Chapter Chapter 21 · THE SKY LINE WIDENS

. THE SKY LINE WIDENS

THE SKY LINE WIDENS

The time so long and eagerly waited for had come, and Rebecca was a

student at Wareham. Persons who had enjoyed the social bewilderments

and advantages of foreign courts, or had mingled freely in the

intellectual circles of great universities, might not have looked upon

Wareham as an extraordinary experience; but it was as much of an

advance upon Riverboro as that village had been upon Sunnybrook Farm.

Rebecca's intention was to complete the four years' course in three, as

it was felt by all the parties concerned that when she had attained the

ripe age of seventeen she must be ready to earn her own living and help

in the education of the younger children. While she was wondering how

this could be successfully accomplished, some of the other girls were

cogitating as to how they could meander through the four years and come

out at the end knowing no more than at the beginning. This would seem a

difficult, well-nigh an impossible task, but it can be achieved, and

has been, at other seats of learning than modest little Wareham.

Rebecca was to go to and fro on the cars daily from September to

Christmas, and then board in Wareham during the three coldest months.

Emma Jane's parents had always thought that a year or two in the

Edgewood high school (three miles from Riverboro) would serve every

purpose for their daughter and send her into the world with as fine an

intellectual polish as she could well sustain. Emma Jane had hitherto

heartily concurred in this opinion, for if there was any one thing that

she detested it was the learning of lessons. One book was as bad as

another in her eyes, and she could have seen the libraries of the world

sinking into ocean depths and have eaten her dinner cheerfully the

while; but matters assumed a different complexion when she was sent to

Edgewood and Rebecca to Wareham. She bore it for a week--seven endless

days of absence from the beloved object, whom she could see only in the

evenings when both were busy with their lessons. Sunday offered an

opportunity to put the matter before her father, who proved obdurate.

He didn't believe in education and thought she had full enough already.

He never intended to keep up "blacksmithing" for good when he leased

his farm and came into Riverboro, but proposed to go back to it

presently, and by that time Emma Jane would have finished school and

would be ready to help her mother with the dairy work.

Another week passed. Emma Jane pined visibly and audibly. Her color

faded, and her appetite (at table) dwindled almost to nothing.

Her mother alluded plaintively to the fact that the Perkinses had a

habit of going into declines; that she'd always feared that Emma Jane's

complexion was too beautiful to be healthy; that some men would be

proud of having an ambitious daughter, and be glad to give her the best

advantages; that she feared the daily journeys to Edgewood were going

to be too much for her own health, and Mr. Perkins would have to hire a

boy to drive Emma Jane; and finally that when a girl had such a passion

for learning as Emma Jane, it seemed almost like wickedness to cross

her will.

Mr. Perkins bore this for several days until his temper, digestion, and

appetite were all sensibly affected; then he bowed his head to the

inevitable, and Emma Jane flew, like a captive set free, to the loved

one's bower. Neither did her courage flag, although it was put to

terrific tests when she entered the academic groves of Wareham. She

passed in only two subjects, but went cheerfully into the preparatory

department with her five "conditions," intending to let the stream of

education play gently over her mental surfaces and not get any wetter

than she could help. It is not possible to blink the truth that Emma

Jane was dull; but a dogged, unswerving loyalty, and the gift of

devoted, unselfish loving, these, after all, are talents of a sort, and

may possibly be of as much value in the world as a sense of numbers or

a faculty for languages.

Wareham was a pretty village with a broad main street shaded by great

maples and elms. It had an apothecary, a blacksmith, a plumber, several

shops of one sort and another, two churches, and many boarding-houses;

but all its interests gathered about its seminary and its academy.

