The county superintendent had enclosed a kind little note with the certificate, and had spoken personally to her father, commending her work very highly. Hilda felt that she had a right to be proud.
But the certificate in itself was not worth much. Its chief value lay in the fact that it entitled her to teach if she could get a school. And how she did want a school! She dreamed of it by night and talked of it by day.
Her father’s announcement that there was a vacancy so near home raised her hopes again. If she could get the place she could save all her salary, for the schoolhouse was so near that she could board at home, as her mother had said. She must get it, that was all. And she felt that she must go alone. Mr. Kenyon made no objection this time, and Mrs. Kenyon consented on the condition that Hilda would allow herself to be well bundled up for the long, cold ride.
Hilda readily consented to this, but she almost rued her bargain in the morning when her mother insisted on putting a large coat of her own over Hilda’s and in tying a scarf over the warm hood, and when the girl had climbed on the horse she had wrapped a warm shawl about her.
“How in the world am I to get on and off again with all this stuff, mamma?” she asked. “I feel as wrapped up as a mummy. I know I’ll frighten all the horses I meet.”
It was well, perhaps, that she could not see herself, for she certainly cut rather a ridiculous figure. Added to all the rest, she was riding her father’s saddle. The right stirrup had been thrown over, and in this her foot rested, while the left stirrup dangled below. She had never been fortunate enough to possess a side-saddle, and had often ridden in this way about the farm.
But she could not help feeling a little sensitive about her appearance on this occasion, which meant so much to her, and she wished her mother would not be so fussy.
As she drew near Mr. Johnston’s house, she considered.
It would take her some time to disentangle herself from her many wrappings, and to any one watching from the house she would present rather a ridiculous appearance in her necessarily clumsy efforts to dismount.
So she halted old Selim some distance from the front gate, and here, hidden by the trees, she divested herself of her extra garments.