Helen Grant's Schooldays

"Oh, but I have," she replied eagerly. Then she gave a bright infectious laugh. "You can't think – why it seems now as if I had been at school all summer. I have learned so many new things about the world and the people in it. I have read books and papers, and found out about the places where you have been. Mrs. Van Dorn has been – well, nearly all over the world, I believe, and she has met musicians and artists, and people who write books and poems, and has seen kings and queens – "

"Then you haven't spent all the time reading novels? I was afraid you had. But your aunt – have you any idea of keeping on at school?"

"They do not want me to," she answered gravely. "But Mrs. Dayton thinks they have no real right to decide for me, if I can do anything for myself. And why isn't it just as good and honorable for a girl to work for her education when she is hungry for the knowledges in the world, as for a boy! And if I can do anything, don't you think they ought to consent?"

"Well! well! well!" his exclamation points were in full evidence. He studied her brave eager face, it had in it certain strong earnest lines, certain lines of prettiness, too. All before her was an unknown country. No one could truly map out another's life, and be sure of the making, but he knew he should not mar it as the Mulfords might in their ignorance of her desires and capabilities. He resolved to take a decisive hand in it.

"You don't want to go back to the Center?" He knew what her answer would be, but he desired to see the varying expressions of her face.

"No, I don't. Oh, I can't! I should be fighting with something within me all the time, and planning how to get out of it all. I want to learn. I want to teach, too. I want to see some of the great things in the world, some of the great people, and just live all through, every part of me, if you can understand."

How her face changed with every new thought.

"Really you have been making strides. Helen, you are not going to be satisfied with a holiday to see Belle Aurore. You are going to ask greater things."

"And Hervé Riel ought to have been given greater things when he had saved the ships for his country. Am I foolish to aim at the greater things?"

Her eyes were sparkling, and a brilliant color suffused her face, while the scarlet lips were quivering with emotion and resolve.

"I should like you to reach them. Have you any plans?" His interest was thoroughly awakened.

"Mrs. Dayton has been so kind, a real friend. I don't mean that Aunt Jane and Uncle Jason are not real friends. They have been very good to care for me since father died. Isn't it in not understanding just what satisfies you down in your soul. Jenny is very happy working in the factory. I should just hate it. And, oh, I think it would be dreadful for her to sit and read to Mrs. Van Dorn," laughing with a gay ripple. "We have talked, but not settled upon anything definite. Mrs. Dayton thinks she might find someone who would give me my board for what I could do nights and mornings and Saturdays, and she would help me out with clothes, for I know Aunt Jane would be very angry if I went against her wishes. And Mrs. Dayton wouldn't need me. She has Joanna, you know. Then, too, she goes away in the autumn – "

"Well, I must say you have gone pretty far along in plans. I felt quite discouraged last night, though I imagine I might have talked Uncle Jason into doing something for you. But your aunt thinks three years spent in learning to teach, and not being able to earn a dollar for yourself, is an awful waste of time. As if that was all there was to it!" disdainfully. "Helen, I could find it in my heart to wish you were my sister, then I could come to the rescue."

"Oh!" There was a world of exquisite delight in the tone that touched him to the very soul. "If I were! Why can't some people be in the places they would like? Some people are!" with an odd humorous laugh. "And it is the dissatisfaction that stirs you up; makes you ambitious. What is it that keeps up the dissatisfaction?" glancing at him with the smile still on her parted lips, yet full of perplexity.

"The knowledge that you are capable of doing something better, finer. If you were deficient in that, you could go to work cheerfully in the factory. You would enjoy associating with the girls."

"And then having a beau and marrying," she laughed. "Oh, I like books so much better, and knowing about the world."

"What of the examination papers. Have you found any time for them?"

"Oh, yes. There were some books in the library that helped. And such a splendid encyclopædia! I wrote them out once, and then I read a great deal more, and wrote them over again. I'll give them to you, and you must consider how good a chance I have of passing. Oh, if I should fail!"

"You could go in later on. I do not think you will. I have wondered about you so many times this summer, and I have always seen you under the disadvantages of the Center, and the few helps you would have. You might have written me a letter."

