Part 11 (1/2)
I've decided that he must be elected, and without any 'forcing,' and I've the splendidest plan you ever heard. First, I'll give you a lesson.
Then I'll tell you, else you'll believe I'm forgetting my promise. I'm not. I'm only considering the best way to begin. Well, Montgomery Sturtevant, that bad habit of yours comes from laziness and nervousness.
Pure laziness, pure nervousness,” she added, with emphasis.
”D-d-don't neither!” denied the stammerer, indignantly. ”Ain't got no nerves. G-gr-gramma says so, and she knows. She's older 'n you, an'
she's got 'em worst kind. Always gets 'em when I play the f-f-fiddle.”
”Maybe there are two kinds of nerves. She doesn't stammer. Besides the Cyclopedia said so, and it tells the truth. Here. Put this pebble in your mouth. It's a nice smooth round one. I picked it up in the garden and washed it clean. You put it in and then say just--as--slow--as--slow: 'Betsy Bobbins baked a batch of biscuit.'
After you learn to say it slow, without once stammering, then you begin to say it faster. Either that or any other jingle that's difficult without tripping. 'She sells sea-sh.e.l.ls,' or, 'Peter Piper.' Why don't you put the pebble in?”
”I don't want t-to. You're mocking me!”
”There! I knew you needn't if you really wouldn't. When you are a little angry or in real earnest you can talk well. Listen to me and think if I'm not in earnest myself, since I took the trouble to copy all this for you.”
Thereupon, from the little pocket of her blouse, which had held the pebble, the teacher took a folded paper, closely covered with her neatest script, and read therefrom paragraphs which alternately plunged her pupil into despair or exalted him to extravagant delight. And the fortunate result of this first lesson was that when it was ended Montgomery had repeated an entire sentence with reasonable smoothness.
But he had accomplished this without the pebble and with almost interminable pauses between words.
”Yet you did it, you did it!” cried Katharine, exultantly; ”and now for a reward you shall hear the most glorious plan I ever thought out.
Listen to me, Mr. President-that-is-to-be!”
So Montgomery listened in astonishment, doubt, and delight, after his habit of mind; yet also, because of her zeal in his cure, with unquestioning allegiance. In any case, it was a scheme that would have appealed to him irresistibly and was one full worthy of the brain of ”Kitty Quixote,” so that he was fast outstripping even her ingenuity in the matter of detail, when the sudden call of Widow Sprigg fell like a dash of cold water upon their glowing spirits:
”Montgomery Sturtevant! You come right down out that mow this minute!
Here's Squire Pettijohn after you!”
CHAPTER IX.
SQUIRE PETTIJOHN
Katharine should have grown familiar, by this time, with Monty's spasmodic disappearances, but this last was the most amazing of all. It seemed that at the sound of ”Pettijohn” the hay had opened and swallowed him. There had been no other summons and she had heard only a faint swish of something sliding, then found herself alone.
”But he'll come back, of course,” she reflected, ”after he's seen that gentleman. Must have been somebody he liked or he wouldn't have hurried so. Anyway, I don't mind being here a little while by myself to think things out all clear, and a hay-mow is the loveliest place in the world for dreaming.”
It proved such in reality for Katharine, who, burrowing herself a fresh, chair-like ”nest” in the sweet-scented hay, laid her head back and fixed her gaze upon the clouds floating above the slatted window. Soon her lids dropped and she fell fast asleep.
When she awoke the loft was dusky in twilight and she was very cold. The wind had risen, and little tufts of the hay about her blew here and there, clinging to her clothing and lodging among her short curls.
Montgomery had not returned, and after lying still a moment longer, till she was fully awake, she grew frightened, thinking:
”I never heard such a moaning and whistling as the wind does make up here. I wonder if it is always so in a barn, and how I am to get down.
It was hard enough coming up, but in the dark, like this, and I not remembering just where that ladder was; and if I don't find it--what shall I do? Yet how silly to be afraid of things, a big girl like me; and how impolite of that boy to go away and forget me. No matter how much he likes Squire Pettijohn, he shouldn't forget his manners; especially since it is I, not that gentleman, who is going to cure him of stuttering. And what a stupid I am not to call him! If he's forgotten I must remind him.”
With that she crept as near the edge of the mow as she dared, and shouted: ”Montgomery! Monty Sturtevant! Boy! Come back and help me down!”
While she listened for a reply she thought of the eggs she had collected for Susanna, and crawled back to find her hat and them. The hat she slipped over her head, its elastic band clasping her throat, and the eggs she stored within her blouse. They were heavy and made it sag inconveniently, but she could soon get rid of them if only that wretched little Sturtevant boy would come back. She must try again!
”Mon-ty! _Mont--gom--ery!_”