There was much doing that winter in the Linley district. They werea month getting ready for the school "exhibition." Every home inthe valley and up Cedar Hill rang with loud declamations. Theimpassioned utterances of James Otis, Daniel Webster, and PatrickHenry were heard in house, and field, and stable. Every eveningwomen were busy making costumes for a play, while the youngrehearsed their parts. Polly Vaughn, editor of a paper to be readthat evening, searched the countryside for literary talent. Shefound a young married woman, who had spent a year in the StateNormal School, and who put her learning at the service of Polly, ina composition treating the subject of intemperance. Miss BetseyLeech sent in what she called "a piece" entitled "Home." Polly,herself, wrote an editorial on "Our Teacher," and there was hemmingand hawing when she read it, declaring they all had learned much,even to love him. Her mother helped her with the alphabeticalrhymes, each a couplet of sentimental history, as, for example:--
"A is for Alson, a jolly young man, He'll marry Miss Betsey, they say, if he can."
They trimmed the little schoolhouse with evergreen and erected asmall stage, where the teacher's desk had been. Sheets were hung,for curtains, on a ten-foot rod.
A while after dark one could hear a sound of sleigh-bells in thedistance. Away on drifted pike and crossroad the bells began tofling their music. It seemed to come in rippling streams of soundthrough the still air, each with its own voice. In half an hourcountless echoes filled the space between them, and all were as onechorus, wherein, as it came near, one could distinguish song andlaughter.
Young people from afar came in cutters and by the sleigh load;those who lived near, afoot with lanterns. They were a merrycompany, crowding the schoolhouse, laughing and whispering as theywaited for the first exhibit. Trove called them to order and madea few remarks.
"Remember," said he, "this is not our exhibition. It is only asort of preparation for one we have planned. In about twenty yearsthe Linley School is to give an exhibition worth seeing. It willbe, I believe, an exhibition of happiness, ability, and success onthe great stage of the world. Then I hope to have on the programmespeeches in Congress, in the pulpit, and at the bar. You shall seein that play, if I mistake not, homes full of love and honour, menand women of fair fame. It may be you shall see, then, some whosenames are known and honoured of all men."
Each performer quaked with fear, and both sympathy and approvalwere in the applause. Miss Polly Vaughn was a rare picture ofrustic beauty, her cheeks as red as her ribbons, her voice low andsweet. Trove came out in the audience for a look at her as sheread. Ringing salvos of laughter greeted the play and stirred thesleigh-bells on the startled horses beyond the door. The programmeover, somebody called for Squire Town, a local pettifogger, whoflung his soul and body into every cause. He often sored hisknuckles on the court table and racked his frame with the violenceof his rhetoric. He had a stock of impassioned remarks ready forall occasions.
He rose, walked to the centre of the stage, looked sternly at thepeople, and addressed them as "Fellow Citizens." He belaboured thesmall table; he rose on tiptoe and fell upon his heels; often heseemed to fling his words with a rapid jerk of his right arm as onehurls a pebble. It was all in praise of his "young friend," theteacher, and the high talent of Linley School.
The exhibition ended with this rare exhibit of eloquence. Troveannounced the organization of a singing-school for Monday eveningof the next week, and then suppressed emotion burst into noise.The Linley school-house had become as a fount of merry sound in thestill night; then the loud chorus of the bells, diminishing as theywent away, and breaking into streams of music and dying faint inthe far woodland.
One Nelson Cartright--a jack of all trades they called him--was thesinging-master. He was noted far and wide for song and penmanship.Every year his intricate flourishes in black and white were onexhibition at the county fair.
"Wal, sir," men used to say thoughtfully, "ye wouldn't think heknew beans. Why, he's got a fist bigger'n a ham. But I tell ye,let him take a pen, sir, and he'll draw a deer so nat'ral, sir,ye'd swear he could jump over a six-rail fence. Why, it iswonderful!"
Every winter he taught the arts of song and penmanship in the fourdistricts from Jericho to Cedar Hill. He sang a roaring bass andbeat the time with dignity and precision. For weeks he drilled theclass on a bit of lyric melody, of which a passage is here given:--
"One, two, three, ready, sing," he would say, his ruler cutting theair, and all began:--
Listen to the bird, and the maid, and the bumblebee, Tra, la la la la, tra, la la la la, Joyfully we'll sing the gladsome melody, Tra, la, la, la, la.
The singing-school added little to the knowledge or thecheerfulness of that neighbourhood. It came to an end the last dayof the winter term. As usual, Trove went home with Polly. It wasa cold night, and as the crowd left them at the corners he put hisarm around her.
"School is over," said she, with a sigh, "and I'm sorry."
"For me?" he inquired.
"For myself," she answered, looking down at the snowy path.
There came a little silence crowded with happy thoughts.
"At first, I thought you very dreadful," she went on, looking up athim with a smile. He could see her sweet face in the moonlight andwas tempted to kiss it.
"Why?"
"You were so terrible," she answered. "Poor Joe Beach! It seemedas if he would go through the wall."
"Well, something had to happen to him," said the teacher.
"He likes, you now, and every one likes you here. I wish we couldhave you always for a teacher."
"I'd be willing to be your teacher, always, if I could only teachyou what you have taught me."
"Oh, dancing," said she, merrily; "that is nothing. I'll give youall the lessons you like."
"No, I shall not let you teach me that again," said he.
"Why?"
"Because your pretty feet trample on me."
Then came another silence.
"Don't you enjoy it?" she asked, looking off at the stars.
"Too much." said he. "First, I must teach you something--if I can."
He was ready for a query, if it came, but she put him off.
"I intend to be a grand lady," said she, "and, if you do not learn,you'll never be able to dance with me."
"There'll be others to dance with you," said he. "I have so muchelse to do."
"Oh, you're always thinking about algebra and arithmetic and thosedreadful things," said she.
"No, I'm thinking now of something very different."
"Grammar, I suppose," said she, looking down.
"Do you remember the conjugations?"
"Try me," said she.
"Give me the first person singular, passive voice, present tense,of the verb to love."
"I am loved," was her answer, as she looked away.
"And don't you know--I love you," said he, quickly.
"That is the active voice," said she, turning with a smile.
"Polly," said he, "I love you as I could love no other in theworld."
He drew her close, and she looked up at him very soberly.
"You love me?" she said in a half whisper.
"With all my heart," he answered. "I hope you will love mesometime."
Their lips came together.
"I do not ask you, now, to say that you love me," said the youngman. "You are young and do not know your own heart."
She rose on tiptoe and fondly touched his cheek with her fingers.
"But I do love you," she whispered.
"I thank God you have told me, but I shall ask you for no promise.A year from now, then, dear, I shall ask you to promise that youwill be my wife sometime."
"Oh, let me promise now," she whispered.
"Promise only that you will love me if you see none you lovebetter."
They were slowly nearing the door. Suddenly she stopped, lookingup at him.
"Are you sure you love me?" she asked.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Sure?"
"As sure as I am that I live."
"And will love me always?"
"Always," he answered.
She drew his head down a little and put her lips to his ear. "ThenI shall love you always," she whispered.
Mrs. Vaughn, was waiting for them at the fireside. They sattalking a while.
"You go off to bed, Polly," said the teacher, presently. "I'vesomething to say, and you're not to hear it."
"I'll listen," said she, laughing.
"Then we'll whisper," Trove answered.
"That isn't fair," said she, with a look of injury, as she held thecandle. "Besides, you don't allow it yourself."
"Polly ought to go away to school," said he, after Polly had goneabove stairs. "She's a bright girl."
"And I so poor I'm always wondering what'll happen to-morrow," saidMrs. Vaughn. "The farm has a mortgage, and it's more than I can doto pay the interest. Some day I'll have to give it up."
"Perhaps I can help you," said the young man, feeling the fur onhis cap.
There was an awkward silence.
"Fact is," said the young man, a bit embarrassed, "fact is, I lovePolly."
In the silence that followed Trove could hear the tick of his watch.
"Have ye spoken to her?" said the widow, with a serious look.
"I've told her frankly to-night that I love her," said he. "Icouldn't help it, she was so sweet and beautiful."
"If you couldn't help it, I don't see how I could," said she. "ButPolly's only a child. She's a big girl, I know, but she's onlyeighteen."
"I haven't asked her for any promise. It wouldn't be fair. Shemust have a chance to meet other young men, but, sometime, I hopeshe will be my wife."
"Poor children!" said Mrs. Vaughn, "you don't either of you knowwhat you're doing."
He rose to go.
"I was a little premature," he added, "but you mustn't blame me.Put yourself in my place. If you were a young man and loved a girlas sweet as Polly and were walking home with her on a moonlitnight--"
"I presume there'd be more or less love-making," said the widow."She is a pretty thing and has the way of a woman. We werespeaking of you the other day, and she said to me: 'He isungrateful. You can teach the primer class for him, and be so goodthat you feel perfectly miserable, and give him lessons in dancing,and put on your best clothes, and make biscuit for him, and then,perhaps, he'll go out and talk with the hired man.' 'Polly,' saidI, 'you're getting to be very foolish.' 'Well, it comes so easy,'said she. 'It's my one talent'"