"Oh, did you mean that I should?"

She asked it in sweet, eager unconsciousness, which showed that it would have been a pleasure. He had not suggested it from a wonder as to whether Aunt Jane would approve.

"I should have enjoyed an answer about your new life," he replied with interest. "I am very glad this happened to you instead of an uneventful summer on the farm and retrograding, I am afraid. And you like this" – old lady, he was about to say, but checked himself – "this Mrs. Van Dorn."

"It's something more than like. I cannot describe it in any word, that I know, unless it is like something I was reading a few days ago, fascination. When she talks about the places and people she has seen it seems as if I could listen forever. And then, you may think this queer," and she colored vividly, "sometimes I like Mrs. Dayton the best. I wish I didn't change about so. It is the same with books. Am I very inconstant, fickle?"

"If we couldn't change our minds, think what fossils we should soon be," and he laughed good-humoredly. "Yes, I should like to see her."

She started, then she came back a step. "I have not really talked over the plan of – of earning my way with her," and her voice fell a little. "Mrs. Dayton thought it best not to say anything until we had some certainty. She is going away soon. Her real companion comes next week."

He nodded that he understood the delicate charge. "And where is Mrs. Dayton?"

"She went to market, and to do various errands. I should like you to talk to her about it."

"Yes, I want to," he replied decisively.

Helen went upstairs and was gone quite a while. He was thinking of the bright, earnest, energetic girl, willing to work her way. He must plan it out with Mrs. Dayton. She was the one girl out of fifty who could rise above circumstances. Yet her aunt would be more than vexed, positively angry.

Mrs. Van Dorn experienced a curious pang, when the girl's face brilliant with a definite emotion, flashed upon her with ardor in every line. What had moved her so? The eyes were luminous, the voice freighted with a new depth.

"Yes," she answered stiffly. "I must see this young man – he is young, isn't he? It seems to me he has been making a long call."

"Oh, we had so much to talk about, my summer here and all its pleasures, and the knowledge. Why, I told him I felt as if I had been at school all the time, I had learned so many things from you, and that you – "

She paused and flushed, wondering if the talk had been just right in the more delicate sense.

"That I was cross and queer, and full of whims – "

"Oh, I couldn't say that. It was about your journeys, and the people you had met. And he was so interested."

Mrs. Van Dorn was mollified, and added a few touches to her toilet, picked up a fleecy scarf, came downstairs with her hand on Helen's shoulder, and was duly presented. The man was young.

But the lady was an agreeable surprise. He had been a little biased by Aunt Jane, he admitted to himself. She was like some of the fine old ladies he had met abroad, who carried their age with a serene unconsciousness.

Mrs. Dayton was coming up the path, and gave them a little nod.

"Perhaps she would like your service a while, Helen," exclaimed Mrs. Van Dorn. "I should enjoy having a little talk with your friend."

Helen rose reluctantly. She would much rather have stayed. But in five minutes she was in full flow of an interested confidence with Mrs. Dayton, and then they sat down on the north corner of the kitchen porch, and peeled peaches for the luncheon, as it was getting late.

Mr. Warfield meant to suggest several things to Mrs. Van Dorn that could tend to Helen's benefit presently. She resolved to learn what he thought of the child's capabilities for advancement. In a certain way, though, they both parried skillfully, each gained a point, yet it was not the point Mr. Warfield set out to make.

CHAPTER VII

SUCCESSFUL

They chatted a little after the meal was over, and Mr. Warfield asked Helen to get her papers, and let him see how she had made out with them. Mrs. Van Dorn gave him a pleasant good-by, and said she must go and take her daily nap, the best preventive of old age that she knew. Her smile was over the fact that she held the winning card, and now she had resolved to play for the girl. It was more entertaining.

Helen brought her papers, very nicely written, and Mr. Warfield admitted well prepared. There were but few corrections to be made. Then he smiled, and said in a tone he meant to be comforting, if the matter was not:

"Perhaps you know, Helen, you cannot use these. Some were last year's questions, some I guessed at, though I believe I hit two rightly. You sit down in the room, at the table, and a list is given you, and you write out your answers from your own interior knowledge, with no helps from books or friends."

