Helen Grant's Schooldays

CHAPTER XVI

HOPE THROUGH A WIDER OUTLOOK

She had on nice-fitting button boots with heels only moderately high, a dark-blue, thin summer-cloth skirt up to her ankles, with several rows of stitching through the hem, the crumply white plissé waist that fell like drapery about shoulders and arms, her hair was a mass of braids at the back with a straight parting from forehead to crown, some short curling ends about the edge of her fair brow, and the blue of her eyes was many shades deeper than the ribbon around her neck. Mrs. Van Dorn was no more anxious to have her a young lady than Mr. Warfield.

She was just a bright, intelligent, good-looking girl, who would never be girlishly pretty, but something better, perhaps a handsome woman at five-and-twenty, and always attractive from the sort of frank sweetness, the wholesomeness of the thorough girl.

Mr. Warfield felt rather vexed at being disappointed, yet down in his heart he was glad she was fulfilling the sort of ideal he had of her, the girl she might become with proper training, he had often said, even to Mrs. Dayton. He thought he should know on just what lines to develop the best and highest in her. He held a very good opinion of a man's training for certain natures, and hers was one. Then he felt a little sore at not being able to keep a sort of supervision over her by letter.

But when she came and sat down by him in that unaffected manner and looked out of such frank eyes; smiled with an every-day cordiality, as if the smile was in constant use, he was a little nonplused.

"What have you been doing this whole year?" he asked with interest. "Could you pass an examination for the High School?"

"Oh, do you remember how frightened I was? But some of the questions would not cause me five minutes' thought now. I've had a magnificent time with history and literature, and a tough time with Latin. It is one of the things I have to delve at this summer. It seems to me most of my life is school life. I can't stop anywhere. Something is thrust at me all the time."

"You used to love to study," complainingly.

"I love it yet. Botany is delightful, it is so full of live wonders. I do not care so much for chemistry. And physics – "

"They require close attention. And what accomplishments?" in a dissatisfied tone.

"French that I am not in love with, but Mrs. Van Dorn insists upon it, and the piano, drawing, and painting."

"A waste of time most of them," he commented severely.

"Sketching is very fascinating."

"And a camera can give you the picture twice as well."

"Some of the Seniors do beautiful work. One of them goes abroad to study and perfect herself in art. Miss Gertrude Aldred will go after next year."

"That may be very well for pastime, or waste-time," with a touch of sarcasm, "but I don't suppose any of these girls could get their living at it?"

"I don't know as they will be compelled to."

"But everybody has to be put through the same mill, I suppose?"

"Not exactly. Some studies are elective. Three of the girls go to college. Of course many of them do not expect to turn their education to any account. I should like to know just what I am to do with mine," and she laughed softly.

"I thought you once looked up to teaching as a sort of glorified existence."

The touch of irony did not hurt her at all.

"I still think it one of the finest professions. Only – I should like to have a school of smart, eager children, and go on and on with them. I think it must be very hard to take up a new dull class every season."

"It is," he returned frankly. "It was one of the drawbacks, like going down to the foot of your own class."

"So I think I shall have a boarding school and keep the girls year after year."

"Well, are you deep in metaphysics or transcendentalism?" asked a cheerful voice, as Mrs. Dayton's ample figure emerged from the door-way. "You do not seem to be 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' That is an old-fashioned quotation and was in the copy books at school in my day, when to be thin and pale was the mark of a student. And wasn't midnight oil another? You do not show marks of either, Helen."

"Oh, the lights are out and we have to be in bed at ten. We can rise as early as we like in the morning, however," laughed Helen.

"Numbers of the old ideas have been exploded. Still, we must admit they made some good scholars. The students were more in earnest, they were not so superficial."

"But it takes a long while to learn everything thoroughly. That is where teachers and professors have the advantage, they can spend their whole lives over it," exclaimed Helen. "Honestly," and a rather mischievous light flashed across her face, "I do not think the average girl is a born student. Perhaps the boy isn't either. But there seem to be so many things in a girl's life, so many sides to it" – and a thoughtful crease came in her forehead.

"You have found that out early. But the successes must be able to do several things well, and to bring knowledge into action, not have a lot of useless matter stored up in the brain waiting for the time to make it serviceable, and then it is not fresh, often not useful."

"Like the old clothes you pile up in the garret," interpolated Mrs. Dayton. "They are out of date and moth-eaten. There are many things it is not worth while to save up. I have a boarder here who has saved up all her troubles since she was ten years old, and lives them over, takes them out and puts them back. She is a well-informed woman, too. There is the bell, so come in to dinner."

There were only Mr. and Mrs. White, Mrs. Carson, the woman of many troubles, and Mr. Conway, who gave Helen a warm welcome, but was amazed at the change in her.

