Part 7

“Papa,” cried Hilda, indignantly, “you know I want to try again! But now listen, you and mamma both. And please don’t think I don’t appreciate what you have done to help me; but I want to go all alone this time. If I am ever going to make a teacher, I must learn to depend upon myself. I can’t always have you to do things for me. And besides, I don’t blame a school board for not hiring a teacher who hasn’t grit enough to apply alone. You know I can’t say anything for myself when you are along, papa. I can talk before a stranger lots better than I can before you.”

“I don’t see why you should feel that way,” interposed Mrs. Kenyon. “You surely are not afraid of your father.”

“I’m not afraid of him in one sense, but in another sense I am. I can’t talk to the directors before him as I could if I were alone. I let papa apply for me last fall, and I let him go along twice this spring, and I haven’t a school yet.”

Mrs. Kenyon started to speak, but her husband shook his head at her. “I guess we’ll have to let you have your way this time,” he said. “We’ll see if you succeed any better than I did.”

Hilda gave him a grateful look.

“But how are you going?” he asked.

“Couldn’t I walk? It isn’t far.”

“No, indeed. Johnston, of course, is less than two miles away, but Mr. Andrews lives four or five miles northeast, and Smith is as far in the other direction. You’ll have twelve or fourteen miles to travel by the time you get back home. There is too much snow for you to walk, anyway, even if it wasn’t too far. And I can’t trust you to drive the team alone as cold as it is.”

“I can ride old Selim. He’s safe enough.”

“Yes, he’s safe enough. But you will find it pretty cold, riding so far on horseback.”

“You’d better let your father take you in the buggy,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “You’ll freeze to death on Selim.”

“Now, mamma, please!” begged Hilda, and her mother said no more.

Hilda had many ambitions, but the nearest and most absorbing one was to get a school. Beyond that lay a college course, and beyond that—she hardly dare to think of all the good things the future might hold for her and hers if only she might go to college.

But she knew that the money for a college course must come from her own efforts.

She had been a very proud girl when her first certificate came. It was only for a year, of course. According to the laws of the state, one must have taught three months to receive a certificate for a longer time than that. But her grades were high enough to entitle her to a second class.

The county superintendent had enclosed a kind little note with the certificate, and had spoken personally to her father, commending her work very highly. Hilda felt that she had a right to be proud.

But the certificate in itself was not worth much. Its chief value lay in the fact that it entitled her to teach if she could get a school. And how she did want a school! She dreamed of it by night and talked of it by day.

Her father’s announcement that there was a vacancy so near home raised her hopes again. If she could get the place she could save all her salary, for the schoolhouse was so near that she could board at home, as her mother had said. She must get it, that was all. And she felt that she must go alone. Mr. Kenyon made no objection this time, and Mrs. Kenyon consented on the condition that Hilda would allow herself to be well bundled up for the long, cold ride.

Hilda readily consented to this, but she almost rued her bargain in the morning when her mother insisted on putting a large coat of her own over Hilda’s and in tying a scarf over the warm hood, and when the girl had climbed on the horse she had wrapped a warm shawl about her.

“How in the world am I to get on and off again with all this stuff, mamma?” she asked. “I feel as wrapped up as a mummy. I know I’ll frighten all the horses I meet.”

It was well, perhaps, that she could not see herself, for she certainly cut rather a ridiculous figure. Added to all the rest, she was riding her father’s saddle. The right stirrup had been thrown over, and in this her foot rested, while the left stirrup dangled below. She had never been fortunate enough to possess a side-saddle, and had often ridden in this way about the farm.

But she could not help feeling a little sensitive about her appearance on this occasion, which meant so much to her, and she wished her mother would not be so fussy.

As she drew near Mr. Johnston’s house, she considered.

It would take her some time to disentangle herself from her many wrappings, and to any one watching from the house she would present rather a ridiculous appearance in her necessarily clumsy efforts to dismount.

So she halted old Selim some distance from the front gate, and here, hidden by the trees, she divested herself of her extra garments.

Her heart was pounding away vigorously as she knocked and inquired if Mr. Johnston was in. She had known him ever since she could remember, but he seemed suddenly to have become almost a stranger. Outwardly, however, it was a very dignified young lady who presented her case before him.

