Drip, drip—spatter, spatter! How the rain comes down, as if it couldn’t help it; no prospect of “holding up.”
Here come messengers from anxious mothers, with India rubbers, extra tippets, and umbrellas; and there’s a chaise at the door for Squire Lennox’s little rosy daughter; and a waggon for the two Prince girls; and a stout Irish girl, with a blanket shawl, to carry home little lame Minnie May, who is as fragile as a lily, and just as sweet. And there’s a servant man for Master Simpkins, the fat dunce with the embroidered jacket, whose father owns “the big Hotel, and wishes his son to have a seat all by himself.”
And now they are all gone;—all save little Bessie Bell, the new scholar—a little four-year-older, who is doing penance over in the corner for “a misdemeanour.”
Bessie’s mother is a widow. She has known such bright, sunny days, in the shelter of a happy home, with a dear arm to lean upon! Now her sweet face is sad and care-worn, and when she speaks, her voice has a heart-quiver in it: but, somehow, when she talks to you, you do not notice that her dress is faded, or her bonnet shabby and rusty: You instinctively touch your hat to her, and treat her very courteously, as if she were a fine lady.
As I said before, this is little Bessie’s first day at school; for she is light, and warmth, and sunshine to her broken-hearted mother. But little Bessie must have bread to eat. A shop-woman offered her mother a small pittance to come and help her a part of every day; but she is not to bring her child; so Bessie must go to school to be out of harm’s way, and her mother tells Miss Prim, as she seats her on the hard bench, that “she is very timid and tender-hearted;” and then she kisses Bessie’s little quivering lip, and leaves her with a heavy heart.
Bessie dare not look up for a few minutes;—it is all very odd and strange, and if she were not so frightened she would cry aloud. By and by she gains a little courage, and peeps out from beneath her drooping eye-lashes. Her little pinafore neighbour gives her a sweet smile—it makes her little heart so happy, that she throws her little dimpled arms about her neck and says (out loud), “I love you!”
Poor, affectionate little Bessie! she didn’t know that that was a “misdemeanour;” had she ever seen that bugbear, a “School Committee.” Miss Prim had;—and Miss Prim never wasted her lungs talking; so she leisurely untied her black silk apron from her virgin waist, and proceeded to make an African of little Bessie, by pinning it tightly over her face and head—an invention which herself and “the Committee” considered the ne plus ultra of discipline. Bessie struggled, and said she “never would kiss anybody again—never—never;” but Miss Prim was inexorable; and as her victim continued to utter smothered cries, Miss Prim told her “that she would keep her after the other children had gone home.”
One class after another recited; Bessie’s sobs became less loud and frequent, and Miss Prim flattered herself, now that they had ceased altogether, that she was quite subdued, and congratulated herself complacently upon her extraordinary talent for “breaking in new beginners.”
And now, school being done, the children gone, her bonnet and India rubbers being put on, and all her spinster “fixings” settled to her mind, visions of hot tea and buttered toast began to float temptingly through her brain, and suggest the propriety of Bessie’s release.
“Bessie!”—no answer. “Bessie!”—no reply. Miss Prim laid the ferule across the little fat shoulders. Bessie didn’t wince. Miss Prim unpinned the apron to confront the face that was bold enough to defy her and “the Committee.” Little Bessie was dead!