Darrel of the Blessed Isles by Irving Bacheller
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Irving Bacheller >> Darrel of the Blessed Isles
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"Here he is!" one whispered suddenly from a window. Then, with a
last poke at her hair, Miss Letitia admitted the teacher. They
spoke their greeting in a half whisper and stood near, waiting
timidly for his coat and cap.
"No, thank you," said he, taking them to a nail. "I can do my own
hanging, as the man said when he committed suicide."
Miss S'mantha looked suspicious and walked to the other side of the
stove. Impressed by the silence of the room, much exaggerated by
the ticking of the clock, Sidney Trove sat a moment looking around
him. Daylight had begun to grow dim. The table, with its cover
of white linen, was a thing to give one joy. A ruby tower of
jelly, a snowy summit of frosted cake, a red pond of preserved
berries, a mound of chicken pie, and a corduroy marsh of mince,
steaming volcanoes of new biscuit, and a great heap of apple
fritters, lay in a setting of blue china. They stood a moment by
the stove,--the two sisters,--both trembling in this unusual
publicity. Miss Letitia had her hand upon the teapot.
"Our tea is ready," said she, presently, advancing to the table.
She spoke in a low, gentle tone.
"This is grand!" said he, sitting down with them. "I tell you,
we'll have fun before I leave here."
They looked up at him and then at each other, Letitia laughing
silently, S'mantha suspicious. For many years fun had been a thing
far from their thought.
"Play checkers?" he inquired.
"Afraid we couldn't," said Miss Letitia, answering for both.
"Old Sledge?"
She shook her head, smiling.
"I don't wish to lead you into recklessness," the teacher remarked,
"but I'm sure you wouldn't mind being happy."
Miss S'mantha had a startled look.
"In--in a--proper way," he added. "Let's be joyful. Perhaps we
could play 'I spy.'"
"Y!" they both exclaimed, laughing silently.
"Never ate chicken pie like that," he added in all sincerity. "If
I were a poet, I'd indite an ode 'written after eating some of the
excellent chicken pie of the Misses Tower.' I'm going to have some
like it on my farm."
In reaching to help himself he touched the teapot, withdrawing his
hand quickly.
"Burn ye?" said Miss S'mantha.
"Yes; but I like it!" said he, a bit embarrassed. "I often go
and--and put my hand on a hot teapot if I'm having too much fun."
They looked up at him, puzzled.
"Ever slide down hill?" he inquired, looking from one to the other,
after a bit of silence.
"Oh, not since we were little!" said Miss Letitia, holding her
biscuit daintily, after taking a bite none too big for a bird to
manage.
"Good fun!" said be. "Whisk you back to childhood in a jiffy.
Folks ought to slide down hill more'n they do. It isn't a good
idea to be always climbing."
"'Fraid we couldn't stan' it," said Miss S'mantha, tentatively.
Under all her man-fear and suspicion lay a furtive recklessness.
"Y, no!" the other whispered, laughing silently.
The pervading silence of that house came flooding in between
sentences. For a moment Trove could hear only the gurgle of
pouring tea and the faint rattle of china softly handled. When he
felt as if the silence were drowning him, he began again:--
"Life is nothing but a school. I'm a teacher, and I deal in rules.
If you want to kill misery, load your gun with pleasure."
"Do you know of anything for indigestion?" said Miss S'mantha,
charging her sickly voice with a firmness calculated to discourage
any undue familiarity.
"Just the thing--a sure cure!" said he, emphatically.
"Come high?" she inquired.
"No, it's cheap and plenty."
"Where do you send?"
"Oh!" said he; "you will have to go after it."
"What is it called ?"
"Fun," said the teacher, quickly; "and the place to find it is out
of doors. It grows everywhere on my farm. I'd rather have a pair
of skates than all the medicine this side of China."
She set down her teacup and looked up at him. She was beginning to
think him a fairly safe and well-behaved man, although she would
have been more comfortable if he had been shut in a cage.
