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Title: Ella, a little schoolgirl of the sixties
       A book for children and for grown-ups who remember

Author: Eva March Tappan

Illustrator: Ruth J. Best

Release Date: March 13, 2023 [eBook #70282]

Language: English

Produced by: Bob Taylor, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
             produced from images generously made available by The
             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELLA, A LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL OF
THE SIXTIES ***





  Transcriber’s Note
  Italic text displayed as: _italic_




  ELLA

  _A Little Schoolgirl of the Sixties_

[Illustration: ELLA]




  ELLA
  _A Little Schoolgirl of the Sixties_

  A Book for Children and for
  Grown-Ups who Remember

  BY
  EVA MARCH TAPPAN

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
  RUTH J. BEST

  [Illustration: Decoration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1923




  COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




  TO

  “BOY COUSIN” AND THE DAYS ON

  THE BEARCAMP




CONTENTS


     I. A LITTLE GIRL AND A BIG SEMINARY                             1

    II. A YOUNG LADY OF THE ENGLISH AND CLASSICAL GRADUATING COURSE 11

   III. THE THREE TRAGEDIES OF ELLA’S SEMINARY LIFE                 19

    IV. GRADUATION DAY AND ITS MISFORTUNES                          30

     V. ON THE WAY TO GRANDMOTHER’S                                 40

    VI. THE REAL NEW HAMPSHIRE                                      51

   VII. BOY COUSIN                                                  61

  VIII. RAINY DAYS AND SUNDAYS                                      71

    IX. BOOKS AND PLAY                                              80

     X. LIKE OTHER GIRLS                                            94

    XI. ELLA’S FIRST DAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL                      103

   XII. “FOOSLE” REMAINS                                           111

  XIII. THE “TORIES’ ALPHABET”                                     120

   XIV. AMONG THE “WELL-BEHAVED ANGELS”                            131

    XV. ELLA AND THE PRINCIPAL                                     142

   XVI. WHEN THE COMMITTEE MEN CAME                                151

  XVII. THE HIGH SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS                               160

  APPENDIX: THE EXAMINATION QUESTIONS OF 1869                      171




ELLA




CHAPTER I

A LITTLE GIRL AND A BIG SEMINARY


The nicest thing that ever happened to a little girl eight years
old was going to happen to Ella, and she was so delighted that she
could hardly sit still in the big clumsy stage-coach that rolled and
shook and swung slowly away from the city. Uphill and downhill it
went, past ponds and meadows and brooks and woods, and little new
houses and big old homesteads shaded by ancient elms or maples. Every
roll of the wheels brought the little passenger nearer to perfect
happiness.

Ella was going to live in a seminary, and surely nothing could be
more charming than that. She knew all about seminaries, for she had
visited one when she was little—at least two years before. The girls
had petted her and given her candy; the principal had presented her
with a story-book. Best of all, she had slept in an old-fashioned
bed with a canopy, such a bed as she had never seen anywhere else.
What could be more delightful! And now she was going to have every
day such pleasures as these, and no one knew how much more marvelous
ones.

By and by the stage came to a scattered village with a church or
two, a schoolhouse, and a post-office. After the mail had been left,
the driver turned up a long avenue with fields and a line of trees
on either hand. At the head of the avenue was a circle of tall fir
trees, and back of the circle was a large white building with a wing
at each end, a narrow piazza in front, and tall fluted columns rising
from its floor to the top of the second story.

The driver called “Whoa!” A tall man came from somewhere and shook
hands with Ella’s mother and with herself. Then he led the way
upstairs to some bare, almost unfurnished rooms. The mother was to
use the furniture from her old home, and it had not yet arrived.
After a little talk, they all went down some dark and winding stairs
to the dining-room, a large, low, gloomy basement room with two long
tables. The end of one of them was “set,” and there Ella and her
mother and the tall man and two or three other grown-ups ate supper.

A little later Ella and her mother went up to the almost unfurnished
rooms. Ella stood looking through the open door down the lonely
corridor. There were no nice girls about; there was no canopy to the
bed; there were no story-books; there was no one to talk to her.
Everybody was grown up; there were no children. There were no city
lights, and the twilight seemed to be shutting down faster than it
ever did before.

“Oh, this doesn’t seem one bit, not one single bit, like a seminary,”
Ella cried.

The mother gathered her into her lap, and there the little girl
sobbed away her loneliness and disappointment, and forgot it all in
sleep. But the mother sat beside the window, looking out into the
darkness and the past; for it was here that she and the father had
first met, in the old joyful student days; and now he was gone, and
she had come back, alone, to teach students who were, as she had then
been, at the happy beginnings.

When the morning came, things were better, Ella thought. The sun
shone, and people began to gather. The first arrivals were teachers
and boy and girl students. Then came students of earlier days,
for the seminary had been closed for some years and was now to be
reopened. There were people from the village and the neighboring
country, and a little later, when the stage from the city drove up,
there were a number of dignified middle-aged men with long beards.
These men were to make speeches.

The mother was helping to welcome the guests, and Ella wandered
around alone. Before long she met a boy a little smaller than
herself. The two children looked at each other.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked.

“Ella. What’s yours?”

“John. My father’s the principal. What did you have Christmas?”

“I had a doll and a bedstead for her and a book of fairy stories,”
the little girl replied. “What did you have?”

“I had a sled and a rubber ball and some red mittens.”

“I had a sled three Christmases ago, when I was little,” said Ella.
“Its name is Thomas Jefferson. How old are you?”

“Six. But I’m going on seven,” he added quickly.

Ella was eight, going on nine, and she thought that a boy who was
only six was hardly more than a baby; but he was better than nobody,
so they spent most of the day together.

It was a full day. The hundreds of people went through the building;
they ate a collation in the basement dining-room; they renewed old
friendships; and at two o’clock they assembled in the little grove
fronting the main door to listen to the speeches.

And speeches there were, indeed; speeches on the old days of the
seminary and on the plans for its future; and of course there was
one on “The true theory of education,” delivered by the man who knew
least about that subject. The lieutenant-governor of the State sent a
check for $100 for the library; the mayor of the capital of the State
sent one for $250. Ticknor & Fields, Little & Brown, and Wendell
Phillips all presented books. Everybody was jubilant, and sunset was
only one hour distant when with three hearty cheers for the seminary
the people said good-bye to one another, and all but the teachers
and the students started for their homes.

Ella had not heard any of the speeches, but she had found where early
goldenrod and asters were growing; she had learned that there was a
beautiful lake whose shore was a fine place to pick up pebbles and go
in wading; and she had discovered on the hastily arranged shelves of
the library some books that looked interesting. She and John had only
one grievance, namely, that the watermelon had given out before it
came to their end of the table.

The next day classes were arranged and the regular life of the
seminary began. Ella was delighted to find that she was to be called
a “student” just as if she had been grown up, and when a young man,
already lonesome for the little sister at home, asked her to sit on
his knee, she refused. It was of course quite proper for a little
girl to sit on the knee of an elderly gentleman, as he seemed to her,
but she did not think that one “student” ought to sit on the knee of
another.

Ella’s mother had her own “theory of education.” She thought that
it was better for young children to be out of doors than in a
schoolroom, and that, when they began to study, arithmetic and
foreign languages should come first. Ella had never been to school
or been taught at home. Somehow, she had learned to read, no one
knew exactly how, and she had read every book that had come to
hand if it looked at all interesting. One of these books was a
small arithmetic. It was quite the fashion in those days to bind
schoolbooks in paper of a bright salmon pink. Ella liked the color,
and the result was that she had picked up some familiarity with
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

The professor of mathematics was a courteous, scholarly young man
just out of college. He said that it would not trouble him in the
least to have in one of his classes a little girl in a short-sleeved,
low-necked blue muslin dress and “ankle-ties.” Apparently the tall
young men and young women students did not object either; and the
result was that for half an hour every morning Ella made groups of
straggling figures on the blackboard, and with the kindly teaching
of “my professor,” as she proudly called the young instructor, she
learned to “invert the divisor and proceed as in multiplication.” She
learned also that a decimal point has an uncanny power to reduce a
comfortable number of dollars to mere copper cents. She even learned
that “If a student purchased a Latin grammar for $0.75, a Virgil
for $3.75, a Greek lexicon for $4.75, a Homer for $1.25, an English
dictionary for $3.75, and a Greek Testament for $0.75,” the whole
cost of his purchases would amount to $15. This was her favorite
among the “Practical Problems.” The teacher never guessed the reason,
but it was because she had read a story about a carrier pigeon, and
she was glad that the student had a “homer.”

Ella learned that “cwt.” meant _hundredweight_, that “d” meant
_penny_, and that a queer sign somewhat like a written “L” meant
_pound_. Why these things should be, she had no idea; she supposed
grown people had just made them up. She could overlook even such
foolishness as this, but she did draw the line at learning the
multiplication table. It was in her book, and she could turn to
it at any time, so why should she bother to learn it? The young
professor was always charitable to a new idea. He looked at the child
thoughtfully; maybe she was in the right. At any rate, he only smiled
when he saw how rapidly a certain page in her arithmetic was wearing
out. Before it had quite disappeared, the multiplication table, even
with the eights and nines, was as firmly fixed in the small pupil’s
memory as if she had learned it with tears and lamentations.

Ella spelled rather unusually well, perhaps because in all her eight
years she had seldom seen or heard a word spelled incorrectly; but
her handwriting was about as bad as it could be, especially toward
the end of the page, where the “loops and tails” pointed as many ways
as if they had been an explosion of fireworks. The tall principal,
John’s father, taught penmanship, and the little girl, with a
copybook, a red-painted penholder, and a viciously sharp “Gillott,
303,” took her place at one of the long, slanting tables in the hall.
It was much too high for her, but no one was troubled about that in
those days. If a table was too high, it was because the child was
too short, and that was all there was to it.

Day after day, Ella wrote in her copybook whole pages of such
thrilling statements as, “Be good and you will be happy,” and,
“Honesty is the best policy.” Of the truth of the first she was by
no means convinced, for she remembered being—of necessity—very well
behaved, indeed, when she was not at all happy. As to the second, she
had no idea what “policy” was. She asked the principal very shyly
what the sentence meant, and he said it meant that little boys and
girls must always tell the truth. Of course no decent children ever
told lies, thought Ella, with a vague indignation. She pondered over
the reply, and at length made up her mind that the writing-book must
have been printed for children that were ragged and dirty and said
“ain’t got none.” She had to finish the page, but every line was
worse written than the one before it. The principal looked a little
grave and asked if she was sure that she had done her best. Ella hung
her head and said nothing; but maybe she had done her best—under the
circumstances.

The principal tried his utmost to teach her to write the fine
“Spencerian” hand that was then so admired; but the wicked little
“Gillott, 303,” continued to stick in the paper and make sprays of
ink all about—which Ella rather admired as incipient pictures—and the
red-painted wooden penholder still aimed at whatever point of the
compass happened to suit the comfort of the little cramped fingers.
“Where should the pen point?” the principal would patiently ask; and
with equal patience the pupil would reply, “Over the right shoulder.”
It would turn into place obediently, but long before the teacher had
reached the other end of the long table, it was again pointing out
the north window toward the lake or out the south window to the hill
and the rocks. And why not? Where the thoughts were, surely the pen
might point also.

Ella felt as if she was quite a busy little girl, for besides her
lessons in arithmetic and penmanship, there was half an hour of
French every day. It was good strong old-fashioned French, too,
learned by main force from a grammar. She recited patiently, “Ah,
bay, say, day,” etc., as she was taught; but in her heart of hearts
she thought it utter foolishness to spoil perfectly good English
letters by giving them such names. She learned that there were such
things as nasal sounds, objected to in English, but highly esteemed
in French; and she learned to translate into the French language
and pronounce—with an accent that would have thrown the politest
Frenchman into a state of collapse—such interesting dialogue as,
“Have you the girl’s glove?” “No, sir, but I have the cook’s hat”;
and such bits of tragedy as, “My brother’s tailor has broken my
slate,” or—most touching of all—“I liked the little girl, but she did
not like me.”

French, even grammar French, carried Ella into a new world. She
concluded that to harmonize with its caprices she ought to take
a French name when, so to speak, she entered France by way of
Fasquelle’s Grammar and the French recitation room. Somewhere she had
heard the word “elephantine,” and she had read, in English, about
Fantine and Cosette. She concluded that this fine-sounding word—only
she would spell it “E[^l]efânti[^n]e” and put on plenty of accents,
circumflexes, because she thought acutes and graves had an unfinished
look—would accord nicely with her own name and would also be a
compliment to the French, especially if it was pronounced with a good
strong nasal sound in the middle of the word.

She was rather too shy to ask the French teacher to call her
“E[^l]efânti[^n]e,” but she wrote the name in her Fasquelle, and had
fine times saying it over to herself when she was alone. One day
the mother happened to take up the book, and she showed Ella in the
dictionary what the word meant. All the poetry went out of it then,
for Ella always bowed to the authority of the big dictionary; and she
promptly rubbed out the new name, accents and all.




CHAPTER II

A LADY OF THE ENGLISH AND CLASSICAL GRADUATING COURSE


A second volume which Ella carried proudly under her arm when she
went to the French class was called “Le Grandpère.” It was written
expressly for the use of schools—so said the title-page. It was
“Approuvé par le Conseil Royal de l’Instruction publique.” If further
proof was needed of its value, the fact that it was “Carefully
prepared for American schools” was surely sufficient. How could
anything be better for a child to translate?

“Le Grandpère” began, with unpardonable guile, quite like a story:
“The old Captain Granville inhabited a pretty village situated on
the shore of the Loire,” as Ella slowly translated it. But her
suspicions were soon aroused, for, looking ahead a few lines, she
found something about “charging himself with overseeing their first
education.” That did not sound promising, though it was possible
that the four grandsons who were being educated might do interesting
things betweentimes. As she read further, she found that the
grandfather educated them by taking them to walk every Sunday and
giving them instructive lectures. Now in Ella’s experience nice
children did not study their lessons on Sunday, neither did they go
to walk. It is true that occasionally, after they had been to church
and Sunday school, had eaten the cold Sunday dinner, and had read
their Sunday-school books through, they were allowed to take a quiet,
almost awesome walk up and down the paths of the nearest cemetery and
talk about the flowers or their books; but this was quite different
from an everyday stroll off into the country.

The four boys and their “Grandpère,” however, wandered off
shamelessly every Sunday—in the forenoon, too, when by all the
customs of Ella’s Sunday mornings they should have been at church.
It was true that occasionally their grandfather gave them a moral
lecture on a Sunday morning, but these lectures were often a puzzle
to Ella’s eight-year-old theology. For instance, she had, of course,
been taught to do what she knew was right, but she was quite at sea
when “Jules” confessed that he had struck his brother, and declared,
“laying his hand upon his heart,” that “something here” told him he
had done wrong. Ella laid her hand over the place where she supposed
her heart to lie, but nothing made any remarks to her. She concluded
that it was because she was not quite bad enough just then, and she
made up her mind that—although of course she would not do anything
wrong on purpose—yet the next time that she was naughty, she would
watch carefully to see if she heard any conversation in the vicinity
of her heart.

It was somewhat of a pity that Ella’s lessons made so little
impression upon the bulk of “Le Grandpère,” for it was quite an
amazing book, and to know it would have been a widely distended, if
not a liberal education. It began, indeed, so simply that Ella was
disgusted, for these boys, old enough to live in a seminary like
herself, actually were amazed when they saw the sun, and appealed to
their grandfather to tell them what it was. Ella did not appreciate
the exigencies of authorship or realize that there must be something
on which to hang a small lecture about the heavenly bodies.

Further on there were discourses on the five senses, on how to count,
on the history of the French sovereigns; and then the chapters
gradually worked on through slavery, avarice, extravagance, the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day, vaccination, and leprosy.
What could have been better for a child? Any deficiencies that in
later times manifested themselves in Ella’s education may be fairly
ascribed to her never having completed the translation of this
profound volume.

In Ella’s study of French, there was one thing that puzzled her
greatly. She was willing to believe that French people understood
French, but that they ever really knew it as she knew English without
studying Fasquelle and “Le Grandpère” was something that she could
hardly accept as truth. Then, too, the mother had told her that she
had had a great-great-grandfather who was a Frenchman; and she often
wondered whether, if she had lived in his day, they would have been
able to talk together. She could have said, “Have you the knife of
the brother of the carpenter?” but unless he made the proper reply,
“No, but I have the pencil of the sister of the dressmaker,” she
would not have known what to say next. She could never have said,
“Great-great-grandfather, will you take me to ride this afternoon?”
because that was not in Fasquelle.

She wondered if the French people really talked French every day, or
only when they had company. After long deliberation, she came to the
conclusion that they probably _talked_ French all the time, but that
of course they thought in English. These were the grown-ups. As for
the children, no one could expect them to talk French, certainly not
when they were playing. She wished she had one of them to play with.
It would be almost like meeting her great-great-grandfather as a
little boy.

Of course Ella “practiced.” In the sixties, boys “took lessons” only
if they showed some talent for music, but girls were expected, talent
or no talent, to spend in solitary confinement two hours a day at
hard labor on the piano. In Ella’s case, the two hours were lessened
to one by her mother’s decree, and “solitary confinement” was not
added to the hard labor, because, when the sad moment had arrived,
a genial “Bow-wow!” was always heard and a big black shaggy head,
followed by the rest of a great Newfoundland dog, pushed open the
door. If it chanced to be the day for Ella’s lesson, Ponto waved a
friendly apology to the teacher and withdrew; but on other days he
stretched himself out under the piano, and with a sigh of toleration
proceeded to sleep away the time until the hour was up. He never
failed to hear the first stroke of the bell, and if Ella did not stop
on the instant, he slipped his great muzzle under her wrists and
lifted them up from the keys.

Ella, like most children, had a healthy dislike of practicing. It was
such an unmanageable interference with her plans. “You like French
and you like arithmetic,” said her puzzled teacher; “why is it that
you do not like music?”

Ella pondered a minute, then she said: “It’s because there isn’t any
way to get the better of it. If I have arithmetic to do, I can work
hard and then I can say, ‘There, you old thing, I’ve done you in half
the time you wanted me to spend, and now Ponto and I are going to the
lake in spite of you.’ But no matter how hard I practice, an hour is
always an hour, and there isn’t any way to make it shorter.”

Of course Ella hated to count. Bribes were offered. “My music
teacher said that if I would count three weeks without stopping, she
would give me a piece,” Ella wrote in her little diary. In spite of
the promised “piece,” however, “One, two, three, four,” became as
tiresome as the multiplication table, and at length she invented a
way to make the time pass; she played very loud with one hand and at
the same time patted Ponto with the other.

She felt a little guilty when her music teacher said: “I heard you
practicing two or three measures over and over this morning, Ella,
and I thought what a good lesson you were going to have to-morrow.”

Ella did not reply, and she forgot to listen to see whether her heart
would make any speeches to her. She didn’t like practicing, and she
didn’t, and when she heard of remarkable little girls no older than
she who had taken only twelve lessons and could play “two pieces”
already, she did not care very much that she could play only one.
Neither did Ponto.

Ella had a reason for not caring. She firmly expected that some day,
even without that wearisome “One, two, three, four,” she would play
as well as the little girl with two pieces, perhaps even as well as
her teacher. It was all very simple and very logical. The teacher
wore a ring with a bright red stone in it and was able to play; by
and by _she_ would have a ring with a bright red stone, and then of
course she would be able to play. Ella knew that the grown-ups would
laugh at her if she told them her fancy, so she only whispered it
into Ponto’s ear. Dogs could understand, but grown-ups could not.

Like most children, Ella was younger than her years in some ways and
older in others. She could cherish a belief in the efficacy of a
ring to give her musical ability, and she could sit in a class with
“ladies and gentlemen” more than twice her age without a thought of
this being anything remarkable. Of course she knew that the children
in the village went to school with boys and girls of their own
years; but this was nothing; they did one thing and she did another,
that was all. She even took it as a matter of course when in the
“Institute Reporter,” the little four-page sheet that glorified the
seminary with printers’ ink, she saw her own name among the other
“ladies.” It had, too, a special mark of honor in the shape of an
asterisk indicating that she was “In studies of the English and
Classical graduating course.” To be sure, no one of her studies was
classical, and she was many years removed from graduation, but it
made one more name on the list.

As to the English, she really wrote with some degree of correctness
because she had never seen writings that were incorrect, and she was
quite aghast when she first heard the correction of compositions in
class. She wrote to her uncle, “I can’t stop for dates. I want to
tell you what funny compositions some of the scholars write. One
great boy wrote his and commenced every word with a capital letter.
I have not quite got to doing that.” Ella thoroughly enjoyed making
tiny blankbooks and composing equally tiny stories carefully adjusted
to the little pages. She even manufactured a paper for children,
composing, editing, and copying it all herself.

Every Monday evening the “Lyceum” was held, an exercise which was
expected to develop the literary ability of the students. Ella
had joined it as a matter of course, and when called on for a
recitation, she had given “Over the River” in her best style. When
the second call came, she decided, possibly with a latent instinct
for advertising, to read the first number of her paper. This was not
exactly an innovation, for the “Lyceum” already rejoiced in a paper
called “The Alpha.”

Ella’s paper was named “Little Pearls.” How the “ladies and
gentlemen” and the august faculty kept their faces straight during
its presentation is a mystery. It contained a few conundrums, whose
answers were promised “in our next,” but otherwise it was carefully
modeled on the weekly paper of the Sunday school. There were letters
from children with the patronizing comments of the editor; there
was an original story or two; and the sheet ended with the tragic
tale, drawn from the little editor’s own experience, of a tiny fish,
caught and brought home from the lake. I fear that the writer had
never been properly trained in “nature study,” for she stated that
the fish jumped out of the water and was found “lying upon its back,”
dead, and she declared, “although a cat has nine lives, a fish has
only one, and therefore it always stayed dead forever after.” Whether
this literary production lengthened the list of subscribers, no one
can say; but certainly Ella’s minute cash account showed no marked
increase of income on that date.




CHAPTER III

THE THREE TRAGEDIES OF ELLA’S SEMINARY LIFE


At the seminary there were only three children besides Ella. One was
two-year-old Nellie, the steward’s daughter, whom she loved with all
her heart. The second was John, and the third was his little sister,
two years younger than he. For this little sister there was rarely
any real place in Ella’s world; she was too young for a companion
and too old for a baby; but just as Ned, the steward’s son, fifteen
years old, would sometimes allow Ella, “going on nine,” to share his
amusements, so Ella would occasionally permit John, “going on seven,”
to go to the lake with her to skip stones, or to the hills for wild
flowers.

The village children all went to the village school, and Ella seldom
saw any of them. The mother had once known the mother of Dora,
daughter of the village doctor, and it was arranged that the two
children should spend an afternoon together. No one ever found out
exactly what happened, but after this day, whenever the two little
girls passed, they held their heads very high and swung their short
skirts disdainfully, and looked away from each other.

Soon after this visit, it came to pass that Ella needed to have
a tooth out to make way for a newcomer. “I dare you to go to the
doctor and have it pulled,” said Ned mischievously. Ella would have
felt humiliated not to “take a dare,” and she appealed to the mother
for permission. The mother was glad to escape the string-and-pull
process, and she hoped that if the children met again, they might
become better friends.

“Was Dora there?” she asked on Ella’s return.

