Part 14 (2/2)

”Nor grown people either,” was Chilian's softening comment. Then he changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them a visit, coming on some Sat.u.r.day.

”Have you any lesson to learn?” he asked of Cynthia. ”If so, bring your book and come to my room.”

”Oh, thank you!” Her face was radiant with delight.

Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside the gate under the great clump of ribbon gra.s.s. If only Cousin Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough.

She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered at.

The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed instead of writing.

”Oh!” she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, ”I wish I could come to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar.”

”But you ought to be with little girls.”

”I don't like them very much.”

Then Miss Winn came for her. ”You are very good to take so much trouble,” she said.

”Oh, I like you so much, so much!” she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as well as her lips.

He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in her impetuous fas.h.i.+on that he should kiss her. She had never offered the caress since. She was not an effusive child.

Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her.

He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did not feel sorry.

”You're a great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a b.u.t.ton,”

he said scornfully. ”I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it, see if I don't.”

Thursday was unfortunate and she was kept in for some rather saucy replies. When she returned they were in the sitting-room and had been discussing some household matters. She surveyed them with a courageous but indignant air.

”I've quit,” she exclaimed. ”I'm not going there to school any more.”

She stood up very straight, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

”What!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cousin Elizabeth.

”Why, I've quit! She wanted to make me say I was sorry and beg her pardon, and she threatened to keep me all night, but I knew some of you would come, at least Rachel.”

”And I suppose you were a saucy, naughty girl!”

”What happened?” asked Chilian quietly.

”Why, you see--I went up to her table with the figures I had been making on my slate. I'd done some of them over three times, for Tommy Marsh joggled my elbow. Then I went back to my seat. We're crowded now, and I went to sit down and sat on the floor. I do believe Sadie Green did it on purpose--moved so there wasn't room enough for me to sit. And Tom laughed, then all the children laughed, and Dame Wilby said, 'Get up, Cynthy Leverett,' and I said 'My name isn't Cynthy, if you please, and I haven't any seat to sit on if I do get up.' And then the children laughed again, and I don't quite know what did happen, but I was so angry. Then she said all the children should stay in for laughing. She called me to the desk and I went. The slate was broken and I laid it on the table. Then she said wasn't I sorry for being saucy, and I said I wasn't. It was bad enough to fall on the floor, for I might have hurt myself. Then she took up her switch, and I said: 'You strike me, if you dare!' Then she pushed me in a little closet place, and there I staid until after school was out. Then she said, 'Would I tell Miss Leverett to come over?' and I said Mr. Leverett was my guardian and I would tell him, but I wasn't coming to school any more, and that Tommy Marsh pinched me and pulled my hair, and called me wild Indian. And so--I've quit. You can't make me go again. I'll run away first and go on some of the boats.”

There was a blaze of scarlet on her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire, but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture she made--small, dark, and spirited.

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