They talked a little over the last summer's guests. "Miss Lessing was married and the younger girl engaged. The Disbrowes had gone West. And truly I wouldn't mind having Mrs. Van Dorn again. She certainly is an uncommon woman and does enjoy life on all sides. And it is curious the way she picks up knowledge everywhere. I dare say she sometimes mentions facts about her own country to consuls and ministers abroad that they have scarcely heard of," declared Mrs. Dayton.

Mr. Warfield gave a little sniff and a curl of the lip that seemed to run all over his face in disapprobation, because he could find no trenchant sentence to apply to Mrs. Van Dorn. But Helen glanced at her hostess with a lovely grateful light more eloquent than words.

When they rose she lingered. "I ought to go out and dry the dishes for Joanna," the girl said laughingly.

"Indeed, you will do no such thing," was the quick reply. "And let me whisper a secret in your ear, though I don't know as it need be that. Mrs. Van Dorn wrote me a note, asking me to invite you here and keep you as much of the time as Aunt Jane would be willing to spare you. And she inclosed a check. I'd been ready enough to do it just for the pleasure."

"She is very generous," said Helen, much moved.

"And some people think her mean. She is unduly exact, but I guess the world would be better if more people paid their just debts instead of buying you a dollar gift when they owed you forty or fifty. But run out on the porch and talk to Mr. Warfield. He came purposely to see you. I'll be out and join the fray presently," her eyes overflowing with an amused light. "If you were older I should say – there, run along."

She checked herself just in time. It was on the tip of her tongue to add – "he is half in love with you." But the girl's face was so innocently frank that it would have been both ill-bred and cruel to suggest such a thing.

On the whole, it was a pleasant evening, though Helen was not a little puzzled by several things in Mr. Warfield's demeanor, and his resolutely keeping to his opinion that she would have been better off at the High School. Some way would have opened for her, he was confident.

Still, he gave her the most cordial good wishes. She had the making of a splendid girl and woman in her. He took great credit in the consciousness that he had seen this, and roused her from a commonplace existence, for now, whatever happened, she could not be commonplace; as if, indeed, the every-day lives were not often doing heroic and lovely deeds in their every-day sphere.

He was going for nine weeks to a summer college term, on the borders of a beautiful lake, where he would have refreshment of body as well as mind. So he might not see her again under a year.

"I do hope they will not have you spoiled," he said with his good-by. And as he walked down the street he muttered under his breath:

"That old woman will make a waiting maid of her in the end." He was jealous that the old woman should be able to dictate the girl's life just because she was rich.

She had such a happy morning with Mrs. Dayton, talking over last summer; Joanna studied her with admiring eyes and declared that she was not changed a bit, only had grown taller, and the mysterious alteration that comes to a girl on the boundary line, for which she had no words.

Uncle Jason came in quite early and was delighted with his warm welcome, more frank than Joanna's.

"My, you're growed every way!" he said, "and you're pretty as a pink, and fine as a lady! I declare I don't know what Aunt Jane will do with you. And the children are just crazy to see you. My! My!"

He studied her from head to foot and turned her round. His eyes twinkled, he screwed up his face until it was a bed of wrinkles. His hair was faded and grayer, the fringe of beard ragged. But there was such a gladness, such an utter satisfaction that she felt doubly assured of his love.

When she had gone to pick up a few articles Mrs. Dayton made a little explanation that she felt would ease Helen's course. She would have a good deal of studying to do, and Mrs. Van Dorn had made arrangements for her to stay here part of the time, as it would be quiet, with no interruptions to break in upon her time.

"Why, I thought it was vacation!" looking puzzled. "Mother's planned a lot of things. And she's mortal afraid Helen will forget all about housekeeping."

"She belongs to Mrs. Van Dorn for the two years, you know, since that lady is taking care of her. You see now that is only fair. Helen's time is planned out."

"Sho, now!" and he bit at the end of a wheat stem he found hanging to his clothes.

"Helen knows a good deal about housework and if she should ever have it to do, it will come back to her. But her heart is set upon teaching, and I think that is about as easy a way of earning money as any, if you are fitted for it."

Mr. Mulford said no more, but he felt there would be a clash between Aunt Jane and Helen.

The rosy, bright-eyed girl said good-by to her dear friend, with the promise of returning soon, and stepped into the rickety old wagon.

It seemed curious to her, but everything about looked so much smaller. The houses appeared to have shrunk, fences were dilapidated, gates hung by one hinge, the paths at the roadside were overgrown with weeds. Every street and plot of ground at Westchester was so pretty and tidy, the hills were so high and grand, and there was the beautiful river. To be sure the great Creator of all had placed it there, had raised the mountains to their height, but the residents had added the thriftiness and beauty. Oh, she could never live here! She wondered how her father had taken to it, and how Mr. Warfield endured it.

