Miss Ashton's New Pupil — 12 - Chapters XXIII and XXIV

CHAPTER XXIII. THE ACADEMY GIRL'S THANKSGIVING AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

Marion never knew that shortly after she fell asleep a tall, gaunt woman with a gray-and-white blanket over her shoulders stole softly into her room, holding her candle high above her bed, and standing over, peered down at her.

As she gazed, a half-smile crept into her rugged face.

"Pretty creatur!"

she said aloud; then, with deft and careful fingers she tucked the bed-clothes close around the sleeping girl, smiled broadly, and crept out.

The next morning when Marion waked, through the odd little oriel window the late winter light was struggling fitfully in.

At first she could not tell where she was: the rafters over her head, the bare white walls that surrounded her, the blue-and-white homespun quilt that covered her, were unlike any thing she had ever seen before.

She was on her feet in a moment, half frightened at the dim light.

Had another night come?

Had she slept over Thanksgiving?

When she went to the kitchen, Aunt Betty was there busy over the cooking-stove.

She was about making an apology for her lateness, but she was interrupted by,-- "'Taint never too late to pray; you may read the Bible."

She pointed without another word to the old family Bible.

Marion took it, opened it slowly, waiting to be told where to read.

"Thanksgiving," said Aunt Betty briefly.

"It's all Thanksgiving my father says.

He thinks the Bible was given us to make us happy."

"Thirty-fourth Psalm, then," and a quiet look came into the old seamed face.

When Marion had read it, her aunt rose from her chair, stepped behind it, tilted it on its front legs, and folding her hands on its top began to pray.

Like the grace at table, it was the same old prayer that had gone up from that same old kitchen for one hundred and twenty years.

Its quaint simplicity was a marvel to the young girl who listened, but a breath of its devotion reached and touched her heart.

Then followed breakfast.

Marion wondered, as they two sat at the table alone, how the old aunt could have borne the loneliness for so many long years.

To her, on her first Thanksgiving away from her cheerful home, there was something positively uncanny in the silence which settled down over the house; even the old yellow dog, with his nose between his front paws, slept soundly, and the great red rooster that had lighted upon the forked stick that before the back door had held the farm milk-pails for more than a century, instead of calling for his Thanksgiving breakfast, as orthodox New England roosters are expected to do, just flapped his wings lazily, and turned a much becombed head imploringly toward the kitchen window.

What was to be done with the long, dull festival day?

Marion may be forgiven if she cast many longing thoughts back to the academy, to the pleasant bustle that filled the long corridors, the merry laughs of the girls, the endless chatter, the coming and the going that seemed to her never to cease.

She was homesick to see Miss Ashton, her room-mates, and Helen, over whose daily life she had already installed herself as responsible for its comforts and its pleasures, and who, homeless and poor, remained almost by herself in the great empty building.

She was not, however, left long in doubt as to the day's occupations.

Hardly had the breakfast dishes been put away, when Aunt Betty said,-- "Meetin' begins at ten.

We hain't got no bell, and we'll start in season.

You can put on your things."

The clock said nine; meeting began at ten.

Five minutes were all she needed for preparation.

Here was time for a few lines at least of that Greek tragedy.

She had read one line, when the door opened, and there stood Aunt Betty.

"Listen, Aunt Betty!"

she said.

"Hear how soft these words are."

Then she rattled off line after line of the chorus.

This is Greek, she said, pausing to take breath.

"Listen!

I will translate for you."

She carried her book to the oriel window, so the light would fall more clearly on its page, and began,-- "Before the mirror's golden round, Curious my braided hair I bound, Adjusted for the night;

And now, disrobed, for rest prepared, Sudden tumultuous cries are heard, And shrieks of wild affright.

Grecians to Grecians shouting call, 'Now let the haughty city fall;

In dust her towers, her rampiers lay, And bear triumphant her rich spoils away.'

" "Doesn't that roll along sublimely?

Can't you hear the cries and the shouts of the Grecian host?"

"I can hear Marion Parke making a fool of herself.

Be you, or be you not, goin' to meetin' with me?"

"Meeting?

Why, of course I am.

I wouldn't miss it for anything.

I'll be ready in half a minute.

Will you?"

Aunt Betty, in her short black skirt, her old gray sack, and her heavy shoes, did not make much of a holiday appearance.

Something of this crept slowly into her brain as she looked down, so she turned quickly, and went away without another word.

Marion gave some girl-like twists to her brown hair, pinned a gay scarlet bow to the neck of her sack, and, looking fresh and pretty as a rosebud, went to the kitchen, where she had to wait some time before Aunt Betty made her appearance.

Cousin Abijah had brought the old horse and sleigh round to the back door.

