Rover was a trusty watch-dog, and for this Mrs. Hagood valued him; at the same time she frowned on his idle existence, and had even considered the matter of having Mr. Hagood make a dog-power that she might use him to churn with. Against this her husband had urged that he wasn’t heavy enough, though privately he confided to Posey that it “wasn’t in nature for dogs to work like humans, an’ he wa’n’t goin’ to make no dog-churn for old Rover to tread, not if he knew himself, he wa’n’t.”
CHAPTER VI
THE STORM BREAKS
The thing, however, which rankled deepest in Posey’s mind, and caused her more bitter feelings than everything else, was that for all Mrs. Hagood’s promise, which she herself standing by had heard, that Posey should go regularly to the near-by school, she had not been allowed to attend even for a single day. At first she had waited expecting something would be said about it every day, and at last had ventured to ask when she was to begin.
Mrs. Hagood heard the question with an air of surprise. “School!” she repeated, “and all the house-cleaning, and spring and summer work coming on, I wonder how you think I can spare you to go to school. One would think that with all I’m doing for you, and the work you make, that you’d want to help what little you could.”
Posey choked back a lump in her throat; in her own mind she was sure that she was doing more work than she made, and earning all she received or she wouldn’t be kept; at the same time it was plainly evident that school, at least for the present, was not for her. “If I can’t go this spring term, can I in the fall?” she asked somewhat anxiously.
Mrs. Hagood was busy making pies, and fall was far in the future. “Yes, I guess so,” she answered, glad to get rid of the matter so easily. “If you are a smart girl to work this summer you can go to school next fall.”
So summer went by, and all through its days Posey bore this promise in mind; many a time it was an incentive to her when she would otherwise have flagged; and a spur to endeavor without which she might have been negligent. Autumn came, apples grew ruddy in the orchards, grapes ripened on the vines, and the woods changed their summer’s dress of green for one of yellow and scarlet. Yet Posey, who all through the spring and early summer had watched with longing eyes the children passing to and fro, saw the opening of the fall term draw near—delayed by repairs on the schoolhouse far beyond its usual time—without a single word or sign as to her going. And the day before it was to begin Mrs. Hagood said to her, “Posey, I want you to pick the green tomatoes to-morrow morning, then after dinner you can chop them for the mixed pickle.”
Posey’s heart sank with dismay. The ambition the teacher at the Refuge had awakened, had grown with her own growth; more still, an education seemed her one hope of escape from the life of a charity dependent, and she determined to risk a great deal rather than give it up. “Hadn’t I better pick the tomatoes to-day?” she asked not without an inward trembling of the heart. “You know school begins to-morrow.”
Mrs. Hagood paused in the pantry door. “Well, what if it does?”
“Why, you promised me, don’t you remember? that I should go to school this fall.”