Helen and Arthur; or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel

by Caroline Lee Hentz

Burning with shame, and shivering with apprehension, Helen lay in her darkened nook, while the hum of recitation murmured in a dull roaring sound around her. It was a cold winter’s day and she was very warmly clad, so that she soon experienced a glowing warmth in the confined air she was breathing. This warmth, so oppressive, and the monotonous sound stealing in through the aperture of the desk, caused an irresistible drowsiness, and her eye-lids heavy with the weight of tears, involuntarily closed. When the master, astonished at the perfect stillness with which, after awhile, she endured the restraint, softly peeped within, she was lying in a deep sleep, her head pillowed on her arm, the tear-drops glittering on her cheeks. Cramped as she was, the unconscious grace of childhood lent a charm to her position, and her sable dress, contrasting with the pallor of her complexion, appealed for compassion and sympathy. The teacher’s heart smote him for the coercion he had used.

“I will not disturb her now,” thought he; “she is sleeping so sweetly. I will take her out when school is dismissed. I think she will remember this lesson.”

Suffering the lid to fall noiselessly on the book, he resumed his tasks, which were not closed till the last beams of the wintry sun glimmered on the landscape. The days were now very short, and in his enthusiastic devotion to his duties, the shades of twilight often gathered around him unawares.

It was his custom to dismiss his scholars one by one, beginning with the largest, and winding up with the smallest. It was one of his rules that they should go directly home, without lingering to play round the door of the school-house, and they knew the Mede and Persian character of his laws too well to disobey them. When Mittie went out, making a demure curtsey at the door, she lingered a little longer than usual, supposing he would release Helen from her prison house; but Master Hightower was one of the most absent men in the world, and he had forgotten the little prisoner in her quiet nest.

“Well,” thought Mittie, “I suppose he is going to keep her a while longer, and she can go home very well without me. I am going to stay all night with Cherry-cheeks, and if Miss Thusa makes a fuss about her darling, I shall not be there to hear it.”

Master Hightower generally lingered behind his pupils to see that all was safe, the fire extinguished in the stove, the windows fastened down, and the shutters next to the street closed. After attending deliberately to these things, he took down his hat and cloak, drew on his warm woolen gloves, went out, and locked the door. It was so late that lights were beginning to gleam through the blinds of many a dwelling-house as he walked along.

In the meantime, Helen slumbered, unconscious of the solitude in which she was plunged. When she awoke, she found herself in utter darkness, and in stillness so deep, it was more appalling than the darkness. She knew not at first where she was. When she attempted to move, her limbs ached from their long constraint, and the arm that supported her head was fast asleep. At length, tossing up her right hand, she felt the resisting lid, and remembered the punishment she had been enduring. She tried to spring out, but fell back several times on her sleeping arm, and it was long before she was able to accomplish her release in the darkness. She knew not where she was jumping, and fell head first against the master’s high-backed chair. If she was hurt she did not know it, she was so paralyzed by terror. She could not be alone! They would not be so cruel as to leave her there the live-long winter’s night. They were only frightening her! Mittie must he hiding there, waiting for her. She was not afraid of the dark.

“Sister,” she whispered. “Sister,” she murmured, in a louder tone. “Where are you? Come and take my hand.”

The echo of her own voice sounded fearful, in those silent walls. She dared not call again. Her eyes, accustomed to the gloom, began to distinguish the outline of objects. She could see where the long rows of benches stood, and the windows, all except those next the street, grew whiter and whiter, for the ground was covered with snow, and some of it had been drifted against the glass. All at once Helen remembered the room, all dressed in white, and she felt the cold presence, which had so often congealed her heart. Her dead mother seemed before her, in the horror, yet grandeur, of her last repose. Unable to remain passive in body, with such travail in her soul, she rushed towards the door—finding the way with her groping hands. It was locked. She tried the windows—they were fastened. She shrieked—but there was none to hear. No! there was no escape—no hope. She must stay there the whole long, dark night, if she lived, to see the morning’s dawn. With the conviction of the hopelessness of her situation, there arose a feeling, partly despair and partly resignation. She was very cold, for the fire had long been extinguished, and she could not find her cloak to cover her.

She was sure she would freeze to death before morning, and Master Hightower, when he came to open the school, would see her lying stiff and frozen on the floor, and be sorry he had been so cruel. Yes! she would freeze, and it was no matter, for no one cared for her; no one thought of coming to look for her. Father, brother, Miss Thusa, Mittie—all had deserted her. Had her mother lived, she would have remembered her little Helen. The young doctor, he who had been so kind and good, who had come to her before in the hour of danger, perhaps he would pity her, if he knew of her being locked up there in loneliness and darkness.