"If I had a pair o' skates," said she, faintly, with a look of
inquiry at her sister, "I dunno but I'd try 'em."
Miss Letitia began to laugh silently.
"I'd begin with overshoes," said the teacher, "A pair of overshoes
and a walk on the crust every morning before breakfast; increase
the dose gradually."
The two old maids were now more at ease with their guest. His
kindly manner and plentiful good spirits had begun to warm and
cheer them. Miss S'mantha even cherished a secret resolve to slide
if the chance came.
After tea Sidney Trove, against their protest, began to help with
the dishes. Miss S'mantha prudently managed to keep the stove
between him and her. A fire and candles were burning in the
parlour. He asked permission, however, to stay where he could talk
with them. Tunk Hosely, the man of all work, came in for his
supper. He was an odd character. Some, with a finger on their
foreheads, confided the opinion that he was "a little off." All
agreed he was no fool--in a tone that left it open to argument. He
had a small figure and a big squint. His perpetual squint and
bristly, short beard were a great injustice to him. They gave him
a look severer than he deserved. A limp and leaning shoulder
complete the inventory of external traits. Having eaten, he set a
candle in the old barn lantern.
"Wal, mister," said he, when all was ready, "come out an' look at
my hoss."
The teacher went with him out under a sky bright with stars to the
chill and gloomy stable.
"Look at me," said Tunk, holding up the lantern as he turned about.
"Gosh all fish-hooks! I'm a wreck."
"What's the matter?" Sidney Trove inquired.
"All sunk in--right here," Tunk answered impressively, his hand to
his chest.
"How did it happen?"
"Kicked by a boss; that's how it happened," was the significant
answer. "Lord! I'm all shucked over t' one side--can't ye see it?"
"A list t' sta'b'rd--that's what they call it, I believe," said the
teacher.
"See how I limp," Tunk went on, striding to show his pace. "Ain't
it awful!"
"How did that happen?"
"Sprung my ex!" he answered, turning quickly with a significant
look. "Thrown from a sulky in a hoss race an' sprung my ex. Lord!
can't ye see it?"
The teacher nodded, not knowing quite how to take him.
"Had my knee unsot, too," he went on, lifting his knee as he turned
the light upon it. "Jes' put yer finger there," said he,
indicating a slight protuberance. "Lord! it's big as a bog spavin."
He had planned to provoke a query, and it came.
"How did you get it?"
"Kicked ag'in," said Tunk, sadly. "Heavens! I've had my share o'
bangin'. Can't conquer a skittish hoss without sufferin' some--not
allwus. Now, here's a boss," he added, as they walked to a stall.
"He ain't much t' look at, but--"
He paused a moment as he neared the horse--a white and ancient
palfrey. He stood thoughtfully on "cocked ankles," every leg in a
bandage, tail and mane braided,
"Get ap, Prince," Tunk shouted, as he gave him a slap. Prince
moved aside, betraying evidence of age and infirmity.
"But--" Tunk repeated with emphasis.
"Ugly?" the teacher queried.
"Ugly!" said Tunk, as if the word were all too feeble for the fact
in hand. "Reg'lar hell on wheels!--that's what he is. Look out!
don't git too nigh him. He ain't no conscience--that hoss ain't."
"Is he fast?"
"Greased lightnin'!" said Tunk, shaking his head. "Won
twenty-seven races."
"You're a good deal of a horseman, I take it." said the teacher.
"Wal, some," said he, expectorating thoughtfully. "But I don't
have no chance here. What d'ye 'spect of a man livin,' with them
ol' maids ?"
He seemed to have more contempt than his words would carry.
"Every night they lock me upstairs," he continued with a look of
injury; "they ain't fit fer nobody t' live with. Ain't got no hoss
but that dummed ol' plug."
He had forgotten his enthusiasm of the preceding moment. His
intellect was a museum of freaks. Therein, Vanity was the
prodigious fat man, Memory the dwarf, and Veracity the living
skeleton. When Vanity rose to show himself, the others left the
stage.
