"Don"t you believe it, Brent," she said quietly. "The world "d talk if you married a girl like me, moh"n it would if you didn"t. I"ve been awake for seven days, Brent, an" I ain"t a girl no moh in some ways. An"
Brent," her cheeks were flaming now, "I might give you anythin" if we honest loved, an" not be ashamed;--but as we don"t, a thousand marriages couldn"t keep me from shrivelin" up whenever you looked at me! We"d despise each other in no time," she added, with another forced laugh.
"I don"t know," he murmured.
"Well, I do," she now exclaimed with her old time gaiety. "Stand right still, an" shut yoh eyes, an" don"t move till I say good night!
Promise?"
"What"s the game?" he asked.
"Never mind! You do what I say!"
"All right, I promise," he smiled.
The seconds pa.s.sed and he wondered what she was doing. He knew she could not be very far away. Then there was a slight rustle and her lips touched his cheek.
"This," she whispered, "is because for the first time in yoh life you"ve got what Miss Jane calls grit. Don"t move!" There was another pause, and her lips touched his other cheek. "This," again she whispered, "means the blind eyes over yonder are happy, "cause you"ve made Nancy see. An"
this," she tenderly drew down his face and kissed his forehead, "is that we"ll be understandin" friends from now on till the day after never."
"Isn"t there something else?" he pleaded.
"I reckon not," she whispered.
She must have moved silently, for in a few moments her voice called a good night from the broken gate.
He opened his eyes then, and moved toward his patient horse. He had a feeling that he may not have carried this interview gracefully; but he had done it honestly, and at real personal cost. He began to wonder what it might have cost Nancy--he had given that no thought. Were she a girl of Jane"s type, he suspected she would now be hating him. But she was not like Jane; she was Nancy; and, even as his intuition whispered, her cheeks were still flushed with a pleasant warmth of satisfaction. To her it had been romantic and grateful. She seemed to feel that they were honorably at quits.
CHAPTER XVI
A SPRINGTIME SANTA CLAUS
As May crept up the calendar the little schoolhouse became the center of increased activity: commencement exercises were under daily rehearsal and the light of excited interest shone in every face.
It was a heterogeneous flock which had answered the call of Jane"s horn eight months before: twenty-nine in all, ranging from children of eight to a woman of thirty-five. Nor were their characteristics less diverse.
The tobacco-chewing, profane boy was there, with a stolen dirk thrust into his trousers" band, suggesting a turbulent future; and the girl, with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there, pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing these were the straight, courageous bearing and the tender faces of normal promise. St.u.r.dy manhood and womanhood was written across the countenances of many who had answered the call of Jane"s horn!
Nancy was not one of this wholesome medley. She was being especially taught aside;--and now, on this mid-May day, Jane sat with her beneath the trees while the room within was wrapped in the unrestful silence of tedious thought. Occasionally the teacher glanced at her when she happened to sigh and bend more intently over the knotty problem on her lap. Dale might have been here with them, for he had made strides during the past four weeks which put him far in the van, and Jane was satisfying this bewildering pace with extra work for the afternoons at home. For his was, indeed, a bewildering pace, spurred by an insatiable ambition that had become brutal in its determination to absorb every lesson, every fact and figure, every little jot of information which her schoolhouse and the Colonel"s library contained. His time, from early morning until late at night, was divided between these places; but he advanced with so much greater speed in the seclusion of Arden that Jane had lately persuaded him to work there, rather than be subjected to the schoolroom noises which were as mult.i.tudinous as they were unavoidable.
Thus it was that she and Nancy now sat alone beneath the trees.
The morning was warm and without a breath of air. A two weeks" drought, unusual at this season, had parched the country, bringing the wheat prematurely to head and causing anxiety about the hemp. But since tobacco, the most important crop, would not be set out till June, this agricultural unrest permeated little farther than impolite remarks about the weather. True, some of the springs were going dry, and all low verdure beside the pike was bedraggled and bowed beneath a coat of white dust. Out across the meadows of tired gra.s.s, and above the yellow fields prepared and waiting in sultry patience for their Lady Nicotiana,--everywhere along the level stretches that eye could sweep--were tormenting, dancing heat waves. Sleepy-eyed cattle spent their inert hours standing in the pasture pools with the water about their knees, or mingling with groups of sweaty brood mares cl.u.s.tered in the shady places. Dogs could not lie quiet; in the coolest corners of the kennel they drooled and panted. Nor were the creatures of the air immune; for directly above the girls a bird listlessly hopped from branch to branch, its wings drooping, and its beak apart. Jane sympathetically raised her eyes to it and began to fan herself with the cover of a book--although it was not unbearably warm in the grove, and the bird might have come from a long flight.
