Mr. McEvoy had gone down to Bee Tree to get the three horses which Mr. Carson was having sent up. Mustard and Paprika were coming, with a gentle old nag which had been one of Miss Zillah’s best friends for many years and which bore the name of Minerva. So, the house being tidied, the four women folk started out—Mis’ Cassie acting as guide—and went to look at the schoolhouse and the little cabin where Miss Zillah was to set up housekeeping with the girls.
The log schoolhouse, which had been unused for four years, lay four-square to the compass, facing the purple south. Not that the south had any advantage over the other points of the compass in regard to its color. All the world, except, of course, the immediate foreground, was purple up at Sunset Gap. The mountains threw up peak after peak through the purple dimness, and the sky itself lost something of its blue brightness because of the purple veils which drifted between it and the sweet-smelling earth.
“Time was,” explained Mis’ Cassie, “when this here school was kep’ up fine. That was when the Ravenels lived over to the Hall. Mr. Theodore Ravenel was pore in his health and he come up this-away to git well. He and his wife and his children lived to the Hall—”
“What is the Hall? Where is it, please?” asked Azalea.
“It’s over beyant,” replied Mis’ Cassie, waving her hand vaguely toward the slope before them. “But he died, and Mis’ Ravenel took the childer’ and left. I reckon she would have given something toward keeping up the school if she could have spared the money, but she had four young ones to rear, and couldn’t see her way to it. The school and the teacher’s house is just as she left it. My old man’s kept an eye on things. He vowed he wouldn’t see the place tore to pieces. Thar was plenty hereabouts who would ‘a’ helped theirselves to the furniture and fixings if he’d let ’em, but he said, no, anybody who had the gift of peering into the future could see that sometime that school would be set up here ag’in. And what he said has come true.”
“Yes, it has, hasn’t it?” cried Azalea, delighted as she always was at any sign of friendliness and hopefulness in the world. “Do hurry, Mrs. McEvoy, please; I’m just wild to see how the schoolhouse looks.”
Mis’ Cassie slipped the huge key in the door and the four entered the musty schoolroom. It was, as mountain schools go, a well-equipped room. There was a fireplace on one side for comfort in mildly chill weather, and a large sheet iron stove on the other for use on colder days. The teacher’s platform was backed by a blackboard; there were good desks for both pupils and teacher, and comfortable seats with backs to them. The room was well lighted, and no dirtier than might be expected. It is needless to say, however, that Miss Zillah’s first thought was of the cleaning it must undergo.
“Where can I find some one to do the cleaning for us, Mrs. McEvoy?” she asked. “We must have everything scrubbed and the walls whitewashed.”
“Well,” said Mis’ Cassie, “I’d take pride in cleaning out, and Miles, he could whitewash.”
“But are you strong enough?” asked Miss Zillah kindly. “Taking medicine all the time as you do, I’m afraid you oughtn’t to do such hard work.”