He had never again mentioned to me that wretched parody of the previous year till one day shortly before graduation: One of the lower-class girls had been using my algebra that term. We were grouped together during recess, talking over the approaching Commencement, when “Prof.” came up and asked where my algebra was. “Lizzie has it,” I said, curious as to why he asked. Thereupon he sat down at Lizzie’s desk and copied my wicked parody. I mildly protested, but half smiling, he continued copying, looking grave as he proceeded. Touched and flattered, the memory of my silly actions, and of his forbearance, and the thought that our school days were soon to end, made me repentant and remorseful. I would have given a good deal to have changed some of the lines in the old thing that I had thought so clever; and would have given much more to have told him how sorry I then was for my stubbornness; how grateful for his help; but I couldn’t. He never knew until years after (when I obeyed an impulse and wrote him), unless he then divined my contrition.
One other time in school he was severe with me: I had habitually helped certain girls with their compositions. It was play for me. They were poor stuff, but better than the others could do, and I always made theirs inferior to my own. One week I thought it would be fun to experiment a bit, so, instead of having the girls that I usually aided write a part of their own essays, I told each one that I would write her entire essay, if she would not tell a soul, and, after copying it, would destroy my copy. Each girl jumped at the chance. How the literary ardour possessed me that week! To write four or five essays besides my own, all of which were to be read in one afternoon, I must vary my style so that no one could detect the authorship. I flattered myself I was versatile enough to do this. Glowing with pride I read them to myself before handing them over to the girls.
On the momentous afternoon I assumed a calm, indifferent manner while the various essays were being read; and when my turn came, at the last, read in my usual faltering voice, my knees trembling so that I felt I must run from the platform before I was half through. As usual, mine was greeted with applause, and I took my seat with cheeks aflame, a sense of elation all through me. It had been an exciting afternoon, but as I had sworn each girl to secrecy, I could share it with no one.
At the close “Prof.” arose and said the exercises, though longer than usual, had been uncommonly interesting; that the choice of subjects had been varied, well chosen, well presented (I glowed more, with scarcely concealed pride); but—and here he paused—he would like to add that it seemed a little selfish, not to say conceited, for one person to be so pleased with her ability that she insisted on being represented five or six times in one afternoon! Instantly every eye was turned upon me. Each girl, knowing her own false position, suspected the others, and his remarks were so pointed that all the others guessed. He rubbed it in by saying that it was a well-laid plan, but was rather unflattering to the instructors to suppose them incapable of detecting it. Were we not aware that our teachers knew what each student was capable of? Then he launched forth in withering scorn of those who had been so helped, not only then, but throughout the year. But of what he said to them I cared little; for my own disgraceful part I felt the deepest chagrin. He made me realize how culpable I had been in helping them to sail under false colours. It was a bitter lesson for all of us, but did not keep me from lending a hand (or pen) when we graduated. It was known then, I’m sure, but winked at. One girl boldly said: “You’ve helped us all along, you can’t leave us in the lurch now.” In fact, I wrote outright the graduating essay of an upper-class girl who graduated the year before I did; and of the fourteen essays in our class, I had a hand in six, two of which (my own and another’s) I wrote outright. My itch for writing bothered me at an early age, and I had to scratch. Not that there was any merit in the schoolgirl effusions; it was only a facility for stringing words together, an aptness for quotation, and a tendency to moralizing and to figurative writing, that let themselves loose in them.
It has always irritated me to see persons too credulous, and I enjoyed punishing them for their credulity. One of our classmates could be made to believe the most absurd things. Sometimes we had spelling bouts the last few minutes before the close of school, and the principal would require us to define the words spelled. Sprinkled in with the long columns of English words were occasional Latin ones. A demon of some sort possessed me one day on seeing Sal Atticum in the spelling lesson. It was my first year of Latin and I chose Bessie Barnes, the credulous one, who had not studied Latin at all, for my victim. Whispering to her I said, “Shall I tell you the definition of the Latin words in to-day’s lesson?” Of course she was glad of help, so, telling her correctly the meaning of the others, when I came to Sal Atticum, pausing and laughing (perforce at the absurd joke I meant to perpetrate on her) I turned it off by saying that it was such a funny thing to have in the spelling lesson; and the little goose believed me when I told her it meant, “With Sal in the Attic”! We both laughed at the absurdity of it, then I went on soberly to explain that “Sal” was just Sal, because proper names do not change; then, reminding her that in Latin the words do not come in consecutive order, as in English, I said that “cum” means “with”; that “attic” is the same in both languages, and that “attic” being in the ablative case, “in” is understood, thus making the translation, “With Sal in the attic.” Then, drilling her on the meaning of all the foreign words in the column, I got heaps of fun every time she came to Sal Atticum and gave the ludicrous definition. And as we both laughed at the comical phrase, she said she hoped it would not fall to her to define it. I have forgotten the outcome. I can’t be sure, but think we gave “Prof.” the tip and got him to ask her its meaning; but I remember distinctly her indignation when she learned how I had hoodwinked her.
I formed a romantic affection, perhaps in my seventeenth year, for a new girl who moved into our village. She appealed to my imagination, being so different from the girls I had known. Beautiful, with deep, proud, dark eyes, she was a good student; had read much more than I had; and could translate Virgil far better, all of which made me look up to her. Strange to say, I wasn’t jealous of her. We studied Greek and Roman history together, and astronomy. There were four of us girls, and two of the boys, who met at our various homes certain evenings studying together. The old Greek and Roman names, and the constellations, are inseparably linked in memory, particularly with that lovely dark-eyed girl and, yes, those two boys. It was a good fellowship I had with the boys, no nonsense—at least, hardly any. The boys had their own sweethearts who met with us, as a rule, though they were less studious than we were.
