CHAPTER XV.

PITFALLS.

The Christmas holidays were soon over, and Persis again took up the routine of her daily life. The early breakfast, the walk to school, the busy hours following, and the walk home again; a little rest, an early supper, an hour with the family, and then the seclusion of her own room, this was the round.

Columbus’s new doll in her various characters was one of the amusements which the teacher really enjoyed. On the day after her return from her Christmas visit at Dr. Rivers’s, she found Columbus in a corner of the kitchen. The doll, in a frock which was an exact imitation of Persis’s Christmas attire, stood in front of a tiny cedar-tree, which Columbus had decked with bright bits of paper; arrayed in the foreground was a company of clothespins representing the school children. The doll was holding a Christmas festival. It was all such a funny little burlesque that the looker-on laughed heartily, and Columbus seemed rather abashed by her amusement.

“Never mind, Columbus,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean to make fun of me.”

“‘Deed an’ ‘deed, Miss Anne, I ain’t mek no fun. I jes’ think dat fessible were gran’, an’ I laks to hev it ober uvery day.” He had caught the tune of the Christmas hymn, although he garbled the words in a most absurd way, and as Persis passed out of the room she heard him strike up, “Hark! the hurry angey sing.”

“We’ve had the Christmas entertainment over every day,” Mrs. Temple told her, “and I wish you could hear Columbus’s attempt at repeating the doctor’s speech. It’s the funniest performance you ever heard.” And Persis agreed with her when later she had an opportunity of hearing it.

The teacher’s hold upon her pupils she had considered to be very sure, but after Christmas there seemed to creep into the school a discordant element. For some time it was too subtle to be directly traced. The very pupils who were supposed to be the most rebellious were her firm supporters. These were the big, rough boys who had not heretofore learned to be law-abiding citizens either at home or elsewhere, but this new teacher had been the first to open their eyes to certain facts which had never before appeared clearly to their dim perceptions. She told them about the boys she had known; of what was considered honor among them. She appealed to the best within them, and from first to last they adored her. The leaven which was at work in raising a spirit of discord was, therefore, not started by the boys, and Persis, all unsuspicious, did not know that the sleighing party was the indirect cause of this new element of rebellion, and that the head rebel was Virgie Southall. The first inkling the teacher had of what was going on came during one recess, when, having gone to a window to raise it, she heard a voice on the porch say, “And she’s not who she says she is, anyhow. My sister says she is passing herself off for somebody else. Some one told her so; and I’d like to see me mind her. Dick says he wouldn’t, and that she’s no right to come down here among respectable people and palm herself off for quality.”

Persis started back, her cheeks flaming. Were they perhaps talking of her—of her? She went back to her desk and leaned her head on her hand. The noon recess was longer than usual that day. From this time out on the side of the girls in the school there was visible defiance. The eldest girl there was the daughter of a blacksmith, whose shop stood half a mile or so beyond the school-house. Josephine Flint was a pretty creature with big black eyes and a quantity of tawny hair. She was ambitious and had a bright mind, but one or two hints as to her abominable taste in dress had not been taken in good part, and she was ready to join forces with Virgie; and the two made themselves disagreeable in the thousand ways which girls of that age find it possible to do. Sly little pin-pricks were their thrusts, but harder to deal with than open defiance. The little girls in some cases took their cue from the older ones, and from having a well-organized, perfectly controlled school, a certain sort of disorder began to prevail. Lessons were slighted, insolent bearing became common. But the teacher set herself doggedly to work to fathom the cause of it and to find the remedy. Fortunately the boys stood by her, and the little girls did not all of them forget the Christmas-tree.

It is a great pity that girls can be so sly and mean; that they are willing to wreak out their petty spite by a refinement of torture which boys would not know how to use. So Persis reflected as she watched her scholars carefully, and one day, having caught Josephine in an act of open defiance to the rules, she kept her in after school.

