But she went and sat up with Jacky Hart that night, getting to the Cove at dark, when the sea was a shimmer of fairy tints and the boats were coming in from the fishing grounds. Jacky greeted her with a wonderful smile, and later on she found herself watching alone by his bed. The tiny lamp on the table burned dim, and outside, on the rocks, there was loud laughing and talking until a late hour.
Afterwards a silence fell, through which the lap of the waves on the sands and the far-off moan of the Atlantic surges came sonorously. Jacky was restless and wakeful, but did not suffer, and liked to talk. Frances listened to him with a new-born power of sympathy, which she thought she must have caught from Corona. He told her all the tragedy of his short life, and how bad he felt, about Dad’s taking to drink and Mammy’s having to work so hard.
The pitiful little sentences made Frances’s heart ache. The maternal instinct of the true woman awoke in her. She took a sudden liking to the child. He was a spiritual little creature, and his sufferings had made him old and wise. Once in the night he told Frances that he thought the angels must look like her.
“You are so sweet pretty,” he said gravely. “I never saw anyone so pretty, not even Miss C’rona. You look like a picture I once saw on Mr. Sherwood’s table when I was up at the manse one day ‘fore I got so bad I couldn’t walk. It was a woman with a li’l baby in her arms and a kind of rim round her head. I would like something most awful much.”
“What is it, dear?” said Frances gently. “If I can get or do it for you, I will.”
“You could,” he said wistfully, “but maybe you won’t want to. But I do wish you’d come here just once every day and sit here five minutes and let me look at you — just that. Will it be too much trouble?”
Frances stooped and kissed him. “I will come every day, Jacky,” she said; and a look of ineffable content came over the thin little face. He put up his hand and touched her cheek.
“I knew you were good — as good as Miss C’rona, and she is an angel. I love you.”
When morning came Frances went home. It