Читать книгу Miss Bishop - Bess Streeter Aldrich - Страница 5

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Ella Bishop, healthy, country-bred, alive to every fresh sensation, enjoyed her studies in the new college immensely, but to say that they were the least of her pleasures, is to admit that it was not that she loved her classes less, but that she loved her classmates more. Peculiarly a lover of human contacts, she brought to every day’s work an exuberance of spirits, a zest for living, a natural friendliness toward every one in the little school, from President Corcoran to Chris Jensen.

Toward the new neighbors she felt also the same healthy curiosity and friendly spirit. On Friday morning of that first week Sam Peters caught up with her as she was leaving home and carried her books up the long straggling street and across the coarse prairie grass to school. For his shyness she had only sympathy, and when he confided to her that he was not particularly pleased with teaching but that his father had wanted him to try it, her heart quite ached for the unhappy appearing fellow.

On Saturday for the first time she saw Judge Peters leave the big brick house with the cupola on one corner like a stiff hat over one eye.

And to see Judge Peters leave the house and start down to his law office was almost like seeing an ocean liner leave dock. Swinging a cane without change of beat, he walked with a long slow gait as rhythmic as four-four time in music. He was tall, pompous, solemn. Black side-whiskers formed the frame for his face, a wide black cord connected his glasses with some strategic spot on his coat, black gloves added their share to the ensemble, a bit of red geranium in his buttonhole completed the work of art.

By October, when the Indian summer days had come, the judge and his wife, in the neighborly fashion of an early day, came one evening to call.

Mrs. Bishop had been making apple butter a little messily and inefficiently in the back yard all day. She had stirred the concoction in the iron kettle hanging by a chain over the fire, using a big wooden paddle, until, as she said, she was too tired to think. Having burned the last batch, she had left it in the kettle until Ella could come home to clean up the disagreeable mixture.

So when Judge and Mrs. Peters arrived, she was completely upset at the unexpected coming of so much grandeur. She fluttered about, removing her apron, pushing chairs a few inches from their original positions, picking at imaginary threads on the floor. Even at sixteen Ella was far more poised than her frail mother, undaunted by the pompous entrance of the Judge with his meek little wife in tow. Mrs. Peters wore a Paisley shawl and a black velvet bonnet with pansies outlining the rim and satin ties under her patient looking face.

“We came to pay our respects to the newcomers in our fair city,” the Judge announced with pompous formality.

The little wife nodded meek assent—and Ella saw then how like his mother was the shy penmanship teacher.

The entire call was made in the manner for which the judge set the pace. So clothed was he in formal phrases, it seemed to Ella that he said everything the hardest and longest way. To remark that the weather was mild was really all he meant when he said that there had been a noticeable lack of inclemency in the activity of the elements.

Once he turned to Ella with exclusive attention: “You have no doubt made the acquaintance, at least in the capacity of student to instructor, of my elder son, Samuel?”

“Yes,” Ella said, “oh yes, sir.” Mercy, she thought, he is making me feel frightened, too. No wonder his little wife is cowed.

“You have no doubt heard ere this that I have a younger son, also.” And before Ella had a chance to reply, he went on proudly: “A younger son, Chester, studying law at Winside—a bright scholarly lad—I may even go so far as to say brilliant. He will make of the law a thing of truth and beauty and justice.”

“That’s certainly nice, sir.” One was not required to say much in his presence. He needed only an audience for his own bombastic speech.

“Chester and Sam are very different,” he stated with no apparent loathness in comparing the two openly. Ella was sure she saw the little wife flush and draw back as though struck. “Chester has none of Sam’s backwardness and timidity,—has much that Sam lacks.”

And she felt an embarrassment for the mother she could scarcely control when he added: “Sam is his mother,—Chester very like me. I am very proud of Chester. He will make a great lawyer,—yes, indeed,—a brilliant lawyer.”

Ella was to remember that proudly reiterated statement years hence.

“I am very happy to hope, also, that Chester will some day bestow his hand and heart upon the daughter of my banker friend, thus uniting the old families of Peters and Van Ness.”

So that was it, thought Ella—perhaps Irene’s “half-way” engagement to Chester was merely an understanding between the families.

“I wouldn’t like that,” she thought. “When I’m engaged I want the man to love me for myself, and not for any other reason.” Then she looked around the simple little parlor with the sale carpet and the cheap curtains, the horsehair furniture and the home-crocheted tidies and laughed to herself, “I guess he’ll like me for just myself, all right.”

After the call the man’s egotism so lingered in her mind and the bald comparison of the two sons made such an impression upon her, that in the weeks to come she found herself forming a dislike of the younger Chester even before she had seen him,—feeling a relative compassion for the shy young instructor so earnestly teaching the swinging arm movements of his Spencerian writing.

A half dozen times that October he walked home from the college with her, so timidly, so self-effacingly, that in spite of laughing silently at his unattractive shyness, she felt a renewal of sympathy for him.

Her mother asked her about it: “This Sam Peters, Ella ... do you ... how do you ... ? You see, he seems ...”

“My word, Mother,” she could always translate her mother’s halting thoughts, “you don’t think I especially like him, do you, just because of walking along the same way home?”

Her mother’s eyes filled. “I don’t suppose ... I won’t be staying with you ... long, Ella. I’d like ... if you could get settled ...”

Ella ran to the frail little woman and clasped sturdy arms around her. “You’re going to stay with me a long time, Mother. And I don’t have to get settled yet for years and years.”

Mrs. Bishop wiped her filling eyes with the corner of her apron. “Just so ... you won’t ... an old maid ... I wouldn’t like ...”

Ella threw back her head and laughed her hearty laughter. “Don’t you worry. I won’t be an old maid.” Suddenly her voice dropped to a husky sweetness. “I have too many dreams for that, Mother. I think sometimes it is as though I am weaving at a loom with a spindle of hopes and dreams. And no matter, Mother, how lovely the pattern—no matter how many gorgeous colors I use,—always the center of it is ... you know, ... just a little house in a garden and red firelight and ... the man I love ... and children ... and happiness. For me, Mother, that’s the end of all dreaming.”