Miss Friggs, who was 'quite one of the family,' and had lived in it so long that I believe she almost persuaded herself that she had been born in it, 'did' her own room—which was perfectly appalling with its fearful neatness. There was not a thread on the carpet, nor a particle of dust in the corners; and the bed, when made up, was as accurately proportioned as though it had all been scientifically measured off. I have caught glimpses of Miss Friggs going about this business with her head carefully tied up, as though it might burst with the immensity of her ideas on the subject; and when she had finished, you might have eaten off the floor—that is, if you preferred it to a table. This was her one occupation in life, and she did it thoroughly; but it seemed too sad to have so few occupations that any could be accomplished in so faultless a manner.
Fired with honest but misguided zeal, I one morning entered the lists against Miss Friggs in a vain attempt to make my own bed; but those horrid feathers acted like the things in the Philosopher's Scales, for when some were up, others were down; neither north nor south, east nor west would agree to terms of equality, and it was impossible to bring them to any sort of compromise.
I related my experience to Mrs. Bull; and when I assured her that I had crawled all over the bed in the vain attempt to bring some order out of chaos, she was more amused, in her quiet way, than I had ever known her to be. She desired me, however, to leave the room, to her in future, as she enjoyed it, and I could not be expected to do everything. I did not interfere with her measures again.
A lesson had been given me to look over; and on Mr. Summers's first visit to me, in Mrs. Bull's parlor, I felt as if he had been a dentist with evil designs on my largest grinder. He was as cool as though he had been fifty and I five, and behaved himself generally as though it were a very common thing for youthful principals to give private lessons to their young lady-teachers.
Mr. Bull had made a fire, which was another talent that I discovered in him; and Mrs. Bull had given the room as much of a look of comfort as a room can have that is very seldom used. The good woman had even placed a dish of apples and doughnuts on a table in the corner—which, she said, were always on hand when Mr. Bull was paying his addresses to her; but the family did not appear to put any such construction on Mr. Summer's visits to me. I had told them that we had a great deal of school business in common; and they seemed to think it quite natural that we should have.
And to business Mr. Summers proceeded immediately on his arrival, throwing me into a state of complete confusion by asking me questions not definitely set down in the book, and calmly allowing me to blunder through to something like an end without the least interruption or assistance. I, whose childhood had for some time been made miserable by the question of a sharp schoolmate, 'Which is the heaviest—a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?' and her calm persistence that they were both alike, in spite of my passionate denial in favor of lead, was not likely to distinguish myself at these sittings; and whatever I had hitherto admired in Mr. Summers was now eclipsed by my appreciation of his extraordinary patience.
'You must think me a perfect fool!' I exclaimed, unguardedly.
'No,' replied my imperturbable companion, 'I consider you a very fair average.'
I bit my lip in anger at myself, and turned assiduously to my slate and pencil.
'You will take that for next time,' said my preceptor, rising at the end of an hour, and calling my attention to a portion that he had marked in pencil, 'when I shall be more particular about your recitations. Good evening.'