Sowing and Sewing: A Sexagesima Story

"A mixed lot," said Grace to herself, and then her eye lit upon deformed Naomi Norris, of whom she did not approve at all. Did not the girl come of a low dissenting family, and had not her father the presumption to keep a little shop in Hazel Lane which took away half the custom, especially as they pretended to make toffee? Meanwhile here was Miss Wenlock, the governess at the squire's, and Miss Dora reading aloud to the party in turn. It was the history of some mission work in London, and Miss Lee, who was there, listened with great pleasure, as did many of the others. Indeed she well might, for her eldest sister's son hoped one day to be a missionary. But Grace was not used to being read to, and, as she said, "it fidgeted her sadly," and she was wondering all the time what mistakes mother would make in the shop without her, and she began to be haunted with a doubt whether she had put out a parcel of raisins that Farmer Drew's man was to call for. The worry about it prevented her from attending to a word that was read; indeed she could hardly keep herself from jumping up, making up an excuse, and rushing home to see about the raisins!

Then she greatly disapproved of the shape of the bedgown she had been set to make, and did not believe it would sit properly. It was ladies' cutting towards which she felt contemptuous, and yet she would have thought it impolite to interfere. Besides, it might make the whole sitting go on longer, and Grace was burning to get home. At last the reading ended, but oh! my patience, that creature Naomi was actually putting herself forward to ask some nonsensical question, where some place was, and Miss Agnes must needs get a map, and every one go and look at it—Grace too, not to be behindhand or uncivil to the young ladies; but had not she had enough of maps and such useless stupid things long ago when she left school at Miss Perkins's?

When at last this was over, Mrs. Somers came and spoke to her while she was putting on her hat, and thanked her pleasantly, saying that she was afraid that beginning in the middle of a book made it less interesting, but that one day more would finish it. Then she added "I don't like the pattern of that bedgown, do you?"

"No, Mrs. Somers, not at all," replied Grace. "It quite went against me to put good work into it."

"I wonder whether you could help us to a better shape next time," said Mrs. Somers. "We should be very much obliged to you. This pattern came out of a needlework book, and I am not satisfied about it."

Grace promised, and went away in better humour, but more because she had been made important than because she cared for what she had been doing. She was glad no one could say she had been behindhand with her service, but it was a burthen to her, and she did not open her mind to enter into it so as to make it otherwise.

Indeed, her mind was more full of her accounts and the bad debts, and of the cheapest way of getting in her groceries than of anything else. As she walked back through the village she wondered whether Mrs. Somers and Miss Manners would send to her mother's for their brown sugar this summer. That would make it worth while to go to a better but more expensive place, and have in a larger stock; and Grace went on reckoning the risk all the time, and wondering whether the going to the working parties would secure the ladies' custom. In that case the time would not be wasted. It did not come into Grace's head whether what she had thought of for the service of God she might be turning to the service of Mammon, if she only just endured it for the sake of standing well with the gentry. But then, was it not her duty to consider her shop and her mother's interest?

She was quite vexed and angry when she saw Jessie go and fetch the big Family Bible that evening, turning off the whole pile of lesson-books to which it formed the base.

"Now what can you be doing that for?" she said sharply.

"I want to prepare my lesson for to-morrow," said Jessie.

"And is not a little Bible good enough for you, without upsetting the whole table?"

"My Bible has got no references," said Jessie.

"And what do little children like that want of references? If you are to be turning the house upside down and wasting time like that over preparing as you call it, I don't know as ma will let you undertake it."

"I have ironed all the collars and cuffs, Grace," said Jessie; "yes, and looked over the stockings."

Grace had no more to say; she knew Jessie had wonderful eyes for a ladder or a hole; but it worried her and gave her a sense of disrespect that the pyramid which surmounted the big Bible should be interfered with, or that the Book itself should have its repose interfered with "for a pack of dirty children," when it had never been opened before except to register christenings, or to be spread out and read when some near relation died, as part of the mourning ceremony.

