What can"t be cured must be endur--"
"I"m ripping it out," Aunt Olivia interrupted, crisply. But Duty was not to be silenced.
"You ought to have done it before," dictatorially. "You"ve known all along that Rebecca Mary was growing up."
Aunt Olivia, like the proverbial worm, turned.
"I didn"t know till Rebecca Mary told me," she retorted; then the rebellion died out of her thin face and tenderness came and took its place. Aunt Olivia was thinking of the time when Rebecca Mary told her.
She gazed past Duty, past the skirt across her knees, out through the porch vines, and saw Rebecca Mary coming to tell her. She saw the shawl the child was bringing, felt it laid on her shoulders, and something else laid on her hair, soft and smooth like a little, lean, brown cheek.
The memory was so pleasant that Aunt Olivia closed her eyes to make it stay. When she opened them some one was coming along the path, but it was not Rebecca Mary.
"Good afternoon!" some one said. Aunt Olivia stiffened into a Plummer again with hurried embarra.s.sment. She did not recognize the voice nor the pleasant young face that followed it through the vines.
"It"s Rebecca Mary"s aunt, isn"t it?" The stranger smiled. "I should know it by the family resemblance."
"We"re both Plummers," Aunt Olivia answered, gravely. "Won"t you come up on the porch and take a seat?"
"No, I"ll sit down here on the steps--I"d rather. I think I"ll sit on the lowest step for I"ve come on a very humble errand! I"m Rebecca Mary"s teacher."
"Oh!" It was all Aunt Olivia could manage, for a sudden horror had come upon her. She had a distinct remembrance of being at the Tony Trumbullses when the school teacher came to call.
"It"s--it"s rather hard to say it." The young person on the lowest step laughed nervously. "I"d a good deal rather not. But I think so much of Rebecca Mary--"
The horror grew in Aunt Olivia"s soul. It was something terribly like that the Tony Trumbullses" teacher had said. And like this:
"It hurts--there! But I made up my mind it was my duty to come up here and say it, and so I"ve come. I"m sorry to have to say--"
"Don"t!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt Olivia, trembling on her Plummer pedestal. For she was laboring with the impulse to refuse to listen to this intruder, to drive her away--to say: "I won"t believe a word you say! You may as well go home."
"Hoity-toity!" breathed Duty in her ear. It saved her.
"Well?" she said, gently. "Go on."
"I"m sorry to say I can"t teach Rebecca Mary any more, Miss Plummer.
That"s what I came to tell you--"
This was awful--awful! But hot rebellion rose in Aunt Olivia"s heart.
There was some mistake--it was some other Rebecca Mary this person meant. She would never believe it was HERS--the Plummer one!
"Because I"ve taught her all I know. There! Do you wonder I chose the lowest step to sit on? But it"s the truth, honest," the little teacher laughed girlishly, but there were shame spots on her cheeks--"Rebecca Mary is the smartest scholar I"ve got, and I"ve taught her all I know."
In her voice there was confession to having taught Rebecca Mary a little more than that. The shame spots flickered in a halo of humble honesty.
"She"s been from Percentage through the arithmetic four times--Rebecca Mary"s splendid in arithmetic. And she knows the geography and grammar by heart."
The look on Aunt Olivia"s face! The transition from horror to pride was overwhelming, transfiguring.
"Rebecca Mary"s smart," added the honest one on the doorstep. "_I_ think she ought to have a chance. There! That"s all I came for, so I"ll be going. Only, I don"t suppose--you don"t think you"ll have to tell Rebecca Mary, do you? About--about me, I mean?"
"No, I don"t," Aunt Olivia a.s.sured her, warmly. Her thin, lined hand met and held for a moment the small, plump one--long enough to say, "You"re a good girl--I like you," in its own way. The little teacher went away in some sort comforted for having taught Rebecca Mary all she knew.
