Miss Ashton's New Pupil Part 18

Dan obstinately refused to move one foot faster than he chose, and before they reached home they were thoroughly and, indeed, dangerously benumbed with the cold.

Little thought had they of Thanksgiving, as they clung to the warm stove and listened to the rising of the wind. It was Marion who first remembered the day, and looked about for some way of keeping it. Poor, pinched, half-frozen Aunt Betty had entirely forgotten it.

Now Marion made herself perfectly at home. She found old-fas.h.i.+oned china that would have been held precious in many houses, decorating with it the table in a deft and tasteful way that warmed lonely Aunt Betty's heart, as she watched her, more than the blazing fire could; and while she worked, she talked, or sang little s.n.a.t.c.hes of college songs learned at school, which rippled out in her rich voice with a melody never heard in the old farmhouse before.

It was not long before Aunt Betty came to her help, and such a bountiful dinner as she had prepared made Marion wish over and over again that Helen, alone in that large academy building, could have been there to share it with her.

"Thanksgiving night!" Marion kept saying this to herself over and over again, as she sat alone with Aunt Betty over the kitchen stove.

A little oblong light stand was drawn up between them, holding a small kerosene lamp. Not a book but the Bible, and a copy of the Farmer's Almanac suspended by a string from the corner of the mantel, was to be seen. Marion, having heard so much of the intelligence of the New Hamps.h.i.+re farmers, supposed of course there would be a library in the house, and had brought only her Greek Tragedy with her. This she did not dare open again, so there she sat, Aunt Betty, not having yet entirely recovered from the effects of her cold ride, alternately nodding and rousing herself to a vain effort to keep her eyes open.

And all the time the storm was increasing, the wind rocking the house with its rough blasts, until it seemed to utter loud groans, and the sharp cold snapping and cracking the shaking timbers with short volleys of sound like gun-shots. Frightened mice scurried about in the low roof over the kitchen; and rats, lonely rats, seeking company, came to the top of the cellar stairs, pus.h.i.+ng the door open with their pointed noses, and blinking in beseechingly with their big round eyes.

Marion, who had never heard anything of the kind before, was really frightened.

"O Aunt Betty," she said piteously, "do, please, wake up and tell me if there are ghosts here!"

Aunt Betty just stared at her; she was wide awake now.

"There are such dreadful noises, and such mice, and--and rats!"

"Nonsense!" said Aunt Betty, listening. "Don't be a coward! It's only the storm."

"It's fearful! What can we do?"

"Pop corn!"

Marion could not help laughing at the inconsequent answer; but anything was better than the noisy stillness of the last hour, and bringing a large bra.s.s warming-pan and some corn, they were soon busy popping the corn.

It would have been difficult to say which of the two enjoyed the sport the most. It carried Marion home, where the family were all gathered together before the brisk fire in the cheerful sitting-room. Aunt Betty was young again. Nat and Sam, Bertha and Molly, and little Ruth filled the big, empty kitchen, laughed merrily over the crackling corn, held out small hands to catch it as the cover swung back, pelted each other with it till the spotless floor crunched beneath their dancing feet. It had been long years since they had come home to her before on Thanksgiving night, but here they were now, all evoked by Marion's glad youth.

The moment the old clock struck nine, warming-pan, corn, and dishes vanished from sight.

A long tallow-dip Aunt Betty held out to Marion, and pointed up-stairs.

Marion obeyed; and though all night long the wind howled, the mice and the rats held high carnival, Marion slept soundly, and never knew that Aunt Betty, with her candle held high above her head, made another visit to her bedside, and there, bending her old knees, offered up her simple prayer, asking in much faith and love G.o.d's blessing on this new-found niece.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MARION'S REPENTANCE.

No time had been mentioned for the continuance of Marion's visit; and coming as she had from the busy life of the school, where every minute had its allotted task, Thanksgiving week was hardly over before she began to be very homesick. In vain she strove against it, and by every pleasant device in her power tried to make her visit pleasant to her aunt. Even the short November days seemed to her endless, and the evenings had only the early bedtime to make them endurable.