Tunk's face had become suddenly thoughtful and morose. In truth,
he was an arrant and amusing humbug. It has been said that
children are all given to lying in some degree, but seeing the
folly of it in good time, if, indeed, they are not convinced of its
wickedness, train tongue and feeling into the way of truth. The
respect for truth that is the beginning of wisdom had not come to
Tunk. He continued to lie with the cheerful inconsistency of a
child. The' hero of his youth had been a certain driver of
trotting horses, who had a limp and a leaning shoulder. In Tunk,
the limp and the leaning shoulder were an attainment that had come
of no sudden wrench. Such is the power of example, he admired,
then imitated, and at last acquired them. One cannot help thinking
what graces of character and person a like persistency would have
brought to him. But Tunk had equipped himself with horsey heroism,
adorning it to his own fancy. He had never been kicked, he had
never driven a race or been hurled from a sulky at full speed.
Prince, that ancient palfrey, was the most harmless of all
creatures, and would long since have been put out of misery but for
the tender consideration of his owners. And Tunk--well, they used
to say of him, that if he had been truthful, he couldn't have been
alive.
"Sometime," Trove thought, "his folly may bring confusion upon wise
heads."
XVII
An Event in the Rustic Museum
Sidney Trove sat talking a while with Miss Letitia. Miss S'mantha,
unable longer to bear the unusual strain of danger and publicity,
went away to bed soon after supper. Tunk Hosely came in with a
candle about nine.
"Wal, mister," said he, "you ready t' go t' bed?"
"I am," said Trove, and followed him to the cold hospitality of the
spare room, a place of peril but beautifully clean. There was a
neat rag carpet on the floor, immaculate tidies on the bureau and
wash table, and a spotless quilt of patchwork on the bed. But,
like the dungeon of mediaeval times, it was a place for sighs and
reflection, not for rest. Half an inch of frost on every
window-pane glistened in the dim light of the candle.
"As soon as they unlock my door, I'll come an' let ye out in the
mornin'," Tunk whispered.
"Are they going to lock me in?"
"Wouldn't wonder," said Tunk, soberly.
"What can ye 'spect from a couple o' dummed ol' maids like them?"
There was a note of long suffering in his half-whispered tone,
"Good night, mister," said he, with a look of dejection. "Orter
have a nightcap, er ye'll git hoar-frost on yer hair."
Trove was all a-shiver in the time it took him to undress, and his
breath came out of him in spreading shafts of steam. Sheets of
flannel and not less than half a dozen quilts and comfortables made
a cover, under which the heat of his own blood warmed his body. He
became uncomfortably aware of the presence of his head and face,
however. He could hear stealthy movements beyond the door, and
knew they were barricading it with furniture. Long before daylight
a hurried removal of the barricade awoke him. Then he heard a rap
at the door, and the excited voice of Tunk.
"Say, mister! come here quick," it called.
Sidney Trove leaped out of bed and into his trousers. He hurried
through the dark parlour, feeling his way around a clump of chairs
and stumbling over a sofa. The two old maids were at the kitchen
door, both dressed, one holding a lighted candle. Tunk Hosely
stood by the door, buttoning suspenders with one hand and holding a
musket in the other. They were shivering and pale. The room was
now cold.
"Hear that!" Tunk whispered, turning to the teacher.
They all listened, hearing a low, weird cry outside the door.
"Soun's t' me like a raccoon," Miss S'mantha whispered thoughtfully.
"Or a lamb," said Miss Letitia.
"Er a painter," Tunk ventured, his ear turning to catch the sound.
"Let's open the door," said Sidney Trove, advancing.
"Not me," said Tunk, firmly, raising his gun.
Trove had not time to act before they heard a cry for help on the
doorstep. It was the voice of a young girl. He opened the door,
and there stood Mary Leblanc--a scholar of Linley School and the
daughter of a poor Frenchman. She came in lugging a baby wrapped
in a big shawl, and both crying.