It seemed to her that he looked at her for fully five minutes without speaking.

“So you want to teach?” he asked at last. “Pretty young, aren’t you? How old are you? Seventeen?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda. “I suppose that isn’t very old, but I have a good certificate, and I am pretty sure that I can teach a good school. At least, I’d try my best if you would give me a chance.”

“That’s what they all say,” remarked Mr. Johnston.

“I know. But that is all I _can_ say till somebody gives me a chance to show what I can do.”

“You have had no experience, of course.”

“No. But if I am ever to make a teacher, I’ll have to teach my first school sometime and somewhere.”

“I guess that’s so. Got some pretty good grades here.” He had been examining the certificate she had handed him.

“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda, modestly.

Again he was silent. Then he handed her back her certificate. “Well, I’ll tell you, Hilda. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to give you a chance. I’ve known you ever since you were a baby, and I know you are a wide-awake, energetic little girl. But I’m only one of three, and I am afraid you won’t stand the best of chances with the other two. You don’t know either of them personally, do you? I thought not. Andrews wants the place for a cousin of his, and Smith will think you are too young. But go and see both of them. Don’t tell them what I’ve said. Simply say that you spoke to me about it. Smith is president of the board.”

Hilda thanked him and went her way, much encouraged in spite of what he had said about her possible reception by the other two members. She experienced some difficulty in mounting and dismounting each time, encumbered as she was, but that did not trouble her much now, although she was careful at both places to stop far enough away from the house, as she had done at Mr. Johnston’s, to enable her to accomplish this feat without being seen.

And she was truly thankful that no one asked her how she came. She much preferred that the men whose interest she was trying to enlist should not see her perched up on old Selim, like a big round bump on a log, as her father had expressed it.

Fortunately, she found both Mr. Andrews and Mr. Smith at home, but she did not receive the encouragement from them that she had done from Mr. Johnston.

Indeed, Mr. Andrews told her that the school was as good as engaged, and that it was useless for her to see Mr. Smith. Hilda, remembering what Mr. Johnston had told her about the cousin, made no reply, but resolved to call upon Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith listened to her courteously and quietly. “Pretty young, aren’t you?” he asked.

Hilda laughed. “I expected you to say that. But it isn’t always age and experience that make success. I have always wanted to teach, and I’ve always thought I could teach, and I believe I can, if I _am_ young.”

“I don’t know but that’s the right way to talk. We’ve got to believe in ourselves before we ever amount to much. How much would you want a month?”

She was not prepared for this question. In her heart she knew that she would take the school at whatever they might offer. But she reflected that it would not be policy to say so, so she answered:

“Whatever you have been paying for your spring term.”

“Well, we’ll talk over your application Monday. If we want you, we will let you know. You needn’t come to see us about it again.”

Hilda was obliged to be content with this. She thanked him, and then, behind the grove where she had tied her horse, she bundled herself up for the ride home, where an eager audience listened to her story while she thawed out her fingers and toes.

The next six days seemed interminably long to her, but Monday came at last. All day she listened expectantly for a step on the front porch, but no one came that day or the next. Wednesday morning she was helping her father about the barn, when she heard some one behind her, and turned to face Mr. Johnston.

“Hello!” he cried. “So you concluded to try farming if you couldn’t get a school?”

Hilda smiled in reply. She could not trust herself to speak. So she had failed again.

Mr. Johnston chatted with her father for a time, while she went bravely on with her work. It would never do to let him know how disappointed she was.

“Well, Hilda,” he said, finally, “I’ll expect you to do me credit this spring.”

Hilda looked up, surprised.

“We concluded we would try you,” he continued. “Andrews stuck out for his cousin, but Smith went with me. Smith was quite taken with you. Andrews’ cousin had let him attend to her application, and had never come to see one of us about it. Smith didn’t like that way of doing things, and I confess I don’t, myself. You’ll get thirty-five dollars for three months. If that is satisfactory, I guess we might as well go to the house and sign the contract now.”

Hilda felt that she was treading on air as she followed him to the house, and when she saw her name signed to the little slip of paper, the contract between herself and District No. 33, she secretly pinched herself to see if she were awake. She wanted to shout, but of course that would not do. But the moment Mr. Johnston was gone she seized her mother about the waist and whirled her round the room.