“Yes, she was,” replied Ella with emphasis. “Her father told her to
go out, but she just stayed in the room every minute. She wanted
to hear me cry, but I wouldn’t. When it was out, she said, just as
if she was glad, ‘Hm! Hurt you some, didn’t it?’ and I laughed and
said, ‘No, not a bit.’” Ella did not add the fact that going down the
doctor’s walk, she had swung her skirts with more disdain than ever.

The mother looked amused.

“Are you sure that that speech was quite true?” she asked.

“Why, you see, if Dora had not been there, it would have hurt, of
course; but she was there, and so it didn’t; and anyhow, I wasn’t
thinking about it, so I shouldn’t have known it if it had.” And the
mother was wise enough not to press the question any further.

[Illustration: THEY HELD THEIR HEADS VERY HIGH AND SWUNG THEIR SHORT
SKIRTS DISDAINFULLY, AND LOOKED AWAY FROM EACH OTHER]

As has been seen, Ella would have been quite alone in most of her
plays had it not been for Ponto. Fortunately, a dog is never too old
or too young to be a good friend. People sometimes laugh at a little
girl’s queer notions, but a dog never makes fun of them; he always
understands. Every morning Ponto came upstairs, thumped on Ella’s
door, and waited patiently till she was ready to go down with him.
He was not allowed in recitation rooms, but everywhere else that she
went, he followed. She greatly enjoyed visiting the laboratory when
her professor was at work. Ponto would then lie down just outside the
door and take a one-eyed nap, wondering sleepily why she stayed there
instead of coming out of doors.

If the kind professor was at all disturbed by her presence and her
occasional interruptions, he never let her know it, but answered
every question with the courteous attention that children love, as
if their questions were really worth while. The crowning glory of
her visits came, however, one day when, after she had asked him
something that never would have occurred to any one but a child, he
looked at her thoughtfully and said, “I don’t know, but I will try to
find out.” This was indeed an honor. The professor had treated her
as if she was a grown-up lady, and he had met her little query with
as much respect as if the principal himself had asked it. When she
said, “Good-bye. I have an errand in the village,” and followed the
jubilant Ponto down stairs, she held her small head at least one inch
higher than usual.

The errand was closely connected with a big copper cent which she
had held in her hand during her pursuit of scientific information.
Indeed, she had kept close watch of it ever since it came into her
possession, for pennies did not come her way every morning. The
grocer kept cassia buds, and these to the little customer were a
luxury far transcending peppermints or sticks of white candy striped
with red, or even chocolate sticks, which were just coming into
fashion.

There were two grocers in the same store. One had white hair and
the other had brown. Ella had tested them both and had found out
that the white-haired one gave her more cassia buds for a cent than
did the brown-haired one; therefore she waited patiently until
the white-haired one appeared. Then she went back to the seminary
joyfully. She was sure that the generous dealer had given her more
than ever before, and she would not eat one until she had shown them
to the mother. But alas for the best-laid plans of little girls as
well as mice and men, for when she reached the seminary, there was
not a bud to be seen. Through a wicked little hole in the pocket
every one had escaped.

This was one of the three tragedies in Ella’s life at the seminary.
The others were even more crushing. Next to her big doll, her
greatest treasure was a paint-box. She had had paint-boxes before,
but this was the largest and finest she had ever owned. She had taken
the greatest pains to keep it clean, and it was as fresh and white
as when she first unwrapped it. If the mother had seen, she would
have rescued it, but all her attention was given to a caller; and
meanwhile his little boy, who had by no means the kind of soul that
scorns a blot, daubed the fair white wood of the outside of the box
with every hue that could be found within it.

Ella had been out with Ponto, and when she came in and saw her
beloved paint-box in ruins, her grief was literally too deep for
words. The mother had taken her callers to see the library, and Ella
caught up the ruined treasure and slipped out of doors to Ponto. She
told him all about it; then the two went to a quiet little place
where wild roses grew. With much difficulty she dug a hole. Therein
she laid the precious paint-box, and with it all the hopes of the
pictures she was going to paint for the uncle in Andover and the
grandmother in the mountains.

The next day, the mother asked, “Where can your paint-box be? Have
you seen it this morning?”

Ella felt rather guilty, but she answered, “No,” and it was many
years before the mother learned the solution of the mystery.

The third tragedy came from Ella’s ambition to wear a linen collar.
The grown-up girls in school wore them, and she did so long to have
just one. The mother did not approve; she thought a tiny ruffle for
every day and a bit of lace for best were the only neckwear proper
for a child of eight. Fate, however, promised to be kind. Ella had
acquired some skill in the making of “perforated paper” bookmarks in
the shape of a cross, elaborately cut out in an openwork pattern;
and one Sunday after church a lady in the village, who knew her
wishes, promised her a real collar of smooth, stiff linen in exchange
for one of these crosses.

Ella was wildly happy, and she wanted to begin the cross at once; but
it was Sunday. Somehow she had evolved the notion that while it was
wrong to play games on Sunday, it was not wrong to read or write or,
indeed, to do whatever she chose with books or paper. _Perforated_
paper seemed, however, a little different. She appealed to the
mother, but the mother often left things for the small girl to think
out for herself, and this was one of them.

“Some people would say it was right, and some would say it was
wrong,” she replied. “Suppose you decide for yourself, and do what
you think is right.”

The little girl decided not to begin the work until Monday. Surely,
she deserved a better reward than she received, for when the cross
was done, the lady handed her a little flat package done up in white
paper and tied with blue ribbon.

“My sister told me,” she said with a pleasant smile, “that a linen
collar was not at all the thing for a little girl of eight, and that
she was sure you would like something else better, so I got you this
instead.”

Ella took the package with forebodings, which were justified, for in
it was a little white handkerchief. Now handkerchiefs were things
to lose and to have more of; but a linen collar was a vision,
an aspiration, a heart’s desire. Her face must have shown
disappointment, for the lady hastened to say, “There is a blue flower
worked in one corner.” The lady had taken away her beautiful dream of
being grown up and had given her instead a handkerchief—with a blue
flower in one corner! These were the three tragedies of Ella’s first
experience in the trials and disappointments of life.

[Illustration: WITH MUCH DIFFICULTY SHE DUG A HOLE]

There was, however, a little comforting postscript to this third
tragedy. Among Ella’s accomplishments was the ability to embroider
fairly well those lines of crescent moons known as scallops. She
marked out a collar on a strip of Marseilles, and by means of two
spools she drew a line of scallops on its edge. After a season of
diligent sewing, she was the proud owner of a stiff white collar. The
mother objected to her wearing it in public, but she was free to put
it on and stand before her looking-glass and admire it; and even this
was bliss.

Then, too, Christmas was not far away, and its coming would make up
for many troubles. To be sure, it was not the custom for children
to be loaded down with gifts as they are now, but every one was to
have something, the principal had said so; and Ella could hardly
wait for the day. Nevertheless, in spite of her impatience, she
thoroughly enjoyed herself. She had never before been in the country
in the winter, and now she coasted on her “Thomas Jefferson”; she
made snow men; she slipped under the branches of the pines and firs
and hemlocks and shook them until when she came out her little blue
hood was all powdered with snow; she brought in great armfuls of
creeping Jenny and scarlet alder berries; she broke the thin ice that
formed over the little brooks and delighted in the fairy palaces of
frostwork that it had concealed. Best of all, however, was the time
when the ice over a shallow pool broke into cakes, and she could
float about on them. What the busy mother would have said if she had
known of all these adventures is a question; but Ella was well and
happy, and before long Christmas Day came, and in the evening the big
Christmas tree.

Santa Claus, all a-jingle with sleighbells, climbed in at the window.
Ella knew that he was not exactly a real Santa Claus, but still she
felt highly honored when in his walk about the room he patted her on
the head and asked “How old are you?”

“I’ll be nine to-morrow,” she replied; and it almost made up for
the loss of the collar to have him exclaim, “Nine years old! Why, I
thought you were a small child. I shall have to go pretty deep into
my pack to find anything for a young lady of nine.”

By and by Santa Claus distributed the presents. In her ante-seminary
days, Ella had felt rich if she had three or four gifts; but now
there was a pearl-handled pen, a little writing-desk with a lock and
key; there were new mittens to match the blue hood; there was a real
jackknife, just such a one as she had been longing for, big enough
to cut things and not too big to go into her pocket; there was a box
of candy and another of cassia buds; there was a great package of
writing-paper, some little blankbooks, half a dozen lead pencils, and
a little matchbox of parian marble. Just why any one should give a
small child a matchbox may be questioned, but Ella did not question
it. The grapes on the cover were pretty, and that was enough. There
was a fine new dress of bright Scotch plaid, and a “jockey cap” of
black velvet with trimmings of red and black ribbon; and pinned to
the cap was a note from Ella’s dearest little girl friend at the old
home, saying that she had a new cap just like this one.

There was a little chinchilla muff; and that muff had a story. The
uncle from Andover had rashly promised to buy whatever she liked
best in all Boston. He had supposed that he could guide her choice
toward the little muff; but of all the glories of Boston her heart
had been set upon a box of tin soldiers. The tall uncle from Andover
scoffed, pleaded, offered bribes, but the mite of a niece claimed her
rights. “You promised I might have what I wanted, and I want the tin
soldiers,” was her unchanging reply. At length he started in wrath
to return to the study of theology, and the obstinate little niece
called after him, “Good-bye, uncle; you broke your promise!” But she
had relented sufficiently to send him a gracious note to the effect
that a muff would really be very nice to have; he had relented
sufficiently to send it to her, and so peace had come to pass between
them.

One more present came to Ella’s share, and that was a thin,
uninteresting envelop. But it was all glorious within, for here was
a bright, fresh two-dollar bill from her professor. “To spend just
as you like,” the card said. Fairyland had opened, for never before
had Ella owned such an amount of money to spend as she liked. She had
never expected to have so much, but she had decided long before this
what she would buy if she should ever become a woman of wealth.

The next day she and the mother talked it over. The mother, too, had
decided what would be the best way to spend the money. When _she_
was a little girl, money given to girls was always put into silver
spoons, and now she held before Ella the advantages of putting the
gift into spoons, which she could always keep and which would always
be a remembrance of the professor.

“But I’d never forget him, anyway,” declared Ella, “and I don’t want
spoons. I want something useful. Spoons aren’t useful. People just
have them on the table to eat with, and then they go away and forget
them. I want something I’d really use and like to use and think about
using; I want a pair of skates.”

[Illustration: SHE MADE SNOW MEN]

It was against the mother’s inherited ideas of the desirable, and she
was afraid of broken bones and thin ice and air holes, but the skates
were bought. They had such a multiplicity of green straps as would
arouse a skater of to-day to wrath; but to Ella they seemed the most
beautiful things in the world, and before long she was gliding over
the frozen lake in perfect bliss.




CHAPTER IV

GRADUATION DAY AND ITS MISFORTUNES


The winter was a delight, but the spring and summer were even more
enchanting. The seminary did not close until late in July, and there
was time for the blooming of more kinds of wild flowers than the
little city girl had ever dreamed of. It was on one of her fishing
trips with Ned that she saw her first lady’s-slipper. She had left
the big rock and was roaming about under the pines when in a dusky
little hollow she caught sight of a stately pink flower veined with
a darker pink. It rose from two large green leaves, a queen with her
courtiers bowing low before her. There it stood, elegant, dignified,
quietly at ease, although no other of its kind was in sight. Ella
wanted to break it off and carry it home to show to the mother, but
there was something in the weird grace of the flower that held her
back. She still believed that there might be a fairyland, and maybe
this was the queen of the fairies. However this might be, she would
not break the stem; she would ask the mother to come and see the
blossom.

Another flower that Ella saw for the first time was the yellow daisy,
the golden rudbeckia. She had no dream of fairyland about this, for
it was a gorgeous, rollicking yellow blossom, ready to be picked and
go wherever any one might wish to carry it and to make friends with
anybody. It was away off in the middle of a field; and although Ella
had been taught never to trample down the tall grass, she could not
resist the temptation to plunge into the midst of it and secure the
wheel of gold that might have come from the end of the rainbow.

These were the rarities in flowers, but everywhere there were violets
and daisies and anemones and hardhack and Quaker ladies, and swamp
azaleas, and dandelions and clover and all the other “common flowers”
that are beloved by children. Nestled on the sunny side of a stone
wall at the north of the seminary there was what had once been a
flower bed. Little of the bed remained except a merry row of white
narcissi, who perked up their red-edged ruffs and nodded their heads
in friendly fashion as the child and the dog drew near.

Between the narcissi and the gray old stone wall behind them was
Ella’s little burial ground. It happened sometimes that birds flew
against the lighted windows of the seminary so violently that they
were killed. Ella was always grieved when she found one lying on the
grass, and she chose this bit of ground as a resting place for them.
“Ponto,” she said to the big shaggy dog, “it was in our Sunday school
lesson yesterday that God always noticed when a little bird fell
to the ground. The teacher said the verse didn’t mean exactly what
it said, because God wouldn’t care for birds; but I think it did;
and I think He would like it if you and I made a pretty place for
them to lie in. We’ll do it, won’t we, Ponto?” She held out her hand
to the dog, and he laid his shaggy paw into it. “I knew you would
understand,” said Ella. “I wonder why dogs and cats and birds and
horses understand so much better than people!”

After this, whenever Ella picked up a little dead bird, she dug a
tiny grave and lined it with fresh green ferns. She smoothed down
the soft feathers, kissed the pretty little head, and laid the bird
softly into its ferny bed. “A person would have to have a stone
with poetry on it,” she said to Ponto, “but I think a lovely white
narcissus is much prettier for a little bird. Remember that this is
all a secret, Ponto. Nobody must know anything about it except you
and me and God.”

Down over the hill below the little cemetery was the island. This
was really nothing more than a tussock just big enough to hold a few
bushes, and the “body of water” which surrounded it was only a bit of
swamp. Ella could easily step across from what she called the “main
land,” but a bridge made the place seem more like an island, so she
laid a board across the narrow strait. When she was once across she
always drew the board over after her; and then she stood in a kingdom
that was all her own. There were white violets growing in this island
kingdom, there were ferns and rushes and wild lilies of the valley.
There was just one Jack-in-the-pulpit, and on its seminary side Ella
had drawn the ferns together so as to screen it from the eager hands
of passers-by.

Then, too, there was the secret, and no one knew of this save the
mother and the professor. On the highest part of the tiny island,
just where the bushes were thickest, there was a bird’s nest with
real eggs, and a little later, real birds in it. Mother birds are shy
of grown folk, but there are sometimes children of whom they feel no
fear, recognizing perhaps some “call of the wild” that makes them
akin. However that may be, these birds were not afraid of the little
girl who always spoke to them softly and touched the young ones as
gently as the mother bird herself. They made no objection when the
child carefully lifted the half-grown fledglings out of the nest; and
while she sat holding them and talking to them, the parent birds made
little flights here and there as if, having now a reliable nurse for
their children, they might allow themselves a little recreation.

When Ella first saw the young birds with their wide-open mouths,
she was sure that they were dying of hunger. But what could she
give them? She had no more idea how to feed young robins than young
fairies. There was just one person in the seminary who could tell
her, for he always knew everything; but he was in a class, teaching
some of the big boys algebra. What algebra was, Ella had no idea; but
she was absolutely certain that it could not be half so important
as saving the life of a starving bird. She hurried to the house, and
up stairs, then crept silently as a shadow along the corridor to the
recitation room. The door was wide open. She stood on the threshold
a moment, trying to get her courage up. The young men of the class
smiled, for they were always interested in Ella’s exploits and
wondered what was coming now. The professor was standing at the board
with his back to the door.

Ella was a little frightened, but she screwed her courage up and said
in a weak, thin little voice,

“Professor, please may I see you only just one minute? It’s very
important.”

The professor came out, and closing the door behind him, which the
students thought was a little unkind, he asked the visitor what he
could do for her.

“It’s the birds,” she explained. “They were only eggs, but now
they’re little birds, and they’re so hungry they are starving. I
don’t know what to do,” and the tale ended in what sounded much like
the beginning of a sob.

“That’s all right,” said the professor gently. “The mother bird knows
how to take care of them; but if you want to help, just dig some
angle worms and put them on the island where she can see them.”

“Oh, thank you,” cried Ella. “I knew I must do something, but I
didn’t know what.”

Ella’s mother told her that she ought to apologize to the professor
for interrupting his class. She went to him obediently and said,

“Professor, I am sorry I interrupted your class, but I don’t think I
did—much—and anyway the birds had to be fed.”

“So they did,” said the professor kindly, “and more interruptions of
that sort would be better for birds and for people.”

I am afraid that Ella was not exactly a model child, for she cut her
name on a tree in the circle with the Christmas jackknife, much to
the wrath of the man who cared for the grounds. She came in promptly
when the mother, for fear of the lightning, called her in from the
piazza during a heavy thunderstorm; but the next minute she was in
the highest cupola. The time spent in the gloomy basement dining-room
seemed to her so unbearably long that the mother sometimes yielded
to her pleadings and excused her before the meal was over. This, the
principal suggested, was not quite the thing to do, as it broke up
the “uniformity,” whatever that may have been; so the mother told
her she must remain through the meal. Ella remained, but she brought
a little story-book and quietly read through the last quarter of an
hour. The big boys smiled in comprehension of the situation, and the
principal made an unconditional surrender. To Ella he said, “You need
not wait if you would rather go out”; and to the boys, “If you would
save every minute as that child does, you would accomplish a great
deal more.”

The mother wrote to the grandmother in the mountains:

“Ella is very obedient, but she always thinks of something else. I
will describe her, so the children can fancy a little how she looks.
She has on a black beaver cloak, black felt hat trimmed with scarlet
velvet and plumes, a chinchilla muff, and chenille scarf. She has
just come in from church, and now, before her things are taken off,
is reading her Sabbath-school book. She devours all the books that
she finds.”

Ella’s worst—and most innocent—exploit was her sudden disappearance
on the most important day of the whole school year. The first class
was to graduate. It consisted of two students. One was to have the
valedictory and the other the salutatory; but it was to be just as
real a graduation as if there had been forty to go out into the world
with the seminary’s blessing upon them.

It was indeed a great day. Every class was to recite. Compositions
were to be read, songs sung, the piano played, diplomas presented,
speeches made, and trustee meetings held. There was to be a
collation, and the village band was to play while people ate. Surely
nothing could be more festive than this. The building was crowded
with guests. There were the people of the village, the home friends
of the students, the people who used to be students in the early
days, the thirty-six trustees whose fostering care was so necessary
to the success of the school, and many other folk who came just
because something was going on and they wanted to be in it.

Everything began finely. At nine, ten, eleven, the big bell in the
belfry rang, and the members of the first three series of classes
made plain to the delighted visitors how learned the year’s work had
made them. The bell struck twelve. This was the signal for Ella’s
French class, and after that the collation was to come. But where was
Ella? The classes were so small that the absence of even one student
was noticeable, and a messenger was sent to the mother, who was
hearing her class in botany.

In those days, the more difficult the wording of a textbook, the
more intellectual good those who studied it were supposed to get
from its pages, and a member of the class in botany was at that
moment declaring that “The cypripedium is perfectly symmetrical,
yet has irregular cohesion in the calyx, great inequality in the
petals, cohesion, adhesion, and metamorphosis in the—” but the
guests were never told by that class where “cohesion, adhesion, and
metamorphosis” might be found, for their teacher dropped the book and
forgot all about cypripedium and everything else except that her one
little girl was missing. Ella had established an enviable reputation
for punctuality, and if she was not in her class, then something had
happened.

A general alarm was given. Speeches, collation, graduating exercises
were all forgotten, and a search was begun. The boys and girls and
the faculty and the trustees and the guests all set out to explore
the country. A man at work in a field said that he had seen a little
girl in a red cape going toward the lake; and to the lake the whole
company went. In the moist sand were prints of little feet going
straight to the water’s edge, and the mother’s face turned white. But
beside them were the marks of Ponto’s sturdy paws.

“The dog is with her,” said the steward. “You need not be the least
bit afraid. Ponto would never let anything happen to her.”

But the mother was not comforted. Just what dogs would do, she knew
not; but she did know that water would drown little children.

Some one had caught sight of a child in a Red Riding Hood cape
strolling leisurely down a little hill on the right. The dog was with
her, and they were having a fine ramble together. The people shouted
to her, and Ponto answered with a deep and surprised “Bow-wow!” which
probably meant,

“Of course I’m glad to see you, but what are you here for? Can’t you
let us take a little walk?”

“Where _have_ you been?” cried the mother, as the little girl came
near.

“Over on the hill to get some flowers,” Ella replied serenely.

Then the mother told her how the footprints leading into the water
had frightened her.

“Did you think I would walk right into the water and be drowned?”
exclaimed Ella in disgust. “A baby a week old wouldn’t be so silly as
to do that. I walked ever so far close to the water, but I suppose
it washed the footprints away.” This was just what had happened, but
no one had noticed that the wind was blowing toward the land. As
to the French class, the mother had told her that it would meet at
two in the afternoon, and when the hour was changed to twelve, she
had forgotten to notify the small pupil, and then in the fear and
confusion forgot that she had forgotten.

So they all went back through the lane to the seminary to gather up
the fragments of the great day. The French class never welcomed its
guests with a “Comment vous portez-vous, mesdames et messieurs?”
but the collation was still palatable, the speeches were made, the
valedictory and the salutatory were read, the band played the pieces
they had been practicing, and the two students were as thoroughly
graduated as if a little girl in a Red Riding Hood cloak had not
interfered with the proceedings.

The mother had decided to return to the city, and this was Ella’s
last day at the seminary, and the end of her first year of school
life. She would have been broken-hearted over leaving, had it not
been that she was going to visit her grandmother; and a month with a
grandmother will make up to little girls for many losses.




CHAPTER V

ON THE WAY TO GRANDMOTHER’S


There were two grandmothers. The one with white curly hair that
glistened in the sunshine lived in the village where Ella was born.
It was a pretty village with hills and brooks and winding roads and
meadows of flowers, and old-fashioned houses with piazzas and tall
white pillars. Back of Ella’s home was a hill where great apple trees
grew, and the very first thing that she remembered in the world was
her father’s lifting her up into one of them, all sweet and dainty
with pink-and-white blossoms, and telling her to pick as many as she
pleased.

When they went to the grandmother’s, they walked straight up the
village street, where a line of houses stood on one side and woods on
the other. They were beautiful woods. Columbines grew in the clefts
of the rocks, delicate pink windflowers blossomed in the little
glades and the brave and cheery dandelions came out to the very edge
of the road to give a welcome to those who loved them.

The mother had told her little daughter that one of the names of the
columbine was Aquilegia Canadensis; of the windflower was Anemone
Nemorosa; and of the dandelion was Taraxacum Officinale, just for
the pleasure of seeing how so small a child would manage the long
names. Ella felt especially well acquainted with those flowers whose
“company names,” as she said, she had learned; and when she was
alone with them and talked to them, she often called them by these
names and pretended that she had come to make a call. “Miss Anemone
Nemorosa,” she would say, “are you sure that you are feeling quite
well to-day?” or, “Miss Aquilegia Canadensis, I think I saw a cousin
of yours in the garden just now. Your dress is red and yellow, but
hers was pink. Maybe she was your sister.” She fancied that they
liked the little formality, and she was almost surprised that they
did not answer her questions.

Beyond the woods was a bridge hanging high over a deep black river.
Ella did not like dark, still water; and when they were crossing
this bridge, she always held fast to her mother’s or her father’s
hand. After they had crossed the bridge, they went up a little hill,
not by the road, but through a field and over ledges where the
sweet-smelling saxifrage grew; and then they came to grandmother’s
little wooden gate that always closed of itself after they had gone
through it.

