Dawn of the Morning Part 28

"Daniel"-Dawn's voice rang clear and without a trace of the excitement she was under-"if you need help with those sums now, I can give it.

Bring them up here, please."

Daniel lost no time in getting to his feet and gathering up his scattered papers, but the selectman arose in protest and put out his hand toward the teacher.

"Don't call that boy up here yet," he commanded, and dared to lay his hand upon the girl's arm as he did so, bringing his smug countenance quite near, that he might speak so the approaching boy would not hear.

But the words on his lips were never uttered. Without an instant's hesitation, Dawn sprang away from him, crying, "Don't you dare to touch me, sir!" and with catlike agility Daniel glided up the aisle and struck the selectman full in the face. Silas reeled backward off the platform, and staggered ignominiously against the wall, clutching at the blackboard rail for support, his hat rolling at his feet, and his general appearance undignified, to say the least. Daniel stood in a combative att.i.tude, looking at him contemptuously. He would have enjoyed nothing better than to give Silas Dobson a good thrashing.

"You shall answer for this, you young rascal," threatened Silas, shaking his fist at Daniel, as he recovered his balance and began to brush the chalk dust from his best coat. "This is the second offense, remember!"

Silas was no match for Daniel in a fight, and he knew it.

"All right," said Daniel, unconcerned. "We'll see who does the answering, but don't you dare touch Teacher again, d'ye hear?"

"I shall have a talk with Mr. b.u.t.terworth, who is also a selectman, and with the minister," said Dawn, with dignity. "If they wish me to give up the school, I will do so, and thus save you the trouble of doing what you have threatened, Mr. Dobson."

"You make a great mistake, Miss Montgomery," said Silas, thoroughly alarmed now. "I have no desire to have you give up the school."

"Well, I guess you better not have," said Daniel threateningly-"not unless you want a good coat of tar and feathers." There was a look of wrath in the boy's blue eyes that boded no good for the discomfited selectman.

"You have not understood me," repeated Silas lamely, glaring with helpless anger at Daniel, and then casting a wistful appeal at the teacher.

But Dawn had taken up the arithmetic, and was figuring rapidly. She only raised her head to say coldly, "Good afternoon, Mr. Dobson. You will do me a favor if you won't come to visit the school any more. You hinder my work, and I do not like it." Then she turned to Daniel and began to explain the sum.

"You have not understood me," murmured Silas again.

"I guess you've been understood all right," said Daniel grimly over his shoulder.

With a last angry glare at Dawn's protector, and a threat he would never dare to carry out, Silas Dobson took himself off the scene of action.

The next week there appeared a prominent editorial about the public school and its brilliant young teacher, who was doing so much for the youth of the village, and should be encouraged in every way by the parents.

Daniel read it to a group of the boys in the school yard, and then cut it out with his penknife and pinned it to the blackboard, as an expression of the sentiments of the whole school.

After that little episode, there was a closer bond than ever between Daniel and his teacher. They never talked it over, nor even mentioned it, except that Dawn, as Silas's footsteps died away that afternoon, had put her little hand on the boy's rough one for just an instant, and said:

"Thank you so much, Daniel. I do not know what I should have done if you had not stayed."

Daniel had turned away with a sudden feeling as if he was going to choke, while the blood in his heart pounded up into his face. But aloud he only said in a bashful tone:

"Aw, that's nothin'. He needs a good lickin', an' I'd like to be the one to give it to him."

Afterward, Dawn wondered that she had dared to speak as she had to Silas Dobson, a selectman, and the editor of the paper. And if she had it in her to do so now, how was it that she had allowed Harrington Winthrop to lead her on to a hated marriage, when she might have easily stopped it by being decided? Had her brief months of independence given her courage? It seemed strange to her now that she had been so afraid to tell her father what she felt about it until matters had gone so far that it was almost impossible to stop it. Her heart burned within her sometimes to go back and tell Harrington Winthrop just what she felt about him. She had been weak, she decided, terribly weak, in yielding in the beginning to her desire for a home of her own, and for freedom from any possibility of having to stay in the house with her father's wife. Yet, were not all women weak and helpless sometimes, when it came to a testing of their strength against men? Her mother had not been able to cope with her father's will. It was all a mixed-up world, and full of trouble. She turned on her scanty corn-husk pillow and wished for the dawn of a day that would have no sorrow.

