Dawn of the Morning Part 29

"I have no time to talk with any one at present. I am on my way to school, and shall be busy until late in the afternoon. I am a teacher."

She drew herself up with dignity, and he realized that she was not the simple child he had seen last, but a woman with an independence of her own.

"Dismiss your school," he said in the voice he was used to having obeyed. "I cannot possibly wait until this afternoon. I must talk with you at once. I don't intend to let you slip through my fingers so easily, now that I have found you, my pretty lady." He smiled, but there was a sinister menace in his voice.

"It is impossible to dismiss school," said Dawn decidedly. "I should lose my position if I did a thing like that. Besides, I do not wish to talk with you. There is nothing to talk about."

"There is everything to talk about," said the man, a fierce light coming into his eyes. "They have told you lies about me, and taken you away from me, but I mean to have you in spite of them. I will explain to you all about that poor woman. She was never my wife at all. Come, let the school take care of itself. You will have no further need of it. You belong to me, and I will take care of you. Come with me!"

The last word was a command, and with it he took hold of her shoulder almost roughly and attempted to turn her round.

At once there was a low growl behind his heels, and Daniel b.u.t.terworth's dog took hold of the calf of his leg as if he too would say, "Come with me!"

Harrington promptly let go of Dawn, who took advantage of her freedom and fairly flew down the street, leaving Daniel to settle up matters between his dog and the stranger, in whose frightened antics the boy was secretly taking deep delight. When Dawn had turned the corner and was out of sight, Dan called the dog off. Then Harrington Winthrop discovered that his lady had departed. Before that time he had been otherwise occupied.

Angry, baffled, and exhausted, he was in nowise attractive. An interested group of boys and one or two little girls who had torn themselves away from the teacher's side encircled him. Dan looked at him in quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, and then called his dog and betook himself to school. Most of the group followed him, with reluctant glances back at the dishevelled stranger. One little girl lingered, eying him wonderingly, and twisting her ap.r.o.n-strings.

"Where is your school-house, little girl?" asked Harrington sharply.

The child felt compelled to answer.

"Round that there corner over there, and down the road a good piece."

Harrington glanced after the boys and the dog uncertainly. Did the dog go to school also?

"Where does your teacher board?" he asked again.

"She's boardin' round, an' it's Ann Peabody's turn this week. She's got a boy what's blind in one eye."

"Ah! Indeed! That's a pity. Where does Ann Peabody live?"

"Next door but one to the church. The house with Johnny-jump-ups by the gate, an' a laylock bush by the stoop."

"Thank you. Now tell me what time your school lets out, that's a little lady."

"It don't let out till four o'clock-but it'll be took up 'fore I get there if I don't hurry."

She took to her heels forthwith, and Harrington Winthrop limped up the steps of the Golden Swan to repair damages and consider his next line of procedure.

When Dawn arrived at the school-house she was almost too frightened to stop. It was late, and most of the scholars were there. They trooped gladly in after her. She had made school for them a kind of all-day picnic, and they were eager to begin it. Even after she had hung up her bonnet and cape, and opened the high lid of her desk, her heart was beating like a trip-hammer. Now and then she looked apprehensively toward the door, and was rea.s.sured when at last she saw Daniel saunter in with a comfortable smile on his face, while the dog took up his station on the door-step. Rags often came to school. It was a part of his privilege to guard the teacher, and he felt he had earned a morning session by his gallantry in defending her against the rude stranger who had dared to lay hands upon her. He sat down comfortably just inside the school-room door, his forepaws hanging over the step, but he kept his head erect. With his nose on his paws and one eye closed, not once during the morning did he relax. He felt that there was further trouble to be expected, and he must be ready.

Dawn smiled, albeit with trembling lips, and set about the morning's routine; but her mind was troubled, and she kept starting and glancing uneasily toward the door. Daniel saw this, and grew grave with apprehension. What had the stranger to do with the teacher, and why did she seem to be so uneasy? Had he some power over her? She certainly did not look happy when he had laid his hand upon her arm, just before he, Dan, had given that low signal to Rags. She couldn't have liked the stranger to be there, or she would not have run away when she got the chance.

At recess she made Daniel happy by calling him to the desk and in a low tone thanking him for helping her. She did not explain further than to say that the man was an old acquaintance whom she did not like. Daniel understood him to be in the same cla.s.s with Silas Dobson.

During the morning session of school Dawn's mind was in a whirl, trying to think what she should do. She dreaded the coming of the afternoon, when school would close, and she must go back to Mrs. Peabody's house.

Winthrop would certainly search her out. It had been a great mistake to let him know she was the school-teacher, for though he did not know her a.s.sumed name he could easily find her now. She dreaded any encounter with him. A frenzy of fear had taken possession of her.

As the morning went on, she tried to make some plan for escape. No longer was it safe in this vicinity. She must get away and hide from him. Where? Could she ever hope to evade a man who spent his entire time travelling over the earth? He had the a.s.surance of the devil himself, and it was almost hopeless to try to get beyond his grasp.

Nevertheless, she must go.

The reading cla.s.s which recited just before the noon-hour stumbled on its way for once without correction, while Dawn planned her next pitiful move.

