“One, two, three—keep the wrists low, raise the fingers high; one, two, three; one, two, three!” I can feel the touch of the bamboo rod now, as she places my hands in the proper position above the keyboard.
After the music lesson came arithmetic.
“No, Maud, seven times nine do not make fifty-four. Try again!”
This from Miss Julia, firmly holding my wandering gaze with her great smoldering eyes. I can only look and look, with almost a lover’s gaze, at the glorious wave of her dusky hair swept back from the perfect brow, and calculate the weight of the great shining coil at the nape of her neck. When she smiles, the sight of her small perfect teeth, and the dimple that breaks the oval of her olive cheek, stir me to a mighty effort. For her—not for Greenleaf—I master the multiplication table; for her bend the full force of my will to make a fair copy of the wise sentences, written out in her neat pointed hand. On Saturday mornings, I am the first to arrive and place my little chair close to hers for the sewing lesson.
“There is no choice; the thimble always on the third finger of the right hand. Do not pucker the cloth; hold the two edges firmly together, the stitch not too deep.” So Miss Julia exhorts, while I bend my obstinate fingers in a desperate effort to sew a fine seam; and in the end learn, after a fashion, to hem, over and over, stitch, backstitch, buttonhole, darn,—all, all for her!
“Half-past eleven. Recess. Have a good play; bring me back some roses in your cheeks!”
So she dismisses us to those quiet streets of Beacon Hill, where we are safe in our romping as in a walled garden. Those in funds rush round the corner, to break breathlessly into Marm Horn’s tiny shop on Charles Street; she is waiting for us, her eye on the clock. The Marm wears shining brown side curls, that fit neatly into the hollows of her sallow cheeks. She is slim and rather elegant in her stiff alpaca apron and black silk half-mits.
“What’s the good word to-day?” Her invariable greeting.
The best word was “Jessups”, but that implied five cents in your pocket, which purchased a very thick stick of candy, done up in brown paper, stamped chocolate, lemon, or strawberry. For two cents, you got a stick of black molasses candy and a pickled lime from the big bowl, like a goldfish’s, in the window. It took courage, as well as bravado, to eat that bitter lime, bought solely because at home all pickled “abominations” were forbidden.