Part 97 (1/2)

On Sat.u.r.days, according to custom, the school had a holiday; and Ishmael spent the morning in working in the garden. As it was now the depth of winter, there was but little to do, and half a day's work in the week sufficed to keep all in order. Sat.u.r.day afternoons Ishmael went over to open and air the library at Tanglewood, and to return the books he had read and bring back new ones. Sat.u.r.day evenings he spent very much as he did the preceding ones of the week--in giving Reuben his lesson, in posting up the week's accounts, and in reading law until bed time.

On Sundays Ishmael rested from worldly labors and went to church to refresh his soul. But for this Sabbath's rest, made obligatory upon him by the Christian law, Ishmael must have broken down under his severe labors. As it was, however, the benign Christian law of the Sabbath's holy rest proved his salvation.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

ONWARD.

The boldness and the quiet, That calmly go ahead, In spite of wrath and riot, In spite of quick and dead-- Warm energy to spur him, Keen enterprise to guide.

And conscience to upstir him, And duty by his side, And hope forever singing a.s.surance of success, And rapid action springing At once to nothing less!

--_M.F. Tupper_.

In this persevering labor Ishmael cheerfully pa.s.sed the winter months.

He had not heard one word of Claudia, or of her father, except such scant news as reached him through the judge's occasional letters to the overseer.

He had received an encouraging note from Mr. Middleton in answer to the letter he had written to that gentleman. About the first of April Ishmael's first quarterly school bills began to be due.

Tuition fees were not high in that poor neighborhood, and his pay for each pupil averaged about two dollars a quarter. His school numbered thirty pupils, about one-third of whom never paid, consequently at the end of the first three months his net receipts were just forty-two dollars. Not very encouraging this, yet Ishmael was pleased and happy, especially as he felt that he was really doing the little savages intrusted to his care a great deal of good.

Half of this money Ishmael would have forced upon Hannah and Reuben; but Hannah flew into a pa.s.sion and demanded if her nephew took her for a money-grub; and Reuben quietly a.s.sured the young man that his services overpaid his board, which was quite true.

One evening about the middle of April Ishmael sat at his school desk mending pens, setting copies, and keeping an eye on a refractory boy who had been detained after school hours to learn a lesson he had failed to know in his cla.s.s.

Ishmael had just finished setting his last copy and was engaged in piling the copy-books neatly, one on top of another, when there came a soft tap at the door.

”Come in,” said Ishmael, fully expecting to see some of the refractory boy's friends come to inquire after him.

The door opened and a very young lady, in a gray silk dress, straw hat, and blue ribbons entered the schoolroom.

Ishmael looked up, gave one glance at the fair, sweet face, serious blue eyes, and soft light ringlets, and dropped his copy-books, came down from his seat and hurried to meet the visitor, exclaiming:

”Bee! Oh, dear, dear Bee, I am so glad to see you!”

”So am I you, Ishmael,” said Beatrice Middleton, frankly giving her hand to be shaken.

”Bee! oh, I beg pardon! Miss Middleton I mean! it is such a happiness to me to see you again!”

”So it is to me to see you, Ishmael,” frankly answered Beatrice.

”You will sit down and rest, Bee?--Miss Middleton!” exclaimed Ishmael, running to bring his own school chair for her accommodation.

”I will sit down, Bee. None of my old schoolmates call me anything else, Ishmael, and I should hardly know my little self by any other name,”

said Bee, taking the offered seat.

”I thank you very much for letting me call you so! It really went against all old feelings of friends.h.i.+p to call you otherwise.”