The Chronicles of Rhoda Part 25

"I wish I was dead," she would say, despairingly. "I do! I do!"

Cebelia was more stoical; but she would fold great pleats in her ap.r.o.n, and frown at the blackboard. Miss Lucy always wrote the subjects for the compositions on the blackboard, one under the other, beautifully written out for our decision.

The Story of a Nine-pin.

Thoughts on Spring.

The Triumph of Columbus.

My Mother's Flower Garden.

A Meadow Daisy.

The Beauty of Truth.

They were lovely, lovely subjects! I would sit and look at them in a blissful dream.

One day, the very first composition day, I remember Grace gave me a little shake.

"Which one are you going to take?" she demanded, dolefully.

"I don't know," I answered, with a happy smile.

"Girls," Grace cried, "I believe Rhoda could write them _all_! She likes to write!"

Miss Lucy was out of the room, and I remember that they all came around me, and looked at me, as if I had been a strange animal.

"Rhoda," Janet McLarin cried, taking her head out of her lap, "if you'll write my composition for me I'll give you my best blue hair ribbon. My Sunday one. Honest."

I didn't want the hair ribbon; but I nodded at her.

"I'll write it," I said.

"Will you write me one, Rhoda, dear?" Grace asked, jealously, with her face against mine. "You are _my_ friend, not hers."

"I'll write yours, too," I agreed.

"And one for me?"

"And for me?"

I nodded at them, generously.

"I'll write one for everybody," I declared, with a glow of pleasure.

"But don't tell anyone," Janet cautioned.

I couldn't understand why she insisted on making a secret of it. It seemed so strange. But I promised to tell no one, not even my own mother.

We always had two days in which to write our compositions. I did ten in that time. I wrote them out roughly on great sheets of wrapping paper. I wrote them up in the garret by the window where the wasps lived, and I had such a grand time that I never noticed the wasps at all; but went on and on finding something new to say every minute, and loving to say it.

Only it was hard when the sentences happened to come out beautifully not to be able to show them to my mother. But I had promised. However, the very best composition of all was to be my own, and that I might show to her. I remember it was on "The Beauty of Truth."

"It's very nice," my mother said, when it was put in her hand.

"It's--it's almost like a sermon!"

She looked at the composition, with an odd smile of pleasure, and then she drew me to her and kissed me fondly.

"I think Rhoda would make a fine wife for a minister," I heard her tell my father, excitedly. "She's got so much natural piety!"

I was very happy that morning as I went to school. I carried my roll of wrapping paper under my arm, and when I reached Mrs. Garfield's I divided the compositions among the girls, so that they might each copy her own. Afterwards they were all handed up to Miss Lucy and school began.

Miss Lucy took a long time over the compositions. She read them and read them. She looked astonished, and, also, a trifle pleased. At last she gathered them all up in a bundle, and went out of the room. It was very quiet in the room. Every little girl sat at her desk and studied very busily. All except Janet McLarin. She opened the side window and climbed out. The last we could see of her was her bright hair vanishing around the corner with a rush. Then we could hear the sound of Miss Lucy's stout boots coming along the hall, and a swish of silk beside her.

"She's bringing Mrs. Garfield!" Grace whispered, horror-stricken.

Up to that time I had not been frightened, for there was nothing to be frightened about; but fear is contagious, and somehow I began to be scared myself.

Mrs. Garfield stood up in front of us with a roll of papers in her hand.

"Young ladies," she began, "I have something very serious to say to you, something which it gives me great pain to say. Your compositions have come in this morning, and your teacher has been surprised at them. She has referred the matter to me. I in my turn have been surprised."

She paused. The room was very, very still.

"I find myself driven to the conclusion that not one of these compositions has been written by a member of this cla.s.s. They have been written by somebody else. They have been written by an outsider. I demand to know who has written them."

I felt very funny inside my breast. My eyes were full of tears. I looked at Mrs. Garfield standing up there, very severe, and somewhat angry, and at Miss Lucy beside her, with a bewildered expression. I looked at rows of pale little girls at their desks. I looked at Grace. Oh, it was cruel, cruel! They had never told me that I was doing wrong. I had loved them so, and given them my best, and they had all betrayed me! Even Grace! Then I thought of "The Beauty of Truth." I rose up from my seat.

"I did it, Mrs. Garfield," I confessed, brokenly. "I wrote them myself."

Then I cried, my heart breaking inside of me.

There was a rustle at the next desk.

"It isn't Rhoda's fault," Grace's voice exclaimed. "She wrote them, but we asked her to. We are all bad, just as bad as she is. And Janet McLarin who has gone out of the window is the worst of us all!"

If fear is contagious, so is confession. There was a perfect storm of tearful explanations and excuses. They all told Mrs. Garfield how it had been done, and they showed her the wrapping paper. One little girl offered me a piece of chewing gum quite openly to comfort me, and Miss Lucy dried my eyes on her own pocket-handkerchief.

All that Mrs. Garfield said was, "Well!"

But she said it with an air of astonishment.

Afterwards she called me into her own private sanctum, the place where people went to be scolded, and felt the b.u.mps on my forehead.

"Child," she said, "you have great originality. The region of sublimity is large. So is that of humor. I predict a future for you. I do, indeed.

Do you understand what I mean?"

"No, ma'am," I answered, timidly.

"I mean that some day you will write greater things than these wrapping paper compositions. I mean that with hard work, hard work, mind you, you may write books. You may become an _auth.o.r.ess_!"

She shook hands with me quite seriously when I went away as though with an equal. The next moment she called me back, and kissed me, holding me close to her silk breast.

"You have talent, dear child," she said. "I will develop it. I will watch over you. Some day there will be books!"