Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

At the supper table it was whispered around that a new school-teacher had come to town. There were notices up at the corners and all the cross-roads. School was to "take up" on the morrow. Some of the people at the table looked suspiciously at the pretty young stranger sitting demurely by herself at the end of the table, and wondered if she were the new teacher, but others said no, she was entirely too young.

After supper Dawn went to the big book wherein were registered the names of the guests, and wrote down "Mary Montgomery" in a clear, round hand. Mr. Gillette watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye. As he saw her about to turn away, he said gruffly:

"Put down the place. We like to know where our folks belongs."

"Oh!" said Dawn, a pink flush stealing into her cheek. What should she put? Then, quick as a flash, she thought, "I have adopted a name—why should I not adopt a home, too? I am on my way to New York. If I do not remain here, I shall go there—if I can get there. I will choose New York for my home. It is a large place, and no one will expect me to know every one there. Besides, it will also stand for New York State."

So, without another word, she wrote "New York" beside her name. She might as well have written "Heaven," for it stood to her as a kind of final destination, far away and pleasant, the only place now that she could look to for a real home.

"You ain't the new schoolmarm, be you?" inquired the worthy proprietor of the Golden Swan cautiously.

"Why, yes," said Dawn, happily conscious, and laughing merrily to think of the word "schoolmarm" as applied to her who but yesterday was a scholar.

"Now, you don't say!" said the proprietor, settling back in his chair and putting his feet on the office table in front of him, while he shoved up his spectacles to get a better view of her. "Some said as how you was, but I couldn't think it. You look so young."

"Oh, I'm quite old," said Dawn anxiously. "I'm far older than I look." And she hurried away, lest she should be questioned further.

It was soon noised abroad that the new teacher was stopping at the Golden Swan, and many a villager dropped in to have a look at her. But she was nowhere in evidence. Up in the little whitewashed chamber, with her candle lighted and the shades drawn, she was standing before her tiny looking-glass, arrayed in her new, beruffled apron, and trying to look grave and dignified, and as much like Friend Ruth as possible.