It really made her feel as if something unfortunate had happened to see the large print pages on the little round table, and her sister peering into the references and looking them out in her own little Bible, then diligently marking them.

Her mother, too, asked what Jessie was about, and though she did not say anything against her employment, their looking on, and the expression on Grace's face, worried Jessie so much that she could not think, and only put a slip of paper into her own book at each she found. The chapter she had chosen was the Parable of the Sower, on which she had once heard a sermon. She was amazed to find how many parallel passages there were, and how beautifully they explained one another when she made time for comparing them on Sunday morning. She saw herself beforehand expounding them to the children, and winning their hearts, as her friend in the hospital had described, and she was quite ready in her neat black silk and fur jacket, with a little blue velvet hat, when Amy Lee came to call for her, in her grey merino, black cloth coat, and little hat to match.

They met Miss Manners at the school door, and were pleasantly greeted, and taken into the large cheerful room, all hung round with maps and pictures, where the classes were assembling, and one or two of the other teachers had come.

The bell was heard ringing, and while the children trooped in, Miss Manners showed Jessie a chair with some books laid open upon it, the class register on the top, and said:

"I am sorry there has not been time to talk over your work this week; but I have laid out the books for you, and if you are in any difficulty come and ask me."

By this time the children had come in and taken their places, and Jessie was pleased to see that her class was of children of eight or nine years old—not such little ones as Amy had threatened her with. Miss Manners went to the harmonium and gave out a Sunday morning hymn, which was very sweetly sung, and then she read prayers, everybody kneeling, and making the responses, so that Jessie enjoyed it greatly, and felt quite refreshed by the prayer for a blessing on the teachers and the taught. Then Miss Manners told the eight little girls who stood in a row that Miss Hollis would teach them, and she hoped they would be very good and steady and obedient, and say their lessons perfectly.

Jessie knew all but two who came from the other end of the parish, and were not customers of her mother—at least she knew what families they belonged to, and had only to learn their Christian names from her list.

"Collect, please teacher," said the first girl, Susan Bray, very much in the voice in which she would have said "Candles, please miss," in the shop.

The Prayer-book was uppermost, and Jessie found she had to hear the Collect for the day repeated by five perfectly, by two rather badly, and one broke down altogether. The question-book lay open under it. Some of the questions were very easy, but of others Jessie was not sure that the children were right when they replied to some quite glibly, and she was not sure how to help them in others.

Then followed the opening of books again. Jessie was longing to give out all she had to say about the Sower, and began bidding them turn to it in St. Matthew, but Susan Bray stopped her most decisively. "Oh! please teacher, we've done that ever so long ago. We always reads the Gospel for the day, and here's the question-book, and it's got answers." And she thrust it right under the nose of Jessie, who by this time did not quite love Miss Susan Bray. She had plainly been sharp enough to see when her teacher was at fault.

The children read the Gospel for the day. It was Refreshing Sunday, so it was not a difficult one; the children were ready with the answers till the application came, and then Jessie had again to help them, which she did by reading the printed answers and making them repeat them after her, word for word. While she was doing this with Mary Smithers, who certainly was dulness itself, at one end of the class, there was a whispering at the other, and she saw two children trying on each other's gloves, and she quickly put an end to that, and went on with another question and answer. The moment her eye was off Susan Bray and Lily Bell, however, they began comparing some gay cards. Jessie turned on them: "You are playing with those things. Give them to me."

Lily Bell began to cry, and Susan pertly said, "It's our markers, teacher."

"I don't care. I won't have you idle. Give them to me, this instant."

Just then the church bell began to ring, and there was a general moving; but Jessie would not be beaten, and caused the two cards to be given up to her. The girls both cried with all their might while she was marking the class down, and, as they no doubt intended, Miss Manners came to see what was the matter.

"Please, ma'am, teacher has taken away our markers, and we shan't know where our Psalms is."

"They were playing with them," said Jessie.

"We wasn't. We was finding our Psalms," said Susan.