Uncle Jason was a better farmer than most of his neighbors. Aunt Jane took the credit of that; perhaps she did deserve most of it. People and towns seldom remain stationary; if they do not improve they retrograde. The railroad was building up North Hope at the expense of the Center.

The house and the front fence needed painting sadly. The flower-beds looked rather ragged, the grass wanted cutting. Sam had gone in the spring to learn a mason's trade and only came home for over Sunday. So Uncle Jason was short-handed.

The children made a rush, then paused. Helen sprang down with a dignity that checked them, but she kissed them all round, and Aunt Jane, who was wiping her arms and hands on her apron.

"I thought I'd get trigged up before anyone came," she exclaimed, "but there's so much to do on Saturday. You might have opened the front door, 'Reely, but never mind," and they all trailed around through the kitchen. Off the end of the dining room was a small room that Jenny had used for sewing and odds and ends, and they went thither.

"Now take off your hat. My, didn't you bring anything but that satchel! And here's a fan – it's hot in here, and as for flies, they eat you up! 'Reely, you and Fan set the table. How you've changed, Helen, you're most grown up. But land! When I was fourteen I was grown up and did a woman's work. And you're fifteen! Well, I suppose you've had a grand good time, and forgot all the useful things you ever knew."

Aunt Jane's tone was good-humored, but it had a certain air of authority, indicating that Helen could never outgrow her right or proprietorship.

"No, I do not think I have forgotten much, and certainly have learned a great deal more," she replied quietly.

"Well, book-learnin' isn't everything. I'd like to know how houses and farms would go on if everybody kept to books."

"There's Jenny," and Helen was delighted with the break. Jenny was sunburned but looked well, quite like a country farmer's wife, and was gayly cordial, laughed because her mother's supper was late; they always had theirs early on Saturday afternoon.

"You wait until you get a house full of children," said her mother with a touch of annoyance.

The girls sat out on the old bench that had gone a little more to splinters. Uncle Jason came in; he had not quite worked Nathan up to the point of Sam's usefulness. Aunt Jane didn't mean to lead off with any fuss for Helen, so supper was in the kitchen, but the tablecloth was clean – the other had met with a big accident at noon.

Nothing was much changed except the children were a year older and larger. Two or three of them still talked at once. Jenny sat by and had a cup of tea. Aurelia and Fanny were a little awed by Helen's fine ways, and began to eye her furtively. Jenny kept most of the talk and when the meal was through took Helen out on the front stoop. What was the school like and were there many rich girls in it? And what did Mrs. Van Dorn mean to do with her when she was through with school?

Helen was relieved when she branched off on her own affairs. How much the egg and butter money had amounted to, and another scheme she had struck. She helped mother out with her sewing, but she found in the winter she had a good deal of time on her hands, so she began to sew for the neighbors. "You know I always did like running the machine," she declared. "And you'd be surprised at the money I've earned. I don't see how women can dawdle away their time so, when they've small families. I think working in a shop is a grand good training. You must be there at a certain hour, you must put in every moment if you are going to be a success, and you get brisk ways if there's anything at all to you."

Joe came over presently, and the two farmers smoked and talked. Then Jenny said she would take Helen home with her, she had such a nice spare room, and she and Aunt Jane had some words over it, but Jenny carried her point. It was lovely and quiet, and Helen was thankful.

Yes, she had grown away from them; while she loved them just as well, she thought she loved Uncle Jason better. The life was so different. It need not be so hard and, – yes, it was coarse, really untender. Aunt Jane would have suffered anything for her children's sake, but it must be in her way. After all these years of married life, children, and a certain degree of hard-won prosperity, she knew better than anyone else how the world could be managed.

'Reely and Fan were fascinated with Helen, and Jenny said she had a good deal of common sense, and she supposed all the airish ways were just right at school, but they seemed queer among common folks. It was inevitable that Helen and Aunt Jane should clash, and Helen felt even at the risk of being misunderstood and wrongfully accused, she must establish her own standing. She had not come home to help with housework.

"I wish I'd never let you gone over there to wait on that old woman, and have your head filled with airs and graces that you think sets you up above your family. I knew that day I should be sorry for it. And this is all the thanks I get for what I've done for you, while you'll crawl on the ground after her."

"No, I shouldn't; I do not," replied Helen with dignity. "I shall always feel thankful to you and Uncle Jason for what you have done, and, Aunt Jane, when I get to where I can earn money I want to pay you back for my keep after father died – "

Helen's face was scarlet and the hot blood was racing up and down in her pulses.