Helen glanced up in dismay, her rosy cheek paled, her lip had a suspicious quiver.

"But I thought – " and she looked at the discarded papers, over which she had taken so much pains.

"My dear child, I wanted you to put in practice what you had already learned. Vacation is a trying time to the memory, unless one resolves the subject in one's mind. It would have been better for you to come up at once for the examination, but I didn't see how it was to be managed. Indeed, last night I confess I did not see how the plan could be carried through, and I am surprised at your courage and energy."

"Then the papers are of no use," she commented in a tone of disappointment.

"They have been of a good deal of use in mental training. You will find it much easier to write on kindred subjects. And I must say you have had a fortunate summer; so much better than anything I had anticipated for you. You have shown commendable courage in taking a step many girls would have shrunk from. I am sure that you will succeed, and some way we must all make it possible for you to go through the High School. I feel confident that Providence will smile on our efforts."

She glanced up soberly.

"You would have gone without hesitation when school closed in the summer?"

"Oh, yes." Then she laughed. She was the wholesome sort of girl, who could laugh at herself. "That was because I knew so little. And since I have found how much knowledge of every kind there is in the world, mine seems so small. I am afraid I don't want to compare myself with the people who know less, and those who know more seem so far ahead of me," she subjoined frankly.

"That need not take away one's courage. At eight and twenty you will know a good deal more, at eight and forty if you use life rightly, you will have discarded a good deal of the youthful knowledge, and taken on maturer thoughts. Schooldays do not end with the close of a school for vacation. You observe that goes on after a little rest. And the real scholars go on. All life is a school. I did some hard studying the fortnight I was in London. I shall do some more this winter. There is always something ahead of the one who loves knowledge."

He had a very encouraging smile for those who deserved it. He could frown as well, she knew, and this particular smile was used with discrimination; it was not the every-day pleasant look.

"So you will go next Tuesday. Louise Searing did not pass. She will keep you company. I must leave for New York in the train at four, and cannot be back before Wednesday. But I shall be thinking of you, and for my sake you must not fail. You see, it helps or hinders my reputation. I want all my five candidates to pass. There have never more than three gone from the Center school before."

"I will try my best," she returned. The thought that she would do something for him inspired her as well.

So they said good-by, and she went out to the kitchen. Two baskets of tempting Bartlett pears had come, and Mrs. Dayton, with a big kitchen apron on, and her sleeves rolled up, was beginning to pare them. As soon as Joanna had done the dishes she would can.

"If you wouldn't mind helping, Helen. Put that big kitchen sacque over your dress, and button the sleeves around your wrists. Pear juice stains dreadfully. And then we will talk about the plans. Mr. Warfield is a delightful gentleman to meet, and he is very much interested in you."

If Helen was two or three years older, she might repeat her mother's destiny, the lady thought, and Mr. Warfield was a much more attractive man than Addison Grant.

They discussed the examination, and Mrs. Dayton endeavored to inspire her with hope, and she was confident a place could be found for Helen.

"But how to get the folks at home to consent to any such step will be the puzzle. As soon as we know about the examination I will have a talk with your uncle. I think I can persuade him to look upon the plan in the best light for you, and you can stay here all September."

"But there will be Jenny's wedding about the middle of the month, Aunt said."

"And on the tenth the High School opens."

"Oh, dear! My schooldays seem a great perplexity," and Helen gave a vague smile. "Some girls' lives run on so smoothly, but mine appears full of upsets."

"Take courage and go on. I think it will come out right. But I shall not make a single plan until you have passed the examination."

Then Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang.

Helen slipped off her sacque, washed her hands, and suddenly bent down and kissed Mrs. Dayton's forehead. "Oh," she cried with deep tenderness, "I wish I had a mother! I wish you were my mother."

Mrs. Dayton looked after her, as she flashed through the dining room. All her motions were light and rapid, yet she never ran over chairs, or bumped up against doors or corners. It was a grace born in her, and Mrs. Dayton wondered that it had not all been wrenched out of her by the crude bustling life at the Mulfords'. And she wondered how it would seem to have a daughter growing up who would love her and care for her. Helen was overflowing with gratitude, and one of the best features of it was that it abounded in deeds rather than words. She always wanted to do something in return, she often did it without stopping to inquire, daily little things that evinced thoughtfulness. After all, her three years' board would hardly be felt, there would be the summer vacation. Only, if she should be sent away somewhere to teach afterward. But there would be three pleasant years. She could afford to do it now, she had gone past the pinches, and was putting by a little every year.

Mrs. Van Dorn, upstairs on her couch in the comfort of a dressing sacque, was amusing herself with plans as well. She did like to enjoy outgeneraling people. And this young Mr. Warfield's confidence rather piqued her. The same thought had entered her mind that this enthusiastic girl might repeat her mother's story, and she had a fancy that it had been one of disappointment.

Years ago the daughter of a cousin, the only relative who had ever befriended her, after a prosperous married life of a dozen years' duration, was thrown on her own endeavors for a livelihood, with two little girls. She had a beautiful house in a pretty, refined town, but there was a considerable mortgage on it. Mrs. Van Dorn had come to her assistance; she was not all selfishness. With a little aid, Mrs. Aldred had established herself in a day and boarding school, had added to her house, and become the pride of the pretty town of Westchester. One act of Mrs. Aldred had gone to her old cousin's heart. She had paid the whole sum loaned, interest and principal, and sent the most heartfelt thanks. She was a prosperous and happy woman, and her girls were growing up into usefulness, one was teaching, the other would be an artist. There was no hint or suggestion that she should like to be remembered in anyone's will, or would be grateful for any gift. The principle of the incident really touched Mrs. Van Dorn, who paid Mrs. Aldred a visit, and on her departure left her what she called a little gift in token of her courage and business ability, a check for a thousand dollars.

"I'm going to take the good of what I have," she announced with a rather grim smile, "so I shall have the less to leave behind when I die."

That had been five years ago. Now Mrs. Van Dorn had written to know if the school was still prosperous, and what the terms were, and if she would take the supervision of an orphan girl who was ambitious, eager, capable of many things, a girl full of bright promise, amiable in temper, who was to be trained to get her own living if that came to her, but accomplished for society, if that should be her lot.

After her talk with Mr. Warfield she had made up her mind. He should not have his way in this matter. She would try her hand, or her money with this girl. She was going abroad again for the next year or two, and she would give Helen two years of education under Mrs. Aldred's supervision. Then she would decide if she wanted her, and in what capacity.

Fourteen only. Twenty would be young enough to marry. She would have six years of interest. If the girl came to love her very much —

The poor old heart had a hungering for ardent love, as well as admiration. And Helen Grant was grateful. To rescue her from a distasteful life like that at her uncle's, or a life of drudgery working her way through school would appeal to her, for Mrs. Van Dorn had discerned that the girl had a great hungry heart for all the accessories of finer living, though she did not know what the vague restless stirring within meant.

The carriage paused at the gate. "Help me into my waist," she said to Helen. "I've dawdled my time away finely. What have you been doing?"

"Peeling pears for canning," she replied merrily. "Mrs. Dayton picked out a dish of lovely ones for you, and put them in a cool place. They are luscious. I wonder if you would like to have one now?"

"Oh, no. That will be something to think of when I come back. The wind has blown up a little cooler, and I am glad. Get my bonnet, and the blue wrap."

They went downstairs together, and were helped into the coupé. "To the Postoffice first," she said. "We will wait on ourselves this time."

Mr. Conway always brought the mail up at six, though it reached Hope at three.

"Your friend, Mr. Warfield, is going to the city? He is very earnest that you shall take the examination. How do you expect to arrange about the High School? You will have to live here at North Hope."

Helen colored vividly, and a half-humorous smile parted her lips, and made dimples in the corners.

