Dawn had made the scholars write in their copy-books during the last hour of the afternoon. "Command you may your mind from play," straggled up and down a whole page in many of the books, while blots grew thick among the words, but no teacher wandered alertly up and down the aisles to watch and to correct; sometimes—oh, blessed honor!—to sit down and hold the quill pen, or, better still, take the dirty little fist of the writer into her own pink hand and guide the writing. The teacher sat behind a raised desk-lid, diligently writing, and took no heed of notes, or whittling, or even paper balls. Daniel Butterworth finally took Bug Higginson by the collar and stood him up behind the stove, but still the teacher wrote on.
It was a letter to the minister she was writing, and her young breast heaved with mingled emotions is she wrote. It was hard to have to leave this first school, where she had been so happy, and where she could still be so happy if she only had some one to protect her from the man who would probably haunt her through life. She had felt that she must make some brief explanation of her departure to the kind old man who had trusted her, and upon whom it would fall to explain her absence.
DEAR DR. MERCER [she wrote]:
You have been so very kind to me that it gives me much sorrow to tell you that I must go away. Something has happened that makes it necessary for me to go away at once. I cannot even wait to say good-by to you or any one else. I am so sorry, for I have been very happy here, and I have tried to do my best; and there is the singing-school this week, and the barn-raising where I promised to read them a story after supper, and my dear school! I love them all! Will you please tell everybody how sorry I am to go away like this? You have all been so good to me, and I shall never find a place I love so much as this, I am sure, but I truly cannot help going. If you knew all about it, you would understand. Please thank Mrs. Mercer for the pretty collar she gave me that belonged to your daughter, and tell her I will keep it always. I am sorry to leave you without a teacher, but there is almost a month's pay due me, and perhaps that will help you to get some one right away. So please forgive me for leaving the school just as it was when I got it. I love it, and wish I could stay.
Yours very gratefully,
MARY MONTGOMERY.
After folding, addressing, and sealing this letter, she closed her desk; then with sudden thought, as she caught Daniel's troubled eyes upon her, she opened it again and wrote hastily:
DEAR DANIEL:
I am having to go away in a great hurry. I cannot say good-by to anybody, but I must thank you for all you have done for me. I thank you more than words can ever tell. You cannot know how hard it is for me to go away from the school. Please study hard and try to be a good boy and then some day, when I hear of what a great man you are, I shall be so proud to have been your teacher. Go to college, Daniel, and be as great a man as you can, and don't forget that you have helped me very, very much ever since I came here.
YOUR GRATEFUL TEACHER.