At noon she sent one of the older girls to Mrs. Peabody's, to get her bag and a few little things that were lying about the room. She usually kept everything neatly packed in a large bag she had made-everything except her silk dress, which was hung on a nail. This the girl promised to fold nicely and put into the bag. She was to tell Mrs. Peabody that Dawn had decided to go a day before the time was up, and to thank the lady for all her kindness, and say Dawn was sorry she could not very well leave to explain it herself. The girl felt honored by the commission, and performed it to the letter, wishing the while that she knew where Teacher was going a day ahead of time, and resolving to ask her mother to invite the teacher to come to their house ahead of time, too.

Rags took up his station on the school-house steps again for the afternoon session, having been abundantly fed from the generous dinner-pails, on apple-pie, doughnuts, and chicken bones. Rags felt it in the air that something was going to happen, but nothing did, and four o'clock came at last.

Dawn had made the scholars write in their copy-books during the last hour of the afternoon. "Command you may your mind from play," straggled up and down a whole page in many of the books, while blots grew thick among the words, but no teacher wandered alertly up and down the aisles to watch and to correct; sometimes-oh, blessed honor!-to sit down and hold the quill pen, or, better still, take the dirty little fist of the writer into her own pink hand and guide the writing. The teacher sat behind a raised desk-lid, diligently writing, and took no heed of notes, or whittling, or even paper b.a.l.l.s. Daniel b.u.t.terworth finally took Bug Higginson by the collar and stood him up behind the stove, but still the teacher wrote on.

It was a letter to the minister she was writing, and her young breast heaved with mingled emotions is she wrote. It was hard to have to leave this first school, where she had been so happy, and where she could still be so happy if she only had some one to protect her from the man who would probably haunt her through life. She had felt that she must make some brief explanation of her departure to the kind old man who had trusted her, and upon whom it would fall to explain her absence.

DEAR DR. MERCER [she wrote]:

You have been so very kind to me that it gives me much sorrow to tell you that I must go away. Something has happened that makes it necessary for me to go away at once. I cannot even wait to say good-by to you or any one else. I am so sorry, for I have been very happy here, and I have tried to do my best; and there is the singing-school this week, and the barn-raising where I promised to read them a story after supper, and my dear school! I love them all! Will you please tell everybody how sorry I am to go away like this? You have all been so good to me, and I shall never find a place I love so much as this, I am sure, but I truly cannot help going. If you knew all about it, you would understand.

Please thank Mrs. Mercer for the pretty collar she gave me that belonged to your daughter, and tell her I will keep it always. I am sorry to leave you without a teacher, but there is almost a month's pay due me, and perhaps that will help you to get some one right away. So please forgive me for leaving the school just as it was when I got it. I love it, and wish I could stay.

Yours very gratefully, MARY MONTGOMERY.

After folding, addressing, and sealing this letter, she closed her desk; then with sudden thought, as she caught Daniel's troubled eyes upon her, she opened it again and wrote hastily:

DEAR DANIEL:

I am having to go away in a great hurry. I cannot say good-by to anybody, but I must thank you for all you have done for me. I thank you more than words can ever tell. You cannot know how hard it is for me to go away from the school. Please study hard and try to be a good boy and then some day, when I hear of what a great man you are, I shall be so proud to have been your teacher. Go to college, Daniel, and be as great a man as you can, and don't forget that you have helped me very, very much ever since I came here.

YOUR GRATEFUL TEACHER.

Her hand trembled as she sealed this other note. She closed the desk hastily and glanced at the clock. It was one minute after closing time.

Bug Higginson was decorating the stove with a caricature of one of the selectmen. It all looked so homely and familiar and dear, and she was to see it no more! The tears sprang to her eyes, and she could scarcely control her voice to dismiss the school. She shook her head and tried to smile when the girls asked if they might wait for her to walk home, telling them she must stay a little while, that she had something to do.

They all filed out save Daniel, who sat quietly in his seat, watching her with sad, puzzled eyes. Daniel had seen the glint of a tear as she looked at them.

"Aren't you going home to-night, Daniel?" she asked. She was dreading momentarily the approach of Harrington Winthrop. She seemed to know he would come to walk home with her. So did Rags, who sat very stiff and straight on the door-step, with bristling ears and eyes alert.

"Don't you want I should stay?" asked Daniel, and his eyes hinted that he understood she was in trouble.

"Oh, no, thank you, Daniel," she said, trying to make her voice sound cheery and natural, but somehow it broke into almost a sob.

Daniel eyed her curiously for a moment, and then got up slowly from his desk and went out. He gave Rags a look as he pa.s.sed. The boy and the dog thoroughly understood each other. Rags did not stir. Daniel went down the path and out to the road; then down the road a few paces, after which he climbed the fence back into the school-yard. Then he walked over to a log behind the school-house and sat down where he could watch the road to the village.

As soon as he was gone, Dawn looked about her, caught her breath a moment, and seemed to bid good-by to all the childish forms that had but a few minutes before occupied the now empty benches. Then, spying Rags still sitting in the doorway, she took the note she had written to Daniel and, going over to the dog, tied it around his neck with a bit of string. Rags got up and wagged his tail, glancing eagerly at her, then back to the road again.

Dawn patted him lovingly.

"Take that note to Dan, Rags," she commanded.