These seats of learning were neither better nor worse than others of

their kind, but differed much in efficiency, according as the principal

who chanced to be at the head was a man of power and inspiration or the

reverse. There were boys and girls gathered from all parts of the

county and state, and they were of every kind and degree as to birth,

position in the world, wealth or poverty. There was an opportunity for

a deal of foolish and imprudent behavior, but on the whole surprisingly

little advantage was taken of it. Among the third and fourth year

students there was a certain amount of going to and from the trains in

couples; some carrying of heavy books up the hill by the sterner sex

for their feminine schoolmates, and occasional bursts of silliness on

the part of heedless and precocious girls, among whom was Huldah

Meserve. She was friendly enough with Emma Jane and Rebecca, but grew

less and less intimate as time went on. She was extremely pretty, with

a profusion of auburn hair, and a few very tiny freckles, to which she

constantly alluded, as no one could possibly detect them without noting

her porcelain skin and her curling lashes. She had merry eyes, a

somewhat too plump figure for her years, and was popularly supposed to

have a fascinating way with her. Riverboro being poorly furnished with

beaux, she intended to have as good a time during her four years at

Wareham as circumstances would permit. Her idea of pleasure was an

ever-changing circle of admirers to fetch and carry for her, the more

publicly the better; incessant chaff and laughter and vivacious

conversation, made eloquent and effective by arch looks and telling

glances. She had a habit of confiding her conquests to less fortunate

girls and bewailing the incessant havoc and damage she was doing; a

damage she avowed herself as innocent of, in intention, as any new-born

lamb. It does not take much of this sort of thing to wreck an ordinary

friendship, so before long Rebecca and Emma Jane sat in one end of the

railway train in going to and from Riverboro, and Huldah occupied the

other with her court. Sometimes this was brilliant beyond words,

including a certain youthful Monte Cristo, who on Fridays expended

thirty cents on a round trip ticket and traveled from Wareham to

Riverboro merely to be near Huldah; sometimes, too, the circle was

reduced to the popcorn-and-peanut boy of the train, who seemed to serve

every purpose in default of better game.

Rebecca was in the normally unconscious state that belonged to her

years; boys were good comrades, but no more; she liked reciting in the

same class with them, everything seemed to move better; but from vulgar

and precocious flirtations she was protected by her ideals. There was

little in the lads she had met thus far to awaken her fancy, for it

habitually fed on better meat. Huldah's school-girl romances, with

their wealth of commonplace detail, were not the stuff her dreams were

made of, when dreams did flutter across the sensitive plate of her mind.

Among the teachers at Wareham was one who influenced Rebecca

profoundly, Miss Emily Maxwell, with whom she studied English

literature and composition. Miss Maxwell, as the niece of one of

Maine's ex-governors and the daughter of one of Bowdoin's professors,

was the most remarkable personality in Wareham, and that her few years

of teaching happened to be in Rebecca's time was the happiest of all

chances. There was no indecision or delay in the establishment of their

relations; Rebecca's heart flew like an arrow to its mark, and her

mind, meeting its superior, settled at once into an abiding attitude of

respectful homage.

It was rumored that Miss Maxwell "wrote," which word, when uttered in a

certain tone, was understood to mean not that a person had command of

penmanship, Spencerian or otherwise, but that she had appeared in print.

"You'll like her; she writes," whispered Huldah to Rebecca the first

morning at prayers, where the faculty sat in an imposing row on the

front seats. "She writes; and I call her stuck up."

Nobody seemed possessed of exact information with which to satisfy the

hungry mind, but there was believed to be at least one person in

existence who had seen, with his own eyes, an essay by Miss Maxwell in

a magazine. This height of achievement made Rebecca somewhat shy of

her, but she looked her admiration; something that most of the class

could never do with the unsatisfactory organs of vision given them by

Mother Nature. Miss Maxwell's glance was always meeting a pair of eager

dark eyes; when she said anything particularly good, she looked for

approval to the corner of the second bench, where every shade of

feeling she wished to evoke was reflected on a certain sensitive young

face.

One day, when the first essay of the class was under discussion, she

asked each new pupil to bring her some composition written during the

year before, that she might judge the work, and know precisely with

what material she had to deal. Rebecca lingered after the others, and

approached the desk shyly.

"I haven't any compositions here, Miss Maxwell, but I can find one when

I go home on Friday. They are packed away in a box in the attic."

"Carefully tied with pink and blue ribbons?" asked Miss Maxwell, with a

whimsical smile.

"No," answered Rebecca, shaking her head decidedly; "I wanted to use

ribbons, because all the other girls did, and they looked so pretty,

but I used to tie my essays with twine strings on purpose; and the one

on solitude I fastened with an old shoelacing just to show it what I

thought of it!"

"Solitude!" laughed Miss Maxwell, raising her eyebrows. "Did you choose

your own subject?"

"No; Miss Dearborn thought we were not old enough to find good ones."

"What were some of the others?"

"Fireside Reveries, Grant as a Soldier, Reflections on the Life of P.

T. Barnum, Buried Cities; I can't remember any more now. They were all

bad, and I can't bear to show them; I can write poetry easier and

better, Miss Maxwell."

"Poetry!" she exclaimed. "Did Miss Dearborn require you to do it?"

"Oh, no; I always did it even at the farm. Shall I bring all I have? It

isn't much."

Rebecca took the blank-book in which she kept copies of her effusions

and left it at Miss Maxwell's door, hoping that she might be asked in

and thus obtain a private interview; but a servant answered her ring,

and she could only walk away, disappointed.

A few days afterward she saw the black-covered book on Miss Maxwell's

desk and knew that the dreaded moment of criticism had come, so she was

not surprised to be asked to remain after class.

The room was quiet; the red leaves rustled in the breeze and flew in at

the open window, bearing the first compliments of the season. Miss

Maxwell came and sat by Rebecca's side on the bench.

"Did you think these were good?" she asked, giving her the verses.

"Not so very," confessed Rebecca; "but it's hard to tell all by

yourself. The Perkinses and the Cobbs always said they were wonderful,

but when Mrs. Cobb told me she thought they were better than Mr.

Longfellow's I was worried, because I knew that couldn't be true."