"Oh, Miss Tower," said she; "pa has come out o' the woods drunk an'
has threatened to kill the baby. Ma wants to know if you'll keep
it here to-night."
The two old maids wrung their hands with astonishment and only said
"y!"
"Of course we'll keep it," said Trove, as he took the baby,
"I must hurry back," said the girl, now turning with a look of
relief.
Tunk shied off and began to build a fire; Miss S'mantha sat down
weeping, the girl ran away in the darkness, and Trove put the baby
in Miss Letitia's arms.
"I'll run over to Leblanc's cabin," said he, getting his cap and
coat. "They're having trouble over there."
He left them and hurried off on his way to the little cabin.
Loud cries of the baby rang in that abode of silence. It began to
kick and squirm with determined energy. Poor Miss Letitia had the
very look of panic in her face. She clung to the fierce little
creature, not knowing what to do. Miss S'mantha lay back in a fit
of hysterics. Tunk advanced bravely, with brows knit, and stood
looking down at the baby.
"Lord! this is awful!" said he. Then a thought struck him. "I'll
git some milk," he shouted, running into the buttery.
The baby thrust the cup away, and it fell noisily, the milk
streaming over a new rag carpet.
"It's sick; I'm sure it's sick," said Miss Letitia, her voice
trembling. "S'mantha, can't you do something?"
Miss S'mantha calmed herself a little and drew near.
"Jes' like a wil'cat," said Tunk, thoughtfully. "Powerful, too,"
he added, with an effort to control one of the kicking legs.
"What shall we do?" said Miss Letitia.
"My sister had a baby once," said Tunk, approaching it doubtfully
but with a studious look.
He made a few passes with his hand in front of the baby's face.
Then he gave it a little poke in the ribs, tentatively. The effect
was like adding insult to injury.
"If 'twas mine," said Tunk, "which I'm glad it ain't--I'd rub a
little o' that hoss liniment on his stummick,"
The two old maids took the baby into their bedroom. It was an hour
later when Trove came back. Tunk sat alone by the kitchen fire.
There was yet a loud wail in the bedroom.
"What's the news?" said Tunk, who met him at the door.
"Drunk, that's all," said Trove. "I took this bottle, sling-shot,
and bar of iron away from him. The woman thought I had better
bring them with me and put them out of his way."
He laid them on the floor in a corner.
"I got him into bed," he continued, "and then hid the axe and came
away. I guess they're all right now. When I left he had begun to
snore."
"Wal,--we ain't all right," said Tunk, pointing to the room. "If
you can conquer that thing, you'll do well. Poor Miss Teeshy!" he
added, shaking his head.
"What's the matter with her?" Trove inquired.
"Kicked in the stummick 'til she dunno where she is," said Tunk,
gloomily.
He pulled off his boots.
"If she don't go lame t'morrer, I'll miss my guess," he added.
"She looks a good deal like Deacon Haskins after he had milked the
brindle cow."
He leaned back, one foot upon the stove-hearth. Shrill cries rang
in the old house.
"'Druther 'twould hev been a painter," said Tunk, sighing.
"Why so?"
"More used to 'em," said Tunk, sadly.
They listened a while longer without speaking.
"Ye can't drive it, ner coax it, ner scare it away, ner do nuthin'
to it," said Tunk, presently.
He rose and picked up the things Trove had brought with him. "I'll
take these to the barn," said he; "they'd have a fit--if they was
t' see 'em. What be they?"
"I do not know what they are," said Trove.
"Wal!" said Tunk. "They're queer folks--them Frenchmen. This
looks like an iron bar broke in two in the middle."
He got his lantern, picked up the bottle, the sling-shot, and the
iron, and went away to the barn.
Trove went to the bedroom door and rapped, and was admitted. He
went to work with the baby, and soon, to his joy, it lay asleep on
the bed. Then he left the room on tiptoe, and a bit weary.
