Little Grandmother Part 12

The like had never been heard of in the town of Perseverance that a school should rise against its teacher.

"I am going straight to your father to inform him of your conduct," he stammered, his face white with wrath.

And seizing his hat, he rushed out of the house, without stopping for his cloak.

I will not try to describe the uproar which followed. I will only say that William Parlin was afterwards reproved by his father for his rash conduct, but not so severely as some people thought he should have been.

Mr. Purple's red head was never seen in that school-house again. Another teacher came to take his place, who was a Christian gentleman, and treated the little children like human beings.

No one was more glad of the change than Patty Lyman. The new master came to town before her tender palm was quite healed from the cruel blows; and she was the first to see him. But the meeting happened in such a queer way, that I shall have to tell you about it.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LITTLE DIPPER.

"Well, mother," said Squire Lyman, one afternoon, "the new teacher has got along, and by the looks of him I don't believe he is the man to abuse our little girl. Patty, dear, open the cellar door for papa."

Mr. Lyman's arms were full of hemlock, which he had brought home from the woods. Betsy liked it for brooms, and he and his hired men always got quant.i.ties of it when they were hauling the winter's wood from the wood lot.

"Yes, I know the Starbird family very well," replied Mrs. Lyman; "that is, I used to know this young man's mother, and I presume he is quite different from Mr. Purple."

Mrs. Lyman was sitting before the kitchen fire with the great family Bible in her lap; but, instead of reading it, she was winding round it some white soft wicking.

"Why, mamma, mamma, what are you doing?" exclaimed Patty. "How can papa read to-night with the Bible all tied up?"

"I shan't hurt the good book, my dear." And as Mrs. Lyman spoke she cut the wicking in two with the shears, and as it fell apart it let out the precious volume just as good as ever. Then she took from the table some slender sticks, and put on each stick twelve pieces of wicking, giving each piece a little twist with her fingers.

"O, now I know," said Moses, who was watching too; "you're a goin' to make candles--going to dip those strings in a kettle of something hot.

Yes, I know."

"Yes, and there's the kettle," said Patty.

Mrs. Lyman was very late this year about her candles. She dipped them once a year, and always in the afternoon and evening, because there was so much, so very much going on in that kitchen in the morning.

"Now, please, mamma," said Patty, "let me help."

Mrs. Lyman tipped two chairs face downward towards the floor,--"Like folks trying to creep," said Patty,--and laid two long sticks from one chair to the other, making a very good fence. Next she set the candle rods across the fence, more than a hundred of them in straight rows.

"James," called she, going to the door; and while James was coming she laid a large plank on the floor right under the candle rods.

"That's to catch the drippings," said the learned Moses; and he was right.

Squire Lyman and James came in and lifted the heavy bra.s.s kettle from the crane, and placed it on a board just in front of the brick hearth, not far from the creeping chairs; and then Mrs. Lyman sat down to dip candles.

In the first place, when she put the pieces of wicking into the kettle of hot tallow and took them out again, they looked like greasy strings, and nothing else. One after another she dipped them in and drew them out, dipped them in and drew them out, and set them carefully back in their places across the fence.

Patty and Moses looked on with great Interest.

"How slow they are!" said Moses. "I've kept count, and you've dipped more'n a hundred sticks, and you haven't made one candle yet."

"Rome wasn't built in a day," said Mrs. Lyman, going back to the very beginning, and dipping the first row over again.

"I don't know what Rome is," said Patty.

"Well, I wouldn't fuss with those strings," observed Moses; "why, this makes twice, and they're no bigger round yet than slate pencils."

"I'd let 'em alone," said Patty, "and not try."

"Moses, you might as well run off and see if father wants you," said Mrs. Lyman; "and, Patience, I know Dorcas would like some cloves pounded."

In about an hour Patty was back again. The candles had grown, but only a very little. They were no larger yet than _lead_ pencils. And there sat Mrs. Lyman with a steady, sober look on her face, as if she had made up her mind to wait and let them take their time to grow.

"What slow candles!" cried Patty.

"Patience, dear," said Mrs. Lyman, smiling.

"There, mamma, you said Patience, but you didn't mean me; you meant the _good_ kind of patience."

"Yes, I meant the patience that works and waits. Now go and wash some potatoes for to-morrow's breakfast, and then you may come again and look."

"When Patty came the second time, she exclaimed, with delight,

"O, mamma, they're as big round as candy! Wish _'twas_ candy; wouldn't I eat?"

Mrs. Lyman began again at the first row.

"Why, mamma Lyman, true's you live I can begin to see 'em grow!"

"You are right," said her mother. "People don't work and wait, all for nothing, daughter."

"Yankee Doodle came to town," sang Patty, dancing the time to the tune, as if she did not hear her mother's words. But she did hear them, and was putting them away in her memory, along with a thousand other things which had been said to her, and which she had not seemed to hear at the time.

I wish Mrs. Lyman could have known this, for she sometimes thought it was of no use to talk to Patty. I wish she could have known that years afterwards the dancing child would be comforted in many a trouble by these cheery words, "People don't work and wait for nothing, daughter."

For you see it all came back to Patty when she was a woman. She saw a picture of her good mother dipping candles, with a steady, sober look on her face; and that picture always did her good.

I wonder if the little folks, even in these days, don't hear and heed more than they appear to? If so, their mammas ought to believe it, and take courage.

"Mother, why do you pour hot water into that kettle? Won't water _put out_ candles?"

"Perhaps not; perhaps it will make the tallow rise to the top," said Mrs. Lyman, laughing.

"O, so it does. Isn't it _such_ fun to dip candles? They grow as fast as you can wink. Mayn't I dip, please, mamma?"

"Who was it," replied Mrs. Lyman, with a quiet smile, "that said, 'I'd let 'em alone, and not try?'"