Elizabeth looked through the book in her hand slowly before she asked:
“Why don’t you? I was only about as far along as this in arithmetic last year. Some one said you were ready for it.”
“Oh, I kin do ’rithmetic all right, but I ain’t no good in nothin’ else—an’—an’—wouldn’t I look fine teachin’ school?” Jake Ransom exclaimed, but the bully melted out of him by way of the fact that she had heard good reports of him. He would not smoke this level-eyed girl out of the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual proceeding of the country bumpkin who failed to admire his teacher. Jake Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before and who had himself many lessons to learn in life’s school. The boy brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he wiped it across, and the children had something tangible to laugh at. Elizabeth was wise enough to take no notice of that laugh.
Some one has said that experience is not as to duration but as to intensity, and it was Elizabeth’s fate to live at great pressure in every important stage of her life. But for the fact that she had made a friend of Jake Ransom that month’s events would have had a different story. Sadie Crane took exceptions to every move made and every mandate issued from the teacher’s desk. The spirit of insubordination to which the entire school had been subjected that winter made good soil for Sadie’s tares. For the most part the dissatisfaction was a subtle thing, an undercurrent of which Elizabeth was aware, but upon which she could lay no finger of rebuke, but at times it was more traceable, and then, to the young teacher’s surprise, Jake Ransom had ways of dealing with the offenders outside of school hours. Sadie’s tongue was sharp and she was accustomed to a wholesome attitude of fear among the scholars, but her first thrusts at Jake had aroused a demon of which she had little dreamed. Jake had no foolish pride and would admit his faults so guilelessly that her satire fell to the ground. He was an entirely new sort to the spiteful child. The terrible advantage the person who will admit his faults cheerfully has over the one who has pride and evades was never more manifest. Jake Ransom pointed out to a credulous following the causes of Sadie’s disaffection, and left the envious child in such a state of futile rage that she was ready to burst with her ill-directed fury. In the end the month’s work had to be granted the tribute of success, and the term closed with a distinct triumph for Elizabeth and the experience of a whole year’s trial crowded into four short weeks.
At home things were not so fortunate. The young girl had come back from Topeka with higher ideals of home life, of personal conduct, and of good manners than she had ever had before. It was so good to have something better, and Elizabeth hungered to pass along the transforming things she had found; but when she tried to give the boys gentle hints about correct ways of eating she was greeted with guffaws and sarcastic chuckles about handling soup with a fork. Mrs. Farnshaw saw nothing but Susan Hornby’s interference, Mr. Farnshaw told her to attend to her own affairs until her help was desired, and when the child was rebuffed and unable to hide her disappointment and retired within herself, both parents resented the evident and growing difference between her and themselves.
It was to escape from a home which was unendurable that Elizabeth flat-footedly, and for the first time, refused to accede to her parents’ authority. When the matter of a spring term of school came up for discussion she refused to teach the home school again, though Mr. Crane had been so pleased with her work that he had offered it to her. When asked if Jake Ransom was the objection she indignantly asserted to the contrary.
“He was the best pupil I had,” she said, “but I don’t want to teach at home, and I won’t do it,” and that was all she would say. She secured a school ten miles north of her home; ten miles had been the nearest point which she would consider.
The interest was at last paid, but when the summer groceries were paid for there was no money left with which to go back to Topeka, and it was necessary to teach a winter school. Elizabeth went to work anew to collect funds for another year’s schooling. Mr. Farnshaw sold himself short of corn in the fall, however, and the young girl was expected to make up the deficit. In the spring the interest was to be paid again, and so at the end of a year and a half the situation was unchanged. The next year a threshing machine was added to the family assets, and again the cry of “help” went up, again Elizabeth’s plans were sacrificed. The next year the interest was doubled, and for four years Elizabeth Farnshaw worked against insurmountable odds.