Amanda M. Douglas

“ She would rather someone else would do the gardening, and she have the bloom in its first sweetness. While she was away Helen would idealize her still more, and be prepared to give her just the same girl-worship, but with more discrimination. She would think of nothing but the benefits. She would see none of the whims and queernesses that Clara Gage had grown accustomed to. She would not note her growing old every day. ”

“ Helen lay and wondered at herself. Had she made Daisy such a sweeping promise? And how easy it had been to say those few words to Miss Craven. What joy it had given her. She did not love Daisy Bell any less—how many people could you love? Must one true affection shut out the others?
She did really love Daisy Bell. She had a rather petite figure and face; the face fair and full of soft curves changing with every emotion, and a rose tint that came and went, that seemed playing hide and seek with two seduc [Pg 294] tive dimples, one in her chin, the other in her cheek. ”

“ That everyone of any intelligence should not long for an education amazed her. And these bright, pretty girls who must have congenial surroundings seemed the very ones to appreciate it.
They were still jesting when the luncheon bell rang. One new table was filled and some vacant spaces in several others. It was beginning to look like quite a family. But Helen had the feeling of being a guest at a hotel, just as she had been all the week. They dispersed to their rooms, and Helen tried to read a little, but the words were mixed up with French and music. She would like the music she knew. ”

“ A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face wonderfully.
They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.
"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She hasn't a bit of gratitude."
"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned Jenny with a laugh. ”

“ Helen stole a furtive glance over at Miss Craven. She was simply stolid, indifferent, and went to her room while the others paced up and down the piazza in twos and threes, exchanging confidences, or someone sang a song in the long parlor. Miss Lane, down in one corner of the veranda, was telling Greek legends to half a dozen girls. It was a picture of friendly content and enjoyment.
"I wonder if Miss Craven is crying in her room?" and Helen really longed to go to her. She was so overflowing with happiness. ”

“ There was a little falter in Helen's voice, and she flushed and paled.
"Well—he almost expected you had gone through college," and Mr. Warfield gave his shoulders a shrug. "I can tell you he has no faith in modern education. And I do believe he would rather have you forty than sixteen."
"I am glad to be only sixteen," Helen returned with decision. "Life is a splendid thing and youth is its garden of growth, and I am more than satisfied to be still in the lovely garden." ”

“ Van Dorn wondered when the message was repeated. Youth was easily caught by newness. What if Helen should be weaned away by other friends? And there were girls born students who could not be satisfied unless with some profession or business. What if she should be one of these? The jealous old heart wanted all of her, all of the Babylon she meant to build with its pleasant gardens and fascinating nooks of variety. Well, Helen had cared for her old uncle, and she, Mrs. Van Dorn would be a hundred times better to her. ”

“ But she was a very busy girl for the next two weeks, for there was a good deal to do at home. Then she was not old enough to have outgrown play. Girls really played in country places round about.
But some new thing was growing up within her. There comes a dividing line in many lives when the soul awakens and reaches up and seems suddenly to sweep past the old things, just as the bud pushes out of its sheath that then becomes a dry husk. So many desires crept up to the light. Study, languages, histories of men and women, and deeds that had changed the aspect of the world. ”

“ So Miss Craven, curiously enough, had looked like a duty to Helen. She and Daisy did their brief reading every night, but since Christmas so many verses had pointed to the weaker brother. The stronger, wiser girls in [Pg 297] school did not want anything of her, at least she thought she had nothing to give them, since they did not ask, and the word was "everyone that asketh." Miss Craven had asked by a glance of the eye, a pressure of the hand, a quiver of the wordless lips that hesitated to frame the desire into speech. ”

“ How odd it was that so few girls really cared for knowledge! Of course, the fun was exhilarating, the sharpening of wits made one bright. Roxy Mays was an expert at twisting and turning and repartee, and making the worse seem the better reason. Some of it was amusing. But to magnify any trifling thing into a part of one's character, to give hard judgment on the shape of one's features or the expression of one's eyes and mouth, seemed hardly fair to Helen.
She wondered sometimes if one could grow [Pg 250] beautiful on high and noble thoughts? ”