“Just think, mamma! Just think!” she cried. “I’ve actually got a school. One hundred and five dollars, and no board to pay. Maybe, now, I won’t have to wait any longer to go to college than I had expected to do in the first place. And, mamma,” she drew her mother close and whispered in her ear, “when I get to be a professor in some big university you won’t have to work any more, and I can give you the things that I’ve wanted and wanted so long to give you.”

THE IMP AND THE DRUM

By Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

It never would have happened but for Miss Eleanor’s mission class. Once a week through the winter she went in the cars to a town not far from the city, where there were a great many mills, but few schools, and talked to a crowd of the mill-hands’ little children. She did not give them lessons, exactly, but she told them stories and sang songs with them and interested them in keeping themselves and their homes clean and pretty. They were very fond of her and were continually bringing in other children, so that after the first year she gave up the small room she had rented and took them up two flights into an old dancing-hall, a little out of the center of the town.

The Imp had been from the beginning deeply interested in this scheme, and when he learned that many of the boys were just exactly eight and a half—his own age—and that they played all sorts of games and told stories and sang songs, and had good times generally, his interest and excitement grew, and every Thursday found him begging his mother or big aunty, with whom they spent the winter, to telephone to his dear Miss Eleanor that this time he was to accompany her and see all those fascinating children: big Hans, who, though fourteen, was young for his years and stupid; little Olga, who was only eleven, but who mothered all the others, and had brought more children into the class than anyone else; Pierre, who sang like a bird, and wore a dark-blue jersey and a knitted cap pulled over his ears; red-headed Mike, who was all freckles and fun; and pretty, shy Elizabeth, with deep violet eyes and a big dimple, who was too frightened to speak at first, and who ran behind the door even now if a stranger came.

But it was not till the Imp gave up being eight and a half and arrived at what his Uncle Stanley called quarter of nine that Miss Eleanor decided that he might go if his mother would let him.

“I used to think,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be wise to take him. I thought they’d feel awkward; for of course he’s better dressed, and I don’t want them to feel that they’re being shown off or made an exhibition of, even to a child. But I know them so well now, and I’ve told them about him and how he loves to play games, and wants to come, and I think it may really be a good thing—for both sides.”

So on one delicious Thursday in early February, the Imp boarded the train proudly, and they steamed out of the big station. He had gone over the entire afternoon, in anticipation, with Harvey, his little lame friend, who could not go to school, but did his lessons with a tutor, and with whom the Imp studied every morning during the three or four months they spent in the city; and Harvey was as interested as he, and sent his best love to them all.

From the moment of the Imp’s entrance, when his cheerful “Hullo!” made him any number of friends, and his delight at being there made them all delighted to have him, he was a great success; and when big Hans, with a furtive glance at the Imp’s clean hands, went quietly off to the ever-ready basin and washed his own, Miss Eleanor regretted that she had not brought him sooner.

When they had finished the story about Washington at Valley Forge—for Miss Eleanor was quietly teaching them history—she got them into a long line that reached quite around the room, and went out for a moment, returning with a drum in her hand: not a play drum, but a real one, with polished black sticks and a fascinating strap to cross over the shoulder.

“Now,” said she, “we’re going to learn the fire-drill, and we’ll take turns at the drum.”

The children were delighted, and stood still as mice while she explained the order of affairs. In the big city public schools, she had been told, they practiced going out in line at a mock alarm of fire, and the boy or girl who broke out of line or dashed for the door before the drum-tap was disgraced for days in the eyes of the school. Everything must be quiet and in order; every child must have his place and take it; no one must cry out, or run ahead, or push, or try to hurry matters; and what was most important, all must keep step—which was why the drum came to be there.

She arranged them carefully: little one first, then girls, last of all the boys, with big Hans at the rear, and Olga managing a crowd of the little ones.

“Now,” she said, “we won’t leave the room this first time; we’ll just march round and round till we can all keep step, and later we’ll practice going through the halls and downstairs. I’ll drum the first time, and then the best boy shall be drummer.”

