“Why,” returned Mrs. Ross, “Dell’s kinder settin’ her cap for him, and I guess he’s a snickerin’ notion after her. Any way he comes there pretty often. Well, he was there the week after the examination, and told ’em about you. He said you was bright as a new guinea, and had better larnin’ than half the teachers, and then you had such a sweet name—Rose—he liked it. You orto have seen how mad Dell was at you after he was gone. I don’t b’lieve she’ll ever git over it.”
Here Ike called out that “the Johnny-cake was burnt blacker than his hat,” and forthwith Mrs. Ross started for the house, first bidding me “keep dark,” and telling me she hoped “I wouldn’t be partial to Mr. Randall’s children, for they needed lickin’ if ever young ones did—they warn’t brought up like Isick, who was governed so well at home that he didn’t need it at school.”
I was learning to read the world’s great book fast—very fast—and with a slightly heavy heart I turned away, pausing once while Mrs. Ross, from the doorstep, called to me, saying, that “she guessed I’d better give Isick the seat to-morrow, seem’ his heart was set on’t.”
I found Mrs. Randall waiting to receive me in a clean gingham dress and apron, with her round, good-humored face shining as if it had been through the same process with the long line of snow-white linen, which was swinging in the clothes-yard. The little hair trunk had been removed to the “best room,” which was to be mine. The big rocking-chair was brought out for me, the round tea table, nicely spread, stood in the centre of the floor, and Mrs. Randall hoped I would make myself at home, and put up with her own rough ways if I could. To be sure, she didn’t have things quite as nice as Mrs. Captain Thompson, but she did as well as she knew how. Dear Mrs. Randall! how my heart warmed towards her; and as I took my seat at the table, and she helped me to a larger slice of pure white honeycomb than I had ever before been allowed to eat at one time, I felt that I would not exchange her house for a home at Capt. Thompson’s.
Without any intention of revealing what Mrs. Ross had imparted to me, I still felt a great curiosity to know Mrs. Randall’s opinion of her; so, after a time, I ventured to speak of my having seen her, and to ask when and where she taught school. With a merry laugh, Mrs. Randall replied, “I wonder, now, if she’s made your acquaintance so soon! She told you, I suppose, to come to her with all your troubles, for she knew just how to pity you, as she’d been a schoolma’am herself.”
My flushed cheeks betrayed the fact that Mrs. Randall had guessed rightly, and after a moment she continued: “Her keeping school amounts to this. When she was a girl, a friend of hers who was teaching wanted to go away for two days, and got Miss Ross, then Nancy Smedly, to take her place, and that’s the long and short of her experience. She’s a meddlesome woman, and makes more trouble in the District than anybody else. She tried to make Miss Brown think she was misused, because we wouldn’t hire her instead of you, who applied first, and for a spell, I guess Miss Brown was a little sideways, but she’s a sensible woman and has got all over it.”
I was about to tell her of the trouble between George and Ike, when she anticipated me by saying, “George says he and Ike Ross fit about a seat, and I’ve hired him to give it up peaceably, for if Miss Ross gets miffed in the beginning, there’s no knowing what kind of a row she’ll raise, and you are so young I feel kinder tender of you.”
If there were tears in my eyes, they were not tears of grief, and if I was pleased with Mrs. Randall before, I liked her ten times better now, for I saw in her a genuine sincerity which convinced me she was my friend indeed. To be sure, she was rather rough and unrefined, but her heart was right, and in her treatment of me, she was always kind and considerate, making ample allowance for my errors and warmly defending me when she thought I was misused. If in every District there were more like Mrs. Randall, the teacher’s lot would not be one half so hard to bear as oftentimes it is.
When I awoke next morning I heard the large raindrops pattering against the window, and on pushing aside the curtain, I saw that the dark heavy clouds betokened a dull rainy day. Involuntarily, I thought of the old garret at home, where on such occasions we always resorted, “raising Cain generally,” as Sally said, and when, with umbrella, blanket-shawl, and overshoes, I started for school, I looked and felt forlorn indeed. Raining as it was, it did not prevent Mrs. Ross from coming out with the table-spread over her head, to tell me that “though she never warn’t an atom particular, and never meant to interfere with teachers, as she knew just what it was, she did hope I’d give Isick the seat, and not be partial to George Randall.”
I replied that “I’d see to it,” and was hurrying along, when she again stopped me to know “what I’d got in my dinner basket that was good.”