ILLUSTRATIONS
| "It is not right for me to go" [(page 18)] | [Frontispiece] |
| On the Threshold stood Miss Ellingwood | [64] |
| She seems to have fainted | [146] |
| He kept her beside him | [186] |
From drawings by Wilson C. Dexter.
WHEN SARAH WENT TO
SCHOOL
CHAPTER I THE DRESS PARADE
Across the angle of the post-and-rail fence at the lower corner of the Wenners' yard, a board had been laid, and behind the board stood a short, slender, bright-eyed young girl, her hands busy with an assortment of small articles spread out before her. There were a few glass beads, a string of buttons, half a dozen small, worn toys, a basket of early apples, and a plate of crullers. When they were arranged to her satisfaction, she took an apple in one hand and a cruller in the other, and, climbing the fence, perched on the upper rail and began to eat.
Before she had taken more than two bites an extraordinary procession appeared round the corner of the house. Ellen Louisa, one of the Wenner twins, dressed in a long gingham dress of her sister-in-law's, leaned affectionately upon the arm of the other twin, Louisa Ellen, who wore with ludicrous effect a coat and hat of their brother William's. Clinging to Louisa Ellen's hand was a small fat boy. They solemnly approached the improvised store.
"Is any one at home in this store?" asked Louisa Ellen in a gruff voice.
The proprietress slid down from the top of the fence. She spoke carefully, but she did not quite succeed in disguising her Pennsylvania-German accent.
"Well, sir, what is it to-day?"
"I want—" It was Ellen Louisa, who spoke in a simpering tone—"I want a penny's worth of what you can get the most of for a penny, missis. I want it for my little boy. Apples will do. He has it sometimes in his stomach, and—"
A loud crash interrupted Ellen Louisa's account of Albert's delicate constitution. He had seized the propitious moment for the purloining of two crullers, and in order to establish his ownership, had taken a large bite out of each. It was the storekeeper's quick grab which brought the counter to the ground, and mingled all the wares in wild confusion on the grass.
Albert looked frightened. When, instead of scolding, Sarah dropped to her knees and helped him gather up the toys, he stared at her, bewildered.
"You'd catch it if I wasn't going to the Normal to-morrow to be learned!" said Sarah. "But to-day is a special day. What shall we play next?"
The twins swiftly shed their superfluous garments, and became two thin little girls, who could scarcely be told apart. Their plaid gingham aprons waved in the breeze as they danced about.
"Let us play 'Uncle Daniel,'" they cried together.
Even sixteen-year-old Sarah hopped up and down at the brilliancy of the suggestion. Uncle Daniel Swartz was their mother's brother, who lived on the next farm. After their mother and father had died, and their older brother had apparently disappeared into the frozen North, whither he had gone to seek his fortune, Uncle Daniel, who had long coveted the fine farm, had attempted to divide the little family and add the fertile acres to his own. It was Sarah who had stubbornly opposed him, holding bravely out until William had come home. William had married pretty Miss Miflin, the district-school teacher, and, giving up his plans for further adventure, had settled down to become a truck farmer. Already he was succeeding beyond his rosiest hopes.
Both he and his wife were anxious that Sarah should go to school, and all the summer Laura had been helping her to recall the small knowledge she had had before heavy care and responsibility had taken her from the district school. To-morrow she was to enter the sub-Junior class of the Normal School, which William and Laura had attended. Laura had corresponded with the principal, Doctor Ellis, and had engaged Sarah's room. It had been a busy summer. Sarah had kept up her Geography after she had left school, but in other branches she had needed a good deal of tutoring.
No one who saw her now, in her wild game with the twins, would have guessed that she had ever had any care or responsibility. She assumed first the character of Uncle Daniel; she told the twins that they must go to live with Aunt Mena, she tried to entice Albert away. Then she was Uncle Daniel's hired man, Jacob Kalb, who had translated his name to Calf, because he was anxious to be thought English. In this rôle she was pursued round the barn by the twins, who brandished an old, disabled gun, which in Sarah's hands had once terrified Jacob Kalb.
Once, in this delightful game, they passed close to the fence beyond which Jacob himself was working. Sarah balanced for a second on the upper rail.
"Jacob Calf,
You make me laugh!"
she shrieked, and then jumped down backward. The twins held the gun aloft, screaming with delight.
The game closed with a scene in the Orphans' Court, where Uncle Daniel demanded that he be made their guardian, and where William returned at exactly the proper and dramatic moment.
"And now," announced Sarah breathlessly, when it was all over, "I am going to say good-by to everything."
A feeling of solemnity fell suddenly upon the twins and Albert. Who would be storekeeper on the morrow? Who would be Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb and the judge of the Orphans' Court in swift succession? Who would help them with their lessons? Who would defend them if Uncle Daniel should ever come threatening again? Who would draw bears and tigers and "nelephunts" and all manner of birds and beasts? "May we go fishing?" they would ask Sister Laura, and Sister Laura would answer, "Yes, if Sarah will go with you." "May we write with ink?"—"Yes, if Sarah will spread some newspapers on the table, and sit beside you with her book." Would these treats be forbidden them? Or would they be allowed to do as they chose? But even independence would be distasteful without Sarah. Each twin seized her by the hand.