Here a long slanting roof ran down to the lintel of the door, and up to the plain cornice snow-drifts lay piled.

What a winter scene it was!

Marion, never having seen the like before, gazed at it in wondering admiration.

When Aunt Betty and Marion started for the village meeting-house, the thermometer was fifteen degrees below zero.

Aunt Betty took a rein in each hand, and as soon as the snow-banks bordering the narrow path to the road were safely passed, began a series of jerks at the horse's mouth, which Dan perfectly well understood, too well, indeed, to allow himself to be hurried in the least.

"One foot up, and one foot down, That's the way to Lunnon town," laughed Marion when they had gone a few rods.

"Klick!

Klick!"

with more decisive tugs from Dan's mistress; but the "Klicks," as well as the tugs, were of no avail, and Marion, afraid to venture another comment, turned her eyes from the horse to the scenery around her.

Notwithstanding the extreme cold, the ride to the little meeting-house Marion will never forget.

When she left the farmhouse it seemed to her a short walk would bring her to the foot of the snow-clad mountains;

but, to her surprise, when they reached the church they were towering up above the small village like huge sentinels, so still, so grand, that, hardly conscious she was speaking aloud, Marion said,-- "I never knew before what it meant in the Bible where it says, 'The strength of the hills is his also.'

Wonderful!

wonderful!"

"Eh?"

asked Aunt Betty, only a dim comprehension of what Marion meant having crept in beneath the big red hood that covered her head.

Marion repeated the verse, and to her surprise her aunt answered it with, "'Who art thou, O great mountain?

Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace!

grace unto it.'

" Not a word did she offer in explanation; she only twitched the horse's head more emphatically, and did not speak again until she reached the meeting-house door.

What a desolate-looking audience-room it was!

Up in one corner roared a big iron stove, which, do its best, failed to warm but a few feet of the spaces around it.

A gray-bearded minister in his overcoat was reading from the pulpit a hymn, as they went in, and a dozen people, most of them men, were scattered round in the bare pews.

They all looked pleased to see an addition to their number, and some nodded to Aunt Betty; all stared at the new-comer.

There was no sermon, but a short address, which Marion strove to remember, that she might repeat it to her father, as having come from the old pulpit before which he had worshipped as a boy; but, do her best to be attentive and decorous, her teeth chattered, and the "Amen" was to her the most interesting part of the services.

The ride home was even colder than the one to the meeting; for a brisk north-east wind had risen, and came howling down from the mountains in strong, long gusts that betokened a coming storm.

Dan obstinately refused to move one foot faster than he chose, and before they reached home they were thoroughly and, indeed, dangerously benumbed with the cold.

Little thought had they of Thanksgiving, as they clung to the warm stove and listened to the rising of the wind.

It was Marion who first remembered the day, and looked about for some way of keeping it.

Poor, pinched, half-frozen Aunt Betty had entirely forgotten it.

Now Marion made herself perfectly at home.

She found old-fashioned china that would have been held precious in many houses, decorating with it the table in a deft and tasteful way that warmed lonely Aunt Betty's heart, as she watched her, more than the blazing fire could;

and while she worked, she talked, or sang little snatches of college songs learned at school, which rippled out in her rich voice with a melody never heard in the old farmhouse before.

It was not long before Aunt Betty came to her help, and such a bountiful dinner as she had prepared made Marion wish over and over again that Helen, alone in that large academy building, could have been there to share it with her.

"Thanksgiving night!"

Marion kept saying this to herself over and over again, as she sat alone with Aunt Betty over the kitchen stove.

A little oblong light stand was drawn up between them, holding a small kerosene lamp.

Not a book but the Bible, and a copy of the Farmer's Almanac suspended by a string from the corner of the mantel, was to be seen.

Marion, having heard so much of the intelligence of the New Hampshire farmers, supposed of course there would be a library in the house, and had brought only her Greek Tragedy with her.

This she did not dare open again, so there she sat, Aunt Betty, not having yet entirely recovered from the effects of her cold ride, alternately nodding and rousing herself to a vain effort to keep her eyes open.

And all the time the storm was increasing, the wind rocking the house with its rough blasts, until it seemed to utter loud groans, and the sharp cold snapping and cracking the shaking timbers with short volleys of sound like gun-shots.

Frightened mice scurried about in the low roof over the kitchen; and rats, lonely rats, seeking company, came to the top of the cellar stairs, pushing the door open with their pointed noses, and blinking in beseechingly with their big round eyes.

Marion, who had never heard anything of the kind before, was really frightened.

"O Aunt Betty," she said piteously, "do, please, wake up and tell me if there are ghosts here!"

Aunt Betty just stared at her; she was wide awake now.

