CHAPTER VI
STUDYING IN VACATION
Anticipation of some unusual happening woke Ellen early on Monday morning. She lay for an instant staring at the whitewashed walls, at the carved pineapples tipping the posts of her huge bed, and finally at a picture above her bureau in which General Washington, in red trousers, a sky-blue coat, and white wig, bowed to the admiring applause of a large throng.
She sat up, clasped her hands about her knees, and looked down upon the wheat-field where already the first swath had been cut by hand and where the reaper, driven by Matthew, was about to begin its more rapid work. At once she sprang from bed. It was Monday and a harvest day and Manda would be cross. Saturday and Sunday had been, in spite of their woe, interesting, but to-day promised only dullness.
But to-day was to have an interest of its own. She washed the dishes and peeled a mammoth bowl of potatoes, then she made up the beds, spreading the covers with care and beating the pillows vigorously. When she had finished, she heard her name called and went down to the office. Her father sat at his desk, a score of little white papers before him on each of which he was laying a bit of powder from a wide-mouthed jar. He seemed to fit in less well than usual with his surroundings, the old book-cases, the rag carpet, the worn furniture.
"Shut the door, Ellen."
Ellen did as she was bid. She lifted a corner of the ugly gingham apron which hung far below the bottom of her skirt and wiped her perspiring face. It was exactly a gesture of Mrs. Sassaman's.
"Take your apron out to the kitchen!" Levis spoke with unreasonable sharpness, not toward Ellen, but toward the apron.
"Now, Ellen"—when the last of the little powders had been folded—"I don't believe that all mental activity should cease because the weather is warm. For two hours each day—morning or afternoon or evening, whichever pleases you and Mrs. Sassaman—you are to sit on yonder chair and study. Each day I shall set you a lesson which you must have ready by the next day. The machinery in your head is good, but it needs steady use. First we shall have an examination. I've marked on that paper a number of sums which I selected from your arithmetic. There are twenty of them. Then here"—Levis opened a little book—"is something new. It's absurd that you shouldn't have been taught about your own body. To-morrow morning at this time, I'll expect you to tell me about these ten pages and to show me your examples. Get them done neatly."
Ellen grew pale with the intensity of her emotions. The lesson seemed long, but she was not one to hesitate when things were hard.