That was a good beginning even though between beginning and finishing may be a hilly road. But it was Harry's belief that every one loved adventure, every one dreamed of romantic deeds with himself the hero. From this she had decided that every one would work and study with gusto if the task were skillfully presented to the imagination as a living, pulsing part of the great romance—life. But the theories which she had evolved while teaching carefully reared girls from well-to-do families was not certain to fit all cases. The first month at Stone Bridge district school was destructive to all theories and nearly baffled her.
Such unexpected work she had: to make children wash their faces and hands; to make and enforce the rule that handkerchiefs were to be universally carried; to watch those who came in thin shoes through the snow and rain and make them dry their feet; to see that certain big boys did not filch the lunches from certain small, timid ones; and to watch that pencils, erasers, colored crayons and other small belongings were not carried off by those to whom they did not belong. Also, she bought mittens and scarfs for two small children of a hard-drinking sawyer at the lumber mill, and acquired the habit of carrying something extra with her lunch every day for the little girl who never had enough.
"And all the time I'm learning a lot from them," she realized when she saw them settle things for themselves. When red-headed Katie Riordan jumped out and slapped "Portagee Joe" Biane, the worst boy in school, for sticking his foot out and tripping little Lon Fisher, it took Harry's breath away. She hadn't been intended to see it because she was working at the board. Not knowing what to do, she waited to think it over. In the meanwhile, Joe let Lon alone and Katie was as sweet as new milk to every one.
Every day she saw things which made her bubble with laughter, ache with pity and burn with indignation: the blacksmith's three children who came to school on one horse, their feet tied up in sacks full of straw to keep them from freezing; Knute Sundstron, who wore neither socks nor undershirt and swallowed a spoonful of sand to cure indigestion, asking to sit by the door where his feet might not get warm and make his chilblains itch; Charlie Martin, an only child who loved books with a ruling passion but was not allowed to carry them home from the school library because they "littered up the house," slipping them inside the lining of his overcoat in order to smuggle them into his room; and Isita Biane, the sister of "Portagee Joe," pretending that she didn't want to go out to play at noontime, when the reason was that she had no jacket and couldn't run or play in the man's overcoat in which she rode to school.
Of all these, amongst all the children in school Isita most appealed to Harry. She was a puzzle, too. She said she was fourteen but looked small for her age and was far behind the class she should have been in. She stumbled hopelessly over her arithmetic, could scarcely write her name legibly and yet spoke good English and could read remarkably well.
She studied earnestly, but at times Harry would look up and find the girl's gentle, black eyes on her with a timid steadfastness that stayed with her after school. "I wonder if she isn't badly treated at home," she pondered. "I'm sure I've seen bruises on her face and she seems to be utterly submissive to that hulking brother of hers. I must try to make friends with her."
But oddly enough this was something which she could not quite bring about. She knew Isita liked her; the faint flush which brightened her face when Harry spoke to her, the shy answering smile, were not to be mistaken. But there was a reserve which met Harry's attempts at active friendliness and which she was too well bred to force. "I'm a stranger and she isn't quite sure of me," she decided. "If I wait she'll come round." And then, the very next day she yielded to a kindly impulse which had strange consequences.
It was one of those cloudless days in January when the sun, so hot at midday in that altitude, shone with a terrible brilliance over the snow-draped mountains and the white valley. But a freezing wind contested the sun's warmth and Harry was walking up and down during the noon recess in the shelter of the building while the schoolroom aired.
Most of the children were playing shadow-tag, shouting and laughing, their faces scarlet with their exertions and the bite of the air. Harry paused, smiling at them, and suddenly noticed Isita, standing alone in her clumsy sheepskin coat, watching the others.
As at a hand on her wrist Harry stiffened. "Isita," she called lightly. "Oh, Isita. Come here a minute."