Uncle Terry: A Story of the Maine Coast

by Charles Clark Munn

Fortunately none of this gossip, of which Mrs. Mears' remarks are only a sample, reached Alice, for she had enough to bear as it was. The vexations of an effort to pound the rudiments of an education into the heads of two dozen or so barefooted boys and girls that comprised her charge were far less hard to bear than the desolation of a home bereft of mother and brother. Occasionally some one of the neighbors would drop in of an evening, or one or two of her girl friends come and stay all night. On Sundays she was, as she always had been, a regular attendant at the village church, where she formed one of the choir. She had never encouraged the attentions of any of the young men, who mostly wore the habiliments of farmers on week days and worse-fitting ones on Sundays, which accounted for Mrs. Mears' remark that "she held her head perty middlin' high." It was true in a way, not from any false pride, but rather because Alice was of a more refined and fastidious nature than those who "would a-wooing go."

She was like a flower herself, not only in looks, but in delicacy of feeling and sentiment, and her sweet face, sheltered by a mourning-hat on Sunday at church, was a magnet that drew the eyes of many a village swain. The days and weeks of her new life as a teacher passed in uneventful procession until one by one the leaves had fallen from the two big elm trees in front of the desolate home, the meadows were but level fields of snow, and Christmas was only two weeks away. Then she received a letter from the absent brother that caused her heart to beat with unusual excitement. It read:

Dear Sis: Three weeks ago I received a most flattering proposal from Mr. Nason, Frank's father, who offered me a good salary to take charge of his law business, and also the chance to accept anything else that came my way. I have a nice office now in a block he owns, and am so busy I do not find time to write to you even. It's an opening of a lifetime, and I owe it mainly to Frank. Now I am so homesick I am coming up to spend Christmas with you, and I've invited Frank to come also. We shall be up the day before and stay till the Monday after. Frank has done so much for me that I want to entertain him in the best way possible. He knows absolutely nothing about country life, and it may be dull for him, but he seems desirous of coming, and so I want you to help me to make it cheerful for him. To be candid, sis, I think the chance to see you, whom he has heard me say so much about, is the real loadstone. I enclose a bit of paper, and I want you to use it all in any way you wish.

It was a check for one hundred dollars!

It was not strange that at school next day Alice's thoughts were not on the recitations, and when one boy spelled beauty "b-o-o-t-i-e," and raised a laugh, she did not understand why it was. Children are in some ways as keen as briers, and her pupils soon discovered that "teacher" was absent-minded and they whispered right and left. When she discovered it she didn't have the heart to punish them, and was glad when the time came to dismiss school.

The instinct of her sex was strong within her, however, and that night she said to Aunt Susan:

"Do you think, auntie, we could manage between us to make up some sort of a pretty house-dress? Of course I must wear black when I go out, but it would be no harm to wear something brighter at home. I could get some delicate gray cashmere, and Mrs. Sloper can cut and fit it, and you and I can make it evenings. I want a sort of house-gown trimmed with satin. I wish I dared to have a new hat for church, with a little color in it,—my mourning-bonnet makes me look so old,—but I am afraid people would talk."

The feminine fear of looking old was needless in her case.

But how the days dragged, and how many times she counted them to see how many more were to pass ere that dearly beloved brother was to arrive! And what sort of a looking fellow was this Frank? she wondered. She hoped he was tall and dark, not too tall, but good and stout. And how could she ever entertain them? She could play and sing a few pretty ballads, and any number of hymns, but as for conversation she felt herself wholly deficient. Of the world of art, literature, and the drama she knew but little. She had read a good many novels, it is true, and had seen "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "East Lynne," and one or two other tear-moving dramas played in the town hall, but that was all. She had never even journeyed as far as Boston or New York. "He will think me as green as the hills around us," she thought ruefully, "but I can't help it. I can cook some nice things for him to eat, anyhow, and Bert must do the talking. I wonder if he plays the piano. I hope not, for if he does I'll not touch it."

Christmas came on Thursday that year and her school was to close for a week on the Friday before. She had a little plan in her mind, and the last day of school she called on two of the big boys to help her.