Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 21

"What is Hope Center like?" asked one of the girls. "It doesn't sound like a city."

"It's the country, farms mostly. North Hope is the real town part, and quite pretty, with stores, and churches, and a library, and a small but nice park."

"There's a lovely old park here. Everything is old. There are the oldest women you ever saw. One of them shook hands with Lafayette."

"And I've shaken hands with ever so many people and not a Lafayette or a Washington among them," declared Roxy most lugubriously.

"Now look, girls, would you hang this picture here?"

"I think it's rather dark. Bring it over here."

"Yes, that's better. No one asks Miss Grant to sit down."

"'No stars were shining in the sky-- There were no stars to shine.'

No chairs were idly standing round, In schools they never do abound,"

laughed Daisy Bell. "Miss Grant, sit on the bed. It won't break down."

"Oh, I don't mind," returned Helen.

"What I am to do with all these things!" moaned Daisy, glancing helplessly about.

"Miss Grant has begun sensibly. She did not cart a lot of truck away from home."

Helen had a mind to say humorously "There was no truck to cart," but two others began to talk at once, and she wondered how they could say such bright merry things. It seemed as if she had never seen real girls before.

Then Daisy finished up and they went down on the big back porch where chairs were plenty and hammocks were swung. Helen was introduced to another bevy of girls, some quite young ladies it seemed. They all went in to supper presently, and Helen found herself next to Daisy Bell. The six girls at this table were all young. Afterwards they went out of doors again and Miss Aldred joined them, welcoming several of the new arrivals personally. She had a very sweet face without being really pretty. She came over to Helen after a few moments and said in a low tone. "You are Mrs. Van Dorn's _protegee_. I hope you will be very happy among us."

"Oh, I am sure I shall," returned Helen.

At nine there was a hymn sung and a brief prayer. Then the girls dispersed, and at ten everybody was in bed.

CHAPTER X

BEGINNING ANEW

Helen went to her room, saying good-night to a group of girls. She crossed over to her window and stood there many minutes. Oh, a picture like this could never be painted. The moon had come up and the tree-tops were cl.u.s.ters of frosted jewels. Such little nooks of almost black shade, such translucent green where the branches were thin. And the meadows, and the far-off fields, the houses within range! Was she far away in some unknown region? Was this a book she had been reading and would she shut it up and find herself in Hope again?

There was such a sweetness and newness and beauty about it all, such a glow in her heart, speeding through every nerve at the wonderful happening. This lovely home, these pretty, merry girls, music, books, and a kind of living that filled and satisfied. Six months ago she was Helen Grant, was she really someone else now? She felt so, as if there had been some strange metamorphosis.

And that delightful, enchanting week in New York. Oh, how full of pleasure and happiness the world must be if a few little s.p.a.ces could contain so much! And that she could have a share in the real blessedness of it!

Was that the big clock striking the half hour? One was to stop reading or studying at that warning and prepare for bed. Dreaming too, tempting as the picture was.

Helen had always "said her prayers." A wonder as to the real virtue of this had occasionally crossed her mind. So far she had only known a religion of habit; like the other habits of life. To-night a new thought possessed her. Did she owe this simply to Mrs. Van Dorn? If all good and perfect things came from G.o.d then this that was so supremely delightful, so almost marvelous of its kind must have been put in the kindly heart by some higher power.

She was curiously awed. Uncle Jason and Aunt Jane were church members, but religion had very little power in their lives. Yet Aunt Jane brought up her children to be strictly honest, and any bald falsehood she truly believed she despised. But injustice or the refusal to see the other side of the question was not connected in her mind with truthfulness.

Like many other people the things she believed in and wanted, were right, not only for her, but others must be fitted to the measure. So Helen knew very little of the higher meaning of the word.

Mrs. Van Dorn paid a general outward respect to religion when she was with a certain kind of people, but she was of a sort of heathen who make G.o.ds for themselves. Her life was to be enjoyment now, since the early part of it had been hard and comfortless. If it had not been right, a form of reward for those dreary early years it would not have come to her. She thought it bad taste to array herself against beliefs that pervaded the world so largely. All sorts of disbelief coa.r.s.ened women.

She had listened to one great woman speaker who afterward became an Anarchist, and who even then denounced nearly all the moral precepts and attacked modern marriage, and was really shocked. She liked to keep what she called reverence for sacred things. And it pleased her to play Providence to people now and then, and impress it delicately on the recipients that they need look no farther than herself for the giver of their good.

But to-night Helen felt there was some power beyond, and she gave thanks sincerely to it. It was G.o.d who had made the world so full of beauty, it must be G.o.d who had put these n.o.ble and lovely desires in anyone's soul, so she went quite past Mrs. Van Dorn.

There were sweet and merry voices the next morning, but Helen had been up an hour or more looking over some poems in a choice selection.

Someone tapped at her door, and she opened it. Miss Mays stood there smiling.

"I suppose you feel a little queer, like the traditional cat in a strange garret. Come down with us."

"To-day is a kind of lawless, irresponsible time. I dote on it. We had lots of fun last year because we came on Friday. It was Daisy Bell's first year, too. You learn to-day what the rules are, but you don't have to keep them. It's a grace day when you are not forced to get your accounts straight."

Helen turned and wished her mates goodmorning, and thought within herself that it was a very pretty thing to say, since the morning was so good. Yet she had a curious feeling within her, as if she was here under some kind of false pretense. She was so utterly honest she would have enjoyed explaining her exact situation, that she was here on the bounty of a friend, and not as these other girls who came from delightful homes, and had fathers to care for them.

Mrs. Aldred summoned Helen to her room. Occasionally this was not a pleasant call to make, but this morning it had no such signification.

All new pupils underwent this examination. Where she had been trained, what she had studied, and what her aims were, if she had any.

Mrs. Van Dorn had explained pretty clearly, and she had also said, "Don't spoil a very nice, honest girl by setting her up too high."

"What I would like to do most of all?" and Helen's eyes lighted with enthusiasm. "I think it would be to teach, because then you always go on learning. There are some things that girls and women do that seem to make you stop off short, turn you into another channel entirely," and she thought of the shoe factory and how narrowly she had escaped that.

Mrs. Van Dorn had been quite as non-commital with her _protegee_ then, or had no real plans for her.

"Now let me hear what you have studied."

Helen went over the list and told of her High School examination and how she had pa.s.sed. There was a girlish pride in it, of course, but no undue elation. Mrs. Aldred was much pleased with the absence of self-consciousness, the real delight in knowledge.

"You are very well grounded. Mrs. 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."

What a frank, honest girl she was! How little she knew about the world!

An astute person could turn her inside out and laugh at her innocence.

It was a pity to spoil it, yet it would be worse to leave her at the mercy of a crowd of girls.

"This will be an entirely new experience for you," Mrs. Aldred began gently. "You have had very little acquaintance with the real world, and very little need to be on your guard. As one's sphere grows wider and more people come into it, there is occasion for"--how should she put it--judgment; no, that was not quite it; at this stage of a girl's life she was not likely to have a very correct judgment; "a little caution and reserve. Girls so often exchange confidences about their lives and their friends, and do not always look at things just as they are.

Afterward they regret their unreserve."

Helen had been taking in every word, only she could not get the meaning of it, except that it seemed to her confused sense akin to her thoughts of an hour ago. She really studied the face before her, and Mrs. Aldred felt the scrutiny. How could she make the girl understand just what she meant? If Mrs. Van Dorn had been a little more explicit. If she were having the girl educated solely for herself the explanation would be easy enough.