“ Her solitary life had taken her into the very heart of nature, of a certain kind of dreaming, and longing for knowledge, but that was widely different from the every day knowledge of general living. Helen had not been lonely, her mind was too active, and there had always been people about her. She wanted her knowledge to enable her to go out in the world and conquer it; girls of fourteen and older do have such dreams. Miss Craven wanted hers largely for herself alone. ”

“ Daisy Bell said one day. "Papa would be delighted, I am sure. And though you are younger, I do not know so very much more," laughingly. "You always study in such desperate earnest. We should keep step [Pg 358] together. Oh, don't you wish we could see into the future?"
Yes, she really did.
Her friendship with Juliet Craven touched another side of her nature. Miss Craven had a vein of peculiar romance. She improvised in music, she could imitate bird-songs in rare melody, she could go to depths of feeling in a few chords that stirred one's very soul. It was absolute genius. ”

“ There a hollow that might be a dryad's cave, bunches of sumac in autumnal gorgeousness, tangles of wild growth, blackberry with its deep red leaves, cat-briar still green and glossy, and the confusion of wild woodland growth. [Pg 216]
"Oh, how beautiful it is!" Helen exclaimed involuntarily.
"Where are you viewing the universe?"
"Over beyond the river. Do you ever go there?"
"Oh, yes, we row across. The school owns a boat. It is supposed to be good exercise, but it does blister your hands. There is a bridge farther up there, now you can see it." ”

“ There were the bright and sweet, who had no aims above the average, and who would get trained into nice, wholesome girls and make good wives and mothers.
Helen enjoyed her studies immensely. The botany rambles were one of her great pleasures, and when she went at the wonders of astronomy she was enraptured.
"Such a student is worth having; she inspires the rest," Mrs. Wiley said to Mrs. Aldred. "There is a girl who should go to college."
"Yes, she ought," but in her secret soul Mrs. Aldred feared that was not Mrs. Van Dorn's design. ”

“ She belonged to Hope Center, not to North Hope. And maybe she never could get over there.
Mrs. Van Dorn thought of herself at Helen's age. Where would her ambitions lead her. She had had no ambitions to rise in life. How gladly she would have married her first common-place lover, and accepted a life of drudgery. What queer things girls were! and how strange that when she was tired and worn out, and almost desperate, the best of [Pg 90] fortune should come to her. It seldom happened, she knew. The old life was a vague dream, she had only lived since her marriage. ”

“ Helen was glad that Daisy Bell was in the B. division. She was not as gay as Roxy Mays, but there was a quality of tenderness in her that was very attractive. [Pg 219]
She was not quite sure that she would desire to make a warm friend of Miss Mays though on Friday evening her whole heart had gone out to her. She could turn any subject into ridicule so easily, she could seize on small foibles and distort them with such a winsome grace that they were amusing at the time, but when one thought them over afterward one saw the little stings that were left behind. ”

“ And smaller things in bloom tangled here and there with clematis and Virginia creeper, and a riot of mid-summer bloom. They had brought along a volume of Wordsworth's shorter poems, and Helen read here and there in the pauses.
Mrs. Van Dorn was ruminating over a thought that had crossed her mind. Wouldn't this girl be glad to go off somewhere and thrust her old life behind her? How much did she care for her people? Someone could make a fine and attractive young woman out of her, yes, there was a certain noble beauty that might be cultivated and bloom satisfactorily from twenty to thirty. ”

“ It is one of the greatest lessons of life."
Miss Aldred smiled upon her pupil, and a warm glow sped through Helen's frame.
"Then I have my mind quite set upon teaching some day. Perhaps I take that from my father, who was a teacher. I saw so little of him, but this year I've wondered a good deal what he really was like, and if we should not have been splendid friends on these lines. I believe he was disappointed about my not being a boy, and it's funny"—with a bright merry laugh. "I've never wanted to be a boy at all. I think girls are nicer." ”