"You should not have done so while Miss Hollis was teaching," said Miss Manners. "I hope, if she is good enough to give them back to you, that you will attend better in the afternoon."

Jessie felt it all a little flat and disappointing, all the more so that Amy Lee joined her, and talked all the way to church about the children, who had all passed through her hands when she was a pupil teacher, telling all their little tiresome ways. It seemed to rub off all the gloss, and to change her scheme of feeding the young lambs for the Great Shepherd's sake into a mere struggle with tiresome, fidgety children.

Still her hopes and her spirits rose again at church. She had her expounding of the Sower on her mind, and hoped yet to deliver it when she went to afternoon school; but there proved to be the Catechism and a whole set of hymns to be said, and questions to be asked about them. These questions did not come very readily to such an unpractised tongue as hers, and she thought she could lead off into the discourse she had thought out over the Bible. But she had hardly gone through twenty words before she saw a squabble going on between Lily Bell and Mary Smithers, and she had no sooner separated them, and taken up the thread of her discourse about grace being sown and watered in our hearts, than Susan Bray popped up up with "Please, teacher, it's time to read to us—Its Miss Angelina," pointing to a little gay story-book.

"You should not be rude, and interrupt," said Jessie; whereupon Susan pouted, the two idlest began to play with each other's fingers, and, as soon as she paused to take breath, Lily Bell jumped up, and brought her the book open.

She had to give up the point, and begin to read something that did not seem to her nearly so improving as her own discourse, as it was all about a doll left behind upon a heath; but the children listened to it eagerly.

Was this all the good she was to do by sacrificing all her time on Sunday? Like Grace, she felt much inclined to give it up, and all the more when Florence Cray came into the work-room the next morning, laughing and saying—

"Well, the impudence of some folk! There was that there little Bray! I hear that she should say that Miss Hollis was put to teach her, and she warn't agoing to care for one as wasn't a lady."

"I can make her mind me fast enough," said Amy.

"O, you are bred to be a teacher," said Florence; "that doesn't count. Nobody else should trouble themselves with the tiresome little ungrateful things. I'm sure I wouldn't; but then I don't set up for goodness, nor want to be thought better than other folk."

Jessie had known that something of this kind would be said, and was prepared for it; but the child's speech vexed her sorely. However, she said—

"I'm not going to be beat by a chit like that," and at that moment Miss Lee came in, and that kind of chatter ceased.

But Jessie's cheeks burned over her work, and she thought how foolish she had been to let her fancy for doing good, and trying to live up to the sermon, lead her where she was allowed to do nothing, but get herself teased and insulted, right and left.

Should she give up? That would look so silly. Yes, but would it not serve Miss Manners right for giving her such stupid, unspiritual kind of teaching to do, and also serve the children right for their pertness and ingratitude?

No, she could not give up in this way. She had begun, and she must go on, at least till she had some reason for giving up respectably and civilly—only she wished she had known how unlike it was to what she had expected before she had undertaken it!

Then she was sensible of a certain odd, uppish, self-asserting feeling within her. She used to have it in old times, but she had learnt to distrust it, and to know that it generally came when she was in a bad way.

Was she thinking of pleasing herself, or of offering a little work to please God, and try to let the good seed turn to good fruit? Ah! but was it all a mistake? Was becoming a mark for Susan Bray to worry, doing any good at all?

CHAPTER IV

TEACHER AMY

It was a pleasant sight for Amy when poor little Edwin Smithers's pale face brightened up, as she opened his door.

He was not like the rough little monkey she had known at the infant school, who had only seemed to want to learn as little, and to play as many tricks, as he could. In the hospital, the attention kind people had paid him had quickened up his understanding, and mended his manners. He had been petted and amused there, and the being left alone in the dull cottage was a sad trial to him. His mother had regular work, and so had his elder brother, but this kept them out all day from eight till five, except that Mrs. Smithers kept Friday to do her own washing in. She was obliged to be away even at dinner time, as her work lay far from home, and she gave her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Rowe, a shilling a week to keep up the fire, look in on the sick boy, and give him his dinner.

