Fran Part 13

"See that, now!"

"--Because Fran won't get her lessons, being contrary--"

"I wish you could have seen her whistling at me, that night."

"Hold on. So this very evening Miss Bull is going to send her down to Abbott's office to be punished, or dismissed. This very evening he wants me to be over there while he takes her in hand."

"Abbott is going to punish that girl?" cried Miss Sapphira; "going to take her in hand? What do you mean by 'taking her in hand'? She is too old! Robert, you make me blush."

"You ain't a-blushing, Sapphira," her brother a.s.sured her, good- naturedly, "you're suffering from the hot weather. Yes, he's to punish her at four o'clock, and I'm to be present, to stop all this confoun-- I mean this unG.o.dly gossip."

"You'd better wear your spectacles, Bob, so you'll look old and settled. I'm not always sure of you, either."

"Sapphira, if I hadn't joined the church, I'd say--" He threw up his hand and clenched his fist as if he had caught an oath and meant to hold it tight. Then his honest face beamed. "See here, I've got an idea. Suppose you make it a point to be sitting out here on the veranda at about half-past four, or five. You'll see Fran come sneaking out of that door like a whipped kitten. She'll look everlastingly wilted. I don't know whether Abbott will stuff her full of fractions and geography, or make her stand in a corner--but you'll see her wilted."

Miss Sapphira was highly gratified. "I wish you'd talked this reasonable at first. It's always what people _don't_ see that the most harm comes of. I'll give a little tea out here on the veranda, and the worst talkers in town will be in these chairs when you bring Fran away from Abbott's office. And I'll explain it all to 'em, and they'll _know_ Abbott is all right, just as I've always known."

"Get Miss Grace to come," Bob said sheepishly. "She doesn't like Fran, and she'll be glad to know Abbott is doing his duty by her.

Later, I'll drop in and have a bite with you."

This, then, was Bob's "idea", that no stone might be left unturned to hide the perfect innocence of the superintendent. He had known Abbott Ashton as a bare-legged urchin running on errands for his widowed mother. He had watched him through studious years, had believed in his future career--and now, no bold adventuress, though adopted into Hamilton Gregory's home, should be allowed to spoil Abbott's chances of success.

The chairman of the school-board had talked confidentially with Grace Noir, and found her as convinced that Fran was a degenerate as was Bob that Grace was an angel. As he went to the appointment, he was thinking not so much of the culprit Fran, as of Grace--what a mouth, what a foot! If all saints were as beautiful as she, religion would surely be the most popular thing on earth.

In his official character as chairman of the board, Robert Clinton marched with dignity into the superintendent's office, meaning to bear away the wilted Fran before the eyes of woman. Abbott Ashton saw him enter with a sense of relief. The young man could not understand why he had held Fran's hand, that night on the foot-bridge. Not only had the sentiment of that hour pa.s.sed away, but the interview Fran had forced upon him at the close of a recent school-day, had inspired him with actual hostility. It seemed the irony of fate that a mere child, a stranger, should, because of senseless gossip, endanger his chances of reappointment--a reappointment which he felt certain was the best possible means of advancement. Why had he held Fran's little hand? He had never dreamed of holding Grace's--ah, there was a hand, indeed!

"Has she been sent down?" Bob asked, in the hoa.r.s.e undertone of a fellow-conspirator.

"No." Abbott was eager to prove his innocence. "I haven't seen a sign of her, but I'm looking every minute--glad you're here."

Confidences were impracticable, because of a tousled-headed, ink- stained pupil who gloomed in a corner.

"Why, h.e.l.lo there, Jakey!" cried Clinton, disconcerted; he had hoped that Fran's subjugation might take place without witnesses. "What are _you_ doing here, hey?"

"Waitin' to be whirped," was the defiant rejoinder.

"Tell the professor you're sorry for what you've done, so you can run along," said the chairman of the board persuasively.

"Naw, I ain't sorry," returned Jakey, hands in pockets. Then bethinking himself--"But I ain't done nothin'."

Abbott said regretfully, "He'll have to be whipped."

Clinton nodded, and sat down solemnly, breathing hard. Abbott was restlessly pacing the floor, and Bob was staring at him unwinkingly, when the door opened and in came Fran.

Abbott frowned heavily, but the wrinkles in his brow could not mar the attractiveness of his handsome young face. He was too fine looking, the chairman reflected uneasily, for his duties. His figure was too athletic, his features too suggestive of aristocratic tastes and traditions. Clinton wished he would thrust a pen behind his ear. As for himself, after one brief glance at Fran, he fumbled for his spectacles.