They passed the balm of Gilead tree with its sticky buds, the black
currant bush, and the great bush of white roses with creamy centers.
Then Ella ran across the grass to the door, for grandmother was
almost sure to see them and to come to the doorway to give them a
welcome.

Grandmother’s house was one of a little group of white houses
standing on the ledges at the top of the hill. These formed the tiny
village within a village which was called the “New City.” Ella was
always so happy at her grandmother’s that long after she was old
enough to go to Sunday school, she always confused the “New City”
with the “New Jerusalem.”

This was the “village grandma,” as Ella called her. But there was
also the “mountain grandma,” and it was to her house that the little
girl and her mother were going. Now when good New Englanders are
starting for anywhere, they always begin by taking the morning train
to Boston; so of course that was what our two travelers did.

Going to Boston, even if she did not go any farther, was a great
treat to Ella. There were windows full of blankbooks, and what
stories she could write in them, she thought longingly. There were
whole stores full of toys; and in the window of one of these stores
lay a box of tin soldiers. Ella looked again. It was exactly like the
box that she had wanted. Maybe it was the very same one. It certainly
was the same store.

“Mother,” she said, “that is my box of tin soldiers that uncle did
not give me; but I’m so old now that I don’t care for it. I’d rather
have the muff.”

“Don’t you love your uncle enough to forget that?” her mother asked.

“I love him better than almost anybody in the world,” said Ella, “and
I do forget it except when I happen to think of it. But he really
did break his promise,” she added slowly.

They left the stores and went to the Common. Ella’s little book of
history said that in the Revolutionary War the Americans pitched
their tents on the Common; and she fancied that she knew just where
those tents stood. She had also read about the battle of Bunker Hill,
and she never felt that she was really in Boston until she had caught
sight of the monument in memory of it standing tall and gray against
the northern sky.

At one side of the Common was the Capitol. The mother told Ella that
the laws for the whole State of Massachusetts were made in that
building.

“Do they ever make a mistake and make a bad law?” asked Ella.

“Perhaps they do sometimes,” the mother replied rather unwillingly,
for she wanted her little girl to grow up with deep respect for the
institutions of her country.

Ella thought a minute; then she asked slowly,

“If they made a law that everybody must tell lies, which would be
naughtier, to obey it or not to obey it?”

Just then a man began to scatter grain for the pigeons, and Ella
forgot all about laws whether good or bad.

Of all the pleasures of Boston, there was one that Ella wanted more
than she had wanted the tin soldiers, but she feared she would never
be permitted to enjoy it. This pleasure was, to have just one ride in
the swan boats in the Public Garden. The mother was afraid of boats,
especially of little ones, and Ella saw no hope of the ride that she
wanted so badly.

“Couldn’t I go for just one minute?” she pleaded. “I couldn’t
possibly drown in one minute if I tried. Couldn’t I just get in and
get out again?”

But the mother had no idea how deep the water might be, and she
always answered,

“No, not until you are tall enough to wade out if the boat tips over.”

“But I’ll be a woman then,” said Ella, “and tall women don’t ride in
the swan boats.”

“You can take some little girl with you, and maybe the man with the
boat will think you are a little girl too.”

“But I don’t want to take a little girl. I want some one to take me
while _I_ am a little girl. I don’t care for the tin soldiers now,
and I’m afraid that by and by I shan’t care for the swan boats; and
then I shan’t ever have had a ride in them, and I’ll be sorry all my
life that I had to leave it out.”

But the mother was turning toward the railroad station. There would
be only time enough to go there and to get some lunch, she said, and
they must not stay in the Garden any longer.

After lunch they went on board the train, and before long they
had crossed the line and were in New Hampshire. Ella had a tiny
yellow-covered geography at home, and she knew from the map just how
New Hampshire ought to look. It ought to look like a tall, narrow
chair with a very straight back. But from the car window it looked
like wide fields of grass and clover and daisies and hills and brooks
and valleys. Here and there were great elms, their branches swaying
gracefully in every breeze. Along the rail fences were bushes of
what Ella was almost certain were blackberries, and nearly ripe.
There were deep woods, too, and now and then she caught a glimpse
of a gleaming yellow or white blossom as the train hurried onward.
Sometimes they rode for quite a long way beside the blue Merrimack
River. It was low water, and she could see the markings that the
current had left on the sand. They were just like the markings in the
little brooks that she always liked so much, only these were larger.

Early in the afternoon they came to Concord, and the mother’s friend
met them at the station. But what did this mean? Ella’s eyes grew
bigger and bigger, for the friend held by the hand a little girl
about as tall as Ella. After she had greeted them, she said to Ella,

“This little girl has come to live just across the street from us,
and I am sure that you will be good friends. Her name is Ida Lester,
and she has come to meet you and walk home with you.”

So the mother and her friend walked up the shady street, and the two
little girls walked along behind them, looking shyly at each other.
Ella liked Ida, and Ida liked Ella.

“Do you like checkerberry candy?” asked Ella.

“Yes, I do,” Ida replied. “I had a stick of red and white peppermint
candy yesterday.”

“A lady on the cars gave me some checkerberry candy,” said Ella. “I
wish I had saved half of it for you.”

“I wish I had saved half of mine for you,” said Ida heartily. “I will
next time. Are you going to live here?”

“Oh, no,” replied Ella. “We are just going to make a little visit,
and then we’re going to see my grandmother in New Hampshire.”

“But _this_ is New Hampshire,” said Ida, looking puzzled.

“Is it? I know it said ‘New Hampshire’ on the tickets, but I don’t
call it ‘New Hampshire’ till I get where my grandmother is. But I’d
just as soon,” she added quickly, for she was afraid she had not been
exactly polite to this new friend, “and I’m so glad you live here.”

“I’m glad you’ve come,” said Ida. “Did you bring your dolls? Do you
like to play ‘house’ or ‘school’ better?”

“I like to play both,” said Ella. “I brought my big doll, because she
is the one I sleep with and the one I love best.”

“What is her name?”

“Minnie May Ida May. I like ‘May’ and that’s why I put it in twice.”

“You put in my name, too,” cried Ida joyfully. “I am so glad you
chose it even before you ever saw me. I’m going to name my biggest
doll over again, and call her Minnie May Ella May.”

“There wasn’t room for any more dolls in the trunk,” said Ella, “but
I brought ever so many paper dolls and some pretty paper to make them
some more dresses. I’ll give you some.”

“Oh, good!” Ida exclaimed. “My front steps are a splendid place to
play with paper dolls; and there’s a deep dark crack where we can put
them when they are naughty. We’ll have to tie a string around them
though, so we can pull them up again. Come over now, will you? No, I
forgot. My father raised some beans and they got mixed. He told me to
pick them over this afternoon and put all the white ones in one box,
the yellow in another, and the pink in another. He’s going to plant
them in the spring.”

“I’ll help you,” Ella cried eagerly, “and we’ll play that we are in
a castle where a wicked giant lives, and that he will whip us just
dreadfully if we make any mistakes; and we’ll be thinking up some
plan to get away from him.”

And so it was that the two little girls became friends. They had fine
times together playing “house” and “school,” and working on bits of
canvas with bright-colored worsteds in cross stitch, and telling
stories to each other. Sometimes they wrote their stories and read
them to the long rows of paper dolls standing up against the steps.
Ella had a great admiration for Ida’s handwriting. Ella’s own writing
had perhaps improved a very little, but even now it looked much like
a fence that had been caught in an earthquake, its pickets and rails
sticking out in all directions; but Ida’s was fair and round and
looked quite as if she was grown up.

One reason why they liked to write stories was because they always
tied the tiny books together with bright ribbons. Ida had a big box
of odds and ends of ribbon, and these she shared generously with
Ella. They had been given to her by her Sunday school teacher, who
had a little millinery store. Ella did not wish to give up her own
Sunday school teacher, but she did think it would be very agreeable
if she would open a millinery store.

The two little girls did all sorts of pleasant things together. When
Saturday came, Ida ran across the street, her face all aglow with
smiles, and gave Ella’s mother a note. Ella could hardly wait till
her mother had read it, and she stood first on one foot, then on the
other. The note said,

“Will you please let Ella put on a big apron and come to dinner with
Ida to-day?”

“Oh, mother, may I go? May I? May I? _May I?_” cried Ella, dancing
about the room. “I know we are to do something nice. What is it,
Ida?”

[Illustration: IDA’S MOTHER LOOKED IN AT THE DOOR TO MAKE SURE THAT
ALL WAS GOING ON WELL]

Ida only laughed, but the mother said yes, and the girls ran across
the street and pinned on the big aprons. Then Ida opened a door into
a little room back of the kitchen that Ella had never seen.

“This is the Saturday room,” she said.

“Oh, that’s lovely!” Ella cried. “I never saw such a beauty. Can you
really do things with it?”

“Just like a big one,” replied Ida, “and every Saturday mother lets
me cook my dinner on it.”

“It” was a little cookstove, the top not much more than a foot
square. It had four little griddles and an oven and a little
stovepipe that opened into the pipe of the big stove in the kitchen.
Beside the stove was a small closet, and on the low hooks hung a
mixing-spoon, a steel fork and knife, a griddle, and a wire broiler.
On the shelf above was a mixing-bowl, a little cake pan, a small
kettle, and a muffin pan that was just large enough to hold six
muffins. Above these was a pretty set of blue-and-white dishes, and
small knives, spoons, and forks. In one corner of the room was a
table, and in its drawers were napkins and a tablecloth.

“And does your mother really let you get your own dinner?” cried Ella.

“Yes, she does,” said Ida. “She says that little girls always like to
cook, and they may as well learn the right way as to play with scraps
of dough that their mothers have made. We’re going to have steak and
sweet potatoes and lettuce to-day, and blackberries and cream for
our dessert. I made the fire before I came over, and the potatoes are
all washed and ready to boil.”

“And may I help?” cried Ella.

“Of course you may. If you will put the potatoes into the kettle, I
will wash the lettuce. We’ll set the table together, and then you
shall broil the steak while I go to mother’s refrigerator for the
blackberries and the cream.”

Once in a while Ida’s mother looked in at the door to make sure that
all was going on well, and when the little girls had sat down to the
table, she came and looked it over and said,

“Well, children, I think you have done everything as well as I could.
I should really like to sit down and eat dinner with you.”

“Oh, do, do!” the girls cried; but Ida’s mother only smiled and shook
her head.

“Your father will be here soon,” she said, “and I’m afraid there
would not be enough for us all. When you are a little older, you
shall cook a dinner for us some day, and if Ella is here, we will ask
her to come and help.”




CHAPTER VI

THE REAL NEW HAMPSHIRE


On Ella’s side of the street, as well as on Ida’s, interesting things
were often going on. The mother and her friend were making wax
flowers, and this was a delight to see. Ella thought that the pink
mossrose buds were the loveliest things in the world. The mother had
brought with her some thin sheets of white wax, and out of these she
cut the petals, using the real buds for patterns. Some people made
the petals of pink wax, but it was thought to be much more artistic
to make them of white and paint them with pink powder.

These were pressed into the hollow of the hand and bent around the
wire stem. Real moss from the north side of the beech tree was
twisted on at the base of the petals. Leaves were made by dipping
real rose leaves first into water, then into melted green wax and
peeling off the impression of the under side to use. The rosebuds and
the sprays of leaves were brought gracefully together, and there was
the bouquet, all ready to take its stand in a little vase under a
glass shade on the parlor mantel.

Wax pond lilies, with long stems of green rubber, were also made. The
stems were coiled upon a round piece of looking-glass to represent
water. A glass shade in the shape of a half sphere was placed over
them, finished with a chenille cord. “And there you have a thing
that will always be an ornament for your parlor,” said the teachers
of wax-flower-making. “It will never go out of fashion because it is
true to nature.”

The two grown-ups were very kind to the smaller folk. They let them
try and try until they had each made a really pretty bud and a spray
of leaves to go with it. Then they made some little forget-me-nots
and some syringas. This was as much as they could find time for
without neglecting their large families of dolls.

One day Ella’s mother and her friend planned to go a little way out
of the city to call on an old friend of theirs.

“Put on your blue-and-white checked silk and your leghorn hat,” said
the mother.

“Do I have to go?” Ella asked in dismay, for she and Ida had some
interesting plans for the afternoon.

“Yes,” said her mother. “This lady is an old friend, and she will
want to see you.”

“Would she want to see me if she knew that I didn’t want to come?”

“I really can’t say about that,” said the mother with a smile, “but
I’ll tell you something that I do know. I have noticed that when
little girls do a thing because their mothers want them to, something
pleasant is almost sure to happen before long.”

Ella did not know of anything pleasant that would be likely to
happen in this call, and nothing did happen. The lady did not seem
especially glad to see her. There was not a child or a cat or a dog
to play with. There were a few books, but they were shut up in a tall
bookcase with glass doors, and Ella was almost sure that it would not
do to ask if she might take one to read. She sat in a stiff chair by
the window, thinking of what she and Ida had meant to do. After a
long, long time they said good-bye and started for home.

On the way Ella picked up a little stone and asked her mother if it
was a fossil.

“Here’s a gentleman who will tell you,” said mother’s friend, and
she introduced a tall man with white hair and deep blue eyes who was
coming toward them.

“Doctor,” she said, “here is a little girl who wants to know whether
her stone is a fossil.”

“Indeed,” said he with a kindly look at Ella. “I am afraid it is not;
but what does she know about fossils?”

“Very little,” said her mother; “but even when she was very small,
she was always bringing in pebbles and asking if they did not have
names just as flowers did. Her father told her the names of a few of
the minerals that were most common about our home, and she is always
looking for them.”

“I think I must give myself the pleasure of showing her my
cabinets,” said the Doctor. “Not many little girls care for minerals.
May I take her home with me now?”

Then came a happy time. The Doctor had great cases full of the most
interesting minerals. He soon found that Ella liked fossils and
crystals especially, and as he showed them to her one by one, he told
her stories of the places where he found them and of the fossils that
were once living plants or animals a long, long time ago.

“Was it before you were born?” Ella asked, and wondered a little why
he looked so amused when he answered yes.

When it was time for her to go home, the Doctor gave her a real
fossil, a piece of rose quartz, and a little deep red garnet. He
walked home with her, and when he left her, he said:

“I am going away in the morning, but I shall send you before long
a package of specimens marked with their names and where they were
found. Maybe some day we shall have a great mineralogist whose name
will be Ella. I take off my hat to the mineralogist of the future,”
he said with a friendly smile.

Ella was the happiest little girl in town. “He took off his hat to me
just as if I had been a grown lady,” she told her mother.

The Doctor kept his promise, and not long afterwards he sent her a
package of fifty or sixty minerals, all marked as he had said they
would be. Ella wrote him a little letter, in her funny handwriting
that looked as if it had been out in an earthquake, and told him
how pleased she was to have them, and how much she liked to look
them over. One thing puzzled her, however. The good Doctor must have
forgotten for a moment what a little girl she was, for he had put
into the package a pamphlet that he had written for some learned
society about the cacao tree. It was a thick pamphlet in the finest
of print and with the lines very close together.

“I can’t tell him that I am glad to have this to read,” said Ella in
dismay, “for I’m not. What shall I do?”

“It was kind in him to send it to you,” her mother replied, “and you
can thank him for his kindness. That will be perfectly honest. You
need not tell him that you will enjoy reading it.”

Ella was having a good time, but when night came, she was often a
little homesick for the grandmother and the “real New Hampshire,”
and she did not grieve when she and her mother took the train for
the mountains. She was very sorry to leave Ida, but the mother had
promised her friend to stop on her way home. Ella had agreed to bring
Ida some maple sugar; and the two little girls said good-bye without
any tears. They exchanged parting gifts. Ella gave Ida “Minnie
Warren,” her very best paper doll, and Ida gave Ella a little book
with a story in it that she had written. It was tied with a bright
red ribbon, and on the cover was written, “The Lost Child, A True
Story Made up by Ida Lester.”

After an hour in the cars, Ella and her mother came to the most
delightful part of the journey. The train stopped, then rushed on
toward the north, leaving them standing beside a wharf that stretched
out into a beautiful lake, blue as the sky and full of dainty little
islands all rocks and trees and ferns. The lake seemed to have been
dropped softly into a hollow among the mountains, for they were all
around it, bending over it as if they loved it, Ella thought.

A shining white steamboat was coming into sight around an island. It
did not blow any whistle, but floated up to the wharf as gracefully
as a swan, making only the gentlest of ripples in the blue water.
This was the “Lady of the Lake.” Ella thought the name had been given
to the boat because it seemed so gentle and so ladylike.

They went on board, and as the steamboat made a wide curve away from
the wharf and set out on her course across the blue water, roaming in
and out among the islands, Ella joyfully watched for the peaks that
she knew best in the ranges that circled around the old homestead.
From one point on the steamer’s course Mt. Washington could be seen
for a few minutes. Ella was looking for it eagerly when she saw a man
with a harp coming up from the lower deck. A little girl followed
him, and as he began to play, she sang in a sweet, clear voice.

“Mother,” Ella whispered, “couldn’t I ever learn to sing like that?
I’d rather do it than almost anything else in the world.”

The singing stopped and the man passed his hat around for money.
Ella looked at the little singing girl and found that the singer was
looking at her.

“Couldn’t I go and speak to her?” she asked, and her mother said,
“Yes, if you like. I think she looks rather lonely.”

So Ella went up to the singing girl a little shyly and said:

“I think your singing is beautiful. I wish I could go about and sing
and be on a boat always.”

“I heard you say to your mother that you were going to your
grandmother’s, and I wished and wished that I had a grandmother and
could go to see her and play like other children. I’d so much rather
than to go about singing.”

But the father was beckoning to her to get ready to go ashore, and
Ella went back to her mother.

“I can see him! I can see him!” she cried. “And there’s the gray
horse!”

One of her uncles always met them at the Harbor. Ella had caught
sight of him on the wharf, and she had no more thought just then for
the singing girl.

Pretty soon they were seated in the wagon and were riding slowly
along the road that wound higher and higher up among the hills to the
old homestead. It was good to go slowly, Ella thought, for every
mountain and every tree seemed like an old friend, and it would hurt
their feelings if she hurried past them.

There were two roads that found their way to “the West,” that is, the
little village that was nearest to the homestead, and it was always
a question which to choose. One led over a hill so high that it was
almost a young mountain. Indeed, when Ella was smaller, she had
fancied that if the road had not held it down like a strap, it would
have grown into a mountain. The other road was shorter, but full of
rocks, as if it had once been the bed of a river. The horse knew it
well. He had learned just how to twist and turn among the rocks, and
even if one wheel was a foot higher than another, there was no real
danger of an overthrow, day or night.

Upward they went, past tiny villages, little blue ponds, comfortable
farmhouses, usually in charge of a big dog, who came out to the
road and greeted them with a friendly wag of the tail; past meadows
and mowing lots; beside “sap orchards” of maple trees; through deep
woods, dark and cool even that warm summer afternoon; past the tiny
red schoolhouse under the maples at the crossroads. Ella had been
there to school with an older cousin one day, and she thought that
going to school and sitting at a desk must be the most delightful
thing in the world. She had been allowed to sit, not with the little
children, but, because she was company, on the high seats at the
back of the room with the big girls. They were parsing in “Paradise
Lost.” Ella had no idea what either “Paradise Lost” or “parsing”
might be, but she was sure it must be something very agreeable. They
had carried their dinner in a tin pail; and this, she thought, was a
wonderfully fine thing to do, for when noon came, they ate it under
the trees just as if they were on a picnic. Then they played in the
brook and made playhouses, marking them out with white stones on the
grass. They made wreaths of maple leaves, pinning them together with
their long stems, and they pulled up long sprays of creeping Jenny to
drape over their playhouses at home.

But now they were on the crossroad that led to grandmother’s, and
Ella was getting much excited. “I know she will hear us when we go
over the causeway,” she cried, “and she will come to the road to
meet us;” and so it was, for two minutes later they could see the
end of the house and the big asparagus bush standing under one of
the west windows. Half a minute more, and they were at the gate, and
there stood grandma and grandpa, and the uncles and the aunts and
the cousins, and such a welcome as there was! Then came supper, with
cottage cheese, made as no one but grandma could make it, custard
pie, hot biscuit and maple syrup made from the sap of the very trees
that they had just passed, and as many other good things as the table
would hold.

After Ella was curled up in bed that night, she said:

“Mother, I don’t believe I want to sing on a boat. I’d rather be a
little girl at her grandmother’s. Will you please take out my thick
shoes? I shall be too busy to look for them in the morning.”

The mother went back to have a little talk alone with grandmother.
She was sitting in her straight-backed rocking-chair. There were
tears in her eyes. She looked up as the mother came in.

“The child looks more like her father every year,” said grandmother.

The mother nodded. Her eyes, too, were full of tears, and she could
not speak.




CHAPTER VII

BOY COUSIN


Ella was a fortunate little girl in having so many cousins. Some
were tall, some were short; some had blue eyes, and some had black;
some had curly hair and some had straight hair; some lived near the
grandfather’s, some lived a long drive away, and some lived many
hundreds of miles away. Most of them were younger; two or three were
older. When one is nine, three or four years make a great difference,
and Ella looked upon these older ones as being quite mature persons.
She loved them all, but her special playmate was Boy Cousin, a boy of
her own age who lived nearest.

When morning came, there were so many interesting things to do that
Ella hardly knew how to choose among them. First of all, she must of
course have a good long look at the mountains, every one of them.
Little girl as she was, she could remember when some of them were a
little different in their appearance. The nearest one was Ossipee, a
kindly, friendly, sunny mountain, with a great pasture running far
up the side to a gray rock that looked quite like a cabin. This had
not come into view until the trees about it had been cut down. The
children realized that the “cabin” was much larger than it appeared,
and they had made up a story to the effect that a good-natured giant
from the other side of the mountain had come over to this side,
bringing his house with him.

Beyond this rock were ledges, and after a rain the water ran down
over them in a silver sheet. The children called them the Shining
Rocks, the home of the sunbeam fairies. They had once climbed to the
top of the mountain, and when they came to the rocks, they more than
half expected to catch a glimpse of a little man in grass-green hat
or a dainty fairy queen in a gown of sunbeams. No fairies appeared,
and they decided that it was foolish to expect them, for every one
ought to know that they will not appear when grown-ups are about.

To the west lay Israel, massive and dignified. That had not changed;
but Ella felt sure that Whiteface was not quite the same. It was
called Whiteface because a slide many years before had torn off the
face of the mountain, and left only the bare white granite. Every
summer the trees and bushes made their way a little farther in upon
the rocks; and a keen observer could really see that the slide was a
little less white and a little more green.

Away to the north was Chocorua, the mountain that in sun and shade
and mist and tempest and calm was always an exquisite picture. It lay
with quiet majesty on the horizon, stately and beautiful. The forest
had crept up the sides, but the summit was a great mass of granite,
sharply pointed and reaching far up into the blue sky. Ella thought
it looked like a picture that she had seen of the Alps. She did so
hope that some day she might climb it. It would be like taking a trip
to Europe, she thought. Of all the mountains in view, Chocorua was
the one that she loved best. “I wish you could understand. I wish I
could put my arm around you and tell you how I love you,” she used to
whisper to it sometimes. The mountain looked more and more beautiful,
but it made no reply. One day, however, a wisp of white cloud floated
quickly over the peak while she was speaking. “You do understand, and
you are waving to me,” she said to the mountain, and after this she
loved it more than ever.