The friend who had suggested the fire-drill when Miss Eleanor had begged her for some new game to play, had never seen one, and did not know the exact details, but she knew the general idea of it, and she knew, too, that it was not at all easy for people to keep in step, even to a drum. This had surprised Miss Eleanor greatly. She supposed that anybody could keep step, and she was much inclined to doubt her friend’s statement that a large number of grown people, even, found it difficult.

But there was a still greater surprise in store for her. When she slung the strap over her pretty red waist and hit the drum a resounding blow, a very different sound from what she had expected was the result—a muffled, flat noise, with nothing inspiring about it whatever. She bit her lip and tried again, the children watching her attentively from the sides of the big room.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

A few feet began to keep time, but the sound was not very different from that produced by a stick hit against the wall, and big Hans, whose father played in a band, and who had attended many rehearsals—it was from him the drum had been procured—shook his head solemnly.

“Not so! Not so!” he said in his thick, gruff voice. “You no hit good! You no hit hard!”

“Oh, Hans, can _you_ play it?” cried Miss Eleanor eagerly. “Here, take it!” And she flung the strap over his shoulder.

Hans shambled out to the center of the room, and struck a mighty blow. The familiar deep sound of a drum filled the place, and Miss Eleanor sighed with relief, but alas! her joy was short-lived, for poor Hans had no idea of time, and could only pound away like a hammer. In vain she held his hand and tried to guide his strokes. The noise was deafening, but no more to be marched to than thunder.

Little Pierre tried next, but though he kept perfect time, and looked very cunning in his little blue blouse, his taps were too light to cover the sound of the tramping feet.

Miss Eleanor’s cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the children were getting restless. She did not know what to do.

“Oh, dear! _Who_ would have thought it was so hard?” she exclaimed pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again.

“What is it, Perry?” she asked.

“_I_ can—_I_ can play a drum, Miss Eleanor!” he burst out.

She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most things.

“This isn’t a play drum, you know, dear; it’s a real one,” she said.

“But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up like a good ’un!” the Imp exploded again.

Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among the Imp’s amazing list of acquaintances, a one-legged Grand Army man, who kept a newspaper-stall, had been mentioned, and decided that it could do no harm to let him try.

“Well, put it on,” she said, and the Imp proudly assumed the drum, grasped the sticks loosely between his fingers, wagged his head knowingly from side to side, and began.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrm! brrrm! brrrm!

The straggling line straightened, the children began to grin, and little Pierre, at the head of the line, stamped his foot and started off. Miss Eleanor’s forehead smoothed, and she smiled encouragingly at the Imp.

“That’s it, that’s it!” she cried delightedly. “How easy it looks!”

But the Imp stopped suddenly, and the moving line stopped with him.

“Wait! I forgot!” he said peremptorily. “You mustn’t start till I do this.”

And with a few preliminary taps he gave the long roll that sends a pleasant little thrill to the listener’s heart.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrrr—_um_ dum!

The children jumped with delight, and the line started off, the Imp drumming for dear life around the inside of the big square, and Miss Eleanor keeping the hasty ones back and hurrying the stragglers, trying to make big Hans feel the rhythm, and suppressing Pierre’s happy little skips.

After a half-hour of this they begged to try the halls and stairs, and the Imp stood proudly on the landings, keeping always at about the middle of the line, stamping his right foot in time with his sticks, his eyes shining with joy, his little body straight as a dart.

Miss Eleanor was delighted. The boys responded so well to her little talk on protecting the girls and waiting till they were placed before taking their own stand in the line, the girls stood so straight, the little ones entered so well into the spirit of the thing, that she felt that afternoon to have been one of the best they had had, and confided as much to the Imp on their journey home.

As for the Imp, he had a new interest in life, and talked of little else than the fire-drill for days. There was no question as to his going the next Thursday, and he and his drum formed the chief attraction of the day, for the drill proved the most popular game of all, and after the proclamation had gone forth that none but clean-handed, neatly dressed, respectful boys need aspire to head the line, such boys were in a great and satisfying majority.

For a month they had been practicing regularly, and by the end of that time every child knew his place and took it instantly at the opening tap. It was pretty to see little Olga shake back her yellow pigtails and marshal her tiny brood into line; even the smallest of them kept step nicely now.

Only big Hans could not learn, and Pierre walked by his side in vain, trying to make him feel the rhythm of the Imp’s faithful drumsticks.