Part 14 (2/2)
Miss Ashwell was knitting to-day. She was nearly always knitting for some one else, thought Judith, as she idly watched the needles flas.h.i.+ng.
Knitting made her think of Red Cross work, and that led straight to the awful thought of a Current Events test shortly coming off. While they were to be examined on the whole term's work, part of the test was the writing of an essay on a subject chosen from a list of three. Judith had decided to write on ”Red Cross Work in Italy.” Her father's brother, Brian, was a brilliant engineer who had been loaned to Italy by the British Government, and Judith naturally knew more about the war in Italy than anywhere else. She would have to get Uncle Brian's letters out and piece together the bits of information he had given her. She and her father had read several magazine articles last summer, but she couldn't even remember what magazines they were. Oh, dear, what a lot of work it would be! How tired she was! If she could just stay here and sleep all afternoon! She heaved a big gusty sigh. Miss Ashwell looked up quickly.
”What's wrong, Judy, dear?” Miss Ashwell never seemed to be in a hurry herself, a miraculous achievement at York Hill. Judith told her tale of woe, sure of sympathy.
Miss Ashwell seemed even more interested than usual.
”I believe I can help you, Judy,” she said, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng; ”just hand me my despatch-case from the table.” She opened it and took out snapshots, pictures cut from magazines, and several descriptive articles dealing with the subject in hand.
Judith looked her amazement. It seemed almost too good to be true. Miss Ashwell smiled and her cheeks grew pinker than ever.
”I'm especially interested in Italian work, Judy--because I had a friend out there during the war. He sent me these snapshots. I'll show them to you now and you may take the magazine articles with you. The Red Cross did such magnificent work there that I don't wonder Miss Kingston chose that as one of your subjects.”
”Oh, Miss Ashwell, it's just like the manna in the wilderness,” gasped Judith,--”I mean I'm so grateful,” she explained incoherently, ”although the Jews were not always properly grateful, were they? But I am. I didn't see _how_ I could hunt up all those references with all I have to do.”
Miss Ashwell showed her the pictures, but Judith's mind was divided between interest at the skilful ways in which difficulties of transit in the mountains had been overcome and interest in Miss Ashwell. Was it possible that Miss Ashwell was interested in a soldier-man the way girls were? Of course, she wasn't so _very_ old, perhaps twenty-two, and as Judith ran off with her treasure she kept saying to herself, ”Wouldn't it be funny--he looks awfully nice in the snaps--she's a perfect dear, anyway, and I'll get at that Current Events prep. right away.”
Next day Miss Marlowe handed back the ”Jessica” essays to her Five A cla.s.s in English composition. Five A looked glum as they read their marks and the somewhat caustic comments written in their exercise books.
Judith flushed as she read: ”Neatly and carefully written, Judith, but hardly interesting. You were not asked to give a resume of the play, but a character sketch of Jessica. What do you know about Jessica now that you didn't know before you wrote your essay? How have you enlarged your knowledge of human nature?”
How, indeed? Judith felt distinctly aggrieved. What impossibly hard things Miss Marlowe expected them to do! She had worked hard over that essay and had looked for a little praise, but instead here was Miss Marlowe thumping the desk and telling them they never used their brains.
Five A sat at attention. Miss Marlowe, indignant, was apt to be interesting, but no one desired to be the luckless offender against whom her Irish wit might be directed.
She gave them a lively two minutes on the foolishness of not using the brains they had, and then came down to the subject in hand.
”You didn't try to _understand_ Jessica; you knew that her conduct was unfilial, to say the least, and don't imagine that I am forgetting the wrong things she did, or that I want you to approve of her. I _don't_, but I do want you to try to understand. That's just the reason why you were a.s.signed this lesson. Only one of you made the effort to re-create Shylock's home. Read your essay, Florence, please.”
The cla.s.s looked surprised as Florence, white with shyness, began to read, falteringly at first and then more convincingly. Every one, with the exception perhaps of Judith, was surprised at the excellence of the essay. Florence Newman, that quiet, shy, stiff, little thing! They had expected that Joyce or Phyllis or Judith, or even Frances, would be held up to them as models, but not Florence.
”Run down to the common room, Nancy. You're nearest the door; and bring me Lamb's 'Life and Letters,' a big red book lying on my table.” And then, turning to the cla.s.s, ”Now, never mind about Jessica, though I hope you see the difference between your way of approach and Florence's, but remember this, it's far, far easier to criticize, to judge, and to condemn, than it is to sympathize and to understand; it's the little people of the world who do the judging; it's the big people who do the understanding.
”Thank you, Nancy. Now listen to the words of a wise woman, Mary Lamb.
What do you know about Mary Lamb, Frances? Yes, she wrote many of the 'Tales from Shakespeare,' and she lived with her brother Charles and was his greatest friend, and the friend of his friends. She is writing to a friend of hers who has been confessing to actions which Mary might just as easily have condemned as you condemned Jessica's. But this is what she writes:
You will smile when I tell you I think myself the only woman in the world who could live with a brother's wife and make a real friend of her--partly from a knack I know I have of looking into people's real characters and never expecting them to act out of it. Never expecting another to do as I would in the same case. I do not expect you or want you to be otherwise than you are. I love you for the good that is in you.
”There's wisdom,” concluded Miss Marlowe, ”and next time you find yourselves saying, '_I_ wouldn't have been so mean or horrid or selfish,' just ask yourself, how do you know you wouldn't, and what has that got to do with it, and what do you know about it, anyway? Are you showing sympathetic insight or merely conceit? You'll meet plenty of Jessicas who are easier to condemn than to understand. Don't lose your friends by a lack of loving understanding. Be grateful for them; they are your most precious possessions. Love them for the best that is in them.
”There, that's a longer sermon than usual. Take your pens now and write that sentence from Mary Lamb's letter at the bottom of your essay, and after I have dictated it make your corrections and jot down the new things about Jessica that you haven't noted before.”
Five A heaved a sigh of relief. Miss Marlowe was through with them once more. There was the usual clattering of inkwells and requests for new pens, and then Miss Marlowe went to her desk, and according to custom one by one the cla.s.s brought up their books to receive her suggestions and criticisms.
Judith wrote her corrections mechanically and slowly, but her mind was working swiftly. That's what she had been doing, judging Nancy, saying, '_I_ wouldn't have done it'; criticizing, not trying to understand, and she had judged herself, condemned herself to do without Nancy and the precious possession of Nancy's friends.h.i.+p. Darling Nancy! She might have been loving her all this time for the good in her, her sweetness, her unfailing kindness, her absolute squareness, her dearness.
Judith's eyes were s.h.i.+ning as she carried up her book to Miss Marlowe, and the fervency with which she said, ”Thank you,” when Miss Marlowe had finished her criticism, brought a happy smile to Miss Marlowe's own eyes.
”That child's got the idea,” she said to herself; ”Well, if _one_ seed falls into good ground it's worth while--splendidly worth while.”
The recess bell rang and Five A lost no time filing out to the corridor and thence to tuck shop and gymnasium, but Judith was delayed by her duties as monitress and Nancy was not to be seen when she reached the corridor. Down to the tuck shop sped Judith.
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