"There are such dreadful noises, and such mice, and--and rats!"

"Nonsense!"

said Aunt Betty, listening.

"Don't be a coward!

It's only the storm."

"It's fearful!

What can we do?"

"Pop corn!"

Marion could not help laughing at the inconsequent answer; but anything was better than the noisy stillness of the last hour, and bringing a large brass warming-pan and some corn, they were soon busy popping the corn.

It would have been difficult to say which of the two enjoyed the sport the most.

It carried Marion home, where the family were all gathered together before the brisk fire in the cheerful sitting-room.

Aunt Betty was young again.

Nat and Sam, Bertha and Molly, and little Ruth filled the big, empty kitchen, laughed merrily over the crackling corn, held out small hands to catch it as the cover swung back, pelted each other with it till the spotless floor crunched beneath their dancing feet.

It had been long years since they had come home to her before on Thanksgiving night, but here they were now, all evoked by Marion's glad youth.

The moment the old clock struck nine, warming-pan, corn, and dishes vanished from sight.

A long tallow-dip Aunt Betty held out to Marion, and pointed up-stairs.

Marion obeyed; and though all night long the wind howled, the mice and the rats held high carnival, Marion slept soundly, and never knew that Aunt Betty, with her candle held high above her head, made another visit to her bedside, and there, bending her old knees, offered up her simple prayer, asking in much faith and love God's blessing on this new-found niece.

CHAPTER XXIV. MARION'S REPENTANCE.

No time had been mentioned for the continuance of Marion's visit; and coming as she had from the busy life of the school, where every minute had its allotted task, Thanksgiving week was hardly over before she began to be very homesick.

In vain she strove against it, and by every pleasant device in her power tried to make her visit pleasant to her aunt.

Even the short November days seemed to her endless, and the evenings had only the early bedtime to make them endurable.

On her first coming, she had told Aunt Betty the day the vacation was over, and evidently she was expected to stay until then; but on the morning of the seventh day she became desperate, and for want of any other excuse hit upon one that would be most displeasing to her aunt.

"You don't like to have me study my Greek here, Aunt Betty," she said;

"and, as I must review it before the term begins, I think I had better go back now."

Aunt Betty put her steel-bowed spectacles high up on her nose, and, after looking at her silently for a moment, said,-- "I don't take no stock in your Greek."

Marion laughed good-naturedly.

"If you only would let me read it to you," she said, "you would like it as well as I do; it's so soft and beautiful."

"What's the matter with your Bible?

Isn't that good enough for you?"

"But, Aunt Betty, you don't understand."

But Aunt Betty did understand enough to be very sure she did not want Marion to go, so she turned abruptly on her heel, and hid herself in the depths of the pantry.

Marion stood for a moment undecided what to do, then, seeing that if she would go that day she had very little time to lose, she went up-stairs, packed her valise, and the next time she saw her aunt was ready for her journey back.

The prospect of a mile walk through the half-broken roads, up steep hills, and down into drifted valleys, would have shown Marion the difficulties had she been a New Englander; but as she was not, her courage did not fail in the least when, without a word more, or any sign of a good-by from Aunt Betty, she opened the door, letting in a cold she was a stranger to, and went out into it.

Of that walk she never liked to speak afterwards.

Many times she stopped, almost but not quite willing to return; tired, half-frozen, and unhappy that her rest had terminated unpleasantly, yet so very, very homesick that she seemed driven on to the station,--if to reach it were a possibility.

Fortunately for her, when she had reached the last half she was overtaken by a man driving an empty wood-cart, who stopped and asked her if she "didn't want a lift?"

From what this saved her, no one could ever know.

In the mean time, Aunt Betty, with her eyes dimmed--but she did not know it was by tears--had watched her through a slit in a green paper window-shade.

Until she left the door, she did not believe she could do so foolish a thing as to attempt the walk to the station on such a morning; but when she saw her step off so courageously down the narrow foot-path, she began to have misgivings.

Notwithstanding her tears, the sight seemed to harden instead of soften her heart.

"If the gal will go, go she will," she said aloud, with some unforgiving wags of her head.

"She's stuck full of obstinacy as her father was afore her."

And by this time Marion was hidden from her sight by the deep snow-banks, and she turned from the window into her lonely kitchen with a heavy heart.

Marion, safely back in the academy, had, like Aunt Betty, her own troubled thoughts.

She found only Helen there among the scholars, and every teacher away but Miss Ashton, who evidently had not expected her back so soon.

Regular school duties did not begin until Tuesday of the next week, and now it was only Wednesday night.

She might have remained in Belden a day or two longer, and then left with her aunt's approval.

What kind of a return had she made to her aunt for her kindness?

