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HICKORY HILL SETTLEMENT
CHAPTER XI.
OB threw open the window in the end
of the attic and the golden sunshine
streamed in, revealing the dust, cobwebs
and rubbish that disfigured the “loft”
but also showing its possibilities as a
habitable apartment.
“I am going to ask your mother to
give me the loft for my sunggery.”
Vera said, “I like it well. See what a
Mt
noble picture is framed by this big window —a view
of the hills, all shaggy with pines—and of two moun
tain peaks beyond. Then, here is a nice fireplace,
where I can have a little wood fire of evenings, and
just see, this quaint old fashioned bed in the corner,
with square hand carved posts, and a lattice of
cords instead of steel springs. I have read of such
beds, in old time novels, but I never saw one before.
1 am sure I would have romatic dreams if I should
sleep on this little bed. These shelves, along the
wall, they are the very things to hold my books and
photographs. Here are some books, now.” She
broke off as she saw a little pile of what appeared
to be books or fragments of books, on an end of one
of the shelves. She had previously inspected what
Leah told her was the extent of the family posses
sions in the way of books —a big bible, a hymn
book, a volume of Brownlow’s sermons, a large old
volume, time yellowed and much battered entitled
“Dr. Gunn’s Family Medical Advisor,” and a collec
tion of patent medicine almanacs, dating back half
a dozen years.
The girls had shown their “liberry” with pride.
“We’ve got more books than anybody roun here.”
Leah said. “Most of em’s ain’t got anythin’ but a
Bible and some can’t show a single book in their
house.”
“May I look at these books?” Vera asked, laying
her hand on the little pile on the shelf, and turning
around to Rob.
He colored to his forehead. “They’re not books —
only old scraps of books,” he said, “not worth your
lookin’ at.” He took them down for her and she saw
there was no dust upon them. She understood that
the collection was his, and that it was handled con
stantly. She took the books he gave to her, and
seated herself on the window sill to examine them.
He stood by her, looking at her half wistful, half
ashamed, but conscious of the picture she made
with the sun turning her brown hair to bronze and
the breeze blowing it into tiny rings.
Rob’s book treasures were pitiably meagre. There
was part of Dicken’s History of England and an out
of date geography and arithmetic; two old magazines
and the first half of David Copperfield. This and the
magazines, Rob said he had picked up where the
train porter had thrown them out of the window of
a car at the station.
As Vera looked at these fragments, she was moved
with pity for the boy who had tried to satisfy his
mind-hunger on such scant food.
She betrayed, however, only a sympathetic inter
est, asking a few questions so tactfully that he
presently lost his sensitive timidity and sitting on an
upturned box, near by, he told her the history of
each of the books. Then she led him to talk about
himself,and the attempts he was making to learn
with no one to help him. He could not be spared
from the work of the field, but a few weeks every
winter. In those weeks, he had learned to read and
write and cipher a little. He would come up to the
loft on rainy days, and on nights when he had any
oil for his tiny, smoky lamp, and read and study, as
best he could. He had learned arithmetic in school,
as far as division, but the problems in his book
bothered him often, and he did* not understand the
maps in the geography.
“I would love to help you.” Vera said. “If you
would like me to.”
“Like you to help me!” I wouldn’t know how
to thank you enough,” he exclaimed, his eyes
kindling with pleasure. “But it would be mean to
take up your little rest time” came as a quick after
thought. “And you tired out with the school and
the walk.”
Sy 71 AR Y E. SRYAN, Author of Maneb. Wild Work, Kildee, Uncle Ned’s White Child, Rte.
The Golden Age for November 11, 1909.
“Oh! the walk will just be recreation, and the
evenings are getting long. I could spare you an
hour whenever you were not too tired with the
day’s work. I have a dozen candles in my trunk,
and a little silver lamp. I will send and get some
oil at the station store, and then we can say, ‘Let
there be light,’ and be quite independent up here.”
A thought of the proprieties flashed over her, as
she looked at Rob’s glowing face and suddenly
realized that he was not a boy—that he was nearly
a year older than herself, as she had seen in the
family Bible. “And your sister Leah, she can’t be
spared to go to school either; she will come up and
study with us,” she added.
He was looking at her earnestly—the mist of
sadness that occasionally clouded his eyes,—darken
ed them as he gazed.
“But I am too old to be learnin’,” he said, “I can’t
ever learn enough to be much good—can I?”
“Indeed you can,” Vera answered him, “Some of
our great men had as little book knowledge as you
when they were grown. Abraham Lincoln had to
make his own opportunities for an education after
he was grown. He was obliged to work to support
his widowed mother. Sometimes, he read and
studied at night by the light of the pine knots he
had picked up. And another of our presidents—
Andrew Johnson of Tennessee —was grown and
married before he could read. His wife taught him.”
“Did a lady with education marry him an’ he so
ign’rant?”
“Certainly education isn’t all that goes to the
making of a man. Andrew Johnson’s wife saw that
he had intelligence and ambition. Though he was
unlearned, he was a man for ‘a’ that, as Burn’s says.
She loved him, and it was a joy to her to help him.
Think how proud she must have been to see him
rise, step by step, until he reached the top and be
came a nation’s ruler.”
