As he walked slowly up the narrow bricked walk to the house, he noticed how the chestnut roots and the frost together had heaved up the bricks and rendered the walk irregular. He wondered anxiously if she could walk over it in those shoes, and as he reached his door, which stood open under its old-fashioned porch, revealing a dusky cool vista beyond, he suddenly saw, as in a vision, a woman's shape stand between the lintels, waiting for him!—a woman with slender hands outstretched in welcome, grave grey eyes, soft hair, tender lips: the woman he loved: his own. As this last thought, the sweetest thought man's heart holds, formulated itself in his mind, Andrew knew the truth. He turned down the path, past the apple-tree, through the lindens again, and across his fields, until once more he looked upon the house wherein she rested. He looked at it long from the shelter of his trees, his whole existence resolved into a chaos of uncertain self-communings, until a voice like an angel's seemed to whisper of comfort and to sing of hope.
Then he went home, and at four o'clock betook himself to the school-house to attend the meeting in regard to appointing a new teacher.
The village school-house stood at the end of the street farthest away from the Cutler homestead. It was a bleak, stone building, with a wooden porch—a gaunt, bare, uninviting-looking building, with none of those picturesque adjuncts of climbing vines and overarching trees, associated so often with thoughts of a country school.
It had a perky, self-satisfied little bell-house on top, and its date, 1865, was rudely carved on a big stone in the peak of the north gable. It had eight windows—three at each side, two at one end. In winter, the wood for the box stove was always piled up outside before these. There were always complaints of the school-house being dark in winter, yet it never occurred to any one to select a different site for the wood-pile.
The interior of the school-house corresponded in dinginess to the outside. The plaster walls were sadly soiled, particularly beneath the broad window seats, where the children sat kicking their heels whilst they ate their lunches at noon, for the scholars were drawn principally from the outlying farm-houses. A long length of irregularly jointed pipes led the smoke from the box stove at the end to an exit over the teacher's desk. Little tin pails were hung at intervals along this, to catch the black liquid distilled from the soot. The other adornments of the room consisted of a long blackboard, a globe, and some big lettered tablets, round which the teacher was wont to gather the infant class and teach them their letters.
In the politics of a little village like Ovid, the smallest public measures became magnified to grotesque importance. The usual custom was for the school trustees to sit in private session first, when any particular business was to be arranged, say, the selection of a teacher, and when this was arranged the doors were flung wide and the meeting was "open." These open school meetings were always well attended. They were the classes in which embryotic statesmen acquired the political alphabet, the ABC of political procedure, the manner of putting a motion, taking a vote, making a nomination, and the correct order of precedence governing the motions and amendments. There too, was acquired the first great requisite of a politician,—the art of saying non-committal things in a most convincing tone of voice, and of treating with much politeness those whom one held in secret abhorrence.
There were two offices, those of school trustee and pathmaster, and these two were equal in power and glory. True, they were barren honours, but they ofttimes led to better things. The school trustee had the higher position in one respect: he was chosen by the people at first hand. The pathmaster, upon the contrary, was appointed by the Council. It is needless to say the school trustee smiled in calm superiority at the pathmaster, and the latter in turn felt the making of the roads wherein the whole community walked, was as holy an office as the task of guiding the juvenile wanderers into the school, and seeing that when there, they trod the common road to knowledge, it being well known that there is no royal road thereto.
When Andrew arrived at the school-house, the other two trustees, Hiram Green who kept the village store, and Hen Braddon, were present. They immediately entered upon a discussion of the teacher question. The application of Sam Symmons' Suse lay upon the table, written out upon foolscap paper, in big round hand, with many flourishing capitals, rejoicing in "shaded" heads and beautifully involved tails.
"I tell you Suse is a good list with a pen," said Hen Braddon, with conviction, and the other two agreed. "She ain't no slouch at spelling either," said Hiram Green. The other two agreed with this also. Then Andrew took up his parable.
"Yes," he said, "Suse is quite smart, and being bred right here in Ovid seems to give her a claim to the school. I suggest we just appoint her."