Taking from her purse two bills, she put them in an envelope addressed to Esther, added a hurried little letter, stamped it and was just wondering how she would get it to the post when she saw Meg Heger coming down the road on her pony. Although she herself would not ask a favor of the mountain girl, she called Julie and requested that she hail Meg and ask her to mail the letter. Not until it was done did Jane face her conscience. Had she any right to use the tax money for a necklace? She shrugged her shoulders. What would two weeks more or less matter?
CHAPTER XX.
MEG AS SCHOOL-MISTRESS
Upon arriving in Redfords, Meg Heger had at once given the letter which had been marked “Important! Rush!” to the innkeeper, who was about to start for the station to meet the eastbound train. He promised the girl to attend to putting the letter on the train himself, and thus assured that she had served her neighbors to the best of her ability, Meg went across the road to the school, only to find that her good friend, Teacher Bellows, was not to be there that day as he had been sent for by a dying mountaineer in his capacity as preacher, and had left word that he wished Meg to hear the younger children recite, and dismiss them at two, which was an hour earlier than usual.
Nothing pleased the girl more than to have an opportunity to practice the art of instruction, since that was to be her chosen life work, and a very happy morning she had with the dozen and one pupils, queer little specimens of childhood, although, indeed, several of them were beyond that, being long, lanky boys and girls in their teens. They, one and all, loved Meg devotedly and considered it a rare treat to have her in charge of the class. This happened quite often, as, in his double capacity as preacher as well as teacher, the kindly old man had various calls upon his time; some of them taking him so far into the mountains that he was obliged to be gone for days at a time.
Meg had a charming way, quite her own, of teaching, with story and word pictures. Even the master had to concede that she was more fitted by nature than he was to instruct the child mind. At two o’clock, when the young teacher dismissed her class, they flocked about her as she crossed the road to the inn.
The tallest among her pupils, a rancher’s daughter, who was indeed as old as Meg, put an arm lovingly about her as she said, “When yer through with yer schoolin’, don’t I hope yo’ll come back to Redfords an’ be our teacher.”
The mountain girl laughed. “Why, Ann Skittle!” she teased. “You will be married, with a home of your own, by the time that I am ready to teach. You are seventeen, now, aren’t you?”
Ann’s sunburned face flushed suddenly and her unexpected embarrassment caused Meg to believe that she had guessed more accurately than she had supposed. “Yeah, I’m seventeen. But I’ll be eighteen before snowfall, an’ then Hank Griggs an’ me’s goin’ to be married. He’s pa’s hired man. A new one from Arizony.”
“Then why should you care whether or not I teach the Redford school?” Meg turned at the lowest step of the inn porch to inquire. Her dark eyes seemed always to hold a kindly interest in whatever they looked upon, were it a hurt little animal or, as at that moment, a girl who had not been endowed with much natural intelligence.
Ann Skittle, again visibly embarrassed, stood looking down, twisting one corner of her apron as she said in a low voice: “Me an’ Hank is like to have kiddies an’ I’d be wishin’ you could teach ’em.”