Читать книгу The Greatest Romance Novels of Grace Livingston Hill - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 95

Table of Contents

There was a chapter in Miranda's life that she had never told to a living soul, and which only on rare occasions did she herself take out of her heart and look over. It was only when the wellsprings of her very being were deeply touched in some way as in the quiet and dark of her starlit window; or when she was on her knees at her queer devotions, that she let her mind dwell upon it.

Miranda was twenty-two years old, and entirely heart whole, yet there had been and still was a romance in her life as sweet and precious as any that more favored girls had experienced. That it had been sad and brief, and the hope of its ever coming to anything had long since departed from her heart, made it no less precious to her. It was on account of her strength and sweetness of character, her bubbling good nature and interest in others, and her keen sense of humor that her experience had not hardened or sharpened her one mite. She was one of those strong souls who through not having has learned to forget self, and be content in the joy of others. There was not a fibre of selfishness in the whole of her quaint, intense, delightful make-up. She lived her somewhat lonely life and picked up what crumbs of pleasure she could end; fought her merry, sometimes questionable, warfare for those she loved ; served them worshipfully; would give her life for theirs any day; yet kept in her heart one strong secret shrine for the love of her young heart, furnished royally with all the hopes and yearnings that any girl knows.

Years ago, it seemed centuries now, before David had brought his girl bride to the old house next door to Grandmother Heath's, when Miranda had been a school-girl, eleven—twelve—thirteen years old, there had been a hero in her life. No one had known it, not even the hero. But no knight of old ever was beloved or watched or exalted by fair lady more than was Allan Whitney, half brother of young Nathan—for Maria Bent was of course old Nathan Whitney's third wife.

Allan Whitney was tall and strong, with straight dark hair that fell over his forehead till he had continually to toss it back; a mouth that drooped pathetically above a strong purposeful chin; eyes that held depths of fierceness and sadness that only a passionate temperament knows how to combine; and a reputation altogether worse than any boy that had ever been brought up in the town.

Allan had been kind to his step-mother when his father was cold and hard, and had in some way cheered her last days; but she never had time or fortitude to do much in the way of bringing him up. In fact he never was brought up, unless he did it himself. If one might judge by his strong will, if it was his inheritance from his own mother, she alone might have been able to do something toward moulding him. Certainly his father never had the slightest influence with the boy. Nathan Whitney could make money and keep it, but he could not make boys into good men.

Allan Whitney had been quick and bright, but he would not study at school, and he would not go to work. He had been very much in his time as young Nathan was now, only more so, Miranda thought as she placed the facts honestly before her in the star-light, while she watched to see if there would be a light in the boy's window across the way.

Allan had been in continual rebellion against the universe. In school he was whipped whenever the teacher felt out of sorts with anybody, and he took it with the careless jocular air of one who knows he could "lick the teacher into the middle of next week” if he undertook the job. As it was he generally allowed the chastisement for the sake of the relief from monotony for the rest of the scholars. He would wink slyly at Miranda who sat down in a front seat demurely studying her spelling, as he lounged forward and held out his hand. By a sort of freemasonry he knew her to be of the same temper as himself, and that she both understood and sympathized with him. Five desks back Rowena Higginson was in tears on. account of his sufferings, and gentle Annetta Bloodgood turned pale with the sound of each blow from the ferrule, half shuddering in time to the chastisement; but Allan Whitney hugely enjoyed their sentimental sufferings. He knew that every boy in the room admired him for the way he took his whippings, and sought provocations for like martyrdom, that they might emulate his easy air of indifference. When his punishment was over Allan would seek his seat, lazily, a happy grimace on his face, another wink for Miranda, with sometimes a lollipop or some barley sugar laid surreptitiously on her desk as he passed by, and a knowing tweak of her red pigtails, which endearments were waited for on her part with a trembling eagerness that he never suspected. She was only a smart child who knew almost as much as a boy about a boy's code of life, and took his good-natured tormenting,s as well as a boy could have done; therefore he enjoyed tormenting her.

Nevertheless, though Miranda witnessed his punishments with outward serenity and gloried in his indifference to them, her young soul was filled with bitterness against the teachers for their treatment of her hero, and many a hard knock of discipline did she lay up in store for those same teachers in the future if ever it came her way to give it; and she generally managed sometime, somehow to give it.

"Miss Menchant, is this your hankercher?" she asked sweetly one day after Allan had retired indifferently from a whipping which Miranda knew must have hurt, given merely because Miss Menchant found a large drawing of herself in lifelike lines on the blackboard near Allan's desk, and couldn't locate the artist.

Miss Menchant said severely that it was—as if Miranda were in some way to blame for it's having been on the floor—as indeed she was, having filched it from her teacher's pocket in the coat-room and brought it into the school-room ready bated for her prey.

A moment later Miss Menchant picked up the handkerchief from where Miranda had laid it on the desk at her hand, and wiped her face, immediately thereafter dropping it in haste with aloud exclamations and putting her hand with pain to her nose, while a fine large honey-bee flew away through the open door of the school-house.

"Miranda!" called the suffering teacher. "Miranda Griscom!" But Miranda, like a good child, had taken her dinner pail and gone home. Her bright brown eye might have been seen taking observations through a knothole at the end of the school-house, but Miss Menchant didn't happen to be looking that way, and when the next morning the teacher asked the little girl if she noticed anything on the handkerchief when she picked it up, Miranda's eyes were sweetly unconscious of the large red knob on the teacher's nose as she answered serenely:

"I didn't take notice to nothin'."