Ella had been walking slowly down the narrow road that wound between
the tall alder bushes down to the river. At one place she stopped to
put aside the ferns growing in front of a rock of pale gray granite.
The side of the rock nearest the road was of a darker gray and was
shaped like a door. This was the entrance to fairyland, the children
had decided, and Ella stood waiting a moment to see if the queen of
the fairies would appear. If the queen should wear a bright pink
dress with deep red lines, then Ella would know for sure that she had
seen her Majesty in the little woods by the lake near the seminary.

But Boy Cousin was coming up the road, and Ella hastily brought the
ferns together, for she had begun to suspect that he did not believe
in fairies quite so firmly as she, so she did not speak of them when
they met on the bridge.

This bridge was made of split logs laid upon great rough beams of
wood. On each side there was a rail cut with many initials. Among
them was a big “E,” which Ella had cut the summer before. Under the
bridge, as far up and down stream as they could see, there were rocks
of all sizes and shapes. It was so dry a season that in many places
the water had slipped out of sight among them, making a fresh, merry,
rippling sound.

“It’s playing hide and seek,” declared Boy Cousin, “and it is saying,
‘Here I am! Find me if you can!’”

Over the river hung wild grapes, as yet green and sour; sprays of
goldenrod; graceful and dainty white birches; and here and there was
a bright leaf or two of the early autumn, or a reddening spray of
bittersweet or the scarlet berries of the black alder.

The children slipped down beside the bridge to one of their favorite
places, a big flat rock overhung by a white birch and a maple. They
were looking up through the branches when Ella exclaimed:

“Just see there, Boy Cousin! See the blue sky with the white birch
bough running across it and the little spray of red maple leaves!
It’s our flag, our own Red, White, and Blue. But let’s go and see the
stone house. We can come back here this afternoon.”

So down the road they went. On the left was a little hill where lay
some great-great-grandfathers, men who had forced their way into
the new country and cut out for themselves homes in the wilderness.
Their graves were marked by field stones, just as they had been left
in the early times. At one or two of them an initial was rudely cut
into the stone. Ella wondered a little whether she would have liked
these great-great-grandfathers or her French ones better. “I had some
French great-great-grandfathers, too,” said Boy Cousin. “What a pity
that we couldn’t all have lived at the same time!”

On the right of the road was a row of tamarack trees, and over
the wall a field through which the river ran in graceful curves,
and a mass of great rocks that looked as if hurled together by an
earthquake, but made the nicest places possible for little “cubby
houses” and ovens for baking mud cakes.

Through the bars the children went, over a little bridge, across the
wide-spreading meadow, and up a hill to a rocky pasture where the
gray horse was roaming about.

“The horse and the rocks are the very same color,” said Ella. “I
don’t see how you know which of them to put the bridle on when you go
to catch him.”

“That’s easy,” replied Boy Cousin. “I just look the rocks over, and
put the bridle on the one that shakes its tail.”

There was one rock, larger than the others, and of all the rocks that
the children had seen, this was the only one that split into layers.
Wide slabs of this rock lay all around, and of these slabs they had
made, the summer before, a little cottage. It stood up against the
great rock, with a slab of granite for each wall and one for the
roof. By patient hammering they had contrived to break out a place
for a doorway and a window. It was so well built that it had stood
bravely through all the frosts and storms of a mountain winter.

“It looks just exactly as it did,” Ella said delightedly. “I was
afraid it would fall down. I wonder that the ram did not knock it
down.”

Boy Cousin was silent. He was never inclined to brag of his own
exploits. Ella went on: “Grandpa told me last night. He said that the
ram kept trying to butt you, and that you hadn’t anything to fight it
with except a little stick; but that you climbed up on this rock and
managed somehow to keep it off till your father came from the next
field. He said you were a plucky boy, or you would have been killed.”

“Who wouldn’t be plucky rather than killed?” demanded the hero of the
story. “There’s no end of checkerberries over there. Let’s make a
birch-bark basket and pick some.”

They pulled some birch bark from a tree, took a piece seven or eight
inches long and five wide, cut two slits an inch long in each end,
bent the outer pieces on either end together, and fastened them with
a little wooden pin; and there they had a strong basket that would
hold a double handful of checkerberries.

After the berries were picked, Boy Cousin looked wisely at the sun
and declared that it was time to go home to dinner.

“Let’s go fishing after dinner,” Ella proposed.

“No good; too early. Let’s play croquet first.”

“You haven’t any croquet set.”

“Haven’t I, though? You just come and see.”

“You didn’t have last summer.”

“This is another summer.”

“Have you really a set?”

“You said I hadn’t.”

“Well, I’ll say you have if you have. Where is it?”

“It’s where little girls can’t find it; but if you’ll come down this
afternoon, we’ll play and I’ll beat you with it whether it’s real or
not.”

“I don’t more than half believe it’s real, but I’ll come. Good-bye.”

When Ella came to see the croquet set, she thought it was quite
wonderful.

“It isn’t the least bit like those in the stores,” she explained
to her mother. “It is ever and ever so much nicer because it is so
different. He just sawed off pieces of white birch for the mallet
heads, bored a hole in each one, and drove the handle in. The bark
is left on, and it’s so much prettier than paint and varnish. The
ends are not much smoothed off, and so the balls do not slip half so
badly.”

“And how did he make the balls?” asked the mother.

“Why, he didn’t have to make them at all. There was an old bedstead,
and these balls were at the top of the posts. He just sawed them off.
They’re not like common balls; they are shaped like those that boys
play football with, and when you hit one, you never know which way it
will go. It’s ever so much more fun than just plain croquet.”

There was always plenty of amusement for the two children, and no
one ever heard them saying, “Please tell me something to do.” No one
ever heard them wishing for more children to play with. Indeed, the
river was as good as a dozen. They cut poles in the woods and fished
in it. Ella kept a little diary, as was the fashion in those times,
and it was a great convenience to be able to fill a whole day’s space
with such entries as, “I caught 2 flatfish and 1 perch”; or, when
apparently the fish had refused to bite on the previous day, “We did
not go fishing to-day at all. I suppose I should not have caught
anything if we had gone.”

The river had a charming way of suggesting things to do. In one
place, clay stones had formed, and the children had fine times wading
in and picking them up. In another it had overflowed and made a
little bay that could easily be shut off by itself. They named it
Beauty Bay, and whenever they caught a fish without harming it, they
slipped it gently into this Bay to live in peace and plenty all the
rest of its life.

A big flat rock in the middle of the stream was their picnic ground.
Here they often built a fire and roasted eggs rolled in wet paper
or ears of fresh green corn. On the bank just beyond the rock were
blackberry bushes, and no one who has not tried it has any idea how
good the berries taste when one takes first a berry and then a bite
of maple sugar.

It must have been the river that suggested to them to write a library
of little story-books, the “Bearcamp Books,” as they called them,
one for each rock; and as the bed of the Bearcamp is all rocks, this
was without doubt the most tremendous literary undertaking of the
century. The stories were carefully modeled upon the tales of the
day, and were written, like those in Concord, in tiny booklets.

This is the way Ella described their publishing house to her uncle in
the West:

  How do you like being editor? Boy Cousin and I are publishing books
  (on a rather smaller scale than you, though). We make a little
  blankbook out of writing paper and then make up a story and write
  in it. I have written 8 or 9 books, little and big, besides a lot
  of other stories not in the book form. I love to write. I wish that
  when you write to me you would tell me all about your paper, and
  about the printing of it especially, as I never saw any one print.
  Boy Cousin can write poetry, but I can’t.

The first story that Ella contributed to the “Bearcamp Library” was
called “Our Ragbag,” for this was in the days when people saved their
rags and bought glass dishes with them, and it read as follows:

  As the contents of our ragbag were to be sold, the rags were laid
  on a table in an unused room. Well, this is pleasant, to be in
  the light once more after being in this dark bag so many long
  weeks. “What shall we do” said a piece of cloth. “Let us each tell
  our story” said a piece of brocade, “I will begin—In a beautiful
  garden in the far off east, a no less beautiful girl used to
  walk—sometimes alone—but more frequently accompanied by her—enough
  of this stuff” said a white cotton rag “Let me tell a story, Once
  there grew in the south, a beautiful flower known as the cotton
  plant. I was that beautiful flower. Nonsense, just as though we
  would believe that story, said a little piece of blue & white
  muslin “let me tell mine Once there was a very rich lady came in
  her carriage to the shop where I was placed to be sold & without
  alighting from her carriage asked to see some rich silk & velvet
  goods, they were immediately carried to her & by mistake I was put
  in with them & the clerk did not perceive that I was there until he
  got to the carriage. He was just going to throw me into the store
  when the lady said “That is very pretty, I will take it” & so she
  carried me home with her then I was made into a splendid dress for
  one of—“Well, I say for one said a faded piece of calico, that we
  have heard enough about dress.” “The people are coming to pick us
  over, isn’t it too bad that we did not find out in the bag what a
  good time we might have had, each could then have told his story.”




CHAPTER VIII

RAINY DAYS AND SUNDAYS


Every day was full, but rainy days were fullest of all. Those were
the times when the children made fiddles of cornstalks, popguns of
elder, and candles of bayberry wax, using elder stems for moulds;
the times when they played in the big unfinished garret where two
or three barrels of beautifully lumpy maple sugar always stood. Boy
Cousin’s mother had a loom and kept up the old custom of weaving one
piece every year. The threads of the warp were all drawn into the
harness and the piece was well begun when Ella came, and she thought
it would be the easiest thing in the world to give the shuttle the
skillful little push that sent it sliding across the threads. “Please
mayn’t I try it only once?” she begged. “I’m almost sure I could make
it go through just as you do”; and finally Boy Cousin’s good-natured
mother let her try it. The shuttle must have been bewitched, for
although Ella was certain that she started it in exactly the same way
that it had been trained to go, it was willing to go anywhere and
everywhere rather than to the one proper place. It fell down on the
floor and slid away back under the loom.

But if Ella could not weave, she could fill quills. These quills were
short pieces of the hollow elder stem with the pith pushed out. The
thread of the woof was wound on them and they were slipped into the
shuttle. To wind these, the “quilling wheel” was used. It was much
like a spinning wheel, only smaller. The children took turns in using
it, making believe that they were waging war with the fairy king of
the elder bushes, and that the spools were prisoners whom they had
taken and were binding with chains.

Rainy days were good times to try whatever new ways they had learned
of “taking it off” in cat’s-cradle, good times to braid bulrushes.
They learned how to make three-strand and seven-strand and how to sew
the braid together and make quite respectable hats.

Painting was always in order. They manufactured a very good red paint
from the juice of the elderberry; and when they wanted purple, they
added a little soft soap. For other colors there was Ella’s paint-box
to depend upon; for long before this she had had a new box to take
the place of the one buried among the roses.

They made various games, but this was not without its difficulties.
Cardboard was at least ten miles away; birch bark would curl up; but
no lack of materials was ever allowed to interfere with their plans,
there was always something else that would answer the purpose. In
this case they pasted several thicknesses of newspaper together,
deceived the world by adding a facing of light brown wrapping paper
when the white gave out; put the cards under flatirons to make as
sure as possible that they would dry without wrinkles; and when they
were dry, painted them with whatever the games required of words or
pictures. It must be admitted that when these cards were shuffled,
they were a little like the croquet balls in that no one ever knew
which way they would go, and Boy Cousin’s father suggested that they
be dealt with a snowshovel; but the children looked upon them as a
great success.

If there was ever a minute when they had nothing else to do, the
yellow-covered Farmer’s Almanac was ready to keep them busy. Here
were the riddles and conundrums and charades and enigmas of the
preceding year, and a new collection for them to puzzle over, whose
answers would not be revealed until the following year. There were
bits of poetry and wise sayings of famous men. Here was occupation
enough for many rainy days. Ella felt a little envy of Boy Cousin
because he had the Almanac the first of January and she did not see
it until July or August. Queerly enough, it was so associated in
her mind with rainy days in the New Hampshire garret that she never
thought of looking for a copy anywhere else.

Sometimes the rain fell heavily all day, and even more heavily up in
the mountains at the source of the river. This meant that the water
would roll down faster and faster. The big meadow was only a little
above the river’s level, and before the afternoon was half gone,
it would be a wide-spreading sea. Higher and higher the water rose
under the bridge. Not a rock was to be seen. The whole meadow and the
bed of the river was full of a torrent of black water, foaming and
bubbling.

After one of these rainy days, the children went out to see what harm
had been done, and they found that Beauty Bay was gone, that even
the water had been washed away, and the Bay had become a part of the
river. The fish that had dwelt in such comfort in the Bay would now
have to make their own living as best they could, for they had been
swept into the river, into the pond, perhaps all the way to the briny
ocean, and what would a fresh-water fish do then, poor thing?

In the midst of all the happy occupations of weekdays came Sunday
with a dull thud. Everything stopped, everything was different. No
more tramping shoes and runabout dresses; people must wear their
best clothes to meeting. The little white meetinghouse was several
miles away, and the two extra passengers made extra weight; they must
drive slowly. No one could count upon the exact minute of arrival,
and sometimes there were what seemed to Ella whole hours of waiting
before they went into the church.

The Sunday after the flood they started earlier than usual, for the
roads might have been washed by the rain. They proved to be in good
condition, and the time of waiting was longer than ever. This was
very pleasant for the older folk. They met their friends and had nice
little chats with them; but it happened that most of the children
lived quite a long distance from Ella’s grandfather’s, and she did
not know them. There was an attractive little road that rambled away
from one side of the church, and she wished that she might ramble
with it. Over the hill there would surely be a brook. Cardinal
flowers grew beside brooks. It was not their season, but there might
be just one. Any way, there would certainly be some kind of wild
flowers. But the minister was coming and they must go into church.

After the service came the Sunday school, and then people went out
into the little graveyard and ate the lunch that they had brought
with them. When Ella first saw this, she was a little surprised to
see people treat a graveyard in so familiar and friendly a fashion.
Then she remembered a strange story that she had once read about a
little girl who had been carried to fairyland. She was allowed to see
her old friends once every year, provided not one of them forgot to
come to the place of meeting.

Ella wondered if the people who lay in this graveyard were pleased to
have them come and eat lunch there. If they were, she was very glad
to help make them happy. The afternoon sermon did not seem nearly so
long as that of the morning, and she went home thinking that if the
people under the stones really liked to see her, she should like to
come again. She even hoped it would not be so rainy the next Sunday
that she would have to disappoint them.

Sunday was divided into three parts. It was very much Sunday until
they were at home from meeting. Then it was allowable to put on a
dress that was not a really best one, but was a little better than
one for everyday. Dinner was at about four o’clock. After this came
the third part of the day. It was not proper to play games, but one
might pop corn. One might go to walk, not on a real tramp through the
woods, but quietly up or down the road.

Ella was never quite sure that she understood all the Sunday
distinctions. For instance, one might pick berries in the garden,
but it would never have done to take a pail and go to pick them in
the fields. If you were walking on the road and came to a bush full
of them, you might fold up a big leaf or make a birch-bark basket—a
very simple one, of course—and fill it to carry home. Even then,
however, it was better to explain that the sky looked like rain and
the berries would have been spoiled and so wasted before morning if
left on the bush.

After dinner on the Sunday after the flood, Ella and Boy Cousin went
sedately up the road for a little walk. They came to a tree of early
apples, which proved to be as sour as apples could possibly be.

“That tree ought to be grafted,” said Boy Cousin.

“How do you graft?” Ella asked.

“You stick into the sour tree some twigs from a good tree and put
wax around them to keep them dry,” replied Boy Cousin.

“Let’s stick one into this tree.”

“Why isn’t that work just as much as ploughing would be?” Boy Cousin
queried.

“Trees grow Sunday just as much as on other days, and if we graft
them so they can raise good apples instead of poor, we are not
working; we are only helping them to do their own work well. We
haven’t any wax, but why can’t we get some spruce gum? That would
keep the water out.”

“There isn’t a good apple tree anywhere near.”

“Put in a raspberry twig then,” suggested Ella. “A raspberry as big
as an apple would be good, I know.”

So they began, and before they were done, not only raspberry, but
also maple, spruce, woodbine, wild cherry, and even hardhack had been
grafted into that long-suffering tree.

Monday morning Boy Cousin, his father, and Ella were going part way
up one of the mountains to visit a pasture. In the spring, as soon
as the grass was green, it was the custom to drive cattle and young
colts up to a mountain pasture, where they could feed till autumn.
Every few weeks the owner paid a visit to the pasture to make sure
that his “creatures” were safe and to give them salt.

They started when the mists were rolling away from the valleys, and
the sun was just peering over Ossipee. It was a beautiful ride
through the cool fresh woods, showing here and there a spray of
scarlet leaves. Occasionally they had a glimpse of a rabbit or a
woodchuck, and once a deer watched them for a moment, then bounded
gracefully across the road and disappeared in the woods.

At the foot of the mountain the little company started up the narrow
footpath, at first smooth, then stony, as they came to places where
the rain had washed the soil. Most of the way was through the woods,
but here and there were openings where they could get views of the
mountains around them. From one of these openings they could see the
old homestead half hidden by its great maples.

At last they came to a large pasture surrounded by woods. Boy
Cousin’s father laid some salt on a big flat rock, and then called,
“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” For a minute all was still, then a crash of broken
limbs was heard far off in the woods. Then two or three cattle
plunged headlong out of the forest. Then came others, and then four
little colts. They knew that the visit meant salt, and every one
started for the flat rock. But every one stopped short, and stood
as still as a statue and gazed at Ella. It was almost embarrassing,
for when she walked to one side, they all walked after her and gazed
more curiously than ever. They had seen men before, but how a little
girl could come into their pasture, and what a little girl might be,
was a wonder. The shy little colts were so devoured with curiosity
that they stood still and stared when Ella ventured to slip up and
pat their silky heads. Then they went to the salt; and after they
had eaten what they wanted, they wandered back, one by one, into the
forest, and Boy Cousin’s father and the children set out for home.

“Good-bye,” called Boy Cousin, as Ella climbed out over the high
wheel. “We’ll go and see how our grafts are the first thing in the
morning.”

But when Ella opened the door, there stood the mother before the
trunk, folding up their clothes and laying them in. The mail had
brought a letter that made it necessary for them to return to the
city in the morning. There was no time to visit the tree; and this is
why no one knows what happens when a raspberry twig is grafted into a
sour apple tree on Sunday afternoon.




CHAPTER IX

BOOKS AND PLAY


The mother had agreed to take charge of a private school in the city
for a year; and before many days had passed, Ella was setting out
every morning at eight o’clock to practice an hour before school
opened. It was a pleasant walk down the broad street. It had been a
street of homes with flower gardens and trees and wide front steps,
and porches that looked as if people liked to sit in them summer
evenings and talk and have good times together. The gardens were full
of old-fashioned flowers that bloomed as if they were having the best
time of their lives. Between them and the sidewalk were fences so
low and open that they invited passers-by to stop and see the roses,
geraniums, hollyhocks, ladies’-delights, or none-so-pretties, sweet
Mary, sweet William, and the rest of them.

The street was just beginning to think of becoming a business street,
and here and there, wherever there chanced to be a spare nook or
corner, there stood a tiny store which seemed to look up a little
shyly to its more stately neighbors.

Two of these little stores were of special interest to Ella. One had
a stock of roots and herbs, and among them were the cinnamon buds
that she was still fond of. Her first spare penny went into the hands
of a clerk in this store, a solemn-looking man with a pasty white
face. Evidently he felt it his duty to give this reckless small child
a lecture, for, still holding the penny in his hand, he told her how
dangerous it was to eat spices.

“I once knew a man who ate a pound of spice and died,” he said
gloomily.

“How much are these a pound?” Ella asked.

“Forty cents,” the clerk replied.

“Then,” said Ella, “if I buy a cent’s worth each time, I shouldn’t
have had a pound till I had been here thirty-nine times more, should
I?”

“No,” said the clerk wonderingly.

“I’ll be careful,” said Ella blithely. “I’ll keep count, and when I
get to thirty-nine, I’ll stop—and then pretty soon I’ll begin over.
Will you please give me the first pennyworth now?”—and he did.

The other store held a supply of handkerchiefs, neckties, suspenders,
stockings, and whatever other small wares men might want to buy. It
was presided over by a trim little old gentleman with the whitest
of linen and the reddest of cheeks. He was sometimes standing in
the doorway when she went by, and one morning he held a letter
in his hand. Ella would have offered to take it, but she was too
shy. Perhaps the little old gentleman was a bit shy, also, for he
hesitated until she was almost past.

Then he said, “Should you be willing to leave this in the post-office
as you go by?”

“I’d like to ever so much,” replied Ella cordially; and ever after
that, when she passed the store and the little gentleman was in
sight, they exchanged smiles and good-mornings.

“I hope you were very careful of the letter,” said the mother when
she heard the story.

“Barnum’s elephants couldn’t have pulled it away from me,” Ella
declared stoutly. She had just been to Barnum’s circus, so of course
she knew that whereof she spoke.

This was a school for “Young Ladies.” Ella did so wish that there was
just one little girl among the pupils. However, she was used to being
with older girls, and she was soon quite at home among these. Her
studies were arithmetic, which she liked, and French and music, which
she did not like.

“Why do you like arithmetic best?” the mother once asked.

“Because,” replied Ella thoughtfully, “when it’s done, it’s done,
and I know it’s done, and it can’t come undone. In music, even if
I have practiced my very best, I may strike some wrong note and
spoil it all; and in French, I may forget just one word for just one
minute, and then the whole sentence isn’t good for anything at all.
Arithmetic is easy. It’s just add, subtract, multiply, and divide;
and then you know it all. The rest is only different ways of using
these things. A baby ought to know how to learn four things.”

These were what Ella called her real “studies”; but there were two
others that she called her “make-believe studies.” These latter
she had chosen herself according to the color of the covers of the
textbook and the size of the print. The tiny geography was yellow,
with coarse print, and easy questions. The little grammar had a
bright pink cover. It was not much larger than her own hand, and it
was so clear and easy that Ella felt almost as if she had written
it herself. Who could help understanding when an illustration was
“George had four sweet apples,” or “William’s dog has come home”? Of
course, like all productions of grown-ups, it had occasional lapses,
such as, “The gay summer droops into pallid autumn,” which of course
no child ought to be expected to understand.

These two books were so winning that Ella took great pleasure in
saying every day or two, “I have learned my geography lesson,” or “I
have finished my grammar. May I recite it now?” There was another
reason, which she did not realize, but which was a strong one. She
knew that little girls in the public schools did not study French and
did study geography and grammar; and she was beginning to want to do
things just like other girls.

Ella had one great advantage over most little girls, and this was in
her mother’s belief that if a child wanted to do what older people
were doing, she ought to have a chance to try. “She will learn
something,” the busy mother always said, “and whatever she learns
will come in play some time.” That was why, when the mother and her
friend were making wax flowers, Ella was encouraged to see what she
could do. She had really acquired considerable skill. These ornaments
were as fashionable as ever, and the other “young ladies” were so
glad to follow her instructions that she began to feel quite like an
assistant teacher.

She used her skill in making a bouquet for her special little girl
friend at the old home, the one who had sent her the “jockey cap” at
Christmas. Such a bouquet as it was! Ella wrote in her diary, “There
were in it one Moss-rose bud a spiderworth a jonquil, some lily’s of
the valley and a bunch of coral Honeysuckle two Prickly pears some
forgetmenots a bunch of Verbena’s and two Orange-blossoms with two
Hawthorn’s and some grass with two Sweet peas were the contents of
my bouquet.” It is little wonder that they did not dwell together in
unity and that some of them were broken when the time of unpacking
arrived.