“ Then Aunt Jane began to talk of next year when she should be through school. She roused suddenly, she "took hold" as people say and found that life meant something. Perhaps it was the growth out of childhood, the development of mind; country children were not analytical. She began to wonder about things, to ask questions that pleased Mr. Warfield and tormented Aunt Jane, and all these events, more than had come in the thirteen and a half years before, had happened in this little space of time. Eight months only.
"Oh dear, I wonder if things, incidents, come this way to all girls. ”

“ There's such a pretty girl at your table. Her hair is the color one sometimes gets in a sunset, a bright gold, and yet it isn't the color so much as the curious waviness and stir all about it. It seems alive. ”

“ Warfield said a week or so before school closed. "It would be such a pity for you to stop here. You have the making of a good scholar, and there is no reason why you [Pg 7] shouldn't be a teacher. You have one admirable quality, you go so directly to the point, you are so ambitious, so in earnest, and you acquire knowledge so easily. You will make a broad-minded woman. I must say the Center people are rather narrow and self-satisfied, except the few new ones that have come in." And Mr. Warfield smiled.
Helen felt in her inner consciousness that it would be unwise to talk about the High School. ”

“ Van Dorn wished you to take up French; of course you will begin with Latin. And music."
"Oh!" Helen's face was radiant then. "Music! I never dreamed of that!"
"You will not enjoy the drudgery, but that has to come first. It is an excellent thing to be interested in what you are doing, to love it, but all studies are not equally pleasant. There are courage and perseverance needed."
"I shall try to do my very best for Mrs. Van Dorn's sake. It was so generous of her to send me here though I do think I should have managed to work my way through the High School." ”

“ Helen pressed the hand she held to her warm, soft cheek with a mute caress.
It seemed to her as if she might be walking on air, her heart was so light. And still there was a secret sympathy with her aunt for the disappointment. Yet, what real difference [Pg 103] could it make to Aunt Jane, whether she taught school, or worked in a shop. She should not feel better or grander, only more thoroughly satisfied with her lot in life. And before she took any journeys, she would pay Uncle Jason for these years of care since her father died. That would be her duty for taking her own way. ”

“ I have lived alone so much, I think I am like someone who has been blind for years and whose eyes are suddenly opened, and he cannot judge accurately of anything. I hear the girls at times mapping out characters with such a degree of certainty that I envy them. I do not seem to know how to judge anyone." [Pg 265]
"And their judgment isn't right half the time," laughed Helen. "It takes a great deal of wisdom and experience to do this, and I do not believe any young schoolgirl has enough. ”

“ I was with a friend," and Helen flushed without quite knowing why. "I was a regular country girl—on a farm."
"I was too. I begin to think I ought not have come here, but I did not want to go where there were one or two hundred girls, and I did want to learn nice ways," hesitatingly.
"Then this is the very place to come."
"Only I did not imagine they were all rich girls; that is, society people," awkwardly.
"Oh, they are not. Two of the seniors mean to teach next year, so they cannot be rich. And one girl is going to an art school and means to work her way through. ”

“ Helen's face was bright with generous emotions. "Only, she keeps looking at girls of her age, and is rather discouraged because she is so far behind."
"And friendship, contact with other girls, is what she needs. I sometimes think if girls could only understand all they might do for each other in the little things of life, the comfort they might be in some sorrowful moment, the strength in some weak moment, they would hardly hold aloof in their best qualities and give out the trifles that are merely husks. ”

“ For certain reasons, I regret you cannot go on with your education. But you will learn a great deal abroad."
"I feel as if all of life is a school, and you are learning right along to do what comes next. I have worked hard at the French, and now I see the use of it. I dare say it will be so with other things. I wish I were a better musician."
"Mrs. Van Dorn will care more for your voice. You can take excellent singing lessons abroad. Helen, I do congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. And whatever happens I shall always want to be considered your sincere friend. ”

“ 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. ”