SCHOOL.
The next fall was Job's last term at school. He felt awkward and out of place, for most of the boys of the country round left at sixteen, just as they were tangled up in fractions and syntax. Now he was close to the twenties, and the only big boy left in the Frost Creek school, whose white walls peeped out through a grove of live-oaks where the creek babbled merrily over the rocks.
Yet with a pluck that had always characterized him, Job stuck to his books and sat among the crowd of little youngsters who automatically recited the multiplication table when the teacher was looking, and threw paper wads when she was not. Jane was there, copying minutely in dress and manner after Miss Bright, the new teacher, whom she greatly admired. Job found it very pleasant to still walk home with Jane and talk of algebra, class meeting, and the trip they must soon take to the Yosemite—subjects which were mutually interesting. Yet somehow the wild, natural freedom of former days was missing. Both were painfully conscious of their awkward age and the fact that they were no longer children.
Charlie Lewis sat next to Job, a wee, frail little fellow, whose large eyes looked up endlessly at his tall next neighbor, whom he secretly worshiped, partly because Job shielded him from the rough bullies, and partly because he had taken a fancy to the little lad and took him along when he went up to the mountains or down to Perkins Hollow swimming. A crowd of dark-eyed Mexicans and one small Chinese boy filled the right corner, while over on the left were the Dixon children and little Helen Day. Helen was a new arrival, a prim Miss of six, who used to live on the plains, where her father was section-hand on the railroad; which accounted, perhaps, for the fact that the time when Father Lane, the old preacher from Merritt's Camp, called and they sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and the teacher asked Helen what ties were meant, she promptly answered, "Railroad ties, ma'am."
As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing kindergartèn songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco, lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of philosophy—names which Job knew must mean something grand. He began to wish that Jane looked like her and talked like her and had lived in 'Frisco. He began to wonder who it was that Miss Bright wrote letters to every day, and who wrote those Dan Dean used to leave at the school-house for her postmarked "New York." His fears were relieved, though, when he heard her laugh merrily one day when inquisitive Maggie Dean asked: "What man writes to you all the time, Miss Bright?" and reply, "My brother, of course, Maggie. But little girls shouldn't ask too many questions."
They used to have morning prayers when the other teacher was here, but Miss Bright said that prayer was only the expression of our longings and we did not need to pray aloud, and she thought God knew enough to look after us without bothering him about it every day. Job was shocked at first, then he thought perhaps Miss Bright was right, she was so nice and knew so much. She boarded at Jeremiah Robinson's, who lived on the Frost Creek road. More than once Job found himself going there at her invitation, ostensibly to study Latin and literature, which were not in the regular curriculum. He did not care much for the studies—he found it hard to get far beyond "Amo, amas, amat," and as for Chaucer and his glittering knights and fair ladies, he detested them; but those moments after the lessons, when Miss Bright chattered away about the beauties of evolution and the loveliness of protoplasm and the immanence of Deity in all nature—Job fairly doted on them.
Sometimes she accepted his invitation for an evening ramble. He felt proud to have people see him with her. He would have liked to ask her to the class-meeting at Squire Perkins', but he was afraid to; she would think it beneath her to go among those country folks. And then, what would she think of Widow Green if she got one of her crying-spells? or lame Tim, who was a little daft, but who loved to come to class-meeting and said always, "Tim's no good; he ain't much; but Jesus loves him. Sing, brethren, 'I am so glad that Jesus loves me.'" So Job never invited her. In fact, he did not like to tell her he went; and, for fear she would know it, he stayed away two weeks when she asked him to walk with her those moonlight nights.
Miss Bright was so good, he thought; yet there was much he could not understand. She never went to church. She said it was too far, and besides she thought it more helpful to worship amid the grandeur of nature, reading the lofty thoughts of the poets. And after that Job thought the preacher at Gold City was a little old fogyish.
Dan Dean was not slow to observe the unconscious drifting of Job away from the church and toward the schoolma'am. Jane did not notice it till Dan hinted to her that the only reason Job had cared for the church was because she went there, and now that Miss Bright had come he had dropped her and the church both. Which was so near the truth that Jane began to feel strange when Job was near, and to do what she had never dreamed of doing before with a single human being—she began to doubt the occasional kind words he now gave her, and all he had ever uttered. With the impulse of a wounded heart, she turned to Dan. Yet try the best she could, she could never feel the same toward him. She pitied Dan; a philanthropic feeling animated her as she thought of him. She would do anything to make a man of him—marry him, even, if necessary; but to think of surrendering her life and very being to him, following him down the tortuous path of life, "For better or for worse, for richer or poorer," to have him as her ideal of manhood—that thought repelled her. Often she found herself standing behind a tree on the way home from school, waiting to catch one glimpse of Job as he sauntered by with Miss Bright's cloak on his arm and its owner chattering at his side. She was angry to think she did it; she ran home by the short cut through the woods, slammed the cabin door behind her, threw herself on the bed and had a good cry, arose and wiped the tears away, and vowed she would marry Dan if he asked her.
Job unconsciously walked into the meshes that fate seemed to have thrown around him. More and more he transferred the admiration of his heart to the stately, proud, talented girl of the world, who found him a convenient escort and companion in the mountain country where friends that suited her were scarce. Job was blind; he adored her. Later and later, daily, was his return from school. The little Testament grew dusty on the box-table in his bedroom, his morning prayers sounded strangely alike, and even Andy Malden wondered at the coldness of the lad's devotion at family worship. He went to church, but seldom to class-meeting. He devoured a book Miss Bright had loaned him, on "The World's Saviors—Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,"—in which he found his Master placed on a level with other great souls. He asked her the next day if she did not think Christ was divine, and marveled at her learned reply that "All nature is divine. Matter and men are but the manifestations of divinity, and the Galilean Teacher was undoubtedly a wonderful character of his day."
One night, as he left her, she loaned him a French novel full of skepticism and scorn of virtue and morality. He was tempted to throw it in the fire, but it was hers. He read it and rather liked it. He began to think he had been too narrow; he wished he could get out and see the world, the great world of thinking people where Miss Bright lived. The poison was in his soul. How commonplace the sermon sounded the next Sunday on "I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified"! How narrow Paul must have been! It was the Sunday night before Christmas. The fall term had ended, and the schoolma'am was going home; no more school till spring. A year before Job had stood in the great congregation and taken the solemn vow to be loyal forever to Christ and his church; to-night the Christmas service went on without him. Tony, who was there and who half suspected something was wrong, yet did not like to have anyone else think so, said to those who asked him:
"Yes, Marse Job's sick; dassen't come out."
But Job was not sick, as Tony thought. He was in the Robinson parlor, sitting with Miss Bright before the flickering log fire, which dimly lit the long, low room with its rag carpet and old-fashioned furniture. They were talking over their friendship, and she was flattering him upon his superiority to those country greenhorns who lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act, in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and, on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken she was to leave the mountains and him.
Job went home in raptures, and lay awake all night planning how to get away from the mountains and the rude people who lived there, and down into the city somewhere—anywhere where Fanny Bright lived.
All that week he wandered about as if lost, cross and good for nothing at work. His city idol had gone home.
It was two days after Christmas that Job tore the wrapper off a 'Frisco paper and sat down to read, when, glancing over the columns, his eyes met the following:
"Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one in a double sense."
It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school, vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was gone—long since he had let Dan have her to himself—his church was gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike—all were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has learned—a bitter lesson—and all the forces of evil seemed to fight for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.
He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down the hill and toward home.