Fran walked up to Abbott hesitatingly, and spoke with the indistinctness of awed humility. "You are to punish me," she explained, "by making me work out this original proposition"--showing the book--"and you are to keep me here till I get it."

Abbott asked sternly, "Did Miss Bull send me this message?"

"She is named that," Fran murmured, her eyes fastened on the open page.

From the yard came the shouts of children, breaking the bonds of learning for a wider freedom. Abbott, gazing severely on this slip of a girl, found her decidedly commonplace in appearance. How the moonlight must have bewitched him! Her rebellious hair hung over her face like a s.h.a.ggy mane--what a small creature to be dressed as a woman, and how ridiculous that the skirts should reach even to her ankles! It had not been so, on the night of destiny. He preferred the shorter dress, but neither she nor her attire was anything to him. He rejoiced that Robert Clinton was there to witness his indifference.

"This is the problem," Fran said, with exceeding primness, p.r.o.nouncing the word as if it were too large for her, and holding up the book with a slender finger placed upon certain italicized words.

"Let me see it," said Abbott, with professional dryness. He grasped the book to read the proposition. His hand was against hers, but she did not draw away, for had she done so, how could he have found the place?

Fran, with uplifted eyes, spoke in the plaintive accents of a five- year-old child: "Right there, sir...it's awful hard."

Robert Clinton cleared his throat and produced a sound bursting with acc.u.mulated _h's_ and _r's_--his warning pa.s.sed unheeded.

Never before had Abbott had so much of Fran. The capillaries of his skin, as her hand quivered warmly against his, seemed drawing her in; and as she escaped from her splendid black orbs, she entered his brain by the avenue of his own thirsty eyes. What was the use to tell himself that she was commonplace, that his position was in danger because of her? Suddenly her hair no longer reminded him of the flying mane of a Shetland pony; it fell slantwise past the corners of her eyes, making a triangle of smooth white skin to the roots of the hair, and it seemed good, just because it was Fran's way and not after a machine-turned fashion; Fran was done by hand, there was no doubt of that.

"Sit there," Abbott said, gravely pointing. She obeyed without a word, leaving the geometry as hostage in the teacher's hand. When seated at a discreet distance, she looked over at Bob Clinton. He hastily drew on his spectacles, that he might look old.

Abbott volunteered, "This is Mr. Clinton, President of the Board."

"I know," said Fran, staring at her pencil and paper, "he's at the head of the show, and watches when the wild animals are tamed."

Clinton drew forth a newspaper, and opened it deliberately.

Fran scribbled for some time, then looked over at him again. "Did you get it?" she asked, with mild interest.

"Did I get--_what?"_ he returned, with puzzled frown.

"Oh, I don't know what it is," said Fran with humility; "the name of it's 'Religion'."

"If I were you," Clinton returned, flushing, "I'd be ashamed to refer to the night you disgraced yourself by laughing in the tent."

"Fran," Abbott interposed severely, "attend to your work."

Fran bent her head over the desk, but was not long silent. "I don't like _a-b-c_ and _d-e-f,_" she observed with more energy than she had hitherto displayed. "They're equal to each other, but I don't know why, and I don't care, because it doesn't seem to matter. Nothing interests me unless it has something to do with living. I don't care how far Mars is from the earth--if it was next door, I wouldn't want to leave home. These angles and lines are nothing to me; what I care for is this time I'm wasting, sitting in a stuffy old room, while the good big world is enjoying itself just outside the window." She started up impetuously.

"Sit down!" Abbott commanded.

"Fran!" exclaimed Robert Clinton, stamping his foot, _"sit down!"_

Fran sank back upon the bench.

"I suspect," said Abbott mildly, "that they have put you in cla.s.ses too far advanced. We must try you in another room--"

"But I don't want to be tried in rooms," Fran explained, "I want to be tried in acts--deeds. Until I came here, I'd never been to school a day in my life," she went on in a confidential tone." I agreed to attend because I imagined school ought to have some connection with life--something in it mixed up with love and friendship and justice and mercy. Wasn't I silly! I even believed--just fancy!--that you might really teach me something about religion. But, no! it's all books, nothing but books."

"Fran," Abbott reasoned, "if we put you in a room where you can understand the things we try to teach, if we make you thorough--"

"I don't want to be thorough," she explained, "I want to be happy. I guess all that schools were meant to do is to teach folks what's in books, and how to stand in a straight line. The children in Cla.s.s A, or Cla.s.s B have their minds sheared and pruned to look alike; but I don't want my brain after anybody's pattern."