“Well, then, that’s disposed of,” she resumed. “We could charge $100 a year to each pupil I have checked on this list, and let the others come in free. Bardek and Gorgas and I would serve without pay. I don’t need it and the other two are making lots of money. They really ought to contribute something. We can guarantee you, with your lectures and your rentals,” she verified carefully the totals in her memoranda, “two thousand a year at the least, which ought to be enough. When we can afford it we’ll take all your time. And we’ll see about those houses of yours, too; just put them in my hands and I’ll boost your cash account, I have some of that same sort of property myself and you bet your buttons I don’t let any agent monkey with them.”
Gorgas bounded in with a roseate greeting, and after her gown had been admired the project was gone over again.
“I’d love it,” she chirped. “Let me pay all the bills. I’ve got loads of money.”
They talked of the business and of the proposal for awhile and then drifted into an animated discussion of methods. The children must spend the whole day with them. There would be a fine midday dinner, a powerful educational instrument. They would teach the three r’s and all the informational necessities, but they would also cultivate the graces of cheerfulness, unselfishness, fair play, courage, restraint and table manners. There should be no scoldings and no punishments; and while they might talk and sing and even dance in languages, there should be no conjugations! And there would be tree climbing, and sledding, baseball and tennis and swimming and skating and riding, and dancing, all a part of the course of study. They even got so far as outlining a prospectus and selecting a name. Of a host of suggestions, “Top-o’-the-Hill” remained first choice.
“It is from the top of that hill,” said Blynn, “that I always see Whittier’s ‘dun files of Krisheim’s home-bound cows’ and hear them clanking their bells up the rough road. Do you know, milady,” he turned to Kate, “that John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a considerable poem on our little Valley?”
“Did he?” she asked, with a smiling lack of interest. “I am not very poetic, you know—just a practical person who owns some earth, the very spot for your school.”
A messenger-boy bicycled slowly along the road, peering here and there at houses on either side. He stopped to inquire at the Williams’ and came back to the Levering gate. Mrs. Levering walked forward. Gorgas, Kate, and Allen were lost in their discussion.
“It’s a telegram for you, Mr. Blynn,” Mrs. Levering handed him the envelope. “Your mother sent him over here. It is prepaid. I have signed for you.”
His face, after he had read the paper carefully, gave the three women a fright, but he hastened to reassure them.
“Perhaps it is good news,” he said; “I don’t know. It really frightens me.” He searched their faces hesitantly, then decided. “I am told to keep this information strictly to myself, but I’m sure it will not do harm to tell you, especially Gorgas and Kate, after all your beautiful plans. I’m afraid they’re knocked sky-high. It is from Diccon. He is at Holden now attending a special meeting of the trustees. Oh, it’s really dreadful.”