That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 4

The Bend was too far away for a child of Beth's age to walk alone, but Eliza was not one to give up easily.

"If the main road's closed against me, I'll find a foot-path or-I'll break a way through the underbrush," she was accustomed to say. She did that very thing now.

She visited the primary grades at the Bend. She sat an entire afternoon drinking in everything she could about teaching children. When the pupils were dismissed, she talked long with Miss Davis.

This teacher, who thought only of the help she might be to the child, copied the work she had laid out for the month, gave a first reader and slate to Miss Eliza, and explained how "Willie has a slate" should be taught for the first lesson.

Eliza started in her work. At the close of each month she visited Miss Davis and copied the teacher's plan for the next four weeks. So the second year of Beth's life with Miss Eliza pa.s.sed. The child learned the numbers to twelve. She knew the stories which the first grade children should know, and she read the reader through from cover to cover. Added to this was a vocabulary of fifty words which she could write.

Miss Eliza was happy. The child had ability to learn. Eliza had a great admiration for book knowledge. She had lacked so much in that line herself. It was the unattainable to her; consequently she put great value upon it.

Miss Davis and her corps of teachers taught Eliza more than methods in teaching first grade work. They were fully as old as Eliza herself; but they wore gowns which were quite up-to-date. They arranged their hair to bring out the very best of their features.

They talked about skating and literary clubs, and calls, and afternoon teas. One had even gone out with her pupils and coasted down hill, and not one was shocked or even thrilled when she related it.

Eliza listened. She was not a dullard. To use the vernacular of s.h.i.+ntown, "Eliza Wells was no one's fool, in spite of her queer old ways." Her queer old way was loving flowers, giving artistic touch to the dullest places.

She showed her best qualities now in listening and culling the best from these teachers whose opportunities were broader and whose lives were fuller than hers had been.

They found her enjoyable; for she had a quaint wit, and a refined, gentle manner.

That night when she went home to Beth, she cuddled her close in her arms.

"What story to-night, Adee dear?" was the first question.

"A make-believe story which is really true," she said.

Beth gave a little sigh of satisfaction. The make-believe stories which were true were better even than fairy stories which never can be true.

This was the story she told:

_The Wood Baby_.

Once upon a time, the angels brought from heaven a little child and placed her in a little house in the woods and gave her a plain old farmer and his wife as parents.

The hut in which they lived was small-only four bare walls, a door and a window. It was night when the angel carried the child to its new home.

The child was asleep. It lay in slumber in the arms of its mother. The neighbor folk came and looked at it, and spoke dolefully of the cold, unpleasant world into which it had come.

The child awakened, but it did not open its eyes. It lay and listened.

"It's only a poor bare hut with smoke-covered walls that I have to give as a home for my baby," the mother was saying.

"It will find only work and trouble here," a neighbor wailed. "It's a hard, hard life."

The baby heard, and being nothing but a baby and knowing nothing of the world, believed what it heard. It grew as the days and months pa.s.sed.

The time came for it to walk, but it would only creep upon the floor. It would not raise itself on its feet to look from the window. It would not open its eyes. It had never done so since the night that the angel had carried it to its new home.

Years pa.s.sed. The baby, now a woman in years, moved about between the four walls which its great-grandparents had built. Yet she opened not her eyes; she never let a ray of light enter.

"What is the use?" she told herself. "Is not the world dark and miserable and barren? Why should I look at anything which is so painfully homely? As to walking, why should I take the trouble? I cannot go beyond this hut which my great-grandparents built. Creeping will do very well."

Then one morning something happened.--

Eliza paused in her story. She knew what effect it would have on her listener. Beth immediately sat bolt upright with her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with interest and curiosity.

"What happened?" she cried. She gave a little gasp for breath, she could wait no longer.

"Something happened," continued Eliza. "It was a beautiful morning, but the woman did not know it. Suddenly she heard a song of a bird at her door. She did not know it was a bird; but the sound was sweet, alluring, enticing. She listened an instant. Then she got upon her feet and hurried to the door and flung it wide open.

"A wonderful sight met her eyes. A world, a glorious world with ripening grain, exquisite coloring of flowers, soft breezes laden with the most delicate perfume, and the song of birds everywhere."

"And then-then what did she do?" asked Beth.

"For a time, she stood and felt sorry for herself that she had kept herself blind for so long. Then she said, 'But here is all this beauty for me to enjoy-me and the little song-bird which made me open my eyes.'

Then she took the bird in her hand and held it close up to her cheek, and went with it out into the beauty of the world, and the little bird sang all the while."

"O-o-h," sighed Beth. "That is beautiful. Who was the baby the angels brought. Who was the woman? Did you know them?"

"I was both the babe and the woman, and you the little song-bird that called me out to see the suns.h.i.+ne and hear the music."

CHAPTER V.

On some of Beth's visits to town, she had made the acquaintance of Helen Reed, a girl of her own age and lucky enough to have five brothers and four sisters. They were the jolliest set imaginable, all packed as close as matches in a box. Helen's hair was as yellow as puffed taffy. Her eyes matched the blueness of the summer sky. It takes a large check to clothe, feed and educate ten children. The Reed children had early learned how to make the most of hair ribbons, and to trim over hats from the season before. They dressed plain enough, goodness knows, but they had an "air."

Helen when barely seven would c.o.c.k up a hat at the side, stick in a quill, slap it on her head and have the general effect of a French fas.h.i.+on plate.

She was a dear little girl who looked out for her own rights while she remembered the rights of others, just as any little girl learns to do when she has been reared with nine other children.

Helen and Beth fell in love with each other at first sight. The former, living in a flat in town, found the yard and trees at the old Wells place most delightful. Early in June when school was out, she came up to visit Beth.

"Your trees are pretty, Beth. I think you'd feel like a queen sitting under them."

Beth looked at them with new eyes. She had always had them, and did not fully appreciate them.

"Let's play we're queens," cried Helen. "Under that big locust tree on the bank, we'll build a palace."

"It isn't a locust tree. They don't grow so. It's an oak," said Beth.

"Locust sounds prettier, so I'll call it that," said Helen, who did not know one tree from another. "It doesn't matter what kind it is. Let's build a palace."

"I don't see how it can be done," said Beth.

"Then I'll show you." She was already picking her way gingerly across the public road. The girls were in their bare feet and the skin was yet tender. They stepped as carefully as they could, for the bits of gravel and sand could be cruel.

"This will be the drawing room," cried Helen, moving quickly now that she had gained the greensward under the trees. "Then we'll have a wide hall with a library on one side, a den, and right here will be the nursery." She had been jumping about like a cricket from one place to another, locating the different apartments of the household.