A sullen fire shone in the offender’s eyes, as she was requested to keep her place. She did not dare to disobey; there were too many boys around who would not fail to uphold the teacher, and who would not stand a moment upon running after the delinquent and bringing her back if she attempted to run away. So she sat still, determining that she would get the best of it in the end. Except for the tick-tick of the little clock on the shelf, the school-house was very quiet after all had tramped out leaving the two together. The days had almost reached their limit of being shorter than the nights, and Persis looked back, reflecting that nearly three months had passed since the Christmas-tree stood in its place.

She felt sorry for the girl before her, and wondered how she could reach her as she sat there stolid and sullen. “Josephine,” said the teacher after awhile, “will you tell me why you object to obeying the rules? You used to find no difficulty in doing it. What has happened since Christmas?”

The girl remained obstinately silent.

“Grandma used to say that the surest way to reach people was to love away their faults,” Persis said to herself, and she arose and went towards the refractory scholar, putting a kind arm around her. “Josey,” she said, “we are in this world to help each other. You are the oldest girl in the school. I need your help just as much as you do mine. I haven’t a hard feeling against any one of my pupils, and I do want to love them and do my very best for them. Will you tell me if you have any grievance? I think if I could see your side of the question we might come to understand each other better. I am talking as woman to woman. You are old enough not to be treated as a naughty child.”

Josephine shot a swift look at her. She saw only anxious solicitude in the face at her side, but she was not prepared to give in. She was eager to learn, but she was resolved not to be coerced in any direction. It was a question of conduct, not of lessons.

Seeing no sign of relenting, Persis returned to her seat, saying, “When you are ready to speak, Josephine, I am ready to hear any excuse you may have to offer for infringing the rules.”

She had hardly reached her desk when she heard a movement. Josephine had arisen and was fleeing down the room. She caught her shawl and hat from a nail by the door, and, before her teacher could overtake her, had flung open the door and was gone like a flash.

For a moment Persis was too greatly astonished to be angry, and then she felt incensed as well as piqued by such a proceeding, but, seeing nothing to be done, she went to the door, where Columbus was waiting to be told to close the shutters. Mattie had gone on ahead with some of the other children.

The next morning Josephine was present as usual, a triumphant smile on her face, and before the day was over the offence of the previous afternoon had been repeated, and a second time the girl was detained, this being Friday afternoon.

“I must keep my temper, and I must deal gently with her,” said poor Persis to herself. But all the patient teacher’s talk proved of no avail, and, during her period of “dealing” with the culprit there was an alert, watchful look on her face which Persis could not understand, and yet the scholar made no attempt to break from her durance vile.

The afternoon was waning, but neither teacher nor pupil would give in. After a time was heard some one fastening the shutters, and then came a rap on the door. “Columbus thinks it is high time for me to go home,” thought Persis. “I shall have to have another seance on Monday I am afraid. Come in,” she said, as a second rap was heard.

The door opened and there entered, not Columbus, but Dick Southall. “Come, Joe,” he said. The girl arose to her feet with a glance at Persis.

“Sit down,” ordered the teacher. Josephine hesitated.

“If you will wait on the porch for a few minutes, Mr. Southall,” Persis said, quietly, “Josephine will be ready.”

“I don’t propose to wait,” he replied, coolly. “You shall not keep her here one minute.”

“Who questions my right?”

“I do. You’ve no business here, anyway, with your shamming. I don’t intend my sister, nor this young lady either, shall obey you. Perhaps you don’t think I know about you, and perhaps you don’t know that you were seen at the Bridge last summer passing yourself off under a different name. If the trustees knew that, where would you be?”

Persis paled, but she stood her ground. “Dr. Rivers knows my history,” she said, coolly. “He is at liberty to give the trustees any information he may see fit.”

The young man looked taken aback.

“I am responsible only to the trustees,” Persis went on, following up her advantage, “and I intend to have my rules obeyed while I am in this school. Josephine must remain till I give her permission to go.”

But Josephine had already possessed herself of her hat and shawl, and at a given signal from her confederate she darted out, the young man following, shutting the door and locking it behind him, while Persis was left alone in the closed school-house.

