Boarding about half a mile from the schoolhouse in a family with a lot of children, some of the elder ones of whom had attended the Academy with me, I carried my dinner in a two-quart pail, and trudged through the snow in all kinds of weather, all of which helped to make me more hardy than I had been before. The bigger boys went ahead to break the paths and open the stove, and “the teacher” followed surrounded by a little group of red-hooded girls and sturdy urchins, their caps with ear-laps pulled down low over their faces, their dinner pails gleaming in the sunshine.
I would have been happy that winter with its rugged pleasures and the consciousness that I was earning money but for my perpetual anxiety over the arithmetic lessons. It was easy enough with the B-class, but with the A-class I was in continual hot water. Studying harder out of school than any of my pupils did in school, I was always apprehensive lest something come up that I could not explain. I knew that some of the older boys and girls understood their lessons better than I did—or would, if we advanced much farther in the book. Always promptly dismissing the arithmetic class, I let the others run overtime. I am afraid I kept the pupils back lest they get to that terra incognita (the back part of the book) where I was so lamentably weak. In other respects I think I was a good teacher; in that I know there could scarcely have been a poorer.
The demonstrative pater familias where I boarded gave me some trying times: he was always putting his arms around me in a jolly, teasing way that was hard to resist; it offended my dignity, yet I could not manifest my full displeasure for fear of hurting the feelings of his daughters, my friends; I thought it would be painful to them to see their father rebuffed, so, evading him when I could, when I couldn’t, I bore it with poor grace. Besides, I was displeased to have these demonstrations before the children, my pupils—the demure young teacher was very jealous of her dignity.
One of the sons, about my own age, was a fine-grained youth; we and his sisters had good times together, but something happened one evening which made me furious: I was lying down, half asleep, dimly conscious of the light and voices in the adjoining room, when I was startled by a light kiss on my cheek. Thinking it was one of the girls, or one of the little boys who was very affectionate, I lazily opened my eyes and saw the guilty young man standing there, shaking with laughter. His merriment was short-lived. Whatever I said made him feel sheepish and contrite, for I felt that he had done me an irreparable wrong. There was no pose in this: it seemed a real violation. No one, since when in childhood I had stopped playing kissing-games—no boy or man, except my relatives—had kissed me, and now this was done and couldn’t be undone! I was a long time outgrowing my futile regret. Thereafter the reprimanded youth was properly respectful to the Offended Being who grudgingly pardoned him.
At the time of Commencement I had formed a friendship with a girl from Ithaca who, with her brother, visited in our village, and later engaged in an active correspondence with both of them. They were several years my senior; they had the charm of the unknown; they had read much and wrote interesting letters; they were both religious, and in his letters the young man laboured to bring me back into the old paths, or, rather, into the Episcopalian fold. He was the nearest to a “beau” I ever had, and a year later came to town, shortly before I started for college, just to visit me. Full of my approaching departure and the new life before me, his coming impressed me less than it might otherwise have done. I have since wondered if he did not intend something more than merely looking very soulful things had he met with any response from me. I recall the thrill in his voice which stirred me a little when we took a certain afternoon walk. But I found him much less interesting than I had found his letters; and whenever I looked at the lower part of his face, thought what a pity it was that such fine eyes should be offset by such a mouth and chin. I knew I could never love a man with a mouth and chin like his. He was then studying for the ministry, and, I think, was tuberculous. His lack of physical strength and vigour probably repelled me without my realizing what did it. At any rate, he said no word to indicate anything but warm friendship. After his visit he sent me Keats’s poems. Our correspondence continued throughout a part of the college course. I have forgotten how it was dropped. During one of my vacations I remember hearing him conduct religious services in the little chapel in our village, but could not endure his intoning and his priestly ways; his voice was weak, and the clerical garb only accentuated his masculine deficiencies. I thanked my stars that I had not been infatuated at the earlier period when he probably was a shy adorer. Had he been healthy and good-looking, I might have succumbed, for he pleased my mind at the time.
My sister had left school without graduating, which had greatly disappointed me. But, more practical than I, and less studious, and confronted by our growing needs and straitened means, seeing a way in which she could help, she had taken matters in her own hands, and a year or more before I left school had begun to learn dress-making. I used to marvel to see her take the big shears and cut into new material—such skill and daring, and she such a slip of a girl! What pretty gowns she made for herself and me, talking me out of my “old maidish notions,” and making me wear things that were “stylish” in spite of myself, for I often objected strenuously to prevailing modes. I can see now that it was individuality in dress that I was striving for; but, though failing to achieve it to any extent, I habitually dissented from conformity. How lovingly she worked on my graduation gown, and how pretty she looked in the old-rose silk which she earned and made for herself and first wore on that occasion!—the same old-rose that played so prominent a part in our wardrobe for several subsequent years. For she let me take it during my college course (when she needed it herself); then when she married she remodelled it for her trousseau. Again, when I was practising, and money was scarce, she made it over for me—the gown going back and forth between us like a shuttlecock; and every change in its form, and every scrap of the silk I see to-day, tells its tale of love and devotion and self-sacrifice, inseparably linked with our girlish hopes and trials and experiences.
I remember with delight the gowns I had to start with to college (no bride ever enjoyed her trousseau more), and I recall with tenderness the hours Sister spent on them, planning how she could accomplish what she wished with as little outlay as possible. The new world I was entering, the novel experiences, all come back to me now when I see bits of the old garments—my brown travelling suit that I wore to lectures; my plaid one that was made over, even prettier than when first made; my “best dress”; my red “wrapper”; my gymnasium suit—how much they meant to me, and how impossible they would have been but for Sister’s love and efficiency!
You may rip and remodel old gowns as you will,
But the scent of old memories clings round them still.