The next time that Allan Whitney was called up for discipline the ruler which usually played a prominent part in the affair was strangely missing, and might have been found in Miranda Griscom's desk if anyone had known where to look for it. It met a. watery grave that night in the old mill stream down behind the mill wheel, in company with several of its successors of later years.

Time cures all things, and they usually had women teachers in that school. Allan presently grew so large that few women teachers could whip him and it then became a vital question, when engaging a new teacher, as to whether or not she would be able to "lick" Allan Whitney. One winter they tried a man, a little, knotty shrimp of a man he was, with a high reputation as to intellect, but no more appreciation of a boy than if he had been a boiled owl. Those were days that delighted the souls of the scholars of that school, for it was soon noised abroad that every day was a delight because every day a new drama of contest was flung on the stage for their delectation.

Now, there was behind the platform, where the teacher's desk and chair were placed, a long dark room where coats and dinner pails were kept. It had a single small, narrow window at one end, and the other end came up to a partition which cut off the teacher's private closet from it. This was the girls' cloak-room, and was a part of the improvements made on the old red school-house about the time that Miranda began to go to school. The boys had a small closet at the back of the room, so they never went to this, but as the school grew crowded this cloak-room was well filled, especially in winter when everybody had plenty of wraps. To make more light, there had been made an opening from it into the school-room, window-like, with a wide shelf or ledge behind the teacher's desk. This was frequently adorned with a row of dinner pails. A door to the right of the platform opened into the teacher's closet, and was usually kept closed, while that to the left opened into the girls' cloak-room and was usually standing open. Miranda's desk was directly in front of this door, the teacher having found it handy to have Miranda where he could keep a weather eye out for plots under a serene and innocent exterior.

When the man teacher, Mr. Applethorn by name, had been in the school about three weeks and had tried every conceivable plan for the conquering of Allan 'Whitney save the time-worn one of “licking” him, it became apparent that the issue was to be brought to a climax. Miranda had heard low words from Allan to his friend Bud Hendrake concerning what he meant to do if "old Appleseed tried it," and while the little girl had great faith in Allan's strength of body and quickness of mind over against the little flabby body and quickly aroused temper of the teacher, she nevertheless reflected that behind him were all the selectmen, and authority was always at war with poor Allan. It would go hard with him this time, she knew, if the matter were put in the hands of the selectmen. She had heard Grandfather Heath talking about it. "One more outrage and we're done with him." That sentence sent terror to the heart of Miranda, for the long stretches of school days unenlivened by the careless smile and merry sayings of Allan Whitney were to her unbearable to think about. Something must be done to save Allan, and she must do it, for there was no one else to care. So Miranda had lain awake for a long time trying to devise a plan by which the injustice done by the teacher to Allan could not only be avenged, but the immediate danger of a fight between Allan and the teacher averted, at least for a time. If Allan fought with the teacher and "licked" him everybody would be sorry for the teacher, for nobody liked Allan; that is, nobody that had any authority. There it was, always authority against Allan! Poor little Miranda tossed on her small bed and thought, and finally fell asleep with her problem unsolved; but she started for school the next morning with firmly set lips and a determined frown. She would do something, see if she wouldn't!

And then Grandmother Heath called her back to carry a pail of sour cream to Granny MacArane's on her way to school.

Now ordinarily Miranda would not have welcomed the errand away around by Granny MacVane's before school—and grandmother was very particular that she should go before school—she liked to get to school early and play hide and seek in the yard, and Grandmother Heath knew it and disapproved. School was not established for amusement, but for education, she frequently remarked when remonstrating with Miranda for starting so early ; but this particular morning the girl's face brightened and she took the shining tin pail with alacrity and demurely responded, "Yes ma'am," when her grandmother repeated the command to be sure and go before school. She was so nice and obedient about it that the old lady looked after her suspiciously, having learned that the ways of Miranda were devious, and when her exterior was calm, then was the time to be on the alert.

For Miranda had suddenly seen light in the darkness with the advent on the scene of this pail of sour cream. Sour cream would keep. That is it would only grow sourer, which was desirable in a thing like sour cream. There was no reason in the world why that cream had to go to Granny MacVane's before school, especially when it might come in handy for something else besides making gingerbread for Granny MacVane. Besides, Granny MacVane lived beyond the school-house and Grandmother Heath would never know whether she went before or after. Sour cream was a delicacy frequently sent to old Mrs. MaeVane, and if she brought the message, "Granny says she's much obliged Gran'ma," there would be no question, and likely nothing further ever thought about it.

Besides, Miranda was willing to take a chance if the stakes were high enough, so she hurried happily off to school with her head held high and the sour cream pail clattering against her dinner pail with reckless hilarity; while Miranda laid her neat little plans.

Arrived at the school-house, she deposited the pail of sour cream together with its mate the dinner pail inconspicuously on the inner ledge of the window over the teacher's desk-chair. The ledge was wide and the pails almost out of sight from the school-room. At noon, however, Miranda, after eating her lunch, replaced her empty dinner pail and made a careful rearrangement of all the pails on the ledge, her own and others, so that they were grouped quite innocently nearer to the front edge. Miranda herself was early seated at her desk studying demurely when the others came in.

The very atmosphere that afternoon seemed electric. Even the very little scholars seemed to understand that something was going to happen before school "let out." and when just as the master was about to send the school out for afternoon recess he paused and announced solemnly, "Allan Whitney, you may remain in your seat!" they knew it was almost at hand.