"I had a loneness too, Auntie Lucy. Seemed as if the time never would go."
And then the dark head and the fair head met again for more kisses, while both the mammas looked on and said, in low tones and with smiles, as they always did:--
"How sweet! Now we shall hear them singing about the place like two little birds."
This was Tuesday. The days went on happily until Thursday afternoon, when "the Dunlee party," which always included the Hales and Sanfords, set forth up the mountain for a sight of the famous "air-castle." Of course Nate was with them, but this time not as a guide; the guide was Uncle James.
The road, though rather steep, was not a hard one. Mr. Dunlee had his alpenstock, and Uncle James walked beside him, holding little Eddo by the hand. Bab and Lucy, or "the little two," as Aunt Vi called them, were side by side as usual, and Lucy had asked Bab to repeat the story of "Little Bo-Peep" in French, for Nate wanted to hear it. Bab could speak French remarkably well.
"Pet.i.t beau bouton A perde ses moutons, Il ne sais pas que les a pris.
O laissez les tranquille!
Ils se retournerons, Chacun sa queue apres lui."
Mrs. Dunlee and Kyzie were just behind the children, and while Bab was repeating the verse Kyzie said in a low tone:--
"Oh, mamma, let me walk with you all the way, please. There"s something I want to talk about."
She looked so earnest that Mrs. Dunlee wondered not a little what it was her eldest daughter had to say.
V
THE AIR-CASTLE
"A vacation school, Katharine? And pray what may that be?"
Kyzie"s cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. She held her mother"s hand and talked fast, though plainly she did not feel quite at her ease.
"Why, mamma, you"ve certainly heard of vacation schools--summer schools?
They"re very common nowadays. In the summer, you know; so that college people can go to them, and business people."
"Ah! Like the one at Coronado Beach? Now I understand. But it didn"t occur to me that my little daughter would know enough to teach college people!"
"Now, mamma, don"t laugh at me! Of course I mean children, the little ignorant children right around here," making a sweeping gesture toward the cottages and "bunk houses" that dotted the country lower down the mountain, "I know enough to teach little children, I should hope, mamma."
"Possibly!"
Mrs. Dunlee"s tone was so doubtful that her daughter felt crushed.
"Possibly you may know enough about books; but book-knowledge is not all that is required in a teacher. Could you keep the children in order?
Would they obey you?"
The little girl"s head drooped a little.
"Let me see, you are only fourteen?"
"Fourteen last April, mamma. But everybody says, don"t you know, that I"m very large for my age."
She tried to speak bravely, but the look of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt on her listener"s face made it rather hard for her to go on.
"I suppose," said she, dropping her eyes again, "I suppose they don"t know much here, mamma,--the families that live here all the time. Some of the boys actually go barefooted."
"So I have observed. A great saving of shoes."
"And they had a school last summer," went on Kyzie, resolutely. "A young girl taught it who boarded where we do. Mr. Templeton said she did it for fun."
"Indeed!"
"But they didn"t like her a bit. I could teach as well as she did anyway, mamma, for she just went around the room boxing their ears."
"Is it possible, Katharine?" Mrs. Dunlee was serious enough now. "To box a child"s ears is simply brutal!"
"I knew you"d say so, mamma; but that was just what Miss Severance did.
Of course I wouldn"t touch their ears any more than I would fly!"
Mrs. Dunlee turned now and regarded her daughter attentively.
"But how did you ever happen to take up this sudden fancy for teaching, dear? It"s all new to me. What first made you think of it--at your age?
Can you tell?"
"Oh, mamma, I"ve been thinking about it, off and on, for a year. Ever since I was at Willowbrook last summer and heard Grandma Parlin talk about _her_ first school. Why, don"t you remember, she was just fourteen, she said, nearly three months younger than I am."
Mrs. Dunlee understood it all now, and said to herself:--
"Dear old Grandma Parlin! Little did she imagine she was filling her great grand-daughter"s head with mischievous notions!"
They walked on a short way in silence. "But you must remember, Katharine, that was seventy years ago. Grandma Parlin wouldn"t advise a girl of fourteen to do in these days as she did then. Schools are very different now."
"Yes, indeed, mamma, very, very different. Isn"t it too bad? I"d like to "board "round" the way grandma did, and rap on the window with a ferule, and "choose sides" and all that! But there"s one thing I could do!"
exclaimed the little girl, brightening. "I could make the children "toe the mark"; wouldn"t that be fun? I mean stand in a line on a crack in the floor. How grandma would laugh! I"ll write her all about it, and send her a photograph, bare feet and all."
In her eagerness Kyzie spoke as if the matter were all arranged and she could almost see the children "toeing the mark."
"Not so fast, my daughter. Remember there are three points to be settled before we can discuss the matter seriously. First, would your papa consent? Second, would your mamma consent? Third, do the people of Castle Cliff want a summer school anyway?"
"Three points? I see, oh, yes," said Kyzie, meekly.
"But now, Katharine, let us walk a little faster and join the others.
And not a word more of this to-day."
"What did keep you two so long?" asked Edith, coming to meet them with a bright face. If her happy thoughts had not been dwelling on the zebra cat just presented her by the "knitting-woman," she would have observed at once that mamma and Kyzie had been "talking secrets"; though she might not have suspected that this had anything to do with the vacation school.
"Do hurry along," she added. "I want to show you the funniest sight! I don"t believe you"ve seen Barbara Hale, have you?"
Edith could hardly speak for laughing; and her mother and Kyzie did not wonder when they beheld the figure that little Bab had made of herself, by a new style of dressing her hair. The two little girls were, as I have told you, as different as possible, but had an intense desire to look "just alike"; and when they tried their best the result was very funny.