"Yes," she continued, controlling her voice by a strong effort, "I have made that one of my duties. I can't take your way of life, Aunt Jane, but I shall always feel grateful for the care."

"Helen Grant, do you suppose your uncle would take one penny from you, his own sister's child! It isn't that, it's the – the – "

"Oh, Aunt Jane, I am grateful. Do not let us quarrel because our paths lie in different directions. I must work in the way I am best fitted for, the way I shall like above all things – "

"Oh, yes, you'll go off with that woman, and she'll get tired of you and ship you off. You mark my words."

"Then I can take up teaching, which will be my delight. She has offered me these two years of training and I mean to make the best of them, to crowd in all I can, to fit myself to earn my living in the way I like best of all. I do suppose we all have some choice."

Aunt Jane flounced out of the room. There was something burning on the stove, and she was glad of the excuse. And all she said when Helen was going over to North Hope, was:

"Well, come whenever you like. The house is always open to you."

Uncle Jason was very tender to her.

"Mother's a bit cranky," he said. "Even Jenny plagues her about it. I think she's jealous of that Mrs. Van Dorn, and she has an idea of her own about bringing up girls. But they're not all alike and some are fit for one thing, some for another. Jenny's got the right of it. It's best for everyone to do what he's best fitted for, or she," smiling a little. "And it stands to reason that you might take after your own father. You're not all Mulford."

It was very delightful to be back with Mrs. Dayton. One new couple had come, but they were very quiet people. And the girls about began to call on her. Ella Graham had enough of the High School.

"I just went for the name of it," she explained. "I should never teach, and what is the use of wasting all that time and bothering your brains for nothing? I shall get married the first good chance I have."

Lu Searing bewailed the hard work as well and wasn't sure she would keep on. She wanted to go somewhere to boarding school, she had heard girls had such fun getting in scrapes and out of them again. Marty Pendleton was sick of it too, and was going to learn dressmaking. Dan Erlick had gone to be clerk in the drug store.

"And to think how hard Mr. Warfield worked over them all!" Helen exclaimed, indignantly. "It doesn't do him a bit of credit."

"He had four new ones this summer. Well, there does seem a good deal of work in this world without much result," said Jenny.

Helen studied her Latin with a will, and one day to make some knotty point clearer went to the reference department of the library. Miss Westerly, the librarian, had seen her the summer before and been interested in what had befallen her, and now they took up quite a friendship. The library was open only two evenings in the week, after eight o'clock, and Miss Westerly found it very pleasant to visit on Mrs. Dayton's porch and talk to a girl as bright and ambitious as Helen. She was a college graduate and a thorough student, not considering her education finished.

"I should like so to go to college," Helen said. "But I don't know – I should have to earn some money first."

"I have a friend who entered college at twenty-seven. She was a clerk in a store and then an old uncle left her some money. She was born for a student, and she graduated with honors. She is thirty-five now, vice-principal in a large seminary at the West, and a very successful teacher. Then I know of a girl who spent two years at college, taught three years and then went back and finished. Some women, as well as some men, love knowledge."

"I have half a mind to say I will go, no matter what stands in the way," and Helen smiled vaguely. If one could see into the future.

"Perhaps your friend may send you."

Helen wondered whether she would dare propose it.

Once a week she went out to the farm. Aunt Jane had "cooled down" a little, for Uncle Jason had said, "If you can't get along, mother, I'll hire someone through the heat of the summer. Nancy Bird would come in a minute. As for thinking to put Helen to housework, washing and ironing and all that, when someone else is taking care of her, I don't see as it would be just the thing, no more than to call Sam home when Mr. Bartow has given him a good lay."

"I don't see as Helen is any better than my girls, and they are going to be brought up to work. Her father didn't make out much for all his education."

Helen did have some nice visits with Jenny, who was rather more modern and broader minded than her mother. She kept her house with some system, of course, there was no one to disarrange her methods. She was blithe and cheerful and eager to get along, but she and Joe went off driving now and then, and she listened with slow-growing interest when he read aloud to her.

But altogether, Helen was not sorry when she found herself on the way back to school. She had a warmer feeling than ever for Mrs. Van Dorn and had written her two charming letters from Mrs. Dayton's porch.

What a trouble her education seemed to some of those who had no hand in it.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE DELIGHTFUL CURRENT

Helen Grant came to Aldred House again on Friday afternoon. Miss Daisy, who had been there but an hour, rushed down to welcome her.

"Oh, dear! If something had happened and you had not come," she cried, "I should really have been broken-hearted, and I don't see what good Samaritan could have bound up the wounds. And most things are going to be strange and new."