Ella also gave reading lessons. The mother had become interested in
her washerwoman, a negress who had once been a slave. The woman was
eager to learn, and Ella used to stop three times a week on her way
home from school to hear her read and, incidentally, to study the
little granddaughter and wonder if there was not some way to make her
hair straight and her face white.

Ella was usually a very happy little girl, but one day, in
pessimistic mood she wrote in her little diary, in as large letters
as the narrow space between the lines would permit, “I wish I did not
have to do anything but read and play all day long”; but certainly
she did a rather large amount of both reading and playing.

As to the reading, there was the library of many volumes at home.
There was the Sunday school collection; and its records of one rainy
Sunday declare that by some method of persuasion she wheedled the
young librarian into allowing her to carry home four books for the
afternoon’s consumption. Then, too, in the same building as the
school there was a large library, open to the public on payment
of one dollar a year, and from this, she might carry home a book
every day if she chose. No one interfered with her taking whatever
she wished, and she usually wandered about among the bookcases and
selected for herself. One day, however, the kindly old librarian
heard a child’s voice asking,

“Will you please help me to get a book? I can’t find what I want.”

He peered over the top of his tall desk, and there stood a little
girl in short skirts and a blue flannel blouse with brass buttons,
looking up at him expectantly.

“Certainly,” he replied, smiling down upon her. “How should you like
one of the Rollo books?”

“I’ve read them all, most of them twice, and some of them three
times.”

“What kind of book should you like?”

“I’d like a book about the Spanish Inquisition,” she declared
serenely.

“What!” exclaimed the good man. “That’s not the kind of book for a
little girl to read. What made you think of that?”

“I read ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ and it said the story happened in
the Spanish Inquisition. I want to know what it is and I want to read
some more stories about it.”

The gray-haired librarian was aghast, but by no means unwise. He
brought her a book about the Inquisition, a big book, a heavy book, a
dismal book, in the finest of print and with two columns to the page.
No sensible child would dream of reading such a book, and the shrewd
old librarian knew it.

One of the constant readers in this library was an old friend of the
librarian, a quaint little gentleman who wore long hair curling at
the ends, knee breeches, and shoes with big buckles. The librarian
must have told him of the little girl’s request, for when she came
again, he talked with her about the books that she had read and
advised her to read Plutarch’s “Lives.” He was not so canny as the
librarian, for this book, too, was in fine print and pages of two
columns, and the little girl never read it until she had become a big
girl. And, alas, she never read the scholarly essay on the cacao
tree which the learned Doctor in Concord had given her. She always
felt guilty about this latter piece of neglect, and when—not through
her fault—the pamphlet was lost, she was uneasily glad.

The mother was sometimes a little troubled because Ella did not like
to read history.

“It is too hard for me,” objected the little girl.

“But in that little history of yours, the words are not nearly so
long as in ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and you do not think that is hard,”
said the mother.

“No, but long words don’t make reading hard,” said Ella. “I like to
think I’ve read half a line in just one word. It’s like the dissected
map of the United States; it isn’t any harder to put in Texas than
Rhode Island, and Texas is so big that when I have put it in, I feel
as if I had really done something. Short words don’t make reading
easy and long words don’t make it hard. I don’t know what it is, but
somehow it’s the way they write it that makes it hard or easy. I’m
going to know how to do it some time, and then I’ll write some hard
books for children that shall be easy to read.”

Ella was quite given to making lists of the books that she read, and
often for a number of weeks in succession she read at the rate of a
book a day. The following is one of her lists with her occasional
comments:

  Up Hill, or Life in the Factory.
  Gulliver’s Travels.
  Studies for Stories.
  Harry’s Vacation, or Philosophy at Home.
  Winifred Bertram.
  New School Dialogues.
  Hetty’s Hopes, or Trust in God.
  Romantic Belinda.
  Ruth Hall.
  Lewis, or the Bended Twig.
  True Stories of the Days of Washington. A very good book indeed. It
    tells about deeds of heroism and honor. I never read it before.
    Began it the 26 of December, finished it 27.
  Storybook by Hans Christian Andersen. Very good.
  Tim the Scissors Grinder.
  Atlantic Monthly. Andersonville Prisoners.
  Fighting Joe.
  Agnes Hopetoun’s Schools and Holidays.
  Curious Stories about Fairies and Other Funny People.
  Merry’s Museum.
  The Orphan Nieces.
  Neighbor Jackwood.
  Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper.
  Summer in Scotland.
  Life of Josephine.
  Pilgrim’s Progress.
  Tales of the Saxons.
  Tanglewood Tales.
  Christmas Greens. A splendid story telling about two boys who went
    and got some evergreens and sold them and gave the money to their
    mother, who needed it very much, and so got on till they became
    great and good.
  The Young Crusoe.
  A Year after Marriage.
  Moral Tales.
  Poor and Proud. Splendid.
  Arabian Nights.
  Popular Tales from the Norse.
  Out of Debt. Out of Danger.
  Peter Parley’s Stories.
  The Magic Ring.
  Curiosities of Natural History.
  Swiss Family Robinson. I have read it a great many times, but it is
    so good I wanted to read it again.

Somehow, though one can hardly see how, the small girl contrived to
get in a vast amount of play. Her special friend was a particularly
nice boy who lived next door, indeed, nearer than next door, for the
children persuaded the authorities of the two houses to slip off a
board from the fence between. Beejay, as Ella called him, went to the
public school, which had two sessions, while the “Private School for
Young Ladies” had only one; so it was a little difficult to bring
their leisure hours together; but they made the most of every minute.

They played games without end, croquet, authors, the checkered game
of life, the smashed-up locomotive—a locomotive with a bell-topped
smokestack, a big bell, and a little whistle—dissected maps, and
one game that they called “By a Lady,” since that legend alone was
printed on the box. They made a very creditable ghost with the help
of chalk and phosphorus, and were jubilant when a kindly older sister
pretended to be badly scared by its horrors.

Once upon a time they saved up their pennies till they had enough to
buy a cocoanut; and such a cocoanut! It was the largest they had ever
seen and cost no more than a small one! It was not shaped quite like
the cocoanuts that they had bought before, but the dealer told them
to cut off the outside husk, and they would have a fine large nut
within.

No woman was ever so pleased with a bargaincounter purchase. They
hurried down cellar and Beejay attacked the nut first with a knife,
then with a hatchet. The mischievous thing rolled away from the blows
into corner after corner as if it was bewitched. Ella had just been
learning the “Song of the Brook,” and she quoted,

    “‘I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance
    Among my skimming swallows’—

Say, Beejay, do you suppose we shall ever have any ‘swallows’? I
should so like just one—of cocoanut milk.” Beejay attacked the puzzle
more savagely than ever. The outer husk came off, and there lay the
tiniest cocoanut that they had ever seen. It was no bigger than a
child’s fist. Such was their great bargain. Such are the deceits of
the world and the sellers of cocoanuts.

“Sold!” said Beejay; “but let’s never, never tell.”

“Indeed, we won’t,” declared Ella. “Cross my heart. We won’t have
them all laughing at us. Mother said once cocoanuts were not good for
me. Do you think one that size would make me very, very sick? Let’s
eat it just as fast as we can and put the shell into the furnace,
and no one will ever know.” No one ever did know, for the secret was
faithfully kept.

There was no end to the things the playmates did. They discovered a
place where clay could be found, an agreeable variety of clay, not
so hard as the claystones of the Bearcamp River, and not so soft
as to be sticky, but just right to cut into silk winders, hearts
and rounds, and boys and girls, like those that came out of cookie
pans, and dozens of other things. They followed the directions of
“The Boy’s Own Book” and made a boomerang that would not make the
return trip; a battledore that was continually coming to pieces; a
shuttlecock that never would go straight up, but always off to the
farthest corner of the room. They pored over the minerals that the
learned Doctor had given to Ella, and they had eager searches for
fossils in a non-fossiliferous country.

“The Boy’s Own Book” declared that glass would melt and that asbestus
would not, although it looked like glass. A big brother told them
of a ledge just outside of the city where they could find asbestus.
They packed some lunch into a little willow basket—the one that
Ella always filled with firecrackers and pinwheels a week before
the Fourth of July, trying hard and with a vast expenditure of
mental arithmetic to get as much noise and sparkle for her money as
possible—and off they went to the ledge. They found the asbestus and
brought some home and put it into the kitchen stove. It did not melt;
but neither did the piece of glass that they laid beside it.

“Maybe it’s too thick,” Beejay suggested. “Let’s take some of the
bird of paradise’s tail.”

The bird of paradise was a glass bird with a long tail of spun glass
so bright and shining that it had not been thrown away when the bird
broke into many pieces. This, too, they tried in the stove and also
in the gas, but it would not melt. The children were disgusted.

“The boomerang wouldn’t boom,” declared Ella; “the battledore
wouldn’t bat; the shuttlecock wouldn’t go one bit like either a
shuttle or a cock; and now the glass won’t melt. Let’s just go on our
own way and let the book alone. We can think of things enough to do.
Let’s paint some autumn leaves. I’ll get my water colors and you get
your crayons. You can use one and I’ll use the other, and we’ll see
which will get done first.”

But a voice called, “Ella, I want you to go down street on an errand.”

It chanced that Beejay’s mother had also an errand at the same store;
so the children went off together, swinging the little yellow basket
between them.

When they came home, they were running breathlessly, and waving two
handbills.

“It’s at two o’clock this afternoon,” cried one.

“And it’s only ten cents, and the man said it was almost always
fifteen in other cities,” cried the other, “and that it was well
worth twenty-five.”

“And it’s very educational, the man said it was.”

The two mothers were easily persuaded to let them go to the panorama.
They came home jubilant. There were no movies then, but they had seen
pictures of the city of Venice with a marvelous number of gondolas,
the sinking of the Alabama, the firemen of New York, Dr. Kane’s
vessel that tried to get to the North Pole, and finally “a beautiful
fairy scene,” as Ella declared.

Surely, there was no need of help from “The Boy’s Own Book,” for
on the way home the children had planned to manufacture a fleet of
gondolas, and also an Alabama that, by the pulling of a string, would
really sink. All this they would do without fail to-morrow; but
“to-morrow” was another day, and when it arrived, a little girl with
a hot red face, a sore throat, a headache and a backache was tossing
about in bed. Ella had the measles.

Never did mind cure have a fairer trial. She did not have a knotted
string and repeat over and over, “Every day in every way I am getting
better and better”; but she began at the very foundation, and when
the red spots appeared, she declared:

“It isn’t measles. I won’t have measles. The hall was hot and it made
my face burn when I was there, and it just kept on burning”; but the
longer she said it was not measles, the faster the red spots came out.

“It isn’t fair,” she wailed. “It isn’t the least bit fair that I
should have measles when Beejay hasn’t. We have so many things to do,
I can’t be sick.”

But the red spots grew brighter and brighter. It was only two weeks
before the end of the school year, and Ella had had her last day in
the “Private School for Young Ladies.”




CHAPTER X

LIKE OTHER GIRLS


There was something that Ella wanted even more than she had wanted
the box of tin soldiers or the ride in a swan boat, and this was
that she might go to the public school. It was quite the custom for
a public school girl to invite a younger child to go with her for
half a day. If the child behaved well, the teacher made no objection,
and perhaps gave her a book of pictures to look at. If her notions
of order were not quite up to the mark, the teacher would draw the
little hostess aside and say:

“I don’t believe you’d better bring her again till she is older. She
is rather too young to have to keep quiet so long.”

Oddly enough, it had happened that Ella had never visited the public
school, and all the glory of something unknown was about it. Of
course she had heard many school stories from her playmates. She
knew that it was carried on in a businesslike fashion, that children
did not choose their books by the color of the covers or recite what
they pleased and when they pleased, and go home whenever they liked;
but that lessons had to be learned, and had to be recited when the
time for recitation had come. She knew that once in a while the
superintendent of schools came to examine the pupils, and that he
listened to their answers as if whether they were right or wrong was
really an important matter. One day, after his kindly examination of
a class in which were several of Ella’s playmates, they came home
at noon in great glee. After his examination, he had said to the
teacher—but quite loud enough for the whole room to hear,

“The children in your class have done so well that I am going to ask
you if you won’t take them out to the grove this afternoon for a
little picnic.”

They had asked the teacher if Ella might go with them, but she did
not care to be responsible for any more children and had said no, the
picnic was for the pupils only.

Now Ella was free every afternoon and could have gone to a picnic six
days in the week, if there had been one to go to; but somehow this
was different, and the tears really came into her eyes that day when
she thought of the whole class having such a good time from which she
herself was shut out. Some of these same little picnickers envied her
for coming home at one o’clock or even earlier; but nothing would
have induced them to express such a thought. The city was very proud
of her public schools. There was a general feeling that the work of
private schools was not so good; and these little girls held their
heads very high because they were parts of the great public school
system.

There were many other times when Ella felt a little shut out of
things. She played with the other children and went to their simple
parties. They came to see her Saturday afternoons and she went to
see them; but they were always speaking of little events in school
that she knew nothing about. She did so wish that she could speak in
such familiar fashion about the delight of “getting up head” and the
mortification of losing a place in the class because a word was left
out in a recitation. In Ella’s class of one, there was no head and
no foot; and when the other children talked of such things, she felt
dull and stupid and out of the magic circle.

Everything about their schools was different. At recess, Ella slipped
into the big library and read a story. They marched out into the yard
for a blissful quarter of an hour of play. She thought it would be
delightful to march out in line with her hands down at her sides, one
little girl before her and another behind her. In short, Ella wanted
to be “in things.” It never occurred to her to boast of studying
French and Latin and of reciting with “young ladies” many years older
than she. She wanted to be just like other little girls, to study
just what they studied, and to do just what they did. She did not
know what “conventional” meant, but that was what she wanted to be.

Now the time had passed for which the mother had agreed to take
charge of the “Private School for Young Ladies,” and she, too, was
thinking about public schools, and wondering a little how the small
daughter, who had gone on her own way as independently as if she
was the only child in the world, would get on with walking between
parallel lines and being bound to do just what other children were
doing. There was no private school at hand that was at all promising,
and it really was quite a dilemma. One day she asked Ella how she
would like to go to the public school.

“I’d rather go there than anywhere else in the whole world, except to
Norway or Switzerland,” she exclaimed. “May I go? May I go really?”

“We’ll think it over,” said the mother; and indeed it needed to be
thought over. Here was a little girl almost twelve years old. Other
children of twelve had been in school seven years; but this child’s
school life consisted thus far of one year with an hour a day of
arithmetic and French, and the rest of the time spent out of doors
with a big dog for company; of a year and a half more with the same
studies and a few months of Latin, but with much freedom as to her
coming and going, short sessions, and long play hours.

She had, then, a smattering of French; she had read “Fables” in
Latin; she had learned whatever chanced to strike her fancy in the
yellow geography and the pink grammar; and she was far beyond her age
in arithmetic. She could sketch fairly well, she could play on the
piano as well as children of her age were expected to do; she could
knit and crochet and do almost anything with her hands; she could
win the heart of cat or dog or bird; she could climb a mountain; and
she had read many hundreds of books, ranging all the way from “Songs
for Little Ones at Home” to a volume of the “Religions of the World,”
which she had discovered in an attic and thought more interesting
than the Sunday school “Question Book.” She had never been prepared
for any school, and how would she stand with other children who had
had seven years of regulation training? “Suppose that she was put
into a class of children much younger than herself,” thought the
mother. She could not have the child humiliated and unhappy. What was
the best thing to do?

Ella herself had been troubled all her life about her own ignorance.
When she was only five, she had begged to go to school because
the older children had assured her that she would grow up to be a
dunce—whatever that might be—if she did not go. Later, she would
have been even more anxious if there had not been so many books to
read and so many interesting things to do and to think about. Now
when the mother asked, “What should you do if you were put into a
class of little girls much younger than yourself?” she had her answer
all ready, “I’d study and study and study, till I knew so much they
wouldn’t have me there, and they would have to put me up higher.”

The mother concluded that the little girl would make her way, and the
public school was decided upon. She saw the principal of the school,
and he said, “Send her down Monday morning, and we will see where she
belongs.”

When Monday morning came, Ella started for school at the same time
with the other girls and walked down the same street with them. This
in itself was a delight. At last she was within the circle, and soon
she would be able to talk about the mysteries of school life as
easily as they.

She wore a cheery little red dress, a soft gray hat trimmed with
a bit of black velvet and a red quill. She carried a rather large
paper slate. It was made like a book and contained three sheets of
firm stiff paper slated on both sides. This was the very latest
thing in slates, and she was proud of it. She had one possession,
however, that made her feel even more elegant than the slate, and
that was her new slate pencil. Common slate pencils were hard and
inclined to scratch. Ella’s was made of wood, soft and agreeable to
the touch, and had “leads” of clay, which could be pushed up and
down by moving a little peg in a groove, just as if it had been a
pencil of solid gold. Ella dearly loved all things of the nature of
tools or machines, and she had saved her money for many days to buy
this pencil. Surely, such a choice article as this ought to give one
courage.

Cora was the oldest of the little group. There were six rooms in the
school building, and she was in Number Two, the next to the highest.
As they drew near to the schoolhouse, Cora began to give the new
pupil some good advice.

“The principal thinks you don’t know anything if you can’t do
examples,” she said, “and he’ll give you some awfully hard ones.
Girls that come here from private schools don’t know very much, and
you’ll probably be put in the Sixth Room. If you work hard, you can
be promoted, maybe before the end of the year.”

Ella began to feel so humble that she never thought of saying, “I can
do cube root, and you are only in denominate numbers,” and they went
silently up the stairs.

“That’s the room,” said Cora. “That’s the principal sitting at the
large desk, and there is the assistant at the smaller one.”

Ella wished that Cora would go in with her, but the older girl went
off to her own room, and Ella stood on the threshold, a rather shy
but exceedingly expectant little girl. Fortunately the assistant
looked up and came to her.

“This is Ella, I am sure,” she said. “I know your mother, and I am
glad to have her little daughter in the school.”

Then she introduced Ella to the principal. The girls and boys were
all afraid of him, and when Ella looked fearlessly up into his face
as if he was an old friend, and laid her hand in his, he really felt
a little awkward. He was not used to being treated in that way by
children.

“After the opening exercises we will see what you can do,” he
said. He motioned her to a chair just beyond the farther end of
the platform, near that of the pleasant assistant, and Ella seated
herself, so radiantly happy that she had no dread of even the hard
examples that were to come.

She looked about the room. It had many windows, and it seemed to her
enormously large. Blackboards ran around the four sides wherever the
windows and doors would permit, and on these blackboards were maps
and examples. Best of all, there were twenty-four desks—she counted
them over and over—and at each desk sat two girls or two boys, as the
case might be.

None of them paid the least attention to her, for this was the
highest class in the building. They would go to the high school in
the spring, and what did they care about a small newcomer who might
for all they knew, be condemned to the Sixth Room, or even be sent
to the intermediate school a little way off? They were only two
or three years older than Ella, but two or three years count for
a great length of time when one is not yet twelve, and she looked
at them with a deference that she had never felt for any grown-up.
Grown-ups belonged to a queer world of their own. They had different
notions and different ways of looking at things; but these boys and
girls, venerable as they were by age and position, were nevertheless
of her own world, and could be judged by standards that she could
understand.

It is to be feared that Ella did not pay very close attention to the
“opening exercises,” but older folk have sometimes paid no more, even
though with much smaller temptation.

But the assistant was beckoning to her and was handing her a paper.

“Do these examples,” she said; “or as many of them as you can,” she
added, for she, too, was of Cora’s opinion in regard to the children
who came from private schools.

The slate pencil that behaved like a gold one and the little girl
who wielded it worked their way rather scornfully through addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division. Then came fractions,
decimals, compound numbers, interest, and square root; but now the
principal and the assistant called a halt and held a conference. Ella
heard snatches of their rather emphatic remarks.

“She won’t be twelve for two weeks—altogether too young for this
room.”

“The Third Room would be only play for her.”

“She has studied French and Latin,” said the assistant, “but she
knows very little of geography and grammar.”

“Never mind,” declared the principal decidedly. “If she can do
arithmetic, she can do anything. Put her into the Second Room.”




CHAPTER XI

ELLA’S FIRST DAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL


The assistant led the way to the Second Room, and Ella followed,
her heart beating triumphantly, for this was Cora’s room. She was
introduced to the teacher, and the teacher gave her a seat at one of
the double desks. Ella’s face fell, for no one was sitting at the
other half.

“Ida is away to-day,” said the teacher, “but she will be here
to-morrow, I think. I am sure that you will like her.”

So her seatmate’s name was Ida! Could anything have been pleasanter?
She made up her mind to write Ida of New Hampshire that very
afternoon. But there wouldn’t be any afternoon; she would be in
school from two until five. Never mind, there would be all the more
to tell her.

Across the room was Cora, who cast at Ella a look of surprise but of
genuine welcome. The two seats were diagonally opposite, and when
Ella studied mensuration, a little later, she always thought of the
diagonal of a rectangle as the distance from Cora’s seat to hers.

“The second class in geography,” the teacher called.

About half of the pupils in the room left their seats and took their
stand at the back and around two sides of the room. This was to be
Ella’s class, and to-morrow she would stand with them. To-morrow she
could say, “My class.” Could anything be more delightful?

The girl at the head raised her hand. The teacher nodded, and the
girl said, “I have been at the head three recitations.”

“Very well,” said the teacher, “then you may go to the foot,” and she
walked down to the other end of the class.

Ella thought this was rather unfair and that she ought to have been
rewarded rather than sent to the foot.

The teacher gave Ella a little yellow book of geographical questions,
and the new pupil followed the recitation with the keenest interest,
for this was the first time that she had ever seen a class of boys
and girls of her own age.

The teacher nodded to the girl at the head of the class, and she
began to recite:

“There are ten Territories besides the District of Columbia, which is
under the direct control of Congress.”

“I wonder why it is,” thought Ella, “and what ‘under the direct
control’ means. Can’t it do anything without asking Congress? What
does a District ever want to do?”

But the next girl was reciting.

“The Territories and their capitals are, Washington, Olympia, on
Puget Sound.” And she went on through the whole ten more easily and
rapidly than Ella thought she should ever be able to do. But what did
it mean that hands were raised here and there all down the line?

“Mary,” said the teacher to the girl below the one who had recited,
“what is wrong?”

“She said ‘Salt Lake City, _on_ Great Salt Lake.’ It should be
‘_near_ Great Salt Lake.’”

“Correct. Take your place,” the teacher said; and Mary took her place
just above the girl who had failed, while she and all those that had
stood between them moved down one place.

“Frank,” said the teacher, and a boy who stood next went on:

“The Gulf of Alaska and Kodiak Island are south of Alaska.”

“The Columbia River separates Washington Territory from Oregon,” said
the next; and the third recited:

“It may be said of the animals of the Territories that immense herds
of buffalo, deer, and horses roam over the prairies. Polar bears,
wild goats, and sheep are found in the mountainous regions.”

The little girl who had gone to the foot now waved her hand excitedly.

“What is it, Alice?”

“He said ‘polar bears’; it should have been ‘grizzly bears.’”

“Correct.” And Alice left the foot and moved in triumph down the
side, across the end of the room, and up the other side until she was
within four of the head.

“It’s lovely! It’s just like a game,” thought Ella. “You have to know
things, though, and know the questions as well as the answers. That’s
funny. I don’t see why the teacher doesn’t ask them.”

