“If I could only help,” Madeline said one evening when they sat talking over their troubles; “but there’s nothing I can do, unless I apply for our school this summer. Mr. Green is the committee-man; he likes us, and I don’t believe but what he’ll let me have it. I mean to go and see;” and, before the old people had recovered from their astonishment, Madeline had caught her bonnet and shawl and was flying down the road.
Madeline was a favorite with all, especially with Mr. Green, and as the school would be small that summer, the plan struck him favorably. Her age, however, was an objection, and he must take time to inquire what others thought of a child like her becoming a school-mistress. The people thought well of it, and before the close of the next day it was generally known through Honedale, as the southern part of Devonshire was called, that pretty little Maddy Clyde had been engaged as teacher, and was to receive three dollars a week, with the understanding that she must board herself. It did not take Madeline long to calculate that twelve times three dollars were thirty-six dollars, more than a tenth of what her grandfather must borrow. It seemed like a little fortune, and blithe as a singing bird she flitted about the house, now stopping a moment to fondle her pet kitten, while she whispered the good news in its very appreciative ear, and then stroking her grandfather’s silvery hair, as she said:
“You can tell them that you are sure of paying thirty-six dollars in the fall, and if I do well, maybe they’ll hire me longer. I mean to try my very best. I wonder if ever anybody before me taught a school when they were only fourteen and a half. Do I look as young as that?” and for an instant the bright, childish face scanned itself eagerly in the old-fashioned mirror, with the figure of an eagle on the top.
She did look very young, and yet there was something womanly too in the expression of the face, something which said that life’s realities were already beginning to be understood by her.
“If my hair were not short I should do better. What a pity I cut it the last time. It would have been so long and splendid now,” she continued, giving a kind of contemptuous pull at the thick, beautiful brown hair, on which there was in certain lights a reddish tinge, which added to its richness and beauty.
“Never mind the hair, Maddy,” the old man said, gazing fondly at her with a half sigh as he remembered another brown head, pillowed now beneath the graveyard-turf. “Maybe you won’t pass muster, and then the hair will make no differ. There’s a new committee-man, that Dr. Holbrook, from Boston, and new ones are apt to be mighty strict, and especially young ones like him. They say he is mighty larned, and can speak in furrin tongues.”
Instantly Maddy’s face flushed with nervous dread, as she thought, “What if I should fail?” fancying that to do so would be an eternal disgrace. But she should not fail. She was called by everybody the very best scholar in the Honedale school, the one whom the teachers always put forward when desirous of showing off, the one whom Mr. Tiverton, and Squire Lamb, and Lawyer Whittemore always noticed and praised so much. Of course she should not fail, though she did dread Dr. Holbrook, wondering much what he would ask her first, and hoping it would be something in arithmetic, provided he did not stumble upon decimals, where she was apt to get bewildered. She had no fears of grammar. She could pick out the most obscure sentence and dissect a double relative with perfect ease; then, as to geography, she could repeat whole pages of that; while in the spelling-book, the foundation of a thorough education, as she had been taught, she had no superiors, and but few equals. Still, she would be very glad when it was over, and she appointed Monday, both because it was close at hand, and because that was the day her grandfather had set in which to ride to Aikenside, in an adjoining town, and ask its young master for the loan of three hundred dollars.
He could hardly tell why he had thought of applying to Guy Remington for help, unless it were that he once had saved the life of Guy’s father, who, as long as he lived, had evinced a great regard for his benefactor, frequently asserting that he meant to do something for him. But the something was never done, the father was dead, and in his strait the old man turned to the son, whom he knew to be very rich, and who, he had been told, was exceedingly generous.
“How I wish I could go with you clear up to Aikenside! They say it’s so beautiful,” Madeline had said, as on Saturday evening they sat discussing the expected events of the following Monday. “Mrs. Noah, the housekeeper, had Sarah Jones there once, to sew, and she told me all about it. There are graveled walks, and nice green lawns, and big, tall trees, and flowers—oh! so many!—and marble fountains, with gold fishes in the basin; and statues, big as folks, all over the yard, with two brass lions on the gate-posts. But the house is finest of all. There’s a drawing-room bigger than a ball-room, with carpets that let your feet sink in so far; pictures and mirrors clear to the floor—think of that, grandpa! a looking-glass so tall that one can see the very bottom of her dress and know just how it hangs. Oh, I do so wish I could have a peep at it! There are two in one room, and the windows are like doors, with lace curtains; but what is queerest of all, the chairs and sofas are covered with real silk, just like that funny gored gown of grandma’s up in the oak chest. Dear me! I wonder if I’ll ever live in such a place as Aikenside?”
“No, no, Maddy, no. Be satisfied with the lot where God has put you, and don’t be longing after something higher. Our Father in Heaven knows just what is best for us; as He didn’t see fit to put you up at Aikenside, ’tain’t no ways likely you’ll ever live in the like of it.”