On her first coming, she had told Aunt Betty the day the vacation was over, and evidently she was expected to stay until then; but on the morning of the seventh day she became desperate, and for want of any other excuse hit upon one that would be most displeasing to her aunt.

"You don't like to have me study my Greek here, Aunt Betty," she said; "and, as I must review it before the term begins, I think I had better go back now."

Aunt Betty put her steel-bowed spectacles high up on her nose, and, after looking at her silently for a moment, said,--

"I don't take no stock in your Greek."

Marion laughed good-naturedly. "If you only would let me read it to you," she said, "you would like it as well as I do; it's so soft and beautiful."

"What's the matter with your Bible? Isn't that good enough for you?"

"But, Aunt Betty, you don't understand."

But Aunt Betty did understand enough to be very sure she did not want Marion to go, so she turned abruptly on her heel, and hid herself in the depths of the pantry.

Marion stood for a moment undecided what to do, then, seeing that if she would go that day she had very little time to lose, she went up-stairs, packed her valise, and the next time she saw her aunt was ready for her journey back.

The prospect of a mile walk through the half-broken roads, up steep hills, and down into drifted valleys, would have shown Marion the difficulties had she been a New Englander; but as she was not, her courage did not fail in the least when, without a word more, or any sign of a good-by from Aunt Betty, she opened the door, letting in a cold she was a stranger to, and went out into it.

Of that walk she never liked to speak afterwards. Many times she stopped, almost but not quite willing to return; tired, half-frozen, and unhappy that her rest had terminated unpleasantly, yet so very, very homesick that she seemed driven on to the station,--if to reach it were a possibility.

Fortunately for her, when she had reached the last half she was overtaken by a man driving an empty wood-cart, who stopped and asked her if she "didn't want a lift?" From what this saved her, no one could ever know.

In the mean time, Aunt Betty, with her eyes dimmed--but she did not know it was by tears--had watched her through a slit in a green paper window-shade.

Until she left the door, she did not believe she could do so foolish a thing as to attempt the walk to the station on such a morning; but when she saw her step off so courageously down the narrow foot-path, she began to have misgivings.

Notwithstanding her tears, the sight seemed to harden instead of soften her heart. "If the gal will go, go she will," she said aloud, with some unforgiving wags of her head. "She's stuck full of obstinacy as her father was afore her." And by this time Marion was hidden from her sight by the deep snow-banks, and she turned from the window into her lonely kitchen with a heavy heart.

Marion, safely back in the academy, had, like Aunt Betty, her own troubled thoughts.

She found only Helen there among the scholars, and every teacher away but Miss Ashton, who evidently had not expected her back so soon.

Regular school duties did not begin until Tuesday of the next week, and now it was only Wednesday night. She might have remained in Belden a day or two longer, and then left with her aunt's approval.

What kind of a return had she made to her aunt for her kindness?

Marion's room, that she had thought of with so much longing as she sat in the farm kitchen, had lost its charm. She was very willing to believe it was because her room-mates were not there, and the fast falling darkness prevented her from seeing from her window the winter view, which even the grand old mountains that she had left behind her did not make her value less.

Self-deception was not one of Marion's faults; she grew so quickly regretful for what had happened, that when Miss Ashton came to her door, troubled by the girl's tired look on her arrival, she found her with red eyes and a swollen face.

"Tell me all about it," she said, taking no notice of her tears, but turning up the gas to make the room more cheerful.

"What has gone wrong? Wasn't your aunt glad to see you? Are you sick?

Fancy I am mother, and tell me the whole story."

She took Marion's hand in hers, drew the young girl close to her, and stroked the bonnie brown hair with a loving mother's touch.

"It's all my blame," said Marion, her voice trembling as she spoke.

"My aunt was as kind as she could be, but it was so lonely, and"--with a smile now--"so noisy there."

"Noisy!" repeated Miss Ashton.