She was unlucky in her neighbour. Many women would have gladly given far more kind service for no pay at all, but they were too far off, and Mrs. Rowe made it a rule to "do nothing for nothing."

His brother and sisters came in for a little while at twelve, their dinner time, but they wanted to go out to play, and had no notion of amusing him; indeed he was glad when they went away; Charlie clumped about so, and made such a noise, and little Jenny would take away his picture books or the toys that had been given him in the hospital.

Then Polly would call her a naughty girl, and snatch them from her, and so his little wooden horse lost its head, and his railway train was uncoupled, and one wheel pulled off; and when old Mrs. Rowe found him crying, all she said was, "Dear! dear! don't ye fret now, don't ye!" and when that did not make him stop crying, she said he was a bad boy to make such a work about nothing. When she was a girl, nobody had frail trade like that, all painted and gaudy, to play with; a bit of an oyster-shell or a crab's claw was enow for them. He had got into such a caddle as never was too!

So she began to shake up his couch, not in the least guessing how she was hurting and jarring his poor hip; and when he cried out and tried to drive her away, she thought it was all naughtiness, and declared that he was such a bad boy that she should go away and leave him to himself.

The Lees dined at one, and work did not begin till two; so Amy had a good half-hour to spend on the little boy before she was wanted again.

"Going to see Ted, be ye?" said Mrs. Rowe, as she stood at her door, while Amy opened the wicket. "A proper fractious little to-äd he be, upon my word an' honour! They do spile children in them hospitals, so as one can't do nothing with 'em."

Amy looked at Mrs. Rowe, a very clean woman, but with a face and fists that looked as if they had been cut out of the toughest part of an old pollard ash, and a mouth that shut up like the snap of a gin. "Poor little fellow!" said Amy, and in she went.

She was on her knees at once by the poor little boy, coaxing him and comforting him, and feeding him with some of the stew that Aunt Charlotte had kept warm for him. Then he told how Polly had taken away his horse and his train and broken them. Amy looked about, and presently found the wheel. A little hooking together was all the repair the train wanted, and Edwin was soon happy with it; while, as to the horse, he was past Amy's present mending, but she would take it home, and next time father had out the glue-pot she would put on the head.

Then Amy brought out a little book with the early Bible history in pictures. She showed Edwin one every day when she came, and told him about it whenever he did not know the story before, or helped him to enter a little more into it. She was surprised sometimes to find that he had carried notions away from school even when she had thought him only dull and giddy. Then he was pleased to say over the hymns he had learnt in the infant school, and to talk a little about it. Amy was quite surprised to find how his mind had grown since he had been ill, and how pleased he was to be taught a little verse of prayer to say when he was in pain.

She made him quite comfortable, filled up his mug of water, which the other children had upset, put some primroses in a cup where he could look at them, wrote a copy on his slate, and ruled some lines, caught the cat and put her before him, found the place in his easy story-book, and left him with a kiss, promising to come again to-morrow.

It was very pleasant to be the bright spot in that poor little life; and Amy that afternoon stitched into little Miss Hilda's tucks, to the whirr of her machine, a whole pensive castle in the air about the dear little fellow who was not long for this world, and whose pillow was cheered and his soul trained for Paradise by his dear teacher, who came day by day to lead him in the path to Heaven. The tears came into her eyes at the thought of how beautiful and touching it would all be—how she would lay a wreath of white roses on his coffin, and–

"What are you winking about, Amy? Go nearer the window if you want more light," said Aunt Rose, in a brisk, business-like voice, not at all like her dreams.

Amy was glad to move, feeling a little ashamed of being detected in crying beforehand about her own good works; and as she approached the window, she looked out over the lemon-plant and exclaimed—"There's Miss Manners!"

Miss Manners was really coming into the shop, and her little Skye terrier was already running on into the work-room, for he was great friends with Amy; he sniffed about, sat up, and gave his paw, and let her show off his tricks while his mistress was talking to Aunt Charlotte.