"A very full day!" he said to himself.
"Teacher, counsellor, martyr, constable, nurse--I wonder what next!"
And as he went to his room, he heard Miss S'mantha say to her
sister, "I'm thankful it's not a boy, anyway."
XVIII
A Day of Difficulties
All were in their seats and the teacher had called a class. Carlt
Homer came in.
"You're ten minutes late," said the teacher.
"I have fifteen cows to milk," the boy answered.
"Where do you live?"
"'Bout a mile from here, on the Beach Plains."
"What time do you begin milking?"
"'Bout seven o'clock."
"I'll go to-morrow morning and help you," said the teacher. "We
must be on time--that's a necessary law of the school."
At a quarter before seven in the morning, Sidney Trove presented
himself at the Homers'. He had come to help with the milking, but
found there were only five cows to milk.
"Too bad your father lost so many cows--all in a day," said he.
"It's a great pity. Did you lose anything?"
"No, sir."
"Have you felt to see?"
The boy put his hand in his pocket.
"Not there--it's an inside pocket, way inside o' you. It's where
you keep your honour and pride."
"Wal," said the boy, his tears starting, "I'm 'fraid I have."
"Enough said--good morning," the teacher answered as he went away.
One morning a few days later the teacher opened his school with
more remarks.
"The other day," said he, "I spoke of a thing it was very necessary
for us to learn. What was it?"
"To obey," said a youngster.
"Obey what?" the teacher inquired.
"Law," somebody ventured.
"Correct; we're studying law--every one of us--the laws of grammar,
of arithmetic, of reading, and so on. We are learning to obey
them. Now I am going to ask you what is the greatest law in the
world?"
There was a moment of silence. Then the teacher wrote these words
in large letters on the blackboard; "Thou shalt not lie."
"There is the law of laws," said the teacher, solemnly. "Better
never have been born than not learn to obey it. If you always tell
the truth, you needn't worry about any other law. Words are like
money--some are genuine, some are counterfeit. If a man had a bag
of counterfeit money and kept passing it, in a little while nobody
would take his money. I knew a man who said he killed four bears
at one shot. There's some that see too much when they're looking
over their own gun-barrels. Don't be one of that kind. Don't ever
kill too many bears at a shot."
After that, in the Linley district, a man who lied was said to be
killing too many bears at a shot.
Good thoughts spread with slow but sure contagion. There were some
who understood the teacher. His words went home and far with them,
even to their graves, and how much farther who can say? They went
over the hills, indeed, to other neighbourhoods, and here they are,
still travelling, and going now, it may be, to the remotest corners
of the earth. The big boys talked about this matter of lying and
declared the teacher was right.
"There's Tunk Hosely," said Sam Price. "Nobody'd take his word for
nuthin'."
"'Less he was t' say he was a fool out an' out," another boy
suggested.
"Dunno as I'd b'lieve him then," said Sam. "Fer I'd begin t' think
he knew suthin'."
A little girl came in, crying, one day.
"What is the trouble?" said the teacher, tenderly, as he leaned
over and put his arm around her.
"My father is sick," said the child, sobbing.
"Very sick?" the teacher inquired.
For a moment she could not answer, but stood shaken with sobs.
"The doctor says he can't live," said she, brokenly.
A solemn stillness fell in the little schoolroom. The teacher
lifted the child and held her close to his broad breast a moment.
"Be brave, little girl," said he, patting her head gently.
"Doctors don't always know. He may be better to-morrow."
He took the child to her seat, and sat beside her and whispered a
moment, his mouth close to her ear. And what he said, none knew,
save the girl herself, who ceased to cry in a moment but never
ceased to remember it.
A long time he sat, with his arm around her, questioning the
classes. He seemed to have taken his place between her and the
dark shadow.
Joe Beach had been making poor headway in arithmetic.
"I'll come over this evening, and we'll see what's the trouble.
It's all very easy," the teacher said.
He worked three hours with the young man that evening, and filled
him with high ambition after hauling him out of his difficulty.
But of all difficulties the teacher had to deal with, Polly Vaughn
was the greatest. She was nearly perfect in all her studies, but a
little mischievous and very dear to him. "Pretty;" that is one
thing all said of her there in Faraway, and they said also with a
bitter twang that she loved to lie abed and read novels. To Sidney
Trove the word "pretty" was inadequate. As to lying abed and
reading novels, he was free to say that he believed in it.
"We get very indignant about slavery in the south," he used to say;
"but how about slavery on the northern farms? I know people who
rise at cock-crow and strain their sinews in heavy toil the
livelong day, and spend the Sabbath trembling in the lonely shadow
of the Valley of Death. I know a man who whipped his boy till he
bled because he ran away to go fishing. It's all slavery, pure and
simple."
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return
unto the ground," said Ezra Tower.
"If God said it, he made slaves of us all," said young Trove.
"When I look around here and see people wasted to the bone with
sweat and toil, too weary often to eat the bread they have earned,
when I see their children dying of consumption from excess of
labour and pork fat, I forget the slaves of man and think only of
these wretched slaves of God."
But Polly was not of them the teacher pitied. She was a bit
discontented; but surely she was cheerful and well fed. God gave
her beauty, and the widow saw it, and put her own strength between
the curse and the child. Folly had her task every day, but Polly
had her way, also, in too many things, and became a bit selfish, as
might have been expected. But there was something very sweet and
fine about Polly. They were plain clothes she wore, but nobody
save herself and mother gave them any thought. Who, seeing her
big, laughing eyes, her finely modelled face, with cheeks pink and
dimpled, her shapely, white teeth, her mass of dark hair, crowning
a form tall and straight as an arrow, could see anything but the
merry-hearted Polly?
"Miss Vaughn, you will please remain a few moments after school,"
said the teacher one day near four o'clock. Twice she had been
caught whispering that day, with the young girl who sat behind her.
Trove had looked down, stroking his little mustache thoughtfully,
and made no remark. The girl had gone to work, then, her cheeks
red with embarrassment.
"I wish you'd do me a favour, Miss Polly," said the teacher, when
they were alone.
She blushed deeply, and sat looking down as she fussed with her
handkerchief. She was a bit frightened by the serious air of that
big young man.
"It isn't much," he went on. "I'd like you to help me teach a
little. To-morrow morning I shall make a map on the blackboard,
and while I am doing it I'd like you to conduct the school. When
you have finished with the primer class I'll be ready to take hold
again."
She had a puzzled look.
"I thought you were going to punish me," she answered, smiling.
"For what?" he inquired.
"Whispering," said she.
"Oh, yes! But you have read Walter Scott, and you know ladies are
to be honoured, not punished. I shouldn't know how to do such a
thing. When you've become a teacher you'll see I'm right about
whispering. May I walk home with you?"
Polly had then a very serious look. She turned away, biting her
lip, in a brief struggle for self-mastery.
"If you care to," she whispered.
They walked away in silence.
"Do you dance?" she inquired presently.
"No, save attendance on your pleasure," said he. "Will you teach
me?"
"Is there anything I can teach you?" She looked up at him playfully.
"Wisdom," said he, quickly, "and how to preserve blueberries, and
make biscuit like those you gave us when I came to tea. As to
dancing, well--I fear 'I am not shaped for sportive tricks.'"
"If you'll stay this evening," said she, "we'll have some more of
my blueberries and biscuit, and then, if you care to, we'll try
dancing."
"You'll give me a lesson?" he asked eagerly.
"If you'd care to have me."
"Agreed; but first let us have the blueberries and biscuit," said
he, heartily, as they entered the door. "Hello, Mrs. Vaughn, I
came over to help you eat supper. I have it all planned. Paul is
to set the table, I'm to peel the potatoes and fry the pork, Polly
is to make the biscuit and gravy and put the kettle on. You are to
sit by and look pleasant."
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