Suddenly the teacher did ask questions, a whole hailstorm of them,
and they went all over North America. Ella was quite aghast when she
saw how promptly they were answered and how few mistakes there were.
These were some of the questions:

“What are the principal capes in North America? What is the capital
of Missouri? What bounds New Hampshire on the north? What are the
principal manufactures of Connecticut? For what is Delaware noted?
Name the western branches of the Mississippi. What States produce
the most tobacco? What are the principal exports of British America?
Where is Mazatlan?”

She was still more aghast when the teacher said:

“You did very well with the advance lesson, but not so well with the
general questions. Remember that you are responsible for whatever you
have once learned.”

This was decidedly different from the comfortable fashion of roaming
about the tiny yellow geography to which Ella had been accustomed,
learning a few “map questions” wherever she chose.

The new pupil had heard one recitation and she felt quite wise in
the customs of the school. She did not yet see why Alice was sent to
the foot; but she had learned that lessons were short, but must be
learned perfectly, and recited without questioning; that everything
must be recited exactly right; that if it was not, you raised your
hand and went above her; and that you were expected to remember
everything you had ever learned.

Ella tried hard to recall what she had ever learned that she was
absolutely sure of, and the only thing she could call to mind on the
instant was the multiplication table—which she had never learned!

The geography class was now dismissed, and the children took their
seats. The roll was called for reports, and when it came to Alice,
she reported, “One hundred, and also fifteen extra for being at the
head three recitations.” Then Ella understood one thing more. If you
could “get up head” and stay there three recitations, you went to the
foot with fifteen extra and had a chance to get to the head again.
The fifteen extra might be used perhaps to make up for some failure.
She wished she knew. It wouldn’t be quite so dreadful to fail if
there was only some way to make up. She did not want to ask any of
the girls; she must ask Beejay. Then she remembered that Beejay
could not be asked, for he had gone away to a boarding-school for
boys. He had been to the public school, and she wondered why he had
never told her all of these interesting things. He went to another
school, however, and maybe all schools were not so wonderful as this
one. She would write to him and ask.

Ella’s lessons were usually recited in a few minutes, but evidently
more time was allowed for them in this school, for the children now
took out their atlases and set to work to draw a map of Maine. Ella
watched eagerly. The teacher noticed how interested she was and asked
if she could draw maps.

“I don’t know,” replied the little girl honestly. “I never tried; but
I can draw flowers and old castles and dogs and cats.”

“I will lend you an atlas,” said the teacher, “and you can try.”

The teacher walked about the room, looking at the children’s work
and showing them where they could make it better. Ella’s hands began
to tremble, she did so hope that hers was as good as the others. The
teacher stood watching her—for half an hour, it seemed to the little
girl. Then she took up the paper and looked it over carefully.

“That is exceedingly good,” she said as she laid it down.

Ella was happy. The teacher had not said “exceedingly” to any other
boy or girl.

The short winter afternoon was fast coming to an end. For a few days
before Christmas most of the schools were obliged to let the pupils
go home at half-past four instead of five, unless there was gas in
the building or it was a specially bright, sunny day. It was almost
half-past four now, and the teacher said, “You may put away your
books.” The children put some of them into their desks, and fastened
the others together in a strap to carry home. Then they waited for
the bell to strike.

Now was coming the event to which Ella had so looked forward, the
marching out in single file with her arms down at her sides and one
girl walking in front of her and another behind her. But she was
disappointed, for the teacher said,

“Ella, if you will wait a few minutes after school closes, I will
give you the list of the books that you will need.”

When Ella went for her hat and coat, the children were all gone,
and she had to walk home alone. She went by way of the bookstore,
however, and it almost made up for her disappointment to be able to
hand the slip of paper to the clerk and say with an air of being
perfectly at ease—she had practiced her speech in a whisper all the
way down the street—

“Will you please give me the books on this list? They are for the
Second Room in the grammar school.”

The clerk smiled. Evidently he had seen little new scholars before,
and Ella went home with a written arithmetic and a mental arithmetic,
an atlas and a little book of geographical questions, a spelling
book, a Fifth Reader, a writing book, a red penholder, an impishly
sharp little steel pen marked Gillott 303, just like the ones that
she had used at the seminary. It was a heavy load, but the glory of
it lessened the weight. She hurried up the street, eager to tell of
her day’s experiences, and happy to think that, even if she had not
marched out in the line, she was at least, and at last, within the
circle.




CHAPTER XII

“FOOSLE” REMAINS


In the morning, when Ella reached the head of the stairs on the
second floor, there stood the principal. The little girl looked up
at him in a friendly fashion and he said “Good morning,” and added,
rather to his surprise, for he seldom talked with the children,

“Do you like our school?”

“Oh, I do! I do!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm. “I think it is just
splendid.”

At the other side of Ella’s desk sat a little girl in a blue dress
with a dainty white apron trimmed with narrow edging. This was Ida.
The teacher introduced the two children. Ida said,

“Haven’t you been in the public school before?”

“No,” answered Ella.

“Did you go to a private school?”

“Yes,” Ella replied rather unwillingly, for suddenly, in view of the
businesslike ways of the public school, all that she had done before
began to seem very childish. “Before that, I went to a seminary.”

“Did you really? I should think that would be splendid. I knew a girl
once who went to a seminary, but she was old, as much as sixteen. Are
you going to be in the Second Class?”

“Yes. I was here yesterday, and I heard the geography class.”

“After the opening exercises,” said Ida, “the First Class recites in
arithmetic, and then ours comes. I’ll show you where the lesson is,
and you’ll have time to do the examples before we recite. But you
haven’t covered your books yet!”

Ella looked at Ida’s books and saw that every one was neatly covered
with light brown paper; and again she felt out of the circle.

“I’ll show you how at recess,” said Ida; and Ella was comforted, for
in an hour and a half she would be “in” and like other girls. She
noticed that Ida’s name was neatly written on the outside of her
light brown covers, and that she had the prettiest capital _I_ that
Ella had ever seen. It began like all I’s, then at the line the pen
moved away to the left in a handsome little horizontal loop that made
quite a different thing of the letter from the common everyday I’s
of other people. Ella determined to work till she could make one as
good. She wished her name began with an _I_! Evidently her earthquake
handwriting would not do for schoolbooks. Beejay’s older brother
wrote beautifully; she would ask him to write on her books, and she
would tell him about that handsome letter.

The lesson in arithmetic consisted of ten examples in simple
interest. Ella finished these in a little while, and supposed there
was nothing more to be done; but when the class was called, she found
that the scholars were sent to put their work on the blackboard, and
were then to explain it in exactly the way given in the book. She had
done the examples in a way that was easier, but was different; and
she was out of it again. Oh, if she only could be just like other
girls, she wailed mentally.

So the morning went on. Ella was first “in,” then “out” again. The
lesson in mental arithmetic was very easy, she thought, as she read
the questions, but she never dreamed of learning them by heart. The
teacher told the class to close their books, and then she read,

“Bought a piano for $300, and ⅖ of the cost of the instrument was 4/3
of what I received of nine young ladies for its use one year; how
much did each young lady pay for its use?”

Ella was greatly taken aback. She could not recite the question with
her book closed; and even if she had learned this one, could she
learn such nonsense as the one that stood next to it, “¾ of ⅔ of 70
are 5/12 of 4 times what number?” She was afraid not, and for the
first time she began to wonder if a school of boys and girls would
really be so much pleasanter than a school of young ladies. She felt
hopelessly disgraced when she had to say to the teacher, “I don’t
know.”

There was one more recitation before the school closed at noon, and
that was grammar. The little store had been out of grammars, and
therefore Ella had not been able to learn the lesson. The teacher
had told her that she might ask Ida anything that she wanted to know.
The first thing she asked was why Ida’s grammar was pencil-marked
with straight lines beside some of the paragraphs and not the rest.

“Why, those marked are what we learn,” Ida replied.

“What are the others about?”

“I don’t know. No one ever reads those.”

Ella’s little pink grammar at home began,

“Do all nations use the same language?” and the answer was,

“They do not.”

This was easy and sensible, and about things that even very little
girls could understand, but this new grammar began,

“English grammar treats of the principles and usages of the English
Language,” and went on to say that grammar was divided into four
parts, “Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.” Her grammar at
home declared that

    “A noun’s the name of anything,
    As _school_, or _garden_, _hoop_, or _swing_.”

The new grammar remarked that “Letters cannot be too carefully
distinguished from elementary sounds.” Ella wondered why. She had
known letters ever since she could remember, and she had never
confused them with elementary sounds—whatever elementary sounds might
be. How could things be so important when they were not?

The class took their places around the room. Somehow there seemed to
be more of them than when they were seated. Ella remembered days when
she did not have to recite her French lesson because the young lady
who was for a little while the rest of the class had failed to come.
With all these boys and girls in the class, there would plainly be no
such good fortune. There would be no hurrying to learn her lessons
and then being excused to go home early, for classes came at just
such times, and Ida had told her that if a pupil stayed away, or was
excused, she would be marked zero for the lesson.

Ella sat and listened while the class recited. She grew more and
more discouraged with every recitation. Not one girl or boy asked a
question as to the meaning of these queer statements. Ella supposed
that was because they understood it all—and she did not. How could
she ever go on with them? She was almost sorry that she had ever come
to a public school. She was a plucky little girl, however, and when
she went home at noon, she set to work bravely to learn her spelling
lesson, and never a word did she say about the inferiority of public
schools to private.

Ida had told her that in the intermediate school the children had to
learn the words of the spelling lesson in order and “put them out”
to themselves, but that this was not done in the grammar school, and
Ella was quite at ease about this lesson, for she could not see
how there could be anything “queer and cranky” in a recitation in
spelling. There was not, and at the end of the lesson the teacher
called the names for reports. Ella had often written in her little
diary, when she could not think of anything else to say, “Had a
perfect lesson, didn’t fail,” or “Didn’t have a very good lesson
and the teacher was cross”; but to have her name called and have
her report recorded in definite figures in the big book that lay on
the table—that was quite a different matter. She answered shyly but
happily, “One hundred.”

After the spelling came twenty minutes of writing; and now the little
newcomer was in despair, for she knew just how poor her handwriting
was. She knew that no two letters were of the same height or slanted
the same way. She knew that it made her hand ache to write half a
page, and she knew that the writing was hardly the least bit better
since the seminary days. She opened the new copybook at the first
page, and behold there was the old familiar sentence, “Honesty is the
best policy,” printed in the fashionable “Spencerian hand” with all
its rounded flourishes. She had long ago tried her best to copy this
very sentence and had failed. What would the teacher say? Perhaps the
principal would even put her back into a lower room.

The watchful teacher saw that something was going wrong, and when she
looked at the line or two that the little girl had written, she knew
what it was.

“Writing is a little hard for you, isn’t it,” she said, “just as
arithmetic is hard for Alice?” The teacher was ahead of her times,
and as she looked at the cramped little letters, she added:

“Did you ever guess that you were making your fingers work too hard,
while there was a good strong muscle here”—and she touched Ella’s
forearm—“that would be glad to help them? Just let the muscle lie on
the table in this way and try to make some curves like these,” and
she gave her a slip of paper with a whole line of curves and loops.
“Hold the pen so,” she continued, “but don’t hold it too tight. No
one will try to take it away from you.”

“Oh, I see! I see!” exclaimed Ella. “If that muscle is right and not
rolled over on its side, the pen _has_ to be right; it _can’t_ point
the wrong way if it tries”; and she went to work on the impossible
writing with fresh courage, for now she had a definite idea of what
she was to do.

The spelling and writing lasted from two until a quarter of three.
Then came the geography and the reading.

The geography lesson was a review of questions on the Central and
Pacific States. Ella had been over and over these questions till she
was sure that she could answer every one of them. She stood at the
foot of the class of course as the newest arrival, and she never
dreamed of going up any higher; but a boy who stood three above her
recited:

“Iron and lead are found in Indiana, and the richest mines in the
world are found in Michigan.”

Not one pupil raised a hand. Those below the boy did not know that
there was anything wrong, and those near the head had nothing to gain
and were not watching so closely as they would have done if there had
been a chance to move up. Very timidly Ella put up her hand.

“What is it, Ella?” asked the teacher.

“He should have said, ‘the richest _copper_ mines in the world,’” she
answered in a voice that trembled a little, for they were all looking
at her.

“That is right,” said the teacher. “Take your place,” and she moved
up three places. She was so happy that she could hardly stand still.
What a story she would have to tell the mother and to write to Boy
Cousin, of going up three places the very first day!

But even greater glory awaited her. The next pupil recited:

“Kentucky is noted for foosle remains of animals and for its mammoth
cave.”

“What kind of remains?” asked the teacher, and the boy replied,

“Foosle.”

“The whole class may tell what that word is,” said the teacher, and
there was a chorus of “Fossil.”

“Can any one tell what a fossil is?”

No one but Ella raised a hand. Her cheeks were still burning, but she
answered bravely:

“A fossil is what used to be a plant or an animal. It has turned into
stone, and is dug up out of the ground.”

“Excellent,” said the teacher. “It sounds as if you really knew
fossils. Have you any of your own that you could bring to school to
show us?”

“Yes,” said Ella, remembering the Doctor’s generous package of
specimens. “I have some that were given me and two that I found.”

It was too dark for the reading lesson. The school was dismissed,
and Ella went home, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks all aglow. She
loved the public school.




CHAPTER XIII

THE TORIES’ ALPHABET


Ella kept a diary because her mother wanted her to. It was not
always easy for her to think of something to write in it, but now
she had a new subject, “Getting up head.” If she planned carefully,
she could make this subject serve her need for three days. For the
first day she wrote, “I got up to the head of the class. After I
have been there three recitations, I go to the foot and have fifteen
extras.” For the second day she wrote, “I hope I can stay at the
head of the class three recitations and then go to the foot and have
fifteen extras.” For the third day she wrote, “I stayed at the head
three recitations, then went to the foot to-day and now have fifteen
extras.” It is small wonder that she awoke one morning saying over to
herself:

  “I get up head              We get up head
  Thou gettest up head        You get up head
  He gets up head             They get up head”

After two or three weeks, there was much talk about reports. The
first one was coming at the end of her first month in the school, and
Ella’s heart sank whenever she thought about it. She had been at the
head a number of times, and thought she had had more than enough
extras to balance her few failures. Still, she had a feeling that
something might come that would give her a low rank or might even put
her into a lower room.

The reports were to be given out on Friday. Thursday the principal
came to the door and asked the teacher to send Ella to the office.
Ella turned pale and her hands were cold. She had heard of severe
scoldings and even worse that had taken place in that office. She did
not know of anything that she had done, but there might be something.
She wished she was back in the private school. Her fingers trembled
as she knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said the voice of the principal, and she went in.

He said, “There is a matter about which I wish to speak to you, and
perhaps it will not be necessary to see your mother.”

This was worse and worse.

“What could she have done,” thought the frightened little girl.

The principal went on:

“I have been looking over the reports of your room, and I find that
yours is rather different from what I expected.” He paused a long
moment. Then he went on: “You have done remarkably well, better than
I thought you could possibly do in a new school with new studies and
new ways. When you go home this noon, you may tell your mother what
I have said. And there is one thing more. Do you think you can keep
this a secret, and not say a word to any one but your mother?”

“Yes, sir, I will,” Ella declared with emphasis.

It would have been simpler to send a note, but this principal liked
to try experiments, and he did not always realize the sensitiveness
of children. He thought it would be interesting to see of what kind
of stuff this little girl was made, and whether the interview would
be agreeable to her hardly entered his mind.

“Good-bye,” he said, “and tell your mother you are doing finely.”

The mother thought Ella was too young to skip a class, so she was not
promoted.

A week later, Ella met the principal in the hall, and he asked, “Did
you tell any one besides your mother?”

He was pleased with the touch of indignation with which she replied,
without deigning to say “No,” “I promised I wouldn’t.”

Ella soon forgot the unpleasant part of this interview, and had a
comfortable feeling that she and the principal had a secret together.
When the other children blamed him, she always stood by him, and she
was never afraid of him again.

She was radiantly happy when the reports were given out, for hers
read, “Scholarship, 91%, Rank in class, 3. Deportment, Excellent.”
Below this, in the space for remarks, the teacher had written, “Ella
is studious and well behaved.” This pleased Ella very much.

“You see,” she said to her mother, “she had to write percentage and
rank, but she did not have to say anything in the ‘Remarks,’ so she
must have done that because she really wanted to.” And she read the
line over and over.

Ella’s likes and dislikes were very strong. When she “left out what
form and voice the verb ‘forbid’ was,” and so lost her place at the
head, she wrote that she “didn’t like grammar at all.” In the middle
of the term, when things were a little dull and monotonous, she wrote
forlornly:

“Nothing in particular happened to-day, as indeed nothing happens any
day but to get up, dress, and start for school; then I study hard all
day long and come home at night, go to studying again, and so on,
the same old routine over and over again, till I am sure that I am
thoroughly sick of it all.”

The trouble was that the lessons had become so much easier that they
no longer kept her fully occupied, and she had time to find fault.

However, if Ella did find life monotonous, her teacher did not. The
first teacher was ill and out of school, and a much younger one had
taken her place.

This new teacher was rather too generous with “extras,” and her
pupils soon found out that if they behaved well four days in the
week, they could pile up extras enough to make up for all the
misdeeds that they could commit on the fifth.

They were very systematic, these naughty children. Four days they
behaved like little saints, studying quietly and never whispering;
but when the fifth day had come, they wrote notes to one another,
they whispered, they made paper dolls, they wriggled and they
twisted. They manufactured excuses for walking about the room. How
every child could need to go to the dictionary and the waste-basket
at least once in five minutes was a mystery to the young teacher. She
began to have a nervous dread of Fridays, for fear visitors might
come and would report that her classes knew absolutely nothing and
behaved exactly as they ought not; for many of her mischievous pupils
carried their game so far as to do little studying for Fridays.

Ella would never agree to this. Play and failures in class were two
different things. It was fun to play, but it was a disgrace to fail.
Besides, Friday’s lesson was always Monday’s review lesson, and, as
she very sensibly reasoned, it was better to learn it and have it
done with than to spoil Saturday by having to learn a double lesson
for Monday.

[Illustration: SHE PLAYED, INDEED SHE DID, SHELTERED BY A BIG OPEN
ATLAS]

But she played, indeed she did, sheltered by a big open atlas. She
made paper dolls and paper furniture, and she folded into boxes and
rowboats and dustpans and Chinese junks the squares of paper that in
after years were sacred to the stern labors of the kindergarten.
This bad child made a regular business arrangement with the little
girl who sat in front of her. If, whenever Ella touched her right
shoulder three times, she would sit up very straight and act as a
support for the open atlas, Ella would give her every week one paper
doll, three fly boxes, and two Chinese junks.

Of course the teacher could not help seeing part at least of what was
being done “on the Potomac,” as in her own mind she called Ella’s
desk; but she was really puzzled what to do, and none of her normal
school notebooks gave her the least help. Ella played so quietly and
recited her lessons so well—even on Fridays—that it was not easy to
be severe with her. How could she be always finding fault with a
child who was invariably respectful to her and who slipped up to the
head of the class so easily, went to the foot with a store of extras
numerous enough to provide for all emergencies, and in a day or two
stood at the head again, ready to collect more extras? The term would
soon be at an end, and she wisely concluded that she would not walk
around to the rear of the atlas when she could avoid it.

About this time came the revealing of the great secret. Ella and Ida
still sat together. The paper dolls of each visited those of the
other. They shared each other’s worsteds and bright-colored papers,
and lent each other new patterns in crocheting and working on canvas
and perforated paper. One day, as they were walking home together
after school, Ida said to Ella,

“We’re best friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” declared Ella wonderingly. “Why?”

“Because there’s a secret that we mustn’t tell to any one but our
best friends. It’s the Tories’ Alphabet.”

“What are ‘Tories’?”

“I don’t know, but this is their alphabet. It’s just a name for
it, I guess. A big girl in the First Room showed it to me, and
told me never to let any one have it but my best friends. She said
that another girl in a class before that gave it to her. It is an
alphabet, and we can write notes with it, and no matter who finds
one, it can’t be read.”

“Can’t you show it to your mother?”

“Yes. I showed it to mine after she promised not to tell any one
about it; and you could show it to yours if she promised.”

School was no longer monotonous. It was a kind of fairyland where
all sorts of marvelous things were happening. Ella looked back with
disdain upon her days at the seminary and even at the “Private School
for Young Ladies.” If they had lasted all her life, there would never
have been anything so thrilling as this. There was no doubt now that
she was within the circle to stay.

This is a true copy of the Tories’ Alphabet.

[Illustration:

  A B C D E F G H I J
  K L M N O P Q R S T
  U V W X Y Z &

  * # + [plus various other symbols]

The sudden change that the revealing of this secret produced was
a vast relief to the troubled mind of the teacher. There was no
more making of dolls, no more folding of kindergarten papers. The
tiny bottles of mucilage disappeared, and never once was a pair of
scissors heard to fall upon the floor. Walk back of the atlas when
you would, there was nothing to be seen—if you did not come too
near—but writing books and scraps of paper whereupon a little girl
with unusually poor handwriting was apparently trying her best in her
spare time to improve it.

In their mysterious alphabet the two children wrote notes innumerable
to each other, and even copied long poems, and they might easily have
taken up another study in the time that they gave to it. The teacher
knew of course that something was going on, but it was such a relief
to have them even apparently at work that she did not open her eyes
any wider than was absolutely necessary.

The end of the second term was at hand, and those who stood well
in the Second Room were to be promoted to the First Room. Ella was
to go. It was an honor to be promoted, but when the reports were
given out, she went home with a sober face and lagging steps. Her
percentage was 90, and her stand in the class was Number One for the
half term. The trouble was with the deportment. Much as the teacher
liked her, she could not fairly give her an “Excellent.” The first
half of the term was marked “Good,” and the second—which began about
the time of the revelation of the secret—was “Very good.” But that
was not “Excellent,” and the mother had told her that, although a
child might not always be able to take a high stand in her class, she
could always be “Excellent” in deportment. The time of reckoning had
come.

“Was there anything to prevent you from behaving well?” asked the
mother.

“I did behave well four days out of every five, and sometimes
others,” Ella replied. “I might have been a good deal worse. I
might have had an ‘Unsatisfactory’ in deportment and in any one of
the seven studies, or even in all of them, and I didn’t; I only had
a ‘Very good’ in just one thing. I don’t think that was bad at all.
Anyway, I couldn’t help it.”

“Ella,” said the mother, “the doctors say that often when children
seem to be naughty, it is because they are nervously tired and need
more sleep. I think the thing to do will be for you to go to bed at
eight o’clock every night for the next month. Then you will be rested
enough to behave well when you go into the First Room.”

Now one of the girls was to have a party during the next month, and
two days of Beejay’s week’s vacation came within its limits. Then,
too, this punishment touched her pocketbook seriously. She had never
had for a Sunday school teacher a milliner who would give her bits
of ribbon, but she did have one at that moment who kept a pretty
little fancy store. She was glad of all the mittens that Ella could
crochet, and the little girl was becoming quite a capitalist on the
proceeds. She had planned many nice things to do with the money that
she expected to make; and now there would be no time for anything but
her lessons, and when the month was over, it would be too late for
mittens.

She had one big cry, then she accepted the situation. One comfort was
that the “month” was February and that it was not leap year. Another
was that when the day came for her to move into the First Room, the
young teacher forgot that she was a teacher and a graduate of the
State normal school. She put her arm around the child and said,

“Ella, if you only wouldn’t play quite so much, I would not ask for
a better scholar—and anyway, play or no play, you are a dear little
girl, and I wish you were my own small sister.”




