Amanda Douglas - Helen Grant's Schooldays

"When she came back." A tremor ran through Helen's nerves. Oh, must she come back!

"How is Jenny?" she inquired.

"Oh, Jenny's first rate, working like a beaver. There's a girl worth something, if she is mine! And the house is getting done up just splendid. Joe's crazy to be married right off, but Jenny's like me, when her mind's made up it's made up. There's a good deal of Cummings in her. Why don't you take off your hat? You're going to stay to supper?"

"No, I can't," Helen returned gently. "Mrs. Van Dorn was going to drive round a little – "

"She could have come in," snapped Aunt Jane. "We could have had the horse put out and you could both have stayed to supper. I dare say we have as good things to eat as Mrs. Dayton. She doesn't refuse our butter and eggs nor chickens when we have 'em to spare."

"They all think the butter splendid, Aunt Jane. And Mrs. Disbrowe wishes they could get such eggs in the city. She is sure what they get must be a month old," said Helen, with an attempt at gayety.

"I do make good butter. Mrs. Dayton's folks are not the first to find it out," bridling her head. "And I'll say for Mrs. Dayton she's willing to pay a fair price. But I s'pose that old woman pays well?"

Helen wondered how the woman in the carriage would look if she heard that!

"I'd like to know the prices myself. Haven't you heard Mrs. Dayton say? I might want to keep boarders, some day."

"No," answered Helen. "But there are a good many boarders at North Hope, and some of them look as if they didn't mind about money."

"Carriage has come," announced Nathan, running in. Aurelia had finished the potatoes and put them on to cook and now stood with one arm around Helen's neck.

"Stay! stay! Can't you stay?" cried a chorus of voices in various keys.

"I am not my own mistress," answered Helen, cheerfully. "And when you are paid to do a certain thing, paid for your time, it belongs to someone else."

She loosened the children's arms and rose.

"Well it is a mean little call," said her aunt, "and your uncle will be awful disappointed. But when you live with grand people I s'pose you must be grand. Do come when you can stay longer," with a sort of sarcasm in her tone.

"I'll try." Helen kept her temper bravely, left her love for Jenny and Uncle Jason. Aunt Jane had gone at making shortcake. The children followed their cousin out to the gate and showered her with good-bys, staring hard at the old lady in the carriage.

Helen's face was flushed as she stepped into the carriage, but she held her head up with dignity and smiled. The curious two sides of her, was it brain, or mind, or that perplexing inner sight? saw the wide difference between Mrs. Van Dorn and Aunt Jane. And she liked the Van Dorn side a hundred times better than the Mulford side. The delicacy, the ease, the sort of graciousness, even if it was a garment put on and sometimes slipped off very easily. Mrs. Van Dorn was never quite satisfied. She was always reaching out for something, a pleasure and entertainment. Aunt Jane was thoroughly satisfied with herself. She scolded Uncle Jason and insisted that he lacked common sense, energy, and a host of virtues, yet she often said of her neighbors' husbands: "Well, if I had that man I'd ship him off to the Guinea Coast," though she hadn't the slightest idea of its location. She often held him up to the admiration of her friends, though she always insisted she had been the making of him. And she would not admit that there was a smarter girl in Hope Center than Jenny.

The peculiar contrast flashed over Helen. What made the complacency – content?

"Did you have a pleasant call?" When Mrs. Van Dorn didn't feel cross her voice had a certain sweetness. Helen thought the word mellifluous expressed it. She was fond of pretty adjectives.

"Aunt Jane was very busy and they all set in for me to stay. The children do miss me."

"And did you want to stay?" with the same sweetness.

"No," said Helen, honestly, while the color deepened in her cheeks. "Oh, dear! I think I am getting spoiled, citified, and North Hope isn't a city either," with a half rueful little laugh, yet not raising her eyes.

"She isn't of their kind," thought Mrs. Van Dorn. "And her courage, her truthfulness, are quite unusual. She is very trusty, there is the making of something fine in her."

"You are not fond of country life, farm life," correcting herself.

"I am quite sure I shouldn't be, and yet I like the country so much, the space, the waving trees, the great stretches of sky. I should stifle in a place where there were rows and rows of houses and paved streets everywhere."

"But not where there were palaces, and villas, and parks, and gardens, and beautiful equipages, and elegantly dressed women."

Helen shook her head, "I shall never have the chance to like or dislike that. Oh, yes," brightening, "I can read it in a book and imagine myself in the midst of it."

"I thought you ware planning to teach school, and save up money, and take journeys."

"Oh, I do, and all manner of extravagant things. But I am afraid they are air castles." For somehow the reality of her life had come over her again. She belonged to Hope Center, not to North Hope. And maybe she never could get over there.

Mrs. Van Dorn thought of herself at Helen's age. Where would her ambitions lead her. She had had no ambitions to rise in life. How gladly she would have married her first common-place lover, and accepted a life of drudgery. What queer things girls were! and how strange that when she was tired and worn out, and almost desperate, the best of fortune should come to her. It seldom happened, she knew. The old life was a vague dream, she had only lived since her marriage. In a way she coveted this girl's freshness and energy. To have someone to really and truly love her – was there any such thing in life, to old age?

She had coveted Clara Gage with the same desire of possession. She had persuaded her to give up home, mother, three sisters and one brother. But she had never ceased to love them. And they had nearly outweighed a journey to Europe. Perhaps they would. Clara was about eighteen when she took her, this girl was fourteen. She would be more pliable, and she was not really in love with her people. But there would be years of training, and there was a certain strength in the girl. Sometimes they might clash, and she did not want to be disturbed at her time of life. Then too – there were certain adventitious aids to ward off the shadow of coming years. Clara knew about them, and she had grown used to her. She would be getting older every year.

They were a little late at dinner. How delightful and orderly and refined everything was! Helen luxuriated in it. And yet it was only ordinarily nice living. Helen could see the table at home. The kitchen was large and the table at one end, and they always had meals there except when there was company, and often then the children were kept out there. The smells of the cooking did not give it the savory fragrance she read about in books. It was hot and full of flies, for the door was always on the swing.

They were around the table, everyone wanting to tell father that Helen had been to see them in a carriage, at that.

"Do hush, children!" began Aunt Jane, sharply. "You haven't any more manners than a lot of pigs, everyone squealing at once. Yes, I think we made a great mistake letting Helen go over to Mrs. Dayton's. We couldn't well refuse an old neighbor, I know. But she's that full of airs, and so high-headed that she could hardly talk. I don't see how she could make up her mind to come round to the kitchen door."

Aurelia giggled. "Wouldn't it have been funny to have her knock at the front door!" and all the children laughed.