Just why it was that her experience with Silas Dobson made the thought of Charles and her marriage so much more vivid than before, Dawn could not understand, and she thought about it a great deal in the watches of the night, when she should have been sleeping. A new phase of her position was forced upon her: she was in a measure deceiving other people about herself. Silas Dobson, disagreeable as he was, had no idea that his attentions were an insult to her because she was already married. Of course she could refuse to accept attentions from any one, but if Silas Dobson had been a pleasant and agreeable man, it might have been difficult to explain to him without telling him the truth why she could not ride nor walk with him. It was all a terrible problem, and night after night she cried herself to sleep.

Sometimes she stayed in unpleasant quarters, where she had perhaps to climb a ladder, and share the loft above the lean-to kitchen with two of the small children of the family. Often the cracks would be so wide that the snow would blow in, drift across her bed, and even blow into her face. Then as she dropped off to sleep, lulled by the roar of the wind outside, she would wish that the snow might come softly and cover her out of sight, that she might sleep forever.

At other times, the thought of Charles brought a great longing to see him, and to hear his voice whisper, "My darling," once more, as he had that night when they stood for one blissful moment together in their room, before Betty called them. Then Dawn would go over all the happenings of the evening: the scene at the supper table, and every syllable that Madam Winthrop had uttered, up to the awful moment when the mother had hurled her accusations, and the truth had burst upon the young bride's heart in all its nakedness: that she was married out of generosity! Bitterness toward this woman was changing slowly into understanding. How was the mother to blame for what she had said? It was all true, except that she, Dawn, had not known it, and was therefore not to blame.

Then she began to wonder how it was that she could have been so deceived. She could not blame her mother-in-law for doubting her word, for would not she also doubt that a girl could be married to a man and think he was some other? Whose fault had it been? Not Charles's, for he had fully vindicated himself. She would sooner doubt herself than him. Could her father have known about it? Could he have wished her to be married to one whom she did not know, without even telling her? It was believable that he might have thought it of little importance to her, if he, her father, willed it so; yet while often treating her as if she were a chattel, without will of her own, he had ever been perfectly frank with her. She felt that he would have informed her of the change of bridegrooms, and not merely carried out his wishes without announcing it to her. She could scarcely believe he could think it would not matter to her. But after careful thought she was inclined to lay the deception at her stepmother's door, and she was not long in fathoming the true reason for it. Mrs. Van Rensselaer knew her unhappy state of mind, and probably feared that Dawn would rebel against being married.

To have her remain at home was the worst possible thing that could happen to her step-mother, Dawn knew, for from childhood she had been hated by the woman who had taken her outraged mother's place. It was all quite plain-all but one thing: how had Harrington Winthrop been turned aside from his purpose of marrying her? Had he done it of himself, or had her father found out something about him that he did not like, or had Charles managed it for her? And where was Harrington?

Would she ever meet him again? The thought took such hold upon her that it visited her in dreams and made her cry out in alarm as she sought to hide from his pursuing phantom.

After her experience with Silas Dobson, Daniel was ever vigilant, attending her to and from school, albeit seldom alone with her. He seemed to be entirely willing that his favorite followers should share his privileges of her company; and often there were several tiny girls, or older ones, in the triumphal procession going to and from the red school-house, taking "teacher" home. Daniel showed himself a gentle giant toward the little ones, too, picking them up when they fell down, wiping off the mud, and carrying them if they were tired. Dawn saw him daily growing more manly and kindly, and she felt proud of him.

