Bunch Grass Part 2

Within a week we knew that the big boys were becoming unmanageable, but no such information leaked from Alethea-Belle's lips. Each evening at supper we asked how she had fared during the day. Always she replied primly: "I thank you; I'm getting along nicely, better than I expected."

Mrs. Spafford, a peeper through doors and keyholes, explained the schoolmarm's methods.

"I jest happened to be pa.s.sin' by," she told me, "and I peeked in through--through the winder. That great big hoodlum of a George Spragg was a-sa.s.sin' Miss Buchanan an' makin' faces at her. The crowd was a- whoopin' him up. In the middle o' the uproar she kneels down. 'O Lord,' says she, 'I pray Thee to soften the heart of pore George Spragg, and give me, a weak woman, the strength to prevail against his everlastin' ignorance and foolishness!' George got the colour of a beet, but he quit his foolin'. Yes sir, she prays for 'em, and she coaxes 'em, an' she never knows when she's beat; but they'll be too much for her. She's losin' her appet.i.te, an' she don't sleep good. We won't be boardin' her much longer."

But that night, as usual, when I asked Alethea-Belle how she did, she replied, in her prim, formal accents: "I'm doing real well, I thank you; much, much better than I expected."

Two days later I detected a bruise upon her forehead. With great difficulty I extracted the truth. Tom Eubanks had thrown an apple at the schoolmarm.

"And what did you do?"

Her grey eyes were unruffled, her delicately cut lips never smiled, as she replied austerely: "I told Thomas that I was sure he meant well, but that if a boy wished to give an apple to a lady he'd ought to hand it politely, and not throw it. Then I ate the apple. It was a Newtown pippin, and real good. After recess Thomas apologised."

"What did the brute say?"

"He is not a brute. He said he was sorry he'd thrown the pippin so hard."

Next day I happened to meet Tom Eubanks. He had a basket of Newtown pippins for the schoolmarm. He was very red when he told me that Miss Buchanan liked--apples. Apples at that time did not grow in the brush- hills. Tom had bought them at the village store.

But Alethea-Belle grew thinner and whiter.

Just before the end of the term the climax came. I happened to find the little schoolmarm crying bitterly in a clump of sage-brush near the water-troughs.

"It's like this," she confessed presently: "I can't rid myself of that weak, hateful Belle. She's going to lie down soon, and let the boys trample on her; then she'll have to quit. And Alethea sees the Promised Land. Oh, oh! I do despise the worst half of myself!"

"The sooner you leave these young devils the better."

"What do you say?"

She confronted me with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. I swear that she looked beautiful. The angularities, the lack of colour, the thin chest, the stooping back were effaced. I could not see them, because--well, because I was looking through them, far beyond them, at something else.

"I love my boys, my foothill boys; and if they are rough, brutal at times, they're strong." Her emphasis on the word was pathetic.

"They're strong, and they're young, and they're poised for flight-- now. To me, me, has been given the opportunity to direct that flight-- upward, and if I fail them, if I quit----" She trembled violently.

"You won't quit," said I, with conviction.

"To-morrow," said she, "they've fixed things for a real battle."

She refused obstinately to tell me more, and obtained a solemn promise from me that I would not interfere.

Afterwards I got most of the facts out of George Spragg. Three of the biggest boys had planned rank mutiny. Doubtless they resented a compulsory attendance at school, and with short-sighted policy made certain that if they got rid of Alethea-Belle the schoolhouse would be closed for ever. And what chance could she have--one frail girl against three burly young giants?

A full attendance warned her that her scholars expected something interesting to happen. Boys and girls filed into the schoolroom quietly enough, and the proceedings opened with prayer, but not the usual prayer. Alethea-Belle prayed fervently that right might prevail against might, now, and for ever. Amen.

Within a minute the three mutineers had marched into the middle of the room. In loud, ear-piercing notes they began to sing "Pull for the Sh.o.r.e." The girls giggled nervously; the boys grinned; several opened their mouths to sing, but closed them again as Alethea-Belle descended from the rostrum and approached the rebels. The smallest child knew that a fight to a finish had begun.

The schoolmarm raised her thin hand and her thin voice. No attention was paid to either. Then she walked swiftly to the door and locked it.

