The parson also, chagrined at his failure to make a convert of the girl, referred to her as “rebellious, obstinate in her ideas, and one who needed chastening.”
Her teacher, however, was her stanch friend. Aunt Comfort beamed upon her morning and night, while Angie, having provided her with home, raiment, opportunity for schooling, escort to church, and much good advice, felt that she had fulfilled her duty. And in a way, she had.
But social recognition in a country village can be made or marred by such a person as Hannah, and quite unknown to those most interested, Chip’s popularity was not decreed. Neither was she conscious of this undercurrent. Each day she went to and returned from school in a sturdy sort of way. A most devoted pupil, she never failed to thank her teacher for every word of help, and if–thanks to Hannah–she failed to make friends about the village, she won a place near to Aunt Comfort’s heart.
But somehow Aunt Comfort, who loved everybody alike, good or bad, or at least spoke no ill of the bad ones, didn’t count. That she must inevitably take Chip under her motherly wing, all recognized. She had taken Hannah, then Angie and Nezer, and now this waif who, as Hannah insisted, was all bad; and according to Greenvale’s belief, Aunt Comfort would keep on “taking in” homeless waifs and outcast mortals as long as she lived, or house room held out. And it was true.
By midwinter Martin’s new house was all furnished, and social obligations began to interest Angie, which made matters all the worse for Chip, for now Hannah could persecute her with less danger of exposure.
But Chip was hard to persecute. She had known adversity in its worst form. Her life at Tim’s Place had been practical slavery, and the worst that Hannah could do was as pin pricks compared to it.
It is certain, also, if Chip had “spunked up,” as Hannah would call it, now and then, it would have been better for her; but it wasn’t Chip’s way. To work and suffer in silence had been her lot at Tim’s Place. Angie had said, “You must obey everybody and make friends,” and impelled by experience, and this somewhat broad order, Chip was doing her best.
One hope cheered her all that long, hard winter of monotonous study–the return of Ray, and possibly Old Cy, when summer came. Somehow these two had knit themselves into her life as no one else had or could. Then she wondered how Ray would seem to and feel toward her when he came, and if the little bond–a wondrous strong one, as far as her feelings went–would still call him to her side.
Of love and its real meaning she was scarce conscious as yet. She simply felt that this youth with his sunny face and brown eyes was the one being on earth she wished to please. All the romance and pathos of that summer idyl, all the moonlight and canoeing, all the songs he had charmed her with, and every word and act of his from that first evening when, ragged and starving, she had stumbled into the camp, until she had parted from him with misty eyes, had been lived over by her countless times.
It had all been a beacon of hope to her in the uphill road toward the temple of learning; and how hard she had studied, and how patiently she had tried to correct her own speech, not even her teacher guessed.