Amanda Douglas - Helen Grant's Schooldays

Helen went on ironing. 'Reely's white frock fell to her share; indeed, it seemed as if 'most everything did to-day. She was hot and tired, and, oh! if she could not go!

"I don't see why those young ones don't come back. 'Reely hasn't a bit more sense than Fan. She needs a good trouncing, and she'll get it, too. You leave off, Helen, and shell them beans; they ought to have been on half an hour ago. And lay the two slices of ham in cold water to draw out some of the salt; then the potatoes. I'll iron."

She did not ask, and Aunt Jane did not proffer her decision. Helen feared it was adverse, then she recalled the fact that Aunt Jane always told the unpleasant things at once. Ill tidings with her never lagged. So she took heart of hope again. Then there were raspberries to pick. And supper, and children scolded and threatened.

"Well?" said Uncle Jason inquiringly.

"She was here, but I haven't just made up my mind. She'll be here Wednesday."

"Whew!" ejaculated Uncle Jason.

She went down the garden path to meet Jenny, who took the shortest way across lots.

"I'm goin' to sleep on it," she said, after she had told Jenny.

"But you'll let her go! Why, it would be foolish!"

"I s'pose I shall. But I'll keep her on tenter hooks to-night. Right down to the bottom I don't approve of it. She'll be planning all summer to get to that High School. Three years is too much to throw away when you're dependent on other folks."

So Helen had to go to bed unsatisfied, for Uncle Jason wouldn't be waylaid.

"I've cut you a frock out of that striped muslin of Jenny's," Aunt Jane announced, the next morning. "Sew up the seams, and put in the hem, and then I'll fix the waist."

Aunt Jane was "handy," as many country women have to be.

"You were mighty close about that business of Sat'day afternoon," Aunt Jane flung out when she could no longer contain herself. "I s'pose it don't make much difference whether you go or not?"

"Oh, I should like to go." Helen's voice was unsteady. "But Mrs. Dayton told Uncle Jason to talk it over with you, and then she would come and see you, and he said – that it would be as – as – and it seemed as if I hadn't much to do with it until – "

"Well, I've decided to let you go and try. They may not like you. Rich old women are generally queer and finicky, and don't keep one mind hardly a week at a time. So it's doubtful if you stay. Then it is a good deal like being a servant, and none of the Mulfords ever lived out, as far as I've heard."

Helen colored. She had not thought of that aspect. Neither had she considered that her dream might come to an untimely end.

"And it seems a shame to waste the whole summer when there's so much to do."

"But if they had wanted me in the shop you would have let me go, wouldn't you?" Helen said in a tone that she tried hard to keep from being pert.

"That would have been different. A steady job for years, and getting higher wages all the time. I've told Jenny to engage the chance."

Years in a shop, doing one thing over and over! She recalled a sentence she had heard Mr. Warfield quote several times from an English writer, "But that one man should die ignorant who had a capacity for knowledge, this I call tragedy!" She was not very clear in her own mind as to what tragedy really was, but if one had a capacity for wider knowledge, would it not be tragedy to spend years doing what one loathed? She hated the smells of the shoe shop, the common air that seemed to envelop everyone, the loud voices and boisterous laughs. And she wouldn't mind helping someone for her board, and going to the High School. Why, she did a great deal of work here, but it seemed nothing to Aunt Jane.

The frock was finished, and she washed it out, starched it, and would iron it to-morrow morning. Then there were stockings to mend, although the two younger boys went barefoot around the farm. And she worked up to the very moment the carriage turned up the bend in the road, when she ran and dressed herself while Aunt Jane packed the old valise. The children stood around.

"Oh, Mis' Dayton, can't I come some day?" cried Fanny. "How long are you going to keep Helen?"

"Till she gets tired and homesick," was the reply.

A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face wonderfully.

They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.

"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She hasn't a bit of gratitude."

"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned Jenny with a laugh.

In the few years of her life, Helen had never been visiting, to stay away over night. This was like some of the stories she had read and envied the heroine. There was a small alcove off Mrs. Dayton's room, with a curtain stretched across. For now the house was really full, except one guest chamber. There was a closet for her clothes just off the end of the short hall, that led to the back stairs, which ran down to the kitchen, a spacious orderly kitchen, good enough to live in altogether, Helen thought.

She helped to take the dishes out to Joanna, and begged to wipe them for her.

"If you're not heavy handed," said Joanna, a little doubtful.

"Or butter-fingered," laughed Helen. "That's what we say at home. But these dishes are so lovely that it is like – well it's like reading verses after some heavy prose."

"I'm not much on verses," replied Joanna, watching her new help warily. She did work with a dainty kind of touch.

Mrs. Dayton came, and stood looking at them with a humorous sort of smile.

"She knows how to wipe dishes," said Joanna, nodding approvingly.

"It is a good deal to suit Joanna. No doubt she will excuse you this time from wiping pots and pans, and you may come out of doors with me."

The lawn – they called it that here at North Hope – presented a picturesque aspect. A party were playing croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe was walking her twenty-months'-old little girl up and down the path. Mrs. Van Dorn sat in a wicker rocking chair that had a hood over the top to shield her from the air. Her silk gown flowed around gracefully, and her hands were a sparkle of rings.

"Oh, how sweet the air is," said Helen. "There's sweet-clover somewhere, and when the dew falls it is so delightful."

"They have it in the next-door lawn and the mower was run over it awhile ago."

Helen drew long delicious breaths. No noisy children, and the soft laughs, the gay talk was like music to her. She walked across the porch.

"Mrs. Dayton said you were fond of reading aloud," began Mrs. Van Dorn. "Your voice is nice and smooth."

"Your voice is like your father's, Helen! I had not remarked it before. Only it is a girl's voice," Mrs. Dayton commented.

"I am glad it suggests his," exclaimed Helen with a pleasurable thrill.

"Where is your father?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn.

"He is dead," said Mrs. Dayton. "Both father and mother are dead."

"I was an orphan, too," continued Mrs. Van Dorn. "And I had no near relatives. It is a sorrowful lot."

"Helen has had good friends, relatives."

"That's a comfort. I heard, we all did, that you were one of the best speakers at the closing of school. It was in the paper."

"Oh, was it?" Helen's eyes glowed with gratification.

"Yes. So Mrs. Dayton suggested you might be as good as some grown-up body. That was Robert Browning's poem you recited."

"It is a splendid poem," cried Helen enthusiastically. "You can see it all; the squadron – what was left of it after the battle – and the 'brief and bitter debate,' and the order to blow up the vessels on the beach. And then Hervé Riel, just a sailor, stepping out and making his daring proposal, and going 'safe through shoal and rock!' Oh, how the captain must have stood breathless! And the English coming too late! I'm glad someone put it in stirring verse."