She waited a few moments and then she tried the door, but it was fast, and so were the shutters, which fastened on the outside, after a primitive fashion. She knocked loudly on the door, and called, “Columbus! Columbus! open the door!” But there was no response. Where was her faithful henchman?

She was furiously angry. “The idea of such insolence!” she exclaimed. “We will see whether the trustees have any control over such things. That dreadful, impertinent Dick Southall shall pay for this.”

She listened eagerly for a sound of some one outside, but there was nothing to be heard but the March wind in the trees. It was not very cold, and there was a pile of fire-wood in the box. Persis put a stick into the stove, and then opened a window so as to ventilate the room through the chinks in the shutters. She did not for an instant think that she would have to pass the night there. Columbus would return, or, when it was found that she did not come, some one would hunt her up. Yet who could imagine that she was locked in the school-house. Slowly the hours wore away, and there came no hope of release. Then the prisoner grew hungry, and hunted around for scraps of food in her lunch basket. She found the few bits left from her always bountiful noon-day meal. She ate the scraps eagerly, with an apple which one of the children had brought her. She had no light save that of the fire, which gave little enough, since it was in a close wood-stove which smoked badly if its door were left open. At last she drew two benches together and laid upon them the sheepskin which was spread under her desk. It was one which Mr. Temple’s thoughtfulness had provided. Then making a pillow of some papers and rolling herself up in her coat, she lay down to get what rest she could.

She was aroused by a pounding on the door. It was so dark in the room that at first she thought it was the middle of the night, but a faint streak of light shining under the door told her that it was brighter outside. “Who is there?” she asked, going closer to the door.

A deep voice replied by asking, “Are you there, Miss Maitland?”

“Yes. Who is it?”

“Jake Flint.”

“I have no key. You will have to unbar the shutters from the outside.”

There was heard the slipping of a wooden bar, and then the early dawn was let into the room through the gray square at the side, and Persis opened the window. “Mr. Flint,” she said, “is it you?”

“Yes. This is a pretty bad business, Miss Maitland. Are you able to climb out?”

“Yes; I will get a chair.”

“Give me your hand. There, miss, are you all right? Here, my wife sent this. I hope it isn’t altogether cold.” And going to his mud-splashed buggy, he produced a little basket. “Not a word, please, miss, till you have taken this.” He poured out from a flask some strong coffee and gave it to her. She drank it thirstily. A sandwich was next offered, which was accepted, and eaten hungrily.

“I believe I was faint,” Persis said, smiling. “There, I feel much better.”

“Will you get in, then, and let me take you to our house?”

“Oh, not to Mr. Temple’s?”

The man looked troubled. He began to busy himself in something about the harness. “If you wouldn’t mind going home with me, miss, I’d like you all to see Joe before school takes in on Monday, and if you wouldn’t mind doing me the favor, miss.”

“Why, yes, I will go.” Persis hesitated a little. “But please tell me how you knew I was in the school-house.”

Mr. Flint had settled himself by her side and was turning his horse up the road. “I knew because Joe told me after I brought her home from driving off with that scoundrel.”

“Who? Dick Southall?”

“Yes!” The irate father broke out into a fierce expletive. “He was trying to get my girl to run away with him, and I caught them. He marry her, indeed! a girl of mine! I don’t care if my mother and father were ‘po’ white trash,’ as he calls em, Dick Southall’s not good enough for a girl of mine. I’d like to know how he’d take care of her; and, what’s more, he’s already promised a girl up near Charlottesville to marry her; and I’ll have no such double-dyed rascals hanging around my house.”

“Oh, poor Josey!”

The man turned quickly around. “You say that, Miss Maitland, after the way she’s behaved! Oh, I knowed all about it! She told me herself. I’d ought to have dragged her over to the school-house by the hair of her head and made her get down on her knees to you, but her mother felt sorry for her, she cried so.”

“Oh, but Mr. Flint, she is so young; and I’ve no doubt but that she is really sorry. I don’t suppose for a moment she thought I’d be kept shut up there. She knows Columbus always comes for me.”