The old _adobe_ had been built at a time when Indian raids were common in Southern California. The door was of oak, very ma.s.sive; the windows, narrow openings in the thick walls, were heavily barred. The children wondered what was about to happen. The three rebels sang with a louder, more defiant note as Alethea-Belle walked past them and on to the rostrum. Upon her desk stood a covered basket. Taking this in her hand, she came back to the middle of the room. The boys eyed her movements curiously. She carried, besides the basket, a cane. Then she bent down and placed the basket between herself and the boys. They still sang "Pull for the Sh.o.r.e," but faintly, feebly. They stared hard at the basket and the cane. Alethea-Belle stood back, with a curious expression upon her white face; very swiftly she flicked open the lid of the basket. Silence fell on the scholars.

Out of the basket, quite slowly and stealthily, came the head of a snake, a snake well known to the smallest child--known and dreaded.

The flat head, the lidless, baleful eyes, the grey-green, diamond- barred skin of the neck were unmistakable.

"It's a rattler!" shrieked one of the rebels.

They sprang back; the other children rose, panic-stricken. The schoolmarm spoke very quietly--

"Don't move! The snake will not hurt any of you."

As she spoke she flicked again the lid of the basket. It fell on the head of the serpent. Alethea-Belle touched the horror, which withdrew.

Then she picked up the basket, secured the lid, and spoke to the huddled-up, terrified crowd--

"You tried to scare me, didn't you, and I have scared you." She laughed pleasantly, but with a faint inflection of derision, as if she knew, as she did, that the uncivilised children of the foothills, like their fathers, fear nothing on earth so much as rattlers and-- ridicule. After a moment she continued: "I brought this here to-day as an object-lesson. You loathe and fear the serpent in this basket, as I loathe and fear the serpent which is in you." She caught the eyes of the mutineers and held them. "And," her eyes shone, "I believe that I have been sent to kill the evil in you, as I am going to kill this venomous beast. Stand back!"

They shrank back against the walls, open-eyed, open-mouthed, trembling. Alethea-Belle unfastened for the second time the lid of the basket; once more the flat head protruded, hissing. Alethea-Belle struck sharply.

"It is harmless now," she said quietly; "its back is broken."

But the snake still writhed. Alethea-Belle shuddered; then she set her heel firmly upon the head.

"And now"--her voice was weak and quavering, but a note of triumph, of mastery, informed it--"and now I am going to cane you three boys; I am going to try to break your stubborn wills; but you are big and strong, and you must let me do it. If you don't let me do it, you will break my heart, for if I am too weak to command here, I must resign. Oh, I wish that I were strong!"

The mutineers stared at each other, at the small white face confronting them, at the boys and girls about them. It was a great moment in their lives, an imperishable experience. The biggest spoke first, sheepishly, roughly, almost defiantly--

"Come on up, boys; we'll hev to take a lickin' this time."

Alethea-Belle went back to the rostrum, trembling. She had never caned a boy before, and she loathed violence. And yet she gave those three lads a sound thras.h.i.+ng. When the last stroke was given, she tottered and fell back upon her chair--senseless.

Later, I asked her how she had caught the snake.

"After you left me," she said, "I sat down to think. I knew that the boys wanted to scare me, and it struck me what a splendid thing 'twould be to scare them. Just then I saw the snake asleep on the rocks; and I remembered what one o' the cowboys had said about their being stupid and sluggish at this time o' year. But my! when it came to catching it alive--I--nearly had a fit, I'd chills and fever before I was able to brace up. Well, sir, I got me a long stick, and I fixed a noose at the end of it; and somehow--with the Lord's help--I got the creature into my work-basket; and I carried it home, and put it under my bed, with a big stone atop o' the lid. But I never slept a wink.

I'm teetotal, but I know now what it is to have the--the--"

"Jim-jams," said I.

"I believe that's what they call it in California. Yes, I saw snakes, rattlers, everywhere!"

"You're the pluckiest little woman in the world," said I.

"Oh no! I'm a miserable coward, and always will be. Now it's over I kind of wish I hadn't scared the little children quite so bad."

About a month later, when Alethea-Belle was leaving us and about to take up new quarters in Paradise, near the just finished village schoolhouse, Mrs. Spafford came to me. The schoolmarm, it seemed, had stepped off our scales. She had gained nearly ten pounds since the day of the great victory.