CHAPTER XVI.

THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKSMITH.

It went to the heart of the teacher to see how proudly, yet how kindly, these mountaineers offered their hospitality. Evidently the best the house afforded had been set before her, and the guest did all within her power to show appreciation.

“Josey, she’s our youngest,” Mrs. Flint told her. “The other gyurls are all married, and the boys are working away from home; but we all has always set great sto’ by Joe; we sort o’ favored her, bein’ young an’ ambitious.”

“She is a very bright scholar,” Persis told them; “and there is no reason why she should not do you credit. May I see her?” she asked, as they rose from the table.

Mrs. Flint looked at her husband. “Shall the teacher go up?” She put the question timidly.

“Why, if she don’t mind——” he began, awkwardly.

“Oh, no, I don’t mind. I think, if you don’t object, that it would be easier to see her alone,” put in Persis.

“Poor little, rebellious, ungoverned girl!” she said to herself, as she mounted the steep stairs to the room above.

Mrs. Flint knocked at the door. “Joe!” she called. “Joe!”

There was no answer, and she turned the knob. Then she beckoned to Persis, who went in, and the mother withdrew. The furniture of the room was very plain and meagre. Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl.

Persis laid her hand softly on the mass of red-gold hair. “Josey,” she said, “poor little Josey, won’t you speak to me?”

The girl lifted her head and showed her eyes swollen with weeping.

“I’m so sorry for you,” whispered Persis. “I have had trouble too. Won’t you tell me all about it?”

“Don’t! don’t!” cried the girl; “don’t talk to me that way. I ain’t worth your wipin’ your shoes on.” She hid her face in the bedclothes again.

“Come, come, that is not the way to talk. I, too, have known bitter sorrow. I know how you must be suffering. I think, perhaps, I understand better than any one else could. Won’t you tell me?” She put her arm about the prostrate figure, and the girl sprang up.

“Oh, Miss Anne,” she cried, “how can you do it when I’ve been so bad? I didn’t mean to get you shut up. I wonder you don’t hate me. How can you help it?”

[Illustration: Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl.]

“I don’t hate you at all. You know I said we could help each other, if we would.”

“Yes, I know, I know. I wanted to give in then, but—but——”

“But what?”

“They wouldn’t let me. I’d promised I wouldn’t.”

“Who are they?”

“Sid and Virgie Southall—and—and Dick.” This last in a whisper.

“And did you care so much to please them?”

“I did, but I hate ’em now, all of ’em. I know now that they look down on me, and that they just flattered me up so’s to get me to be on their side. Daddy said I shouldn’t go with Dick, and that made me fierce to go, and he said I shouldn’t marry him, and I said I would. I didn’t really, ’deed, Miss Anne, I didn’t really care so much, but daddy was so terrible set against it, and it made me keen the other way. It was because he was so down on Dick that I took up for him. He said he was a wu’thless, lazy, fool man, and I stood out he wasn’t.”

“And is he?” Persis put the question gently.

“He’s lazy, and I reckon he’s pretty much of a fool, but I liked him to like me.”

“You were flattered because he did. I see. But, dear child, you would be very miserable married to him. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes’m. I know he’d boss me. He always tried to. I’d a given him up long ago if daddy hadn’t been so cantankerous, and so set against me.”

“But Josey, your father loves you dearly.”

“He doesn’t.”

“He does. He is heart-broken over all this. He may not take the wisest way of showing it, but he said as much to me.”

“Oh, Miss Anne!”

“Yes, I can assure you he has, Josey dear. You could make your father and mother so proud of you. Why, you might teach school yourself some day, and think how pleased that would make them. They have worked so hard, and your mother has really needed your help. Instead of asking it, she has done all the work, and let you go to school.”

“I know.”

“Then you will study hard after this?”

“You ain’t goin’ to let me go back to school?” Josey cried, in astonishment.

“Why not?”

“After the way I have acted?”

“No one knows but ourselves and Dick Southall. I think your father will settle him.” Persis remembered the grim look on the man’s face.

“Oh, Miss Anne!” Josephine fell on her knees by her teacher’s side and humbly kissed her hand.

“There! Why, Josey, don’t.” Persis really felt embarrassed. “I am as anxious as possible to have you come back, and help me get the school into its former good order.”

“The Southalls can’t abide you, and they’ll do all they can to kick up a fuss with the rest of the scholars.”

“Then we must do our very best to prevent it. I do not see why they dislike me so much. I know Miss Sidney did want the school, but that doesn’t seem enough to warrant such enmity.”

“Oh, don’t you know why it is? You won’t mind, Miss Anne, if I tell you? Sid Southall thinks you cut her out with Mr. Pen Rivers.”

“Why, I never heard of such an idea!” Persis spoke her surprise.

“It’s at the bottom of all of it. It’s why Dick was agen’ you.”

“Against, you mean.”