CHAPTER XIV

AMONG THE “WELL-BEHAVED ANGELS”


The class to be promoted met as usual in the Second Room, and with
their books marched into the First Room. Besides the glory of the
promotion, Ella’s dignity had another foundation, namely, that she
was thoroughly up to date in her equipment. Her smoothly sliding
slate pencil that worked like a gold one had not yet been surpassed
by any new invention, but the large slate was quite behind the times.
The proper thing now was to have what was apparently a book about the
size of her arithmetic and grammar, but made up of four small slates,
of real slate, but thin and light, and with slender wooden frames.
The binding of Ella’s was of a bright, cheery shade of blue, and on
the outside was printed in gilt, with a large Spencerian flourish,
“Notes.”

The slate was enough to give elegance to her outfit, but the crowning
touch of distinction was her book-carrier. Bags had long before gone
out of use, if indeed they had ever been in use in that city. The
informal court of school girls had decided some time before this that
a strap buckled around a little pile of books would do very well for
boys, but was not in the best taste for their sisters. Moreover,
the strap jammed the edges of the books, and this was an argument
against it which was not without force at home, for even in families
of little education a schoolbook was an article to be tenderly cared
for.

Books were not provided by the city and showered into the hands
of pupils to be used or abused according to disposition and home
training, or lack of training, and then tossed to the following
class. They were to be bought, sometimes with self-denial on the
part of children or their parents, to be neatly covered with light
brown paper or sometimes with some well-wearing color of calico, and
treated with respect. A new book was an acquisition, an article of
value to have and to hold. Usually the child’s name and the date of
its purchase were written on the flyleaf, often, by special request,
in the handwriting of the teacher. Books were used for a long time.
With all the glory of promotion to the First Room, only two new
books were to be bought. The same geography, grammar, speller, and
arithmetic were to serve for the two years before going to the high
school.

To carry these precious volumes a new article had recently been
invented. The books were laid between two parallel pieces of wood
with a strong cord running through holes at either end and wound up
by a little wheel and ratchet under the handle. The slight snap that
the wheel made in catching was exceedingly agreeable to the ears of
little schoolgirl owners.

These carriers were not yet very common; but Ella had with
considerable foresight and crocheting of mittens prepared for the
future; and now when all the boys and most of the girls marched into
the First Room with jagged armfuls of books and slates, Ella, and two
or three others carried only neatly screwed up carriers carefully
packed with the largest books at the bottom and the smallest at the
top, especially when the smallest was a new notebook slate.

The principal sat on the platform, and as Ella went by, she gave
him a friendly little smile which he found himself returning. The
assistant was assigning seats. These were given out according to the
rank of the pupil for the last quarter. Ella had been Number One,
and so the place of honor, the seat in the farthest corner from the
front, was given to her. Alma sat beside her. Back of her was a wall,
and on her right side was another wall.

Alma was a quiet girl who studied hard, and Ella liked her; but Alma
never whispered, not even if she had plenty of extras to spare,
and, Ella feared, would not even “communicate.” The assistant had
explained what was meant by “communicating.” If you smiled at anyone
or nodded your head, or took up your deskmate’s pencil with a look
that meant, “May I use this?” you were communicating. In short, you
were expected to behave “as if you were entirely alone in the room,”
said the assistant.

Ella had meant to be very, very good in this new room, but
expectations of such preternatural excellence alarmed her. She felt
like a naughty little imp dropped by mistake into a roomful of
particularly well-behaved angels. Just then she looked up and caught
sight of a vacant chair standing near the assistant’s place on the
platform. That was where she had sat to do the examples that had
admitted her to the Second Room. It was five months ago. None of the
First Roomers had paid any attention to her. She was quite beneath
them. And now she herself was a First Roomer. She was no longer a
naughty little imp, she was one of the particularly well-behaved
angels. She was twelve years old, and in two years she would go to
the high school. She sat up very straight and arranged her books in
her half of the desk with much dignity.

Ella had supposed that the lessons would be harder in the First
Room, and she was surprised to find that they were no more difficult
than in the Second Room, though perhaps a little more accuracy was
required—if that was possible.

The spelling lessons were always written. “People rarely spell words
orally,” declared the principal. “Nine tenths of the time they write
them. What is needed is the ability to spell correctly on paper, and
to spell without the slightest hesitation.”

The first step in this undertaking was to cut foolscap paper into
strips between two and three inches wide. This was done by the
principal in primitive fashion, that is, with a jackknife and ruler.
They were sold to the pupils at eight strips for a cent. When
spelling was called, each child wrote her name at the top of a
strip, dipped her pen into the ink, and squared for instant action.
The assistant took her stand beside one of the swiftest writers of
the class and gave out words selected from the lesson of the day,
as rapidly as they could be written. Every word must be correct at
the first writing. In the first place, there was no time to make
any change. In the second place, the attempt was always discovered.
Even a shower of little blots, carefully made to resemble the work
of a spluttering pen, and incidentally to conceal a mistake, availed
nothing. The papers were corrected by the pupils, and never was one
allowed to pass with even an undotted _i_ or an uncrossed _t_.

Straight through the spelling book the children went, reviewing over
and over again what they had learned in the lower rooms, and adding
to their knowledge by “advance lessons.” They learned columns of
words in which _ire_, _yre_, _ier_, _iar_, _igher_, and _uyer_ have
the same sound; others in which _c_, _d_, and _ch_ are silent; they
learned words that hunt in couples, pronounced alike but spelled
differently and ridiculously apart in meaning; and finally they
learned some 1500 of those words of the English language that may be
counted upon almost with certainty to produce a crop of failures.

Fifty words were written each day, and to win the longed for 100
per cent, every one of them must be above suspicion. There were
examinations in spelling of course, and as a kind of supertest, the
class was one day required to write from dictation on the spur of the
moment, the following sentence:

  It is an agreeable sight to witness the unparalleled embarrassment
  of the harassed peddler, attempting to gauge the symmetry of an
  onion which a sibyl had peeled with a poniard, regardless of the
  innuendoes of the lilies of carnelian hue.

Pupils who ranked high were given in turn the charge of the report
book. This was an honor, but also a great responsibility. There were
no mistakes in that book, for every figure was watched. “I am keeping
my own report very rigidly myself this term,” wrote Ella, “so as to
see if there is any foul play.”

Keeping the reports was not only a responsible but a complicated
matter. To begin with, there were “whole failures” and “half
failures.” A downright “I don’t know” was a whole failure. A
slightly muddled recitation, not all wrong and not all right, was
a half failure. Then, too, there were extras to be considered and
taken account of. Sometimes these were promised in advance, but
generally they were given unexpectedly for some specially good piece
of work. A particularly good map, an unusually clear recitation of
some difficult point, sometimes won from one to ten extras. On one
never-to-be-forgotten day, when there was a very hard lesson in
grammar, the assistant gave to every one who did not fail ten good
solid extras, thus deeply arousing the regret of those who would
have studied harder if they had guessed what she meant to do.

Grammar was in the hands of the assistant, and it was whispered
among awestruck children that the author of the grammar—author of a
printed book!—had said that he wished he could teach his own book
as well as she. Could there be greater glory? In the lower rooms,
a smaller grammar was used; but on entering the Second Room this
larger textbook came to its own, and was used every day for two years
and a half. It never occurred to any one that the children might
cease to be interested and that it would be better to make a change
every little while. The grammar was there to be learned, and learned
thoroughly.

When they came to the list of prepositions, Ella was appalled. She
had never had the training of the lower grades in learning unrelated
words, and to learn this list of sixty-four was much worse than lists
of productions. She asked the assistant:

“Why do we have to learn that list?”

“So that you will recognize a preposition when you come to it.”

“But I always do.”

“How do you know one?”

“Just the same way I know a kitten. If it behaves like a kitten, it
is a kitten. If it behaves like a preposition, it is a preposition.”

The assistant laughed. “It is true that you always do know a
preposition,” she said thoughtfully. “The others learned that list in
the lower rooms, and without it I am afraid some of them would not
know a preposition from a kitten. We’ll talk this over some day.”

Ella wisely concluded that she need not learn the list, but that
she must not tell any one of her privilege. Her experience at the
seminary as a “faculty child” had taught her never to reveal faculty
secrets, and this one was never told. The assistant did not mention
the matter again, but Ella noticed that one day when the embarrassing
question would naturally have fallen to her, it was given to some one
else.

One evening at the close of the first term in the First Room, Ella
did some counting and measuring of paragraphs. Then she said:

“Mother, we have been over only twenty-two pages this whole term. Of
course there are exercises besides, but what we have really learned,
if it was printed together solidly, would make only seven.”

“I will speak to the assistant if you like,” said the mother, “and
ask her if she can arrange to give you longer lessons.”

“Oh, no,” cried Ella in some alarm. “If the lessons were longer,
there wouldn’t be any time to read and play and crochet and draw and
go to see the other girls and have them come to see me. But I was
just thinking how it would sound if I should get to be a famous woman
some day and any one asked how much grammar I used to do in a term,
and you would have to say, ‘Seven pages.’ Then people would think I
must have been horribly stupid.”

“Don’t worry,” advised the mother with a smile. “Before you are a
famous woman, there will be time enough to go over more pages. Just
learn everything thoroughly. That’s all you have to do now.”

“I do learn everything thoroughly,” declared Ella. “I have to, if I
am going to stay at the head of the class—and I am,” she added with
emphasis. “Anyway, I like grammar. I don’t like learning rules, of
course, and when I give an illustration that is just as good as the
one in the book and a great deal more sensible, I don’t see why it
should be called wrong. I recited, ‘The adverbial element may be an
adverbial clause denoting time.’ The illustration was ‘While I was
musing, the fire burned.’ Now when you’re musing, the fire doesn’t
burn, it goes out, or at any rate it burns low; so I said, ‘While I
was musing, the fire burned low.’ The sentence contained an adverbial
clause, and it was good sense and the way fires behave, and it
sounded better; but it was counted half a failure. I don’t think that
was fair; but I do like parsing and analyzing. It’s real fun to shake
a sentence all to pieces till it has to tell you just what it means
and what it didn’t intend you should ever know. It’s as much fun as
any game. But when an illustration illustrates, it does illustrate.
It’s right, and I don’t see how it could be any more right.”

“Perhaps when you become that famous woman, you can write a grammar
that will keep every little girl at the head of the class and never
allow any one to fail.”

“But I don’t believe I’d care so much about being at the head if
every one else was there. Do you think it’s selfish to want to be at
the head?”

“How should you feel if some other girl was always at the head?
That’s the way to find out,” said the mother.

“I suppose I shouldn’t like it,” Ella replied thoughtfully. “But I
like the principal, and I have reason to think that he likes me, and
he would be disappointed if I failed on purpose and went down. It
would not be right to disappoint him, would it?”

“No,” said the mother, “it would be wrong not to do your best; but
you must try just as hard to be kind to all the boys and girls as you
do to stand at the head.”

“There’s one boy who doesn’t like me,” said Ella meditatively, “and
I never did a thing to him. He told the assistant to-day that I was
drawing a picture. She told me to bring it to the desk. I was trying
to copy the ‘Landing of the Pilgrims’ from our history. She looked at
it, and then she said, ‘Ella has taken great pains with it, and it is
very well done. Learn your lessons as well as she does, and you may
draw, too. And remember that I do not like tale-bearing.’”

“I hope you didn’t smile and look pleased when she said that.”

“No, I didn’t—neither did the boy. I did make up a face, though,” she
added a moment later.

“Why, Ella!”

“Oh, just in my mind, I mean. It didn’t do him any harm, and it made
me feel a whole lot better.”




CHAPTER XV

ELLA AND THE PRINCIPAL


Ella was right in thinking that the principal liked her. He was
severe, often harsh. Sometimes he seemed to delight in making the
children uncomfortable, and even in punishing them. When he read the
Bible in the opening exercises, he had a way of emphasizing verses
about liars and thieves that made his most truthful and honest pupils
cringe and think that they _must_ have said something that was false
or done something dishonest. With a voice of scorn and utter contempt
he would read, “I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed,” and then apply
the verses to those pupils who were too lazy to dig, but were not
ashamed to beg their classmates for help.

Ella was perhaps the one child in school who was not afraid of him.
The only time that he had ever shown to her his liking to frighten
and tantalize children was on the day when he had sent for her to
come to his office; and that little interview had ended so happily
that she always thought of it as a jest. Then, too, he had once known
the dead father whose memory she worshiped, and that was enough to
win her heart.

To this principal it was something new in all his years of teaching
to find himself caring what any pupil thought of him; but it was a
fact that when he had made some harsh speech and then caught Ella’s
look of surprise and regret, he felt uncomfortable. He would have
been amazed if any one had said, “You are much more gentle and kindly
because you want that child to think well of you,” but it was true
nevertheless.

The arithmetic was his share of the teaching, and he conducted it
by methods that were successful certainly, but never used in any
other school in the city. He was quite likely to break into a rather
lame explanation of a problem by handing the one who was reciting
a foot-rule and saying, “Go and measure those steps across the
street and find out how many square feet of boards are in them”;
or, “There’s a pile of wood in the next yard. Go and find out how
many cords there are.” Once when he thought a class needed waking
up, he suddenly asked, “What would happen if an irresistible force
should meet an immovable body?” Again he demanded, “Why can’t a man
lift himself up by his bootstraps?” Another time he sent a boy for a
wooden rolling hoop. When it arrived, he held it firmly to the chalk
ledge of the blackboard, and marked one point on the hoop where it
touched the ledge and another exactly opposite that one. Then he
turned the hoop a little and demanded, “Why does the point at the top
move over more distance than the opposite point at the bottom? You
can see that the whole hoop is moving, can’t you? Why don’t they keep
together?”

There would be reasons why it did and why it didn’t, until when he
thought the class were thoroughly waked up, he would turn back to
the lesson and go on as if there had been no interruption. He was as
fond of cube root as if it had been a pet child of his own, and when
Ella’s class came to that corner of the arithmetic, he took it almost
as a personal grievance that they complained of the difficulty.

“You try to do it without thinking,” he declared wrathfully. “If you
have just three minutes in which to do something new, take two of
them to think out what is the best and quickest way to do it. Cube
root is the finest thing in the arithmetic. Miss Ella doesn’t groan
over it,” he added, “and you ought to be able to do it as well as
she.”

“Ella’s done it before,” said a boy. “She did it before she ever came
to this school. She said so.”

The principal’s fine little speech was spoiled. Probably he had never
come so near being angry with her. When the class was over, he called
her to the desk. “Miss Ella—Ella,” he said, “you must always remember
that there are some things which it is better not to tell.”

He had quite a liking for making his pupils turn teachers. Sometimes
he would say to a boy or girl in the middle of a recitation, “You may
take the class now”; and he would sit back restfully in his big chair
on the platform with his eyes half closed.

It was an honor to be asked to hear a class, but it was hardly a
pleasure, for the gentleman in the chair was not so sleepy as he
seemed, and woe to the substitute teacher if he allowed the slightest
mistake to pass.

Sometimes when the teacher of a lower room was absent, he would send
one of the First Roomers in to take her place.

“Tell them,” he would say, “to multiply 1 by 2; that product by 3;
that by 4; and so on until they have multiplied by 26. Then let every
one who has it right go home.”

“Will you please give me the right answer?” the young substitute
teacher would ask, and he would reply with apparent indifference,

“Oh, I haven’t it. You can do it while the others are at work”—not an
especially easy thing for a child of twelve to do, particularly as he
knew well that the principal would look in every little while to make
sure that everything was going on in orderly fashion.

Hearing one another’s lessons was common, and correcting one
another’s papers; but Ella had an experience in teaching that went
far beyond this. One day the principal called her and said,

“Miss Ella—Ella—there’s a boy in the office who says he never
understood why you invert the divisor. I want you to go in and
explain it to him.”

In a minute Ella came back and said,

“There is a man in there, but there isn’t any boy.”

“Well, boy—man—it is all the same. Just go back and explain it to
him as if he was a small boy.”

Ella’s seminary experiences came in play. She had been so used
to being counted with grown-ups when she was a member of the
“Literary and Scientific Course” that she did not feel the least
bit embarrassed or awkward, but explained and cut up an apple to
illustrate as easily and naturally as if the strange man had been the
boy whom she was expecting to find.

“Did he understand?” asked the principal when she returned to the
schoolroom.

“He said he did,” Ella replied.

“I should think he did,” the principal said to Ella’s mother
afterwards. “He has been teaching—you can guess how well—somewhere in
the backwoods, and he is trying to learn a little something before
he goes back. He said he never understood before why you invert the
divisor, but I think he will always remember now.”

Most of the work in the First Room was merely a continuation of that
in the Second, but there were two new books to be bought and two
entirely new subjects to be taken up. One of these new subjects was
the writing of compositions. This was the dread of the whole class.

“I don’t see why you should dread that,” said the mother. “You
liked to write your ‘Little Pearls’ when you were only eight years
old; and you and Boy Cousin had a fine time writing the ‘Bearcamp
Books.’ I have seen you spend half an evening over ‘Parker’s Aids to
Composition.’ You liked that.”

“Yes,” replied Ella thoughtfully, “but I picked out from Parker’s
just what I liked to do. There were sentences with a word left out,
and there were sentences where one word was used till I was tired of
it. It was just like a puzzle in a paper to make those right; it was
play. And when Boy Cousin and I wrote the ‘Bearcamp Books,’ we only
wrote the things that came into our own heads. The girls in the First
Class say that in school compositions we have to write the things
that come into other people’s heads.”

“And you don’t know how to get them out?” said the mother with a
smile. “Wait till your first subject is given you, and perhaps it
won’t be so bad as you think.”

“The First Class had to write last year on ‘The Seasons,’ ‘Taste and
Fashion,’ ‘Books of Value,’ ‘Art and Artists,’ ‘What costs nothing is
worth nothing’; and I am sure as sure that I haven’t a word to say
about those,” said Ella dolefully.

When the first subject was given, it proved to be “Printing.” Ella
tried her best to produce what she thought was in grown-people’s
minds about it. She read the articles on printing in two
encyclopædias, and then she set to work. After many struggles she
wrote:

  The honour of inventing printing is usually given to Gutenberg.
  Scarcely anything is known of his life until the age of
  thirty-six, when he entered into a contract with a certain company,
  promising to impart to them whatever knowledge he possessed
  concerning the secret of printing. The company probably intended to
  commence the practice of this art, but their plans were frustrated
  by the death of one of the leading members of the association.

So Ella wrote, primly and stiffly, as she imagined grown-ups always
did when they wrote for one another. She even spelled the familiar
“honor” with a _u_, because it had a _u_ in the encyclopædia, and she
supposed it ought to have one in a composition.

She struggled with that composition with an energy worthy of a better
result; and when it was returned, the world seemed hollow as she
read, “Spelling, 5 off,” and saw that the guilty cause of her loss
was that word “honour.” Farther down the page, however, there was a
comforting little note, “10 extras for the expressions being your
own.” Her own, indeed!

One of the two new books bought for use in the First Room was a
Sixth Reader. Remembering that the date of its publication was 1866,
one can almost name the articles of prose and poetry of which it
consisted. Compiled at the close of the Civil War and only fourscore
years after the American Revolution, there was of course much about
union and freedom and independence. There was the eloquence of
Webster and the “Gettysburg speech” of Lincoln; there was “Sheridan’s
Ride” and “The Ride of Paul Revere,” and “The Antiquity of Freedom.”

The United States was young and strong, and in natural reaction
reading books for children, as well as volumes of selections for
older folk, contained many articles about death. In the Sixth Reader
was the gruesome tale of Ginevra, who in sport hid in a great chest
on her wedding day and was suffocated therein, her body not being
found till many years afterwards; there was the “Death of Little
Nell,” “Over the River,” “The Conqueror’s Grave,” the “Burial of
Sir John Moore,” the story of the Indian who was swept over Niagara
Falls, and an especially vivid account of the horrors of the French
Revolution. Against all the theories of pedagogy, such thoughts as
these were chosen to put into youthful minds—and did them not one bit
of harm. The country was all a-thrill with energy, and here in the
children’s reader was much of meditative prose and poetry, “The Old
Clock on the Stair,” the “Address to a Mummy,” Byron’s “Apostrophe
to the Ocean,” Collins’s “Ode to the Passions,” and Gray’s “Elegy in
a Country Churchyard”—and the strange part of it all was that the
children actually enjoyed these serious writings.

No one, least of all the children themselves, ever demanded
entertaining stories in the reading class or a frequent change
of readers any more than they demanded interesting examples
in arithmetic or a change in the spelling of words or in the
multiplication table. The same selections were read over and over,
but no one seemed bored by the repetition. The secret was that when
the reader was taken in hand, no one expected to be amused. Every one
realized that there was some definite work to do. What the author
meant must be discovered. Then one after another was called on to
read the same paragraph or stanza until the teacher was satisfied
that the thought had been fully brought out. The selections in the
reader were carefully chosen to give scope to thought and expression.
To read well was regarded as an accomplishment. The best reader in
the room was looked upon with envy and admiration. Visitors often
asked if they might hear a class in reading.

As has been said, when the reader was taken in hand, every one in the
class realized that there was work to be done; but of course not all
succeeded equally well in doing it. One pupil declared his belief
that a “storied urn” meant an urn “that you could tell a lot of
stories about.” Another demanded with emphasis,

    “And how can man die better
    Than facing fearful _odes_?”

and yet another, coming to

    “Yet my last thought is England’s—fly!
    To Dacre bear my signet ring,”

read in defiance of both sense and punctuation,

    “Yet my last thought is England’s fly.”

It was a long time before he ceased to bear the nickname of
“England’s fly.”




CHAPTER XVI

WHEN THE COMMITTEE MEN CAME


The second new book that was purchased in honor of the First Room was
a history of the United States. This was quite a grown-up history
with its three hundred pages besides the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution. There were maps and pictures. There were even
detailed maps of many battles. There were “chronological reviews,”
which consisted of long lists of dates, each with its proper event
attached. They were recited at express train speed as follows:

  1607. Jamestown was founded.

  1609. Hudson discovered the Hudson River.

  1610. The starving time.

  1619. The first legislative assembly in America was convened in
  Virginia.

The book was not interesting, but it was well written. Ella’s heart
was won by the first sentence. This read, “The honor of the discovery
of America belongs to Christopher Columbus as an individual, and to
Spain as a nation.” The swing, the balance of the words pleased her.
She did not know whether it was good or bad, but she did know that
she liked it and liked to say it over and over.

The first draft of her composition on “Printing” read, “The honor
of inventing printing belongs to Gutenberg as an individual and to
Germany as a nation.” But she decided that it was not quite fair
to borrow the sound of a whole sentence from some one else; so she
compromised by taking half of it.

At the end of the second day’s use of the book, she came home quite
in despair.

“I just can’t do it,” she lamented. “I thought it was nice, for it
told about Columbus when he was a boy, and about his trying so hard
to get some rich king to help him find the way to India by sailing
across the Atlantic. The assistant said she did not want us to learn
it word for word, and I didn’t. I told it just as I would a story;
and I left out that he studied geometry; and it was counted a half
failure. I don’t see why any one could not cross the ocean without
studying geometry; and I haven’t the least idea what geometry is,
anyway.”

The history went on with struggles and unhappiness, for it was never
easy for Ella to learn anything word for word, and she found that
while this was neither required nor desired, it was nevertheless the
only way to make sure of bringing in every detail, and thus avoiding
failures and half failures.