This ingenuous remark confirmed Miss Maxwell's opinion of Rebecca as a

girl who could hear the truth and profit by it.

"Well, my child," she said smilingly, "your friends were wrong and you

were right; judged by the proper tests, they are pretty bad."

"Then I must give up all hope of ever being a writer!" sighed Rebecca,

who was tasting the bitterness of hemlock and wondering if she could

keep the tears back until the interview was over.

"Don't go so fast," interrupted Miss Maxwell. "Though they don't amount

to anything as poetry, they show a good deal of promise in certain

directions. You almost never make a mistake in rhyme or metre, and this

shows you have a natural sense of what is right; a 'sense of form,'

poets would call it. When you grow older, have a little more

experience,--in fact, when you have something to say, I think you may

write very good verses. Poetry needs knowledge and vision, experience

and imagination, Rebecca. You have not the first three yet, but I

rather think you have a touch of the last."

"Must I never try any more poetry, not even to amuse myself?"

"Certainly you may; it will only help you to write better prose. Now

for the first composition. I am going to ask all the new students to

write a letter giving some description of the town and a hint of the

school life."

"Shall I have to be myself?" asked Rebecca.

"What do you mean?"

"A letter from Rebecca Randall to her sister Hannah at Sunnybrook Farm,

or to her aunt Jane at the brick house, Riverboro, is so dull and

stupid, if it is a real letter; but if I could make believe I was a

different girl altogether, and write to somebody who would be sure to

understand everything I said, I could make it nicer."

"Very well; I think that's a delightful plan," said Miss Maxwell; "and

whom will you suppose yourself to be?"

"I like heiresses very much," replied Rebecca contemplatively. "Of

course I never saw one, but interesting things are always happening to

heiresses, especially to the golden-haired kind. My heiress wouldn't be

vain and haughty like the wicked sisters in Cinderella; she would be

noble and generous. She would give up a grand school in Boston because

she wanted to come here where her father lived when he was a boy, long

before he made his fortune. The father is dead now, and she has a

guardian, the best and kindest man in the world; he is rather old of

course, and sometimes very quiet and grave, but sometimes when he is

happy, he is full of fun, and then Evelyn is not afraid of him. Yes,

the girl shall be called Evelyn Abercrombie, and her guardian's name

shall be Mr. Adam Ladd."

"Do you know Mr. Ladd?" asked Miss Maxwell in surprise.

"Yes, he's my very best friend," cried Rebecca delightedly. "Do you

know him too?"

"Oh, yes; he is a trustee of these schools, you know, and often comes

here. But if I let you 'suppose' any more, you will tell me your whole

letter and then I shall lose a pleasant surprise."

What Rebecca thought of Miss Maxwell we already know; how the teacher

regarded the pupil may be gathered from the following letter written

two or three months later.

Wareham, December 1st

My Dear Father,--As you well know, I have not always been an

enthusiast on the subject of teaching. The task of cramming

knowledge into these self-sufficient, inefficient youngsters

of both sexes discourages me at times. The more stupid they

are, the less they are aware of it. If my department were

geography or mathematics, I believe I should feel that I was

accomplishing something, for in those branches application

and industry work wonders; but in English literature and

composition one yearns for brains, for appreciation, for

imagination! Month after month I toil on, opening oyster

after oyster, but seldom finding a pearl. Fancy my joy this

term when, without any violent effort at shell-splitting, I

came upon a rare pearl; a black one, but of satin skin and

beautiful lustre! Her name is Rebecca, and she looks not

unlike Rebekah at the Well in our family Bible; her hair and

eyes being so dark as to suggest a strain of Italian or

Spanish blood. She is nobody in particular. Man has done

nothing for her; she has no family to speak of, no money, no

education worthy the name, has had no advantages of any sort;

but Dame Nature flung herself into the breach and said:--

"This child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine and I will make

A Lady of my own."

Blessed Wordsworth! How he makes us understand! And the pearl

never heard of him until now! Think of reading Lucy to a

class, and when you finish, seeing a fourteen-year-old pair

of lips quivering with delight, and a pair of eyes brimming

with comprehending tears!

You poor darling! You, too, know the discouragement of sowing

lovely seed in rocky earth, in sand, in water, and (it almost

seems sometimes) in mud; knowing that if anything comes up at

all it will be some poor starveling plant. Fancy the joy of

finding a real mind; of dropping seed in a soil so warm, so

fertile, that one knows there are sure to be foliage,

blossoms, and fruit all in good time! I wish I were not so

impatient and so greedy of results! I am not fit to be a

teacher; no one is who is so scornful of stupidity as I am. .

. . The pearl writes quaint countrified little verses,

doggerel they are; but somehow or other she always contrives

to put in one line, one thought, one image, that shows you

she is, quite unconsciously to herself, in possession of the

secret. . . . Good-by; I'll bring Rebecca home with me some

Friday, and let you and mother see her for yourselves.

Your affectionate daughter,

Emily.