She even hummed a relieved little tune on her way home, because of the pleasant tingle in the hand that Rebecca Mary"s aunt had squeezed. After all, no matter how much you dreaded doing it, it was better to tell the truth.
Aunt Olivia hummed no relieved little tune. The pride in her heart battled with the Dread there and went down. Aunt Olivia did not call the Dread by any other name. It was Duty who dared.
Confronting Aunt Olivia: "I suppose you know what it means? I suppose you know it means you"ve got to give Rebecca Mary a chance? When are you going to send her away to school?"
"Oh--don"t!" pleaded Aunt Olivia. "You don"t give me any time. There"s no need of hurry--"
"I"m still a Plummer, if you"re not," broke in Duty, with ironic sharpness. "The Plummers were never afraid to look their duty in the face."
"I"m--I"m looking at you," groaned Aunt Olivia, climbing painfully back on to her pedestal. "Go ahead and say it. I"m ready--only I guess you"ve forgot how long I"ve had Rebecca Mary. When you"ve brought a child up--"
"I brought her up myself," calmly. "I ought to know. She wouldn"t have been Rebecca Mary, would she, if I hadn"t been right on hand? Who was it taught her to sew patchwork before she was four years old? And make sheets--and beds--and bread? Who was it kept her from being a little tomboy like the minister"s girl? Who taught her to walk instead of run, and eat with her fork, and be a lady? Who was it--"
"Oh, you--you!" sighed Aunt Olivia, trembling for her balance. "You did "em all. I never could"ve alone."
"Then"--Duty was justly complacent--"Then perhaps you"ll be willing to leave Rebecca Mary"s going away to school to me. She must go at once, as soon as you can get her read--"
Aunt Olivia tumbled off. She did not wait to pick herself up before she turned upon this Duty that delighted in torturing her.
"You better get her ready yourself! You better let her down and make her some nightgowns and count her pocket-handkerchiefs! You think you can do anything--no, I"M talking now! I guess it"s my turn. I guess I"ve waited long enough. Maybe you brought Rebecca Mary up, but I"m not going to leave it to you whether she"d ought to go away to school. She"s my Rebecca Mary, isn"t she? Well? It"s me that loves her, isn"t it--not you? If I can"t love her and stay a Plummer, then I"ll--love her. I"m going to leave it to the minister."
The minister was a little embarra.s.sed. The wistful look in Aunt Olivia"s eyes said, "Say no" so plainly. And he knew he must say yes--the minister"s Duty was imperative, too.
"If she can"t get any more good out of the school here--" he began.
"She can"t," said Aunt Olivia"s Duty for her. "The teacher says she can"t. Rebecca Mary"s smart." Then Duty, too, was proud of Rebecca Mary!
"I know she is," said the minister, heartily. "My Rhoda--you ought to hear my Rhoda set her up. She thinks Rebecca Mary knows more than the teacher does."
"Rhoda"s smart, too," breathed Duty in Aunt Olivia"s ear.
"So you see, dear Miss Olivia, the child would make good use of any advantage--"
"You mean I ought to send her away? Well, I"m ready to--I said I"d leave it to you. Where shall I send her? If there was only--I don"t suppose there"s some place near to? Children go home Friday nights sometimes, don"t they?"
"There is no school near enough for that, I"m afraid," the minister said, gently. He could not bear the look in Miss Olivia"s eyes.
"It hurt," he told his wife afterwards. "I wish she hadn"t asked me, Felicia."
"I know, dear, but it"s the penalty of being a minister. Ministers"
hearts ought to be coated with--with asbestos or something, so the looks in people"s eyes wouldn"t burn through. I"m glad she didn"t ask ME!"
"It will nearly kill them both," ran on the minister"s thoughts, aloud.
"You know how it was when Miss Olivia was at the hospital."
"Robert!"--the minister"s wife"s tone was reproachful--"you"re talking in the future tense! You said "will." Then you advised her to send Rebecca Mary away!"
"Guilty," pleaded the minister. "What else could I do?"