“Well, to do her justice, she didn’t, not till it was too late to do any good. That evil scamp told her as a good joke that he’d locked the door and had thrown away the key. I’d like to horsewhip him.”

“Oh, no, please, Mr. Flint. Don’t you see that the less noise over it the better for Josey and me, and for all of us?”

“And after all you’ve done for that school. Why, Miss Maitland, I could ha’ cried about it, I could. When I see those little chaps singing that Christmas hymn, and knowed what that there Christmas-tree meant to some of ’em, I felt—I dunno’ how I felt. And Josey, she was so pleased with her lessons, and the way you all helped her. She’s our youngest, and we ain’t been able to do much for the others; but she’s keen as a razor to learn, and I mean her to be eddycated, even if I warn’t. I’ve worked hard, and I will work hard to keep her going. Why, I could ha’ cried to think how Josey set her face agen’ you all, after all you’ve done for her, and I feel like I couldn’t face my neighbors if they knowed about her doin’s. They all set such sto’ by you, and we alls done the same.” The man was so really distressed that Persis was touched.

“Well, Mr. Flint,” she replied, “let us be thankful that it isn’t too late to save Josey from a greater heartache than she has given us. I confess that I have had trouble of late with several of the girls, but I did, and I still do, want to help them in every way.”

“That’s what my wife said. She begged and pled that I’d go get you all, and let us talk it over without no publicity.”

“Sometimes great good comes out of great evil,” returned Persis, slowly. “Perhaps, Mr. Flint, it required this to show Josey that Dick Southall was not what she thought him to be, and it may be the turning-point for her. We must forgive her. She requires a great deal of sympathy, I think.”

The man was silent. There was a grim look on his face which spoke nothing of forgiveness. Persis saw it, and was troubled for his daughter. “You will forgive her, won’t you?” she said.

“I might for her disobedience to me, but not to you.”

“Oh!” Persis exclaimed. “Are you going to punish me, too?”

“God forbid!”

“But you will, if you do that. For my sake, Mr. Flint, please.”

The man looked at her eager face, pale from fatigue and anxiety. “She don’t deserve it,” he broke out. “Why, when I look at you all, I’d like to thrash her within an inch of her life.”

“But she is my pupil, and if you make her hard and sullen it will be much harder for me.”

“Well, we’ll see how she behaves. I’m not goin’ to have no foolishness. She’s got to eat humble-pie.”

It was growing lighter, and they were close to the blacksmith’s house, from the chimney of which smoke was rising.

“Mrs. Flint said she’d have breakfast ready,” said the man. “I reckon you all can eat a little.”

“I don’t know. I know I wanted that coffee you were so kind as to bring. Shall I go right in, Mr. Flint?”

“Yes. I reckon you’ll find her in the kitchen.” Persis wasn’t quite sure whether Mrs. Flint or Josey was meant, but she lifted the latch of the door and went in.

A woman with sad eyes, a thin face, and scant hair came forward. “Oh, miss, I’m so glad you come!” she exclaimed. “He’s terrible down on Joe.”

“We’ll have to see that he isn’t too hard,” replied Persis.

Mrs. Flint dropped into a chair and began crying. “He said so; he said you’d forgive her, po’ gyurl! He said you all were so good you’d do it. But I didn’t see how you could.”

At that moment Mr. Flint entered, and his wife sprang to her feet and began nervously to set the breakfast on the table.

“Where’s Joe?” asked the father.

“She’s up-stairs yet,” returned his wife, meekly. “You said she wasn’t to come down, daddy, and she ain’t.”

“Then let her stay there,” said the man. “Come, miss, won’t you jine us in our meal o’ wittles?”

“I don’t reckon we’ve got nothin’ you all can eat, but maybe you can make out,” Mrs. Flint said, deprecatingly.

“Your coffee was so refreshing, and I did need it so much,” Persis told her. “And down this way you do have such good egg-pone. Yes, thank you, I’m very fond of chicken.” And in spite of the coarse table-ware and the fact that Mr. Flint drank copiously from his huge saucer, and used his knife and fork indiscriminately, Persis made a good breakfast and actually enjoyed it.

[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]