Azalea at Sunset Gap

by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

“He doesn’t mean a word of it,” Carin declared. “He and mother are simply dying to get up here and see what we’ve done. Whenever papa sounds dull and prosy like that I know he’s planning something delightful. It isn’t normal for him to be stupid. He’s up to something, you’ll see.”

But as the “last day,” hot, with gay clouds, came, and the pupils appeared an hour too early, and the Rowantree’s old surrey swung from the thick shade of the old wood road, all indicating that the hour was at hand, Carin began to have her doubts. For once in the history of the world, her parents were going to be stupid and sensible and economical! They were going to act like other people! She was horribly disappointed in them, and kept very busy so as not to be alone with Azalea and let her see how disappointed she was.

There really was a great deal to do, for the parents of the pupils required much polite consideration. School did not call that morning until half after ten o’clock. The time preceding that was spent in talking about the moonlight school. There seemed to be a general desire for it, although some of the neighbors were exceedingly shy about expressing their desires.

“I’m ready to teach it,” Mr. Rowantree declared. “And I’ll do it for the smallest sum possible.”

The mountain folk may or may not have approved of Mr. Rowantree, but there was none who doubted his ability to teach them anything they might wish to know. Indeed, they always had held a great opinion of his bookishness; and now they seemed to find him more likable than they had imagined possible. His fine and gracious manners never relaxed, no matter with whom he talked, and where they had once been offended and annoyed by this display of elegance, it now seemed different to them, since the young teachers, who evidently approved of him, had themselves such pretty, fine ways, and yet were so simple and friendly.

The truth was, the folk of Sunset Gap were beginning to take a new view of various matters. For almost the first time in their existence they had been brought into close contact with people from the outer world, and their fears and prejudices had, in the light of their summer’s experience, been dying a rapid and painless death.

The morning hours were given up to a hasty review of the work done, that the parents might see something of what their children had been learning. The young teachers secretly hoped that their audience would be so pleased that they would take measures to establish a school of their own volition.

Now Azalea and now Carin, flushed, eager and slightly tremulous, led on their classes through the review of reading, spelling, geography, history and arithmetic, while crowded about the windows and the platform sat the parents, their tanned faces smiling and interested. Miss Zillah in her lavender lawn, her curls fresh as flowers, beamed upon them from the platform. Little Mary Cecily Rowantree and her brood was at the rear, where her young ones could ease their feelings by turning somersaults in the school doorway or by chasing an alarmed bunny.

Mr. Rowantree moved about from place to place, lending an academic aspect to the scene. Seated on the low, broad window sill, gay and lithe as a faun, was Keefe, with whom Azalea and Carin had been able to exchange little more than a nod. He still showed the effects of his illness, his eyes looked unnaturally large and his mouth was strangely sensitive; but he was more charming than ever. He had a sketching pad and pencil with him, and in the most engaging manner he sketched the heads of those in the room. He seemed very far away to Azalea—very much a creature of some brighter, lighter world than that in which she dwelt. She felt in her heart that he was going on to things of which she would know nothing—to a successful life in some great city. He would know artists and the most interesting sort of folks. He would live in strange, delightful places; he would travel. She and Sunset Gap would be only a fading, picturesque thought in his memory.

But all that foolish fretting and fuming, she told herself severely, was over and done with. She was Azalea McBirney, with her chosen work to do. Things were as they were; not dreams, not charming visions, but just plain facts, plain needs, plain work. Moreover, life was all the better for being as it was. If the body needed simple bread more than candies, so the spirit needed the plain bread of life more than delicacies.