Marion's room, that she had thought of with so much longing as she sat in the farm kitchen, had lost its charm.

She was very willing to believe it was because her room-mates were not there, and the fast falling darkness prevented her from seeing from her window the winter view, which even the grand old mountains that she had left behind her did not make her value less.

Self-deception was not one of Marion's faults; she grew so quickly regretful for what had happened, that when Miss Ashton came to her door, troubled by the girl's tired look on her arrival, she found her with red eyes and a swollen face.

"Tell me all about it," she said, taking no notice of her tears, but turning up the gas to make the room more cheerful.

"What has gone wrong?

Wasn't your aunt glad to see you?

Are you sick?

Fancy I am mother, and tell me the whole story."

She took Marion's hand in hers, drew the young girl close to her, and stroked the bonnie brown hair with a loving mother's touch.

"It's all my blame," said Marion, her voice trembling as she spoke.

"My aunt was as kind as she could be, but it was so lonely, and"--with a smile now--"so noisy there."

"Noisy!"

repeated Miss Ashton.

"Yes, ma'am; there were ghosts and rats and mice; the very house groaned and shook, and the wind came howling down from the mountains, and all the windows rattled."

Miss Ashton only laughed; but when Marion went on to tell the story of her leaving the house against her aunt's wishes, she looked very sober.

She had no knowledge of Aunt Betty's circumstances, surroundings, or character, but she knew well the nature of country roads during a New England winter.

She thought from Marion's own account that her homesickness had made her obstinate and unreasonable, and that her coming away must have been a source of anxiety to her aunt, while she was unable to prevent it.

"Marion," she said at last, "didn't you think more of yourself than of your aunt?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Marion unhesitatingly.

"And to be selfish is always?"

"Mean.

Don't say another word please, Miss Ashton."

"I am sure, Marion, in the future you will be more careful.

It is such an easy thing to wound and worry those about whom we should always be thoughtful.

If I were you, I would not let a mail go out without carrying a note to your aunt, telling her of your safe arrival here, and of your regrets for what has happened.

It's always a noble thing to say 'I'm sorry,' when one has done wrong."

The next mail took the following letter:-- MY DEAR AUNT,--I am going to write you to-night, to tell you two things.

One is, that I am safely back again at the academy, and the other, that I think it was both inconsiderate and unkind for me to leave you as I did, when I saw you thought I had better stay with you.

I am ashamed and grieved that I did not do as you wanted me to.

I hope most sincerely you will forgive me and forget it.

I cannot easily forgive myself, and I am sure I shall never forget all your kindness to me, or the nice time we had with the bright warming-pan and the crisp pop-corn, or the wonderful mountains all wrapped in their ermine mantles.

Please forgive, and love your ashamed niece, MARION PARKE.

Aunt Betty's correspondence amounted sometimes to two letters a year, so this penitent letter of Marion's remained in the post-office until the postmaster found a chance to send it to her.

By that time, what she had suffered from anxiety had made her unable to cope with the perils of the winter before her, and she often said to the few visitors who came in to see her, "I've dropped a stitch I can never take up again," but never a word of blame for Marion did she speak;

indeed, she had come to love the young girl so well, that it is doubtful whether, even in her heart, she harbored one hard thought toward her.

The letter finished, Marion's conscience gave her less uneasiness.

No thought had she of the suffering her selfish action had occasioned.

The visit had, after all, many pleasant memories, and for her only beneficial results.

There had come to her from her repentance and Miss Ashton's kind reproof, a lesson, if not new, at least impressive, of the necessity of thinking of others more than of one's self.

She could not see her Greek Tragedy without a smile, indeed, she went so far as sometimes to think that its reception in the old kitchen of the farmhouse had given her a greater avidity for its study.

On the whole, this winter visit was by no means a lost one; and when Saturday brought more of the scholars back, and the term began, she was fully ready for it.

On Sunday morning Nellie, feeling lonely and sick, had come to Marion's room.

Marion made a nice bed for her on her sofa, and sat by her side bathing her hot, aching head, now and then reading to her.

Toward night she complained of her throat; fearing Miss Ashton would send her to the nurse if she were told of it, she would not let Marion go to her, but begged to stay where she was so piteously that Marion gladly consented, asking leave of the teacher, but not mentioning Nellie's sickness.

The consequence was, that the disease progressed rapidly, and when morning came she was too sick even to object to the nurse, who, surprised and bewildered, sent for Miss Ashton at once.

Dr. Dawson, the physician of twenty years' academical sickness, being summoned, pronounced it a case of diphtheria, and ordered Nellie's removal to the rooms used as a hospital, and Marion's separation from the rest of the school, as she had been exposed to the same disease.

CHAPTER XXV.