Through discoveries and colonies and Indian wars she toiled and part
way through the Revolutionary War. Then one day a little girl with
bright eyes and glowing cheeks threw open the door of her home and
cried:

“I can do it now, mother. They never seemed like real people, but
they do now, and some of them are buried in our own cemetery. I found
one just now that said, ‘Fell at Bunker Hill.’”

This was rather confused, but little by little the mother understood
the situation. An old Revolutionary cemetery lay in the heart of
the city, and through it ran the nearest way to school. The city
authorities would have been glad to get rid of it and took no care
of the place, made no repairs, and did not object to its being used
as a playground. Most of the stone wall around it had tumbled down.
Monuments were lying on the ground, the door of a tomb had been
shattered; but yet it was beautiful, for flowers grew everywhere.
Under the trees were white stars of Bethlehem. Violets, daisies,
and buttercups were scattered through the grass. Shady lots were
covered with periwinkle, and sunny ones were bright and cheery
with trim little none-so-pretties. Lilacs, white roses, red roses,
and yellow Harrison roses peered through the broken palings of the
fences. Lilies of the valley ran in friendly fashion from one lot to
another. In spite of the neglect, or perhaps because of it, the old
cemetery was a happy place for children, and they enjoyed it. On the
way home it had suddenly entered Ella’s head to compare the dates on
the stones with those in her history; and in a flash the whole story
became real. She had found not only the grave of one who was killed
at Bunker Hill, but of one who had been with John Paul Jones in
battle on the sea. From that day, history was as real to Ella as the
things she could remember in her own life.

She told Alma about her discovery.

“Do you believe we ought to play here,” said Alma, “now that they
seem like real living people?”

But Ella had not forgotten her fancy that the dead folk of the little
churchyard in the mountains liked to have people come there to eat
their Sunday lunch and chat a little together. She remembered too one
day when her father and mother and she were walking in a cemetery.
She was a tiny child and she began to play on one of the graves. The
mother called her away, but the father said, “Oh, let her play. I
think if I were there, I should like to have little children come and
play around my grave.”

She said to Alma rather shyly,

“I think maybe they’d like to have us.”

“Perhaps they would,” said Alma, “if we played gently and had kind
thoughts about them.”

“Of course we should play gently,” said Ella. “We’re not small
children any longer. We shall go to the high school in one year more.
Oh, I want to go now. I want to be grown up. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. Why do you want to?”

“One reason is so I can go up in the Fourth of July balloon. I’ve
always wanted to, and I will if I ever have five dollars that I can
spend just as I like. I suppose I shan’t ever ride in a swanboat, for
I’m too old. But let’s go on with the history lesson. Perhaps we’ll
find that some of the people in it are here. If they are, let’s pick
some flowers and put on their graves.”

With this new inspiration the children roamed about the old cemetery,
examining dates and inscriptions.

“Here’s one marked ‘Howe,’” said Ella, “and it says that he died in
battle in 1778.”

“Maybe he was related to Admiral Howe,” Alma suggested.

“How he must have felt, then, to have his own uncle—I guess he was
an uncle—fighting against the Americans,” said Ella. “Suppose it had
been Washington who died in 1778?” she added thoughtfully.

“Then maybe we’d be under a king or a queen. How queer it would be
to talk about ‘Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and the United
States of America.’”

“I don’t believe we’d be under a queen at all. Something would have
been sure to happen.”

Both the little girls looked forward with pleasure to the recitation
in history on the following day, but they were disappointed, for
just before the class was to be called, visitors came in and asked
especially if they might hear one of the classes in reading.

There were of course more visitors to the First Room than to the
lower grades. One was the superintendent of schools. He used to drop
in informally, chat a little in a friendly fashion, and then, when
the boys and girls were quite at their ease, he would examine a
class or two, look at the maps that had been drawn, make a note, both
aloud and in his notebook, of anything that he especially liked, and
say good-bye quite as if he had been visiting at their homes.

Members of the school committee had the privilege of making speeches
to the pupils. If a man could win a place on this committee, he
could, even if he had no talent for public speaking, enjoy all the
rewards of eloquence, for he was sure of an audience who would hang
upon his words and whose faces would express genuine regret when his
speech was evidently drawing to a close.

It was Ella who let the secret out. Once after there had been an
address that was both long and dull, the assistant said to her at
recess:

“I was pleased to see how attentive you were to our visitor this
morning. That was real courtesy.”

“I wanted him to keep on talking,” Ella replied.

“Did you?” questioned the assistant, with a note of surprise that
would slip into her voice, quite against her intentions.

“Yes, because if he had talked only ten minutes longer, it would have
been too late to have any geography recitation, and I didn’t know the
lesson so very well,” replied Ella serenely. “I tried to look just as
interested as I possibly could, so he would keep on talking.”

Even if the committee men were not all the most eloquent of public
speakers, they rarely failed to have something definite to say
and to say it in a way that would make it “stick,” which after all
is about as much as any orator can hope to accomplish. One of them
brought a stranger with him one day, who asked to see the drawing of
maps on the blackboard from memory.

“Very well,” said the principal. “Class in geography.—What is your
State?” he asked the guest.

“Georgia,” the guest replied.

“The class may put an outline of Georgia on the board,” said the
principal. “North—northeast—east—southwest. Put in the ranges of
mountains.” Six rivers were drawn in and the location of six towns
marked. It was done too rapidly for even a glance at a neighbor’s
map, and with few mistakes.

When the maps were done, the guest spoke highly of the work, the
accuracy and the speed manifested. “It was quite a coincidence,” he
said, “that their lesson should have been my own State.”

“Their lesson was on Southern Asia,” said the principal quietly, “but
what they have once learned, they are responsible for at any moment.
Will you say a few words to the pupils?” he asked the committee man,
for that was the courtesy demanded by the occasion.

The committee man rose rather ponderously and looked the room over.
Then he said:

“You’ve studied about the equator, of course; and now I want to know
what a ship does when it comes to the equator. Does it sail over it,
or break through it, or what?”

No one said a word. The duller pupils were a little shy. The brighter
ones were afraid of some catch, and there was silence. The committee
man looked up and down the class. Finally, he pointed his long finger
to the farthest corner of the room and said:

“I’d like that boy with red hair to answer the question.”

The boy with red hair was sensitive about bright colors. His face
turned scarlet while the rest of the class giggled.

“I want that boy with red hair to answer,” repeated the committee
man. “I’ve noticed that when a boy has red hair, he usually has some
pretty good brains under it.”

The laugh was turned. The boy with red hair now plucked up courage
and said, “The equator is an imaginary line. There is nothing to get
over.”

“Good,” said the committee man. “You are the kind of boy I thought
you were. Now, don’t forget that the equator isn’t the only
difficulty in the world that you will find to be imaginary when you
come to it. Good-bye.”

Another visitor told interesting stories about the little red
schoolhouse that he attended as a boy, about getting out of bed
before light cold winter mornings to help with the farm work before
he went to school; of ploughing his way through snowdrifts, of making
hay and digging potatoes and threshing grain, of working all day in
the hot sun.

“Now, boys,” he said at the close, “I have a secret to tell you.
You think it’s rather hard—don’t you?—to be called at eight o’clock
in the morning, eat breakfast, and get to school by nine? Well,
the secret is that while you are making yourselves comfortable the
country boys are making themselves ready to come here to the city a
few years from now to take your places. I wonder what you are going
to do about it. You want those good places, and there is just one way
by which you can hold on to them. It is this, ‘Work hard and don’t
grumble.’”

Another committee man talked about perseverance. At the end of his
little address he said:

“We have been talking about perseverance, and now I am going to ask
you to do something that will make you remember this talk as long as
you live. I want you to sing ‘Go on, go on, go on, go on,’ to the
tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”

It was sung, and there is no question that it was remembered.




CHAPTER XVII

THE HIGH SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS


One day at the beginning of Ella’s second year in the First Room, the
superintendent came to the school and brought with him a stranger, a
quiet gentleman with a pleasant smile.

“Do you suppose that is the one?” was the question signaled from one
to another.

Three days of the term had passed, and the principal had not
appeared. All sorts of rumors were floating about. It was said that
he had leave of absence, that he was sick, and finally, that he
had resigned and that a new principal might step in at any moment.
The assistant was quite equal to the management of the school, and
everything was going on well.

The superintendent introduced the stranger to her; then, turning
toward the pupils, he introduced to them their new principal.
Fortunately it was near the close of the session, for no rules
against “communicating” or even whispering could have long suppressed
the comparing of notes that was all ready to burst forth. There was
no playing on the homeward way that noon; the children were too eager
to tell the great news.

Ella was an ardent little partisan. Whatever the principal was to
others, he had always been kind to her, and she wrote forlornly in
her little diary, “Another king arose which knew not Joseph.”

Of course some different ways of doing things were introduced, and
Ella was certain that the older ways were far better. In arithmetic,
it had been forbidden to preserve any written work. What was wanted
was the ability to do a problem; why preserve it then, if you have
the ability to do it at any time? The new way was to keep your
problems in a blank book, each one fenced off from the others by a
carefully ruled double line, and have them to refer to at any moment.
There were good reasons for both ways.

The plan of map-drawing had been to study a map till you had a
picture of it in your mind, then to draw that picture on paper or
on the blackboard. The new way was to make as nearly an outline of
the country to be drawn as could be made with straight lines, and
then fit the true outline of the country around it. This worked very
well if one happened to remember just how many “measures” long each
line of the outline should be; but if the proper length of any one
line was forgotten, the pupil was all at sea. The numbers had gone
from his mind, and he had no mental picture of the map. Ella’s diary
called it “a queer, conglomerated way of drawing Europe.”

Gradually the new principal made his way. Every lesson had to be
learned as carefully as ever, but there was a margin to the work.
When strange kinds of woods appeared in the list of “productions”
that was the children’s horror, the new principal was quite likely
to bring some specimens of them to school, and perhaps to invite
a group of those children who seemed most interested to spend the
evening at his house to see the rest of his cabinet of woods. With
him a company went not only to the asbestus ledge, but to a coal mine
not far away where they could collect some fossils. He had a valuable
microscope, and this he brought to school to reveal the marvels of
little things.

So passed the spring term. In those days the spring term began the
school year, so that when Ella returned to school in September, she
had only three terms more before going to the high school.

It was soon plain that much of the rest of the year would be given
to preparation for the high school examinations. Every study was
reviewed most thoroughly, from the beginning of the book to the
end. For a while geography was recited twice a day, once to the
new principal and once to the assistant. Every question in the
little pink geographical question book was asked by the teacher and
answered by the pupils. The principal exports of Europe, fifty-three
articles, were recited over and over. A table of the latitude and
longitude of fifty-six places, a thing to give one bad dreams, was
repeated in chorus and in solo. More than once the time sacred to the
reading class was given to going over the United States or some other
country, naming boundaries, rivers, and cities. Maps were drawn
until the children could almost have drawn them with their eyes shut.
The new principal said it was never his way to offer prizes; but if
it had been, he would have offered one long ago for the best map of
Europe. “Draw just as good a map as you can,” he said to the First
Class, “and we will see about the prizes afterwards.”

The other studies were reviewed in much the same way as the
geography. There was more teaching than the teachers could do,
and some of the pupils were pressed into the service. Ella hardly
recited at all, she was so busy hearing others. Among these were two
girls who were sent to her in the office every day. “See if you can
possibly make them understand how to analyze a sentence,” said the
assistant almost hopelessly.

There were written examinations without end. Surely the children
ought to have been well used to them, for they lived and breathed
examinations every few days, especially in grammar and arithmetic.
Among these examinations were full sets of the questions used for
entrance to the high school for the last twelve years, and every one
of these was given to the class in hand. The children of the sixties
must have been tough little things, for not one of them had nervous
prostration.

As the weeks passed on, the work became more and more intense. Every
question in the geographical question book had been answered, as has
been said. Every topic in history was recited and every map of a
battle reviewed. “Miscellaneous Problems” from numerous arithmetics
were now showered upon the children’s heads like avalanches. Weird
and incredible tales these problems were, tales of men who bought
goods on the most impossible terms and sold them in fractional lots
of most uncomfortable size; tales of a group of men who bought a
grindstone in partnership and left to the members of the First Class
the task of finding out how many inches each should grind off to get
his money’s worth. Did any one ever work on that problem without a
mental vow never, never to buy a share in a partnership grindstone,
especially well in toward the center?

The rules of the grammar were thoroughly reviewed and then came a
great expanse of opportunity for parsing and analyzing. On pages
and pages of the Sixth Reader difficult words were underlined for
parsing. The most complicated sentences were carefully dissected,
and incidentally a habit of looking closely into the exact meaning
of words and the precise shade of thought which they expressed was
formed. The study of grammar was much more than a repetition of
rules. It had a wide and generous margin. It took the place in the
grammar school that is filled by logic in the college.

In spelling, the knowledge of one book was all that was required.
Indeed, there was once quite a little insurrection when, in one of
the test examinations, the word “pusillanimous” appeared, a word
which was not in the spelling book. About music there was grave
questioning. Many of the pupils were taking lessons at home, and some
were doing quite advanced work. Was it fair to compare this with the
work of children whose only instruction came from an hour a week in
school? “There will always be a difference in home advantages,” said
the wise superintendent, “but these examinations should be limited
to what they have had full opportunity to learn in school.” It was
decided that the examination in music should be given, but should not
be counted in ranking the pupils.

This matter of rank was of vast importance in the eyes of the
children, and was watched with interest by some thousands of the
older folk of the city. The high school examinations were not given
in the grammar schools, but in the high school—which gave to them an
added dignity. The papers were corrected with the utmost care and
were then ranked according to their percentage. The city was proud of
her schools, and to stand Number One in these examinations was looked
upon as being the highest honor that it could bestow upon a pupil
entering the high school.

This was Ella’s ambition. “I want it! I want it! I want it!” she
said to herself. “It seems as if I must have it.” But would she get
it? Ever since the first half-term she had been at the head of her
class. She had become used to this, and had fallen into the habit of
writing carelessly in her diary, “Reports to-day. I was Number One as
usual,” and then had forgotten it all and had crocheted a mitten or
played ball without thinking any more about it. This, however, was
quite different. Her work was to be compared with that of the pupils
of the First Class in all the grammar schools of the city. It is no
wonder that she was anxious.

The last day of school arrived. Ella went through the exercises
almost in a dream. She began to realize that she was going into a
strange new school, and she was half afraid. After the day was over
and the guests had gone, the whole class wrote their names on the
board with “Graduating Class of 1869. Good-bye.”

On the following morning a long procession of boys and girls wound
its way up the hill to the high school. They were distributed among
the different rooms. Each room was in charge of a teacher, and Ella
was delighted to find the assistant standing by the door in her room,
ready to welcome her. The place of honor was given to arithmetic;
first written, then mental arithmetic. It was “mental” indeed, for
not one figure was allowed to be written. The pupils did the examples
in their minds as best they could, then set down the answer; and they
had had so much practice in keeping the example as well as the work
in mind that it seemed to them hardly more than play when a good
clear printed copy of the questions lay before them.

What the nerves of the children of 1869 were made of is a mystery,
but sure it is that after graduating from the grammar school on
Tuesday, going through part of the high school examinations on
Wednesday, Ella, and probably many others, went to a party Wednesday
evening, and on Thursday finished the examinations—geography,
grammar, spelling, history, and music. Thursday afternoon there was
a visitor for Ella to take shopping. The visitor went home at night,
and now there was time to think. Ella began to be a little alarmed.
She thought over one of her answers after another, and wondered
whether she had by mistake slipped in a wrong word or figure. “I must
be head of the city,” she said to herself. “I want it! I want it! Oh,
I want it! I do so wish the principal would come and tell me.”

The doorbell rang; the principal had come.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Ella cried. “Do please tell me where I stand!”

“You know it takes some time to look over all those papers,” said the
principal kindly, “but I will see that you know the results just as
soon as possible. I came about the map. Have you forgotten about the
map for which a prize was to be given?”

She had not forgotten, but prizes for maps seemed a very small
matter to her now, and it really required a little effort to thank
the principal as warmly as she thought he would expect. After he had
gone, she opened the package rather indifferently. It contained a
handsome copy of Æsop’s Fables. With its corners put into slits in
the flyleaf was a card with her name and the date. She laid the book
down, and wandered restlessly about the room. “Did you notice how
queerly he looked at me?” she said to her mother. “He knows that some
one else is ahead of me, and that is why he wouldn’t come in. He was
very good to bring the book, but I don’t care one bit for it or for
anything in it.” She took up the book indifferently and began to turn
the leaves over; and behold, with the corners put into slits in a
second flyleaf was another card, and on it was written, “Ella, 94 per
cent average. Highest in the city.”

One day Ella heard the bell of the grammar school ringing faintly
across the old cemetery, and she went down the path between the
graves of the Revolutionary heroes to visit the school. The principal
and the assistant gave her a warm welcome and a seat on the platform
just as if she was a committee man. The pupils looked at her
enviously, just as she used to look at the high school girls when
they came back to visit. The big waste-basket stood near her. On top
of the scraps of paper was a half-sheet, and on it was written a
line or two in the “Tories’ Alphabet.” She wondered which of these
children were “best friends” and had been admitted to the secret. New
maps were on the board, not hers nor those of any of her class. A
girl whom she had not especially liked was sitting in her old seat. A
class from the Second Room had been promoted, and how young they
did look! They were just babies!

[Illustration: ON IT WAS WRITTEN, “ELLA, 94 PER CENT AVERAGE. HIGHEST
IN THE CITY”]

“Aren’t those children from the Second Room a great deal younger than
we were when we came in?” she asked.

The assistant smiled. She had heard that question before.

“Just the same average age,” she replied; “but you know that you have
grown up. You are not a little girl any longer; you are a young lady
of the high school.”

There was a lump in Ella’s throat. Something had gone out of her
life. She was not “in it” any more—and “it” was her vanished
childhood.


THE END




APPENDIX

THE EXAMINATION QUESTIONS OF 1869


MENTAL ARITHMETIC

  1. ⅛ of a number exceeds 1/9 of it by 20. What is the number?

  2. A can do a piece of work in 1⅕ hours: A and B can do the same
  work in 48 minutes; in what time can B do it alone?

  3. ½ + ⅓ + ⅕ + ⅙ of a certain number, increased by 3½ + 10-5/7 =
  50-5/7. What is the number?

  4. When gold sells at 59 per cent advance, how much can be bought
  for $100 in bank bills?

  5. What must be the amount of my sales for one year that I may
  clear $800, at 16 per cent profit?

  6. An attorney collects a bill and receives for his services $1.26,
  which is ⅛ per cent of the amount of the bill. What was the value
  of the bill?

  7. If cloth is a yard and a quarter wide, and shrinks 6 per cent in
  length and 6 per cent in width, what part of a square yard will one
  yard of the cloth contain after shrinkage?

  8. Bought paper at $1.75 per ream and sold it at 1 cent a sheet.
  How much per cent did I gain?

  9. If gunpowder is composed of nitre, charcoal, and sulphur in the
  proportion of 7.6, 1.4, and 1, how much of each article will it
  take to make 2500 lbs. of gunpowder?

  10. A and B had the same income. A saved ⅛ of his, but B spent $30
  a year more than A; and at the end of 8 years, found himself $40 in
  debt. How much did each spend yearly?


WRITTEN ARITHMETIC

  1. What is the value of 5/7 of {8½}/{9⅔} of (3-2/9)/11 ÷
  (2-3/7)/(5½)?

  2. If 1 gal. 1 qt. 2 gi. of water passes through a filter in one
  hour, how much will pass through in 4 h. 20 m. 24 sec.?

  3. Sold goods for 2½ per cent commission and invested my commission
  in sugar, which I sold at an advance of 15 per cent, and gained
  $240. How much was my commission, and what was the value of the
  goods sold?

  4. If I invest $3500 for 1 year, 2 months, and receive on my
  investment a dividend of $490, what rate do I receive per year?

  5. A cubic inch of earth weighing 220 grains, consists of 41
  billions of infusoria. What is the weight of one insect?

  6. If a man can earn $2-3/16 per day, how many days’ wages will he
  have to give for a suit of clothes, if the coat costs $25½, the
  pantaloons $8-9/11, and the vest $5¼?

  7. If a man buys bank stock at 35 per cent above par, what per cent
  does he receive on his investment if the bank pays 8 per cent on
  the par value of the stock?

  8. What will be the length of a straight walk between the opposite
  corners of a rectangle whose length is 40 rods, and width 36 rods?

  9. A, B, and C joined their capital in the proportion of ½, ⅓, ¼.
  At the end of 9 months they divided their profits, amounting to
  $2860. How much did each receive?

  10. How much money should you receive from a bank for a note of
  $820 for 90 days, discounted at 8 per cent?


GRAMMAR

  1. Write the plural of _baby_, _belief_, _journey_, _potato_,
  _prospectus, sheep_, _wife_; and the feminine nouns corresponding
  to _actor_, _bridegroom_, _heir_.

  2. Compare _able_, _beautiful_, _chief_, _free_, _like_.

  3. Write the possessive case, singular and plural, of _deer_,
  _goose_, _it_, _lady_, _man_.

  4. State the mood, tense, and voice of the following verbs: I am
  struck. He is reading. Dost thou sleep? He will have been thinking.
  Do not run.

  5. Write a sentence containing a transitive verb with an object,
  and change the sentence to one expressing the same thought with the
  proper forms of the same words, with the verb in the passive voice.

  6. Comprise in a single sentence an adjective element of the third
  class, a complex objective element of the first class, and a
  complex adverbial element of the second class.

  7. Analyze the following sentence: “‘All’s well that ends well,’ is
  a familiar proverb.”

Parse the words in _italics_ in the following sentences:—

  8. That is _true_. It is seen _that that “that”_ stands _first_ in
  the sentence.

  9. It is difficult _to decide what to do_ under circumstances _so_
  unusual as _these_.

  10. Correct the following sentences: It has been talked over
  between you, John and I. The cause of these quarrels are unknown. I
  ain’t got none. You daresn’t do it. What had I ought to do?


GEOGRAPHY

  1. Name the rivers in America, beginning on the Northeast, that
  flow into the Atlantic.

  2. Draw a map of Maryland, with its rivers and principal towns.

  3. What does Central America comprise?

  4. What are the principal exports of South America?

  5. What are the principal towns in England?

  6. What are the principal towns in Scotland?

  7. What are the principal towns in France?

  8. What are the principal seaports in Spain?

  9. What are the principal towns in Austria?

  10. Describe the route and the waters a steamer would pass through
  in going from New York to Manilla.


HISTORY

  1. Give an account of the discoveries of the Cabots.

  2. Give an account of the settlement of Salem.

  3. Give an account of the causes of the French and Indian War.

  4. Give an account of the First Continental Congress.

  5. Give an account of the Evacuation of Boston.

  6. Describe the Battle of Camden.

  7. Give the names of the most important events of 1781.

  8. State the causes of the Civil War.

  9. Describe Sherman’s March.

  10. Describe Lee’s Surrender.


MUSIC

  1. Describe a diatonic scale, stating how many notes it contains;
  how many tones and semi-tones; the order of these tones and
  semi-tones, and give the scientific reason why No. 8 agrees with
  No. 1.

  2. Give the signatures of the keys of Mi, Fa, Si, and La flat.

  3. Write out eight notes, beginning with Mi flat, and flat the
  notes where necessary.

  4. What is a chromatic scale?

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