I think at that time I was vaguely conscious of being liked by these boys in a different way than they liked their sweethearts—because I was a girl and because I was companionable besides. There was always a certain piquancy about it. And this has always been a pleasing consciousness in connection with my men friends. I never could be satisfied with a friendship taking cognizance of but one of the factors. At the time of which I am speaking, though, I would have been distinctly annoyed at any open manifestation on the part of the boys of interest other than camaraderie. In fact a little later I was angered at occasional demonstrations in one who was a faithless swain; for he would often manage to take his sweetheart home first and thus walk home alone with me. I felt sorry for her because she had so little spirit; chided her for letting him tyrannize over her; upbraided him for being fickle; and tried to be a disinterested friend to both. Yet as time passed there were a few occasions when, silencing my scruples, I permitted advances on his part of which I was heartily ashamed. He would take us both for a drive, and after leaving her at her home, would attempt to put his arm around me. Although at first repulsing him angrily, at length I suffered it, knowing all the time that it was wrong. How tender and persuasive his tones as we drove along, yet he would be talking about the most commonplace things, and I would sit there straight and unyielding with burning cheeks. I knew it was wrong for two reasons—because he was Bessie’s “beau,” and because I didn’t really like him that way; yes, and also because it was wrong to let any one put his arm around you. The second reason seemed the stronger, and I was ashamed of myself for being susceptible to his wooing tones and ingratiating ways while really despising such faithlessness. Had he tried to kiss me, I think I should have annihilated him on the spot. In fact, I think I hardly dreamed of such an advance to me then being possible. I doubt if any other boy of my acquaintance would have believed that I would permit any one to do as this one did.
I was really more attracted to Walter, the other youth with whom we studied. We were the best of friends. One night he came to our door and asked me to come out on the veranda—an unusual request. “Come out and see the stars,” was all he said. Wonderingly I went out: it was a cold night, my teeth chattered. We walked to the west end of the veranda and stood in silence for a little looking at the stars. I remember how Orion shone; we spoke but little, but I recall how his voice trembled; I did not understand it, but it moved me. It was such a little thing, and perhaps I make more of it than there was, but there seemed something in his impulsive request and the silent contemplation of the stars that was electrical—youth and propinquity, I suppose. Nothing came of it. I think at the time I was undoubtedly more attracted to him than he to me, but I don’t believe he ever dreamed of it. In fact, the boys and girls were wont to look upon me as a little aloof from them. The sweetheart of this same youth said to me one Monday morning: “Genie, when I see you in church Sunday nights, you seem so far away; your face looks so serious, and as though I would never dare speak to you; but when I see you in school and hear you laugh and talk you seem like one of us.”
Most of the girls had had their beaux who had sent them valentines and bestowed upon them juvenile gifts, but my experience in this field had been very meagre. When a child, before I had learned to write, I remember being pleased with a little boy who drew me home on his sled, and once I printed him a note. I hardly think I ever intended giving it to him, but I tucked it under the zinc of our sitting-room stove and my sister found and read it. The mortification I endured hearing her repeat it cured me. I so hated after that to hear “Freddie boy’s” name mentioned that I was glad when he moved out of town. I recall no other sentimental affairs till I was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, when one of the academy boys and I had a clandestine correspondence. He liked a lot of the girls, was very popular, and wrote to several of them; they used to brag about it and show their notes, but I told no one that he wrote to me. The notes were usually trivial affairs, questions as to where the grammar lesson was, and the like, although there were a few I blush to remember. I was quite infatuated for a time; he was the hero of my daydreams, but far more interested in another girl than in me; he doubtless had no inkling of what was passing in the mind of his prim little school-mate. Some time after this, when we were discussing our futures, he told me of his intention of being a minister. I remember his earnest voice and shining eyes as he spoke of our anticipated careers, and said that we ought to do a great deal of good in the world. When, later than this, Walter, the youth of whom I have spoken, announced to me that he was going to study law, I recall the occasion vividly: It was an August night when a lot of us young people and our mothers were in the creek, in swimming. Since I have known more of the world, I have wondered that there was never anything unpleasant to look back upon in those associations. But we had all been well brought up and were comparatively innocent, although we did not know it then. (I saw this the other day: “‘I learned of my own existence,’ said Innocence, ‘only when I ceased to exist.’”) We mingled together, youths and maidens, on geological excursions, star-gazing, in the woods botanizing, in the water learning to swim, and never thought of the possibility of anything but the frank, chaste comradeship there was among us. I recall what a display of meteors there was that night, and how the sight thrilled us. We had gone to the willows before sundown and had lingered in the water till the stars came out. During a pause between one of the trials when Walter was teaching me to swim, we stood transfixed by the sudden appearance of a great fiery ball which seemed to burst just over our heads and fall into a near-by meadow. Walter’s arms tightened as he held me; awestruck, we stood there an instant, a thrilling one (perhaps it was not all due to the meteor). Whenever after that I would think of that night, it always made me blush; why, I did not know, unless because I had to admit to myself that I liked to feel those strong, firm arms around me.