Perhaps, some day, he might become something like Charles, though never quite so cultured, for he lacked the refined home training. But she realized more and more that he was a good boy and a great comfort to her. As for herself, she felt years older than he, and far beyond him in experience. She never dreamed how it was with him toward her. If she had, she might have given up in despair, and cried out that there was nothing good for her in the world.

So Daniel continued to guard her, and to watch the movements of Silas Dobson as a cat watches a mouse. If Silas had wished, he would have had no opportunity to repeat his troublesome attentions, for whenever he found himself in the neighborhood of where the teacher happened to be boarding, he was likely to notice Daniel in the immediate foreground.

So the long winter went pleasantly by. There were husking bees, quiltings, singing-school, and Lyceum nights. Dawn became a prominent partic.i.p.ant at all. In singing-school, no voice was so clear as hers, and she could take the high notes to the envy of every other soprano in the village. At the Lyceum her readings were more popular than any others.

In spite of her frequent loneliness, and her feeling of being cast off by all who should naturally protect her-though it was her own fault, of course, that she had run away, and she blamed no one-Dawn had never been quite so happy in her life. Her hours were pleasantly employed, she had friends who admired her, and she might do as she pleased. It opened a wide and interesting life before her. If only there had not been that ache as of something lost, that memory of her one beautiful day of love, which remained as a haunting vision, she would have felt herself blest beyond most girls. But all the time there was that sense of something wrong, that could not be set right; of a great mistake that might not ever be mended.

And then, one morning when a hint of spring was in the air, and the snow was all gone save lingering patches in dark corners and in shady hollows, and the sunshine was making everybody feel glad, she came face to face with Harrington Winthrop!

CHAPTER XXI

It was in front of the Golden Swan that she met Harrington. He was just coming down the steps, and must have arrived the night before.

He stopped suddenly, with the look in his eyes like a cat's when she spies a bird and, crouching, steals slowly nearer.

Dawn paused for just an instant, too, in wild dismay, having the instinct to flee, yet realizing that she must not, because the whole town would think it strange. She wished to have the power to pa.s.s him unrecognized, yet with sudden sinking of soul she knew that she had not.

His eye had met hers with recognition, and she must hold her position courageously. She wished she knew all the circ.u.mstances of his giving her up, and it flashed across her that she must not let him know that she was ignorant of them. He must have no advantage, for his strange power over her might crush her in spite of herself. Something tightened round her heart and gripped it like a vise as his cold calculating glance looked her over, and a cruel satisfaction settled about his hateful mouth.

Dawn gave a sort of gasp and started on, summoning all the spirit with which she had vanquished Silas Dobson, and wondering why she could not be as haughty and as brave now. The sight of Daniel's b.u.t.ter-nut clad shoulders in the distance, waiting at the corner with a group of other boys, gave her courage, but her face was white, and she felt her limbs trembling beneath her.

But Harrington Winthrop did not intend to let her slip through his fingers thus easily, now that he had found her, apparently far from her natural guardians. He of course knew nothing of her marriage with his brother.

He hastened down the steps with effusive manner and smiling countenance, and extended his hand in a warm greeting-if anything he ever did could be said to be actually warm.

"I did not expect this pleasure," he said in an oily voice, and with an impressive glance intended to convey deep emotion.

She drew back from the hand he offered, and wished she could take her eyes from his hateful ones, but she could not.

"Poor child!" he murmured in mock pity. "They have told you terrible untruths about me, and you have suffered and find it hard to forgive.

But, indeed, it was none of my fault. I will explain the whole matter, and we can still evade the enemies who are trying to part us, and be happy together."

Dawn shuddered!

"Where can we go that we shall not be interrupted? Suppose we walk in the woods?"

Dawn was filled with terror. She looked about wildly, and saw to her relief that Daniel, with his special bodyguard in the rear, was sauntering slowly toward her. His att.i.tude of protection gave her courage. He was watching the stranger with a curious suspicion. Had his intuition told him that she needed help? Daniel was but a few steps away.

She drew her breath in quickly, and spoke in a clear voice: