Читать книгу Ellen Levis - Elsie Singmaster - Страница 8

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Anticipation of some unusual happening woke Ellen early on Monday morning. She lay for an instant staring at the whitewashed walls, at the carved pineapples tipping the posts of her huge bed, and finally at a picture above her bureau in which General Washington, in red trousers, a sky-blue coat, and white wig, bowed to the admiring applause of a large throng.

She sat up, clasped her hands about her knees, and looked down upon the wheat-field where already the first swath had been cut by hand and where the reaper, driven by Matthew, was about to begin its more rapid work. At once she sprang from bed. It was Monday and a harvest day and Manda would be cross. Saturday and Sunday had been, in spite of their woe, interesting, but to-day promised only dullness.

But to-day was to have an interest of its own. She washed the dishes and peeled a mammoth bowl of potatoes, then she made up the beds, spreading the covers with care and beating the pillows vigorously. When she had finished, she heard her name called and went down to the office. Her father sat at his desk, a score of little white papers before him on each of which he was laying a bit of powder from a wide-mouthed jar. He seemed to fit in less well than usual with his surroundings, the old book-cases, the rag carpet, the worn furniture.

"Shut the door, Ellen."

Ellen did as she was bid. She lifted a corner of the ugly gingham apron which hung far below the bottom of her skirt and wiped her perspiring face. It was exactly a gesture of Mrs. Sassaman's.

"Take your apron out to the kitchen!" Levis spoke with unreasonable sharpness, not toward Ellen, but toward the apron.

"Now, Ellen"—when the last of the little powders had been folded—"I don't believe that all mental activity should cease because the weather is warm. For two hours each day—morning or afternoon or evening, whichever pleases you and Mrs. Sassaman—you are to sit on yonder chair and study. Each day I shall set you a lesson which you must have ready by the next day. The machinery in your head is good, but it needs steady use. First we shall have an examination. I've marked on that paper a number of sums which I selected from your arithmetic. There are twenty of them. Then here"—Levis opened a little book—"is something new. It's absurd that you shouldn't have been taught about your own body. To-morrow morning at this time, I'll expect you to tell me about these ten pages and to show me your examples. Get them done neatly."

Ellen grew pale with the intensity of her emotions. The lesson seemed long, but she was not one to hesitate when things were hard.

"But I will get ahead of my class! I don't know whether Amos will like that, Father."

"His likes or dislikes make very little difference."

"And Matthew will think it's silly. He says that when girls get learning they are like peacocks spreading their tails in the air."

"In spite of Matthew we shall proceed."

Thus encouraged, Ellen crossed the room and laid her books and paper on the little table. "Example 4, page 50," she wrote, referring to her father's list. Then she put the tip of her pencil into her mouth and laid herself bodily upon the table.

Levis pushed under her feet an old ottoman.

"Sit up, Ellen, sit up! And never put anything but food into your mouth; no pencils or fingers!"

Ellen flushed. She was often offended by the habits of others; she now saw herself sprawling, and blushed scarlet. With the blush her childish unconsciousness of self vanished.

"And don't chew your tongue, my dear!"

"I won't," she promised, deeply mortified.

Example 4, page 50, was promptly finished and ruled off, and Example 8, page 58, was begun. Levis fetched the morning paper and the mail from the rural delivery box and sat down to read. It was only eight o'clock, and he did not start upon his round till nine. Sometimes he glanced toward the window where the scholar labored, jerking herself frequently into the upright position which she had momentarily lost, and striving with many backslidings to control the motions of a tongue which had hitherto assisted in all mental processes. Presently Matthew, covered with dust and grime and perspiration, exhibited with stoical pride a cut hand. Frowning, Levis bathed and dressed the injury. The clean hand and the white bandage looked out of place.

"Matthew, this is entirely unnecessary."

"The wheat must be cut."

"There are enough people to cut the wheat. We had better lose a part than have you hurt your hands."

"It is nothing," protested Matthew.

"This work hardens your skin and a physician can't have hard hands. Get a bath and change your clothes and don't go back."

"The men expect me back!"

Levis made no answer, and Matthew went out sullenly. He thought that Ellen was being punished for yesterday's misbehavior and felt somewhat mollified. But he wanted to go out to the fields. The men would laugh at him. He didn't care about his hands and he was determined not to be a physician.

"I could make more money farming than Father does doctoring—a great deal more. I don't want to go away; I want to stay here."

After changing his clothes, he sat by the window. His room was on the opposite side of the house from the wheat-field and the men would not see him. It was bad enough that they should see his father idling. And Ellen should not be writing; they would think that she was playing. A host of angry protests crowded into his mind. He had been for a long time critical of his father and now his father's opposition to the true religion gave him the right to express his disapproval.

He reached out and took his Bible from the little stand. It had been given him by his grandfather, who had marked many of the passages, and he turned from page to page. There was one verse about being persecuted and reviled for conscience' sake which he smoothed with his hand. Other verses came into his mind about separating one's self from one's family on account of their disbelief. He saw himself a hero, admired and set on high by the church people. He might leave his home and go to live with Grandfather. He thought of Millie whose eyes gleamed at him so pleasantly and so strangely.

But before he had got beyond the most vague of speculations, he found himself rising from his chair in response to a summons from below. Even yet his father lingered!

"Matthew," said Levis cheerfully, "I think that you, too, should do some studying. Here is the University catalogue showing the character of your examinations. Get your books together and after dinner we'll go over the subjects and see whether you are entirely prepared."

"I have all my examples done already," announced Ellen proudly at this ill-selected moment. "Now I'm to study physiology."

Matthew flushed. So Ellen had not been punished at all! And he was to be set down beside a baby to study in vacation. But again he moved obediently.

The examination proved that Amos had done his work well. Matthew's mind, if mechanical in its operations, was tenacious of that which it had once grasped. Mathematics he found difficult, but not impossible; German was one of his native tongues; Latin had been easy, thanks to the fact that some of the early writings of the Seventh-Day Baptists were in that language and that Amos, poring over them, had acquired thorough knowledge and had imparted it to his pupil. In elementary science, he was not well prepared and his father made ready to remedy the deficiency.

"We can easily rig up a little laboratory, and when you see these experiments and perform them, you won't find them hard."

"I don't see any use in it," complained Matthew, almost in tears.

"But you will. And you must do more English reading. Both you and Ellen use abominable idioms. Here are a dozen prescribed books."

"I don't like to read," said Matthew. "I don't believe it's meant for us to read much except the Word of God."

Levis looked at his son with an intense, satiric amusement. But he made no comment. In a few months Matthew would be sitting under teachers whose elaborate astonishment at stupidity Levis remembered. He would like to hurry him away to-day. He needed to see himself as others saw him; he needed to meet amused and astonished eyes, to hear the smothered laughter of fellow students at his boorish ways. It could not be that the boy was irreclaimable who yesterday was playing with his blocks on the floor!

"You'd better go to your room, Matthew. You should study four or five hours a day and you're likely to be interrupted here."

Matthew went slowly upstairs. For a while he sat idle; then hearing his father's voice, he opened his books. They proved hateful; a few weeks without mental effort had made thinking difficult. He heard Ellen, now that her father had driven away, chanting the names of bones and he shouted fiercely to her to be still. He was even young enough to shed tears. Then he prayed for strength to bear the extraordinary burdens of his lot and it seemed to him that his task was lighter. Once, lifting his eyes from his book, he looked steadily for a long time at the wall. He was following a pleasant train of thought which had for some time received a subconscious attention. He was planning what should be done with the farm if he had it. It was a delightful occupation.

After dinner Ellen, who had hitherto always obeyed Matthew and every one else who had given her commands, ceased her singing and studying and went upstairs, creeping softly on hands and knees. It could not be that Matthew would continue "mad" much longer. At other times he had been angry for a day and a night, but now a day and a night had passed. Unfortunately she did not let her approach be known and Matthew, looking up from his meditations, saw her standing in the doorway. As much startled and alarmed as though she had read his thoughts, he flew into a rage.

"You sneak on me, do you? I just tell you this, Ellen, you'll get your punishment, never fear! A girl to run out of church and refuse to listen to the words of her good grandfather! You know what happens to bad people—that will happen to you unless you repent. The Bible says we shan't have anything to do with people who don't do right. I'll speak to you, but I won't have anything more to do with you until you say you are sorry for the way you acted. Get out of my room!"

Ellen got out quickly and went down the stairs. In the office she hid her face in the pillows of the old sofa. She understood now that the house was divided; she felt division in her own heart. The teaching of the Seventh-Day Baptists was the only religious teaching she had ever had—perhaps Matthew was right. Then what would become of her father who did not go to church? And what would become of her who fled from church?