The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
How she loved that poem, how vividly the whole scene seemed to lie before her, and how her very soul thrilled as she gave life to the stirring words!
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
Suddenly from among the audience one face seemed to leap before her eyes,—white, set, terrified. Tom! And beside him, leaning forward as he stood near the door, his face grim and threatening, was her father! Her surroundings were forgotten; she seemed to be standing beside the dusty road again with a pail of blackberries at her feet; and with gaze rivetted upon those two figures in the back of the hall, she recited:
Slap, if you dare, you old gray head,
I'll scratch like a—cat—till you'll wish you were dead.
Was there a titter behind her, were the faces in the audience smiling? Was Miss Brooks speaking her name, were someone's arms around her trying to drag her to her seat? It seemed an age that she stood there, words frozen on her lips, heart that seemed to have ceased its beating, and eyes that looked without seeing. Then, pausing for neither hat nor cape, she plunged down from the platform, fled blindly through the aisle and rushed out of the open door.
Up the rocky path she stumbled, but stopped on the summit of the first rise. What was the use of running away? He would find her and the punishment would come sooner or later. It might as well come now and be over with. Up on the nearest boulder she crept and waited, a heap of frozen misery. Would he remain until the exercises were over? How would he punish her?
The waiting was short, although to her it seemed hours before the parents and children came out of the hall and dispersed to their various homes. A few passed her on the trail, but she did not see them—not even Carrie, sobbing aloud as she stumbled along beside her mother.
When they were all gone, her father suddenly stood before her. When he came, or how he got there, she did not know.