So Kettles came, newly clothed from top to toe and provided with plenty of good advice by old Nurse. At first Miss Unity hardly knew she was in the house, for Betty kept her strictly in the background, and hurried her away into corners whenever her mistress appeared in the kitchen. Judging, however, from the absence of complaint that things were going on well, she at last ventured to inquire how Betty liked her new help.
“She’s a sharp little thing, Miss,” said Betty. “Of course she’s strange to the ways of a house, coming from where she does. But she’s willing, that’s the great thing.”
“Can the child read and write?” was Miss Unity’s next question.
But Betty seemed to think she had nothing whatever to do with this part of Kettles’ education.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Miss,” she said. “I’ve enough to do to teach her to sweep a room properly.”
Upon inquiry it was found that Kettles did not even know her letters.
“I never had no time to go to school,” she said, “and I don’t want to, either.”
“But,” said Miss Unity, greatly distressed, “you can’t read your Bible, then, Keturah.”
“Mother, she reads the Bible,” said Kettles, as though that were sufficient.
Miss Unity went upstairs full of uneasy thought. What could be done? She could not send Keturah to school. It would be absurd to provide Betty with help, and then to take it away for half the day. She could not ask Betty to teach her. Finally, she could not let the child remain in this dreadful state of ignorance. There was one way out of the difficulty which stared Miss Unity in the face, however much she tried to avoid seeing it. She could teach Keturah herself in the evening after her work was done. Miss Unity shrank from it. She had never been brought close to poor people, and she had never taught anyone anything in her life. She was as shy of Kettles as though she were a grown-up woman, and it was altogether a most distasteful idea. Do what she would, however, she could not get rid of it. Her sense of duty at length conquered, as usual, and Keturah, with very clean hands and an immense white apron, appeared in the sitting-room one night to take her first lesson.