Then she came on, nodded kindly a little greeting to each as they all rose, and said that she had been thinking that it would be a good thing for all the teachers to meet for half an hour before evensong on Fridays and look over their Sunday work together, so as to make it chime together. She said she found it was done at Ellerby, and was very helpful to all; and perhaps, when he had time, Mr. Somers would come in and help them. If they looked over the subjects beforehand, they could note the difficulties, and then she could refer to books, or ask Mr. Somers.

Amy and Jessie both uttered some thanks, and Aunt Rose observed that it was very kind in Miss Dora, and that it would be very nice for the girls. Florence did not speak, but they saw her face and the gesture of her foot, and when Miss Lee walked out with the lady through the garden, Florence broke out—

"Well, how fond some folks are of being put to school, to be sure!"

"'Tisn't school," said Amy, "it is reading with Miss Manners in her drawing-room."

"O yes; she makes you think yourselves ladies just to keep on grinding you at the teaching for ever; but I likes my fun when my work's done. I don't wonder at Amy Lee—she knows nothing better than sitting poked up and prim in Miss Manners's room; but for you, Jessie Hollis, who have seen a bit of the world, I should have thought you'd have more spirit than not even to be let to teach half a dozen dirty children without having your instructions."

Here Miss Lee returned, and Florence applied herself to tacking in the lining again, while Jessie muttered to herself, "If I'm to teach them at all, I'd rather do it properly."

Jessie really wished it. Perhaps the notion of seeing the inside of Miss Manners's drawing-room made it doubly pleasant, for Jessie had eyes that really could not help taking note of everything, though there was no harm in that when she kept them in due control. She had been in the dining-room before, and she hoped much that the class would be in the other room, though she was half ashamed of caring.

Grace came home better satisfied on Tuesday, because her patterns had been much appreciated, though she still said the reading worrited her, and Naomi Norris gave herself airs.

Jessie and Amy, however, went together on Friday, and found Margaret Roller, the pupil teacher, and Miss Pemberton, an elderly farmer's daughter, who always taught the little ones on Sunday, were ready there, and in the drawing-room.

How pretty it was, with fresh delicate soft pink and white cretonne covers, and curtains worked with—was it really a series of old nursery tales? And coloured tiles, with Æsop's fables round the fireplace, pictures, books, and pretty things that all looked as if they had a history. Jessie's bright eyes took note of all in a flash, and then she tried to command them. Miss Manners gave them all their greeting, settled them all comfortably, and then began by reading to them a short paper in a little book upon the spirit of the whole Sunday, asking them in turn to look out and read the texts referred to, which Margaret and Amy did with a rapidity that astonished Jessie.

Once she lost the thread in wondering what was looking out of a half-opened basket; but she caught herself up, and found that there was infinitely more connection and meaning in the passages appointed for the Sunday than she had ever guessed.

Then Miss Manners asked whether they had any questions to ask; Margaret had one or two, which sounded very hard to Jessie, and she would never have thought of. It was the Fifth Sunday in Lent for which they were preparing, and they were respecting the unusually long and difficult Gospel for the day. Margaret wanted to know whether the words "By whom do your sons cast them out?" really meant that devils were actually cast out by the Jews. Miss Manners thought they were, and she looked out, and showed Margaret, a very curious account of the seal and sacred words of exorcism which were supposed to come from Solomon; but she advised the teachers not to dwell much on this branch of the subject, but to draw out most the portion about the strong man armed, and the warning against the return of Satan to the soul whence he had been once driven out.

Then Jessie observed that she had not thought such things happened in these days, and Miss Manners had to explain to her how the possession then permitted was here treated as an allegory to all times, of the evil once cast off returning again if not resolutely excluded by prayer and a strong purpose blessed by the grace of God.

It soon became plain to Jessie that she was ignorant of much which the others knew quite well, and when the Church bell began to chime, and all rose to go, she obtained a moment in which to say, with something like a tear in her eye—

"Indeed, Miss Manners, I ought not to have undertaken it. I see I am not fit to teach."