“But you’ll not be here, ma’am,” said Dibblee. “No one can learn us like you and Miss Carin. There’s been teachers here that just yelled at us and we got so skeered we couldn’t learn nothin’. All the fun we had was running away from school.”
“You shan’t have that kind of a teacher, I promise,” Azalea assured him. “Oh, Dibblee, if only I knew enough I’d stay right here and teach you all the time; but, you see, I have to go to school myself for a long time yet. As I am now, I should soon run out of learning and you would get ahead of me.” She laughed gayly and Dibblee laughed with her. There was much laughter about the schoolhouse these days, and it was no longer because some one had blundered or met with an accident. They laughed now because they were happy, because their shyness had ceased to be a torment to them, and because they felt that they were more like other children—not strange, not some one who needed a “missionary” to help them on. Of all the services that Azalea and Carin had been able to perform for them, the bestowing upon them of self-esteem was the greatest. Just how this result had been attained it would be hard to say. Perhaps it was the gentleness, the unfailing politeness of their young teachers and their way of seeming as “kin” to these shy, wild, suspicious young creatures, that had done it.
“It’s like teaching squirrels to eat from the hand,” Azalea had said more than once to Carin.
Little had been seen of the Rowantrees and nothing of Keefe since the day Keefe went to his sister’s home, but they were all, even the children, coming to school for the “last day.” The parents of the pupils were coming too, not only that they might, like parents the world over, swell with pride over the accomplishments of their offspring, but also because word had been sent broadcast that the moonlight school would be under discussion.
There were few flowers left on the mountain side by this time, but the prettiest imaginable decorations had been contrived with spurge and galax, rhododendron leaves and vines. The place was really a bower, and the children were clean and fresh for the occasion. Indeed, it may well be doubted if certain of them had ever been so freshened and decorated as on this day. Their young teachers had led them to believe that they were to expect high festival, and they themselves were in the most charming of their white frocks, with the little strings of gold beads which Mrs. Carson had given them at Christmas.
The event held one throbbing secret. It was a cold secret, although it arose from a warm impulse. By the greatest perseverance, Aunt Zillah had managed to get a wagonload of ice and a number of ice cream freezers up from Lee, and now, with the eager aid of the McEvoys, delicious ice cream, made after Miss Zillah’s own receipt, smooth as satin and tempting as nectar, filled the great freezers which bulked mysteriously beneath their gunny sack wrappings in the shade of the schoolhouse. Moreover, in the little cupboard where Azalea and Carin kept their stores, were six of the most noble, decorative and triumphant cakes which Miss Zillah ever had concocted.
“I don’t know much about educating the young,” she told the girls and Mis’ Cassie, “but when it comes to feeding them, I understand the matter perfectly. Anyone who has reared a girl like Annie Laurie is bound to know something about that.” She sighed a little, for the day held one drawback. She did long to have her niece share in the pleasures of this closing time and to have her see what had been accomplished, and she had written begging Annie Laurie to come, but the girl had replied vaguely. Business at the dairy was very brisk. She was working early and late to get her hand in completely before her valuable assistant, Sam Disbrow, left for Rutherford Academy.
“It will be a month yet before he goes,” Aunt Zillah had said almost petulantly. “I should have thought Annie Laurie might have spared us one day.”
Mr. and Mrs. Carson were already at Lee, having run down to open up the house.
“There seems to be no end of things to do,” Mr. Carson wrote his daughter. “Do you really think you need us up there, kitten? What difference will a few hours make? Have McEvoy pack up your possessions, and hasten to us.”