The inspiring note in her voice, her lighted eyes
and her'smile thrilled him. Vistas of hope opened
before him, through the magic of her voice and her
look. In that hour, he took on his allegiance, his
fealty to Vera Weston —a fealty, that would never
falter till the blood ceased to pulse in his veins.
Vera had picked up the fragment of David Copper
field. “You have read it?” she asked.
“I’ve read it so many times, I know most it, by
heart,” he said. “I’ve laid awake of nights, wonderin’
what become of David and Dora and all the others.
I wish I did know.”
“Your wish shall be gratified, at once,” cried Vera
joyously. “I’m so glad that I have the book in
my trunk. I brought it along,—it and the Old
Curiosity Shop and a few other books —to read
portions of them to the children, or have them read
these aloud in school. I’ll go down this minute, and
get David for you. But —“turning on him with an
arch smile.” You mus’nt read it today—Sunday. We
will get Leah and take a walk instead.”
“I’d rather have the walk than even to read about
David” said the boy, as he followed her light steps
down the stairs.
CHAPTER XII.
The mile and a quarter walk to the school house
in the dew-fresh September morning was exhilirat
ing to Vera. The mountain air, touched with the
balsamic breath of the pines, was a joy to inhale.
She seemed almost as care-free as her trio of
pupils—the three younger members of the Wiggins’
household, who accompanied her, carrying the tin
buckets that contained the noon lunch.
The path wound about the base of the hills and
across two streams, bridged by footlogs—that ran
between banks, where vines, willows, birches and
mountain laurel made angle of green. The school
house was picturesquely situated on a leveV space
that broadened out from the sloping side of a hill —a
space that with its big white oaks, its bushy pines,
and its carpet of clean brown pine straw —seemed
made especially for a play ground.
At the foot of the incline, babbled a spring roofed
by overhanging rocks and ferns.
The schoolhouse was a one-room structure built
of pine logs slightly hewed, with a rock chimney at
one end. The cracks between the logs were stopped
by pine boards that looked much newer than the
logs. “Miss Stokes made ’em stop them cracks,”
said Rachel. “She fussed and fussed —and she made
us chiilun sorter chink the cracks with clay and
straw till she fin’ly got the men people to nail dab
boards over the cracks. Pa says she bossed the job.”
“Well, I am thankful to Miss Stokes for getting
the job done,” said Vera. “Where did she board.?”
At Mis’ Jackson’s —right over yon hill. But she
changed about a time or two. She warnt easy pleas
ed. We never taken her cause we had’nt no room.
Aunt Susan Collins an’ her childun was visitin’ us
last year.”
A group of boys and girls of various sizes, from
little tots to almost grown-ups, stood in front of the
school house waiting for the new teacher. They
stared at her with one accord as she approached,
her cheeks burning under the fire of so many curious
eyes. They were anxious to “see by her outside —
what she was like inside” as one bright little girl
confided to Vera next day.
On her part, the new teacher took in the general
appearance of her pupils, with quick incisive glances,
deciding that they were a sturdy and fairly intelli
gent looking lot without a vicious face among them.
She greeted them with a cheerful good morning
then talked awhile of the beauty of the morning, and
the prettiness and abundance of the wild flowers
some of which she had gathered and held in her
hand. The charm of her animated sac her
musical voice won their liking at once.
They went inside the school house together. The
furnishing was of the most primitive kind. The
seats were pine benches without backs or desks. The
teacher’s seat was a split bottomed chair that had
an unpainted pine table placed before it. The walls
exhibited the clay and straw with which Miss Stokes
had had the cracks “chinked.” No whitewash had
mitigated its unsightly appearance. A black board,
and a rough shelf holding a water bucKet and gourd
—and a wash basin, completed the equipment of
Hickory Hill school house. One other thing lent a
touch of grace. In a broken wash pitcher on the
teacher’s table some one had put a generous bunch
of old fashioned daily roses, with their rich soft
pink color and exquisite half blown buds.
Vera spent the morning getting acquainted with
her pupils, learning their names and as much as she
could about what they had been taught and what
were their habits and inclinations. She looked over
the books —a scant and insufficient supply, requiring
that more than one student should use the same
book. It would be impossible to arrange them in
classes as few of the books were alike. She de
termined to appeal to the trustees and have this
remedied.
Some of the morning’s incidents were so amusing
that Vera treasured them up to laugh over when she
was by herself. One little black-eyed girl with very
red hair on being asked her name said glibly
“Mazingrace.”
“What did you say?” asked the puzzled teacher.
“Mazingrace. It’s in the hymne book.” Vera hesi
tated trying to recall any hymn in which such a
name occurred. The elder sister of the little red
headed lass explained. “It’s outer the singing book
where the hymne says, “Mazingrace how sweet the
Sound.”
“Oh, Amazing grace, I understand.” Vera could
hardly restrain her inclination to laugh. “We shall
call you Grace —shant we? —the short name is pret
tier,” she said.
It was not difficult for Vera to single out among the
nineteen boys and girls of her school two who were
superior to the others in appearance, and also in
speech and manner. The two were not related to
each other and were of opposite sexes. Either they
were better born than the others (blood will tell) or
naturally more intelligent, or they had enjoyed
better advantages. Will Hadden was the largest boy
in school —a frank faced well made young fellow
nearly nineteen years old. When she questioned him,
(Continued from Page 14.)
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