"It is a long time till Christmas," mourned Louisa Ellen.
"Ach, stay by us!" wailed Ellen Louisa.
"And grow up to be like Jacob Calf!" cried Sarah derisively. "I guess not! I am going to be a teacher, and if you ever get in my school, then look out! You will then find out once if you don't study. I will then learn you Latin and Greek and Algebray and more things than you ever heard of in the world, Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen. You would like to grow up like the fishes in the crick. Good-by, crick!" Sarah drew her hands away from the twins, and dabbled them in the cool, fresh water. "Good-by, fishes! Good-by, bridge! Good-by, bushes! Why, Ellen Louisa! Louisa Ellen!" Sarah looked at them with an expression of comical surprise. Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa were crying. "Stop it this minute!" She seized Albert by the hand. Albert had already opened his mouth, preparatory to joining his sisters in a wail. "Albert and I will beat you to the barn."
"One for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to make ready,
And four to go!"
Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa did not stop to dry their tears, but scampered over the ground like young colts, their skirts flying. When Albert and Sarah got to the door, the twins had vanished, and there ensued a game of hide and seek such as the old barn had never smiled upon. Sarah climbed about like a monkey. She seemed to be in half a dozen places at once. The twins thought she was downstairs in one of the mangers, when suddenly her voice was heard from the top of the haymow. They played tag on the barn-floor, they sang, they danced, with Sarah always in the lead. It was certain that the stately Normal School would open its doors on the morrow to no such hoyden as this.
They were in the midst of
"Barnum had a nelephunt,
Chumbo was his name, sir,"
when the barn-door opened, and a young woman appeared. She watched them for a moment silently.
"Well, young Indians," she said.
The oldest of the young Indians clasped her hands in distress.
"Is it time to get supper already?"
"Not quite. And if four members of the family didn't insist upon having waffles, you shouldn't help at all. Your clothes are all ready, and I want you to come and see them."
The twins raced wildly toward the house, and Sarah followed more slowly with her sister-in-law and Albert. She looked shyly and gratefully at Laura. She had not yet grown quite accustomed to having "Teacher" a member of the family. She had so long looked up to her with awe and admiration that her constant presence in the house did not seem quite real. Laura often laughed at her.
"I should think, Sarah, that after you had cleared up my outrageous bread-dough three times, and had taken my burnt pies from the oven, you would begin to feel fairly well acquainted with me."
Sarah flushed with embarrassment. It was true that Laura was slow about learning to cook. But cooking was such an ordinary, every-day accomplishment! It was much more remarkable never to have had to cook.
"But now you can make good bread and pies," she would insist.
The whole summer had seemed like a dream. The house was no longer strange and dark and lonely as it had been after their father had died. Sarah no longer crept fearfully about at night, fastening the shutters before dark, for fear that Uncle Daniel would try to get in. It had been a happy, happy summer. William came and went, whistling, teasing the twins, riding fat Albert round on his shoulder. Uncle Daniel annoyed them no more. "Teacher" bent with flushed face over the stove, laughing at her mistakes, and calling occasionally to Sarah for help; and Sarah herself sat by the window, a little table before her, on which were books and paper and pencils.
The little table was gone from the window now, the lessons with Laura were over, to-morrow night Sarah would sleep away from home for the first time in her life. They had expected that the trolley company, which had given them a good price for the right of way through the farm, would have finished its line, and that Sarah would have been able to go back and forth to school each week. But the tracks had just begun to creep out from the county-seat.
The twins had run upstairs; their deep ohs! and achs! could be heard in the kitchen below. They shrieked for Sarah, who was already on the steps.
When she looked round the familiar room, she clasped her hands and then stood perfectly still. Beside her bed was an open trunk, and spread out on the bed itself and on the twins' trundle-bed was her outfit for school. There were two school dresses, and a better dress and a best dress,—the last of red cashmere, with bands of silk. There were new shoes and a new coat and two hats and gloves and an umbrella and handkerchiefs and underwear, all marked with her name, and a gymnasium suit, and a scarlet kimono and a comfort and pencils and tablets and—Sarah began suddenly to tremble—a little silver watch and chain and a fountain-pen.
"The little watch was my first one, Sarah," explained her sister-in-law. "It keeps good time. And the fountain-pen is from William, and the umbrella—"
"And the umberella"—the twins and Albert had seized upon it simultaneously—"the umberella is from us. William, he sold our Spotty Calf for us, and this is some of the money, and you can make it up and put it down, and it has a cover like a snake, and—Look at it, once!"
