After a while I had an opportunity to go home, as I continued to call Miss Grimshaw’s, more perhaps because Jennie lived there than any thing else. All the weeks that I had been at school, Jennie had been studying; and that evening she had much to tell me of her lessons, many questions to ask, and explanations to go over. She had taken up philosophy and natural science; and her quick understanding seemed to grasp easily what it had taken me a long time to learn.
“There is one exercise that you have,” she said at tea, “that I should like very much, and that is composition.”
“Composition!” and I laughed heartily; for the week before I had listened to a knot of girls as they spoke particularly of their dislike of this exercise above all others.
“If you desire to write compositions,” I replied, trying to look grave, “I do not see why you may not write them here. I have to write them, and I try to do my best. I can’t say how little I might do if I was not obliged to do it.”
“Yes, but how am I to know if they are correctly written?”
“You can see that they are spelled rightly, written and folded neatly. Put your thought into the very best language you have. The second time it will be easier than the first, and so on. Write just as you would talk, easy, naturally, and without effort. These are the rules Mr. Harlan gave me. I will find some one to correct them for you.”
Besides composition, Jennie had to tell me about her pupil, for young as she was she had turned teacher.
“He is a big boy, nearly as large as you are, Marston; but I felt so sorry for him. He said his father and mother were both dead, and he had no one to care for him, no one to mind whether he was bad or good; that he did try to work, and Mr. Wyman turned him away: he forgot one night to put up the bars, and the cows got into the corn. He was sorry, and would not have neglected it again; yet Mr. Wyman would not believe him, but told him he had nothing more for him to do. I couldn’t help telling him that if he would come in every evening I would teach him arithmetic; and sure enough, he has been in regularly, and is studying in good earnest.”
“Pray what is your pupil’s name?”
“Ezra Metcalf. Oh, brother, you know he is a big boy; but he has never had anybody to tell him how to be good. He goes to Sabbath-school too;” and she looked eagerly for my approval.