's best proved to be better than she had expected. The boys made a b.u.t.t of him from the beginning, but could get no real advantage over one who laughed with them at his own discomfitures.

He belonged to those meek ones who (it is promised) shall inherit the earth; and indeed, as the possessor of a two-guinea microscope--bought, as he explained to Hester, with his first earnings--he believed himself to inherit it already. This microscope, and the wonders he showed them under it, earned no little respect from the children. Also he had, without being aware of it, an extraordinary gift of mental arithmetic, and would rattle out the quotients of long compound division sums at alarming speed and with a rapid clicking sound at the back of his throat, as though some preternatural machinery were at work there. But most of all he conquered by sheer love of his kind and of every living creature. The lad seemed to brim over with love: he never arrived at forgiving anyone, being incapable of believing that anyone meant to offend. From the first he yielded to Hester a canine devotion which was inconvenient because it rendered him dumb.

Within a week Hester felt sure of herself and of the school, and confided her joy to Mr. Benny, who always met her at the ferry and accompanied her home to tea; for she was now installed as a lodger with the Benny household, greatly to Nuncey's delight. After tea Mr. Benny always withdrew to a little office overhanging the tideway; a wooden, felt-roofed shed in which he earned money from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. by writing letters for seamen. In this interval the two girls walked or bathed, returning in time to put the children to bed and help Mrs. Benny with the supper.

They talked much, but seldom about the school--all the cares of which Hester left behind her at the ferry crossing.

”And that's what I like about you,” Nuncey confided. ”You don't give yourself airs like other schoolmistresses.”

”How many others do you know?” asked Hester.

”None; but I know what I'm talkin' about. You know more about poetry and such-like than Dad; I daresay you know as much as Uncle Josh; and yet no one would think it, to look at you.”

”Thank you.” Hester dropped her a curtsey. ”And who is Uncle Josh?”

”He's Dad's brother, and well known in London. I believe he writes for the papers; 'connected with the press'--that's how Dad puts it.

When Dad writes a poem he hasn't time to polish it; so he sends it up to Uncle Josh, and it comes back beautifully polished by return of post.