Sarah took the umbrella in her hand. Her school dresses had been tried on by Laura, who had made them; she had known all about those. And William and Laura had made a trip to town and had been very short and mysterious about the bundles they brought home. She had supposed they had brought a few things for her,—a new pair of shoes, perhaps, or a new shawl. But these things! Once, during her mother's lifetime, she had had a red woolen dress; she still cherished a patch which remained after it had been made over for one of the twins. Except for that, her dresses had always been of gingham or calico. And two hats, when last year she had had only a sun-bonnet! And a fountain-pen, like Laura's, and Laura's own silver watch! A lump came into Sarah's throat.
Perhaps Laura felt a lump in her own.
"Come," she said brightly but a little huskily. "You must try these things on, and you must hurry if you are going to bake waffles for this hungry brood." With one hand she took the umbrella from Sarah, with the other she unbuttoned her gingham dress. "Children, shut down the trunk-lid and sit on it. Now, Sarah, the gymnasium suit first."
Sarah chuckled hysterically as she was helped into the flannel blouse and bloomers.
"She looks like a bear," giggled Louisa Ellen.
"Like a pretty thin bear," said Sister Laura. "She will have to be fatter when she comes home. Louisa Ellen, run and get my work-basket. These elastics must be tightened. Now, Sarah, the school dresses, then the blue sailor suit and the blue hat. You are to wear those to-morrow."
Sarah stared down at her dress, still speechless with amazement and delight.
"And now the red dress. Your brother William chose this color, Sarah, and your hat and coat match it."
Fat and silent Albert opened his mouth to speak.
"She looks like—" he began, but could think of nothing to which to compare her. "She don't look like nothing."
"She looks like a—a fine lady," said Louisa Ellen. "Ach, when can we go to the Normal?"
Laura had turned down the glass in the old-fashioned bureau.
"Now, Sarah, take a good look, and then undress. These sleeves must be shortened a little. I can do that this evening. I'll pack the trunk while you get supper."
Sarah revolved obediently before the glass. But her eyes saw nothing. The lump in her throat seemed now to suffocate her; she struggled frantically to swallow it, but it only grew larger. The twins watched her in fright. Presently Louisa Ellen slid down from the trunk, and went across the room and touched Laura on the arm.
"Something is after Sarah," she whispered in shocked surprise. Never before had Sarah behaved like this.
Laura laid down her work.
"Why, Sarah, dear! What is the matter?"
It was a moment before Sarah could speak. She rubbed her eyes, then she looked down at the new red dress, and the new red coat, and then at the old gingham dress and apron on the floor, and at her hands, on which still lingered the marks of heavy toil.
"I would rather stay at home," she faltered. "Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen can have my things, and—and when they are big, they can go in—in the Normal. I—I would rather stay at home and do the work."
Laura sat down again in her chair by the window, and drew Sarah to her knee.
"Why would you rather stay at home, Sarah?" she asked gently. It was not strange that a reaction had come. There had been the struggle with Uncle Daniel, and then the long, hot months of summer, and now the immediate excitement of the afternoon. "Tell me, Sarah."
"I am too dumb," wailed Sarah. "Nobody can't teach me nothing."
"I thought I had taught you a good deal this summer."
"But there won't be any teachers like you at the Normal. I would rather stay at home. I am too old to go any more in the school. I am little but I am old."
"Like Runty," cried Louisa Ellen. The twins had been listening in frightened and fascinated attention. Runty was a pig which had never grown. "Runty is little, but he is old."
Even Sarah had to smile at this.
"But you will have too much work to do," she said to Laura. "It is not right for me to go."
Laura laughed.
"Cast no aspersions upon my ability to keep this house, young lady," she cried gayly. "And you will be no older than many of the girls and boys in your class. Now take off your dress and go mix your batter, and in ten minutes I'll be there, and then William will come home, and then we'll have supper, and then you must go to bed early."
When William came, there was no trace of Sarah's tears. He teased her gayly, as William always did, and said, as he helped himself to a fifth waffle, that the first four samples were pretty good, and that now he was really beginning to eat. It was not until she was safely in bed that the lump came back into her throat. This going away to school seemed suddenly worse than the long struggle against Uncle Daniel. She was going to live among strangers,—she would hear no more dear, familiar Pennsylvania-German, she would see only strange, critical faces. The Normal students would probably laugh at her, as she laughed at Jacob Kalb. They might make rhymes about her, as she made rhymes about Jacob.
Laura, who tiptoed into the room to put the red coat with its shortened sleeves into her trunk, heard her whisper.
"What did you say, Sarah?" she asked.
Sarah hid her face in her pillow in an agony of embarrassment. She could not possibly tell Laura what she was saying to herself, and Laura, thinking that she was talking in her sleep, tiptoed out again to complete her preparations for the next day's journey.
Before Sarah went to sleep, she smothered an hysterical giggle. One possible rhyme which might occur to the Normalites had come into her mind. It was that which she had been saying to herself. It was ominous, but she could not help laughing. It ran,—
"Sarah's Dutch,
She is not much."