A child appeared in the doorway, hesitated and came out to her. Excusing this approach was the desire for help with a certain sum, but the true reason later became manifest when the little one, with dancing eyes, whispered something to the teacher"s inclined ear.
"That is nice," Jane smiled.
Happily, with the noiselessness of unshod creatures, she ran and skipped back to the school room.
"Julia says that she"s been promised a pair of shoes for commencement,"
Jane glanced over at Nancy. "I fear it"s a case of sweeter antic.i.p.ation than realization."
"She"ll suffer moh agonies than shoes that night," Nancy laughed.
"Hasn"t she a piece to recite?"
Jane was about to answer when another youngster standing in the doorway held her attention. He, too, came timidly forth for a.s.sistance; but, as with Julia, his true reason was to impart in the same excited way a confidence. When this had been accomplished with much mysterious whispering, and he had again gone indoors, Jane looked at Nancy with a broader smile.
"More agony," she said. "Jimmy is promised boots, mind you! This is a gratifying proof that rural schools improve the understanding--but what on earth they will do without toes to wiggle is beyond me!"
The girls were still laughing over the thought of Jimmy"s direful future when a third child appeared. It was a word in her reader now that furnished the conventional stumbling block on which to mount to her teacher"s confidence.
"What?" that young woman exclaimed. "More shoes? Mercy! But it"s very nice! And now run back and finish the page before I ring the bell."
This time, turning to Nancy, Jane sighed: "More shoes! All of this suffering humanity will surely not survive that night. Really, Nan, I think it"s the most extraordinary thing I ever encountered the way these children"s parents are shoeing them for commencement! Mark my words, before the exercises are half over we"ll be hearing shoes drop all over the room. They simply won"t keep them on! It"ll be awful." She was about to say more, when Mrs. Owsley appeared in the door.
Mrs. Owsley was the thirty-five-year-old scholar; and the only one, until Dale came, who might strictly have been termed of the mountains.
She was, moreover, the mother of nine smaller Owsleys--the smallest of whom she brought each day and laid in a box prepared for the purpose near the teacher"s desk. The previous autumn she had left "Bill an" the other eight brats" back in their remote home, and moved down to Mother Owsley"s, four miles from school, to which she walked each day, bare-footed, and carrying the infant. It was an enthusiasm for education, characteristic of these mountaineers, which might not be met anywhere else in a country termed civilized.
"Heavens!" gasped Jane. "I thought it was another child coming to tell me about shoes!"
"Did you ever see how Mrs. Owsley does with her shoes?" Nancy asked, being careful not to smile while the impa.s.sive woman"s eyes were turned in her direction.
"You mean across her shoulder?"
Nancy nodded, giggling a little.
"The poor, poverty stricken dears, all of them," Jane tenderly exclaimed. "But that"s a common custom in some parts of the mountains, Nan. I"ve seen it when a circuit-rider had come through, and was going to hold church somewhere; nearly all who possessed shoes would carry them across their shoulders that way during their long walk to attend, and then sit on the meetinghouse steps and put them on. Shoes have to last a long time up there," she added wistfully. "They mustn"t be worn out by walking on them."
"I thought it was awful funny when I saw her do it," Nancy whispered.
"You don"t look like you ever went barefoot, Miss Jane!"
"I never did," Jane laughed. "I hated it so that I used to pick blackberries and sell them to keep myself supplied. My poor old Dad thought it a wicked extravagance, but I"d rather have gone without clothes than shoes."
"I hated it, too," Nancy quietly replied, "but never thought of makin"
money. I wish I had!"
Mrs. Owsley stepped down from the doorway and crossed to them. In approaching her teacher she scorned any subterfuge, and spoke directly to the point.
"What"d ye git, ef yeou wuz me, Miss Jane? I got shoes, a"ready--these here"n; but this ole gingham"s the onlies" dress I got, an" hit"s a sorry lookin" thing! Mr. Bowser sez ef I don"t hanker arter shoes I don"t hev ter hev "em;--he sez his store"ll leave me take their wu"th outen sumthin" else. I reckon hit"ll be all right ter the trustee!"
"What trustee do you mean?" Jane asked. There was a pucker of mystification between her eyes as she looked up at Mrs. Owsley.
But that countenance did not change. It never changed. The same yellowish face, rather long and horse-like, beneath the same hair plainly brushed back, looked at Jane now as it had looked at the world"s mult.i.tude of privations and pittance of joys, this last score of years.
"The trustee," she answered, "what sees as how we-uns goin" ter school gits shoes--outen the school fund, I reckon "twuz he said, or sumthin"
that a-way. He"s a-stayin" down thar by the Cunnel"s, some-un says, so mebbe ye knows "im. Not as I allow ter be beholden ter no one:--but commencement"s commencement!"