"I shall have to earn my own living someway," she answered courageously. "Aunt Mulford will be much opposed to it, but I think Uncle will see before long that it will be best. Mrs. Dayton will be a very good friend to me. It all turns on my passing the examinations successfully."

"And if you should not?"

"Then I must go back to the Center. But I would have another chance by the first of January. And I have quite resolved that if I do not accomplish it this year I will try next summer."

There was a charm in her courage and perseverance. Mrs. Van Dorn thought she had never looked prettier. She could not have taken so cordially to a plain girl.

They reached the Postoffice. Helen sprang out, and came back with an eager smile and three letters. Then they turned into an old shady street, and drove slowly.

One was from her lawyer in the city. The matter she had written of could be easily adjusted.

The next was in Miss Gage's fine, almost old-fashioned hand. Everything had gone on well, and she would come on Wednesday, prepared to go abroad, or anywhere at Mrs. Van Dorn's behest. A very suitable letter, but there was no suggestion of that wider living outside of her own home relations. She was an admirable companion, an excellent nurse for small ailments; she gave good value for what she received, but there was no refreshment of enthusiasm that had warmed her old heart toward this girl who seemed to rouse and stir one's thoughts, and give a breath of sweetness.

The third was from Mrs. Aldred, who would be glad to do anything for her relative. She was fond of girls, especially those who were bright and capable of advancement. She would insure her a home and training for the next two years, and fit her for either position, look after her clothing, and make her as happy as possible. Hers was in reality a home school. Her circle was complete with thirty boarders, all of whom were of unexceptional character, and Mrs. Van Dorn need not be afraid to trust her protégée at Aldred House, nor fear that any confidence would be misplaced.

She had meant to lay the matter before Helen this very afternoon, then she suddenly changed her mind. If the examination went against her, she would be the more grateful, if in her favor, it would be a card at Mrs. Aldred's. She would let the others plan, and amuse herself with upsetting their confident arrangements.

So they talked, instead, about places. Helen never tired of listening. Her vivid imagination pictured the scenes, while here she smiled a little, there her straight brows drew together in a little frown of condemnation, then the heroic appealed to her. It was so pretty to note the changes. Two years from this time would she be anxious about gowns and trinkets and frivolity of all kinds? Girls were risky creatures before their characters were really formed. Yes, it would be wise not to commit one's self too far to draw back, or substitute other plans.

"When is your old lady going away?" asked Uncle Jason, when he came in on Saturday. "Mother thinks she can't spare you more than next week. There's the house to clean, and the weddin' cake to make, and the children have to have new clothes, and goodness only knows all."

"But I was to have her a week in September," said Mrs. Dayton. "If Jenny is to be home – "

"Well, she'll be over to her house gettin' ready. We didn't make any such fuss when we were married. We got spliced and looked after things afterward. Well, Helen – how is it? I'm afraid you're 'most spoiled for living among common folks any more."

Helen's face was scarlet, as she glanced into this roughened sun-burned one.

"You've come to be such a lady," he went on admiringly. "Mebbe it wasn't for the best. You really ought to be somewhere else and grow up into the kind of women there is in stories. And your hands are so soft, there isn't a freckle in your face. There's mighty little Mulford about you!"

"Oh, Uncle Jason!" She flung her soft arms about his neck, immeasurably touched by the tone of his voice. Her eyes shone with the tenderness of tears. She laid her fond lips to his rough cheek with a delicate caress.

"Whatever comes," she began, after a pause, "remember that I do sincerely love you, and that I believe you would be willing to do the best for me if it was in your power."

"Your head's level there, child," with a tremble in his voice, and he kissed her fondly, a rare thing with him.

She watched him as he went down the path and climbed into the old wagon.

"I feel mean, and underhand, and deceitful," she cried passionately, turning to Mrs. Dayton. "I like to live along just on the square, and how the thing will ever get told, and whether Aunt Jane will let me stay, and whether it is all right, and why you should want things that seem out of your reach, and why someone should rise up and forbid you mounting the ladder that stands just at hand – oh dear!" and Helen burst into a flood of tears.