“Yes, ma’am, against you. And why Virgie set us all to actin’ so, and why Sid tried to get up some sort of tales about you.”

Persis looked very thoughtful. Looking back, she remembered things which bore out Josephine’s statements. “Well, never mind all that,” she said after a pause, and with a return of dignity. “Can you tell me how it happened that no one came from Mr. Temple’s to look me up?”

Josey hung her head. “Dick met Mattie and told her you wouldn’t be home last night.”

“I suppose they thought that I had gone to Dr. Rivers’s.”

“That’s what he meant them to think.”

The two were silent a few moments, then Josey asked, “Is father very angry, Miss Anne?”

“I’m afraid he is.”

“Will he thrash me?”

“Why, goodness! I hope not.” The idea gave Persis a shock.

“Yes, he will. I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid.” Josey hid her face in Persis’s skirts.

“Why, you poor child, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t——” She was going to say, “he couldn’t do such a degrading thing,” but she remembered that Mr. Flint had expressed his opinion. However, she was determined that his daughter should be spared such a degradation.

“Josey,” she said, “I shall ask him to forgive you. I think if you go and tell him that you are sorry; that you and I have settled it, and that you are to come back to school and be my best helper, that it will be all right.”

“Will you go with me?”

“Why, certainly. Come, let us have it over with.” And, holding Josey’s hand, she led her to her father’s presence, and took the initiative by saying, “Mr. Flint, Josey has something to tell you.”

“I’m sorry, daddy, I _am_ sorry,” repeated the girl, in a voice full of tears.

The father scowled. “I reckon you’ll be sorrier yet,” he remarked.

“Mr. Flint,” said Persis, her cheeks burning, “I know Josey has done wrong, but she has confessed it, and what more can she do? She is nearly a woman, and she is aware that she fully deserves your anger. You say you want her to be a lady. You want her to live so you can be proud of her. You can’t beat a girl into being a lady. Gentlemen don’t strike women.”

The man quailed before Persis’s scornful tone. He meant to do right, but he knew no other punishment than that which brute force could bestow. “Miss Maitland,” he answered, “that’s a hard word for you to say, but I see, Miss, what you mean. I reckon I ain’t always took the right way.”

“My grandmother used to say that love is the best master. Josey says you do not love her, and she believes it.”

“Don’t love my child! Why, Joe!”

“Oh daddy, do you?” the girl asked, eagerly.

“I’ll knock down any fellow that says I don’t.”

“Oh, then——” Josey ran forward and hid her face in her father’s rough sleeve.

“Then it’s forgive and forget all around,” Persis interposed. “If you don’t forgive Josey, Mr. Flint, I can’t forgive you.”

“For what, miss?” he asked.

“For rousing me up at four o’clock and making me drink cold coffee.” And the words relieved the strain, for Mr. Flint smiled, and his hand sought the rough tawny head of his daughter.

“Come, Joe,” he said, “you ain’t had no breakfast; and I must drive Miss Maitland home.” And then Persis knew that she had gained her point.

“You’ll be sure to be on hand early Monday morning,” Persis whispered as she bade Josey good-bye. “I shall depend on you, you know.”

Josey nodded.

Mrs. Flint’s worn face was lighted up by a smile. “Oh, Miss Maitland,” she said, bashfully, “I wish I could say what I feel, but, indeed, ma’am, I’ll never forget you all, never. It’s not likely you’ll ever want to come to our poor place again, but, indeed, I’d be so proud to see you.”

“Why, of course I’ll come. And may I have some more of that good egg-pone the next time?”

Mrs. Flint smiled delightedly at the gracious tactful acceptance of her invitation.

“What do you suppose Dick Southall did with the school-house key?” Persis asked Mr. Flint as they drove off.

“I’ll be dog-goned if I know. I’ll run back and ask Joe.” He left Persis half-way down the lane, and came back with the information that Dick had thrown away the key. “It’s pretty big, and I reckon we kin find it; and if we can’t, I can easy make another. If I put my shoulder agen’ the door I reckon it won’t stay shut long; but I thought I’d better not bust it in this morning.”

The “bustin’-in” process was not found necessary, for the key was discovered a short distance from the porch, in among a clump of weeds; and the teacher went in to gather up certain books and other of her belongings, and then she was taken on to Mr. Temple’s, although she expostulated, and declared herself perfectly able to walk.

“Remember, Mr. Flint,” she said at parting, “no one is to know anything about this matter. I think the trustees would best not know of it at present. It is an affair between ourselves.”

“Joe don’t deserve that you all should screen her,” he replied; “but I’m glad enough not to say nothin’ about it, though all the same I mean to take it out of Dick Southall’s hide.”

Just how he fulfilled his threat Persis at that time did not learn, although she heard that Dick Southall had left the neighborhood, and eventually it was told her that he had married the girl near Charlottesville. Virgie brought the news to school and announced it with an air of triumph in the presence of Josey and Persis. The former looked at her teacher, and gave a little laugh in which there was neither malice nor chagrin. Joe had learned several things by that time.

Persis felt quite weak and exhausted when she reached home after the strain upon her which the last twenty-four hours had brought, and she was glad that it was Saturday and that she had no special duties to perform.

“You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you driving up with Jake Flint this early in the morning,” said Mrs. Temple. “How in the world did you happen to come with him? I thought you were at Dr. Rivers’s.”

“No; I went to the Flints’,” returned Persis, coolly.

Mrs. Temple stared. “You went there! Well, if that don’t beat me out. I shouldn’t think they were your kind of people. Not that Jake Flint isn’t a good, honest man, and his wife a hard-working, nice, good woman, but they come of a real common family, not the kind you’re used to associating with.” Mrs. Temple had a great deal of pride in Miss Anne.

“I judge they are not the most cultured persons in the world,” returned Persis; “but a teacher has certain duties to perform, and Josey needed me.”

“Josey, yes, she’s a pretty thing; and I’ve seen her look quite the lady, and Dick Southall thinks so. His family are dead set against it.”

“No more than hers.”

“The Southalls are ’way above the Flints.”

“In point of family, perhaps; in point of morals, I doubt it. Josey is worth a dozen of Dick Southall.”

“I reckon you’re right, but ’tisn’t every one that thinks so down this way.”

“No; money counts for the most in some places, family in others; morals come first in very few, I often think.” And Persis went up to her room thinking that she could boast of neither family nor money, “and sometimes I doubt about the morals,” she sighed. “Sometimes I think that, after all, I may have done very wrong to leave home, and yet—I believe I am doing a little good, and am learning that to merge the Ego into universal good is to gain a power that will live through the ages. What is it Emerson says?—

“‘Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.’

I mean to do all I can to make a fine woman out of Josey. Heigho! I’m glad there is no school to-day, and that my only duty is to darn my stockings. Atlas must have grown very weary of carrying the world on his shoulders.”

Virgie Southall was surprised and provoked on Monday morning to find that her strongest ally had deserted to the enemy. She cared nothing whatever for Josey, and would have scorned her as a sister-in-law, but as a means to an end she was worth cultivating. However, Josey withstood all overtures, and acted so decorously and sedately that even the boys opened their eyes, and Joshua Harman, who at one time had secretly admired the blacksmith’s daughter, began to return to his allegiance.

Persis resolved to make more of a companion of Josey. She loaned her books and magazines, gave her hints about her dress and her deportment, showed her that simplicity need not express either poverty or inelegance, and that cheap, flimsy materials elaborately trimmed display a vulgar ostentation which stamps the wearer as possessing an uncultivated taste. The country girls, unfortunately, were most of them inclined towards flashiness, and adorned their cheap, badly cut garments with coarse trimmings which only added to their lack of grace. “If you want to look like a lady,” Persis told Josey, “you must dress quietly. Only wealthy persons can afford startling costumes. If you have any money to spend, put it all in the best material you can buy, and never mind the garnishing. Let your frocks fit well, and you will look all right.”

Josey did at first secretly rebel, but even though she could not always perceive it, she made up her mind that what her teacher said was bound to be right, and she expanded like a flower under the warmth of a woman’s loving influence, so that even the trustees noticed her improvement in every direction.

More than once Persis went to the Flints’ and spent a Saturday. Sometimes the big, rough sons, or the hard-working married daughters would come shyly in, having walked a long distance to get a sight of Josey’s teacher, who was so wonderful. By degrees the school slipped back to its former record for orderliness, the only really rebellious spirit being Virginia Southall, who maintained a scornful mien.

There were some minor offences committed,—as in what school are there not?—but on the whole Persis felt quite proud of her little flock.

“I always meant to be a journalist or a writer,” she told herself, “and yet here I am, a country school-teacher, in a mountain district at that, and miles removed from a city. It might be a worse lot,” she concluded.

Yet ever that underlying longing for home existed, and she knew that sooner or later she must yield to its controlling force. Once she read in her home paper that Professor Holmes was ill with the grippe, and she could scarcely restrain the impulse to fly. “But who will take my place here?” she said to herself. “I owe a duty in this spot. I have chosen it deliberately.” And she stayed, watching eagerly for the news which announced Mr. Holmes’s recovery. Several times she saw Mellicent’s name mentioned among the society items, and one day she came across a little piece of news which interested her greatly: “The engagement of Miss Patty Peters, of Washington, to Mr. Wilson Vane, of this city, is announced.”

“I knew that would come,” exclaimed Persis. But it had the effect of making her absent and dreamy for the rest of the day; it brought back so vividly all the dear old times, the old friends. Patty, cheerful little Patty. “What a mockery for me to have joined the Cheerful Three!” sighed Persis. “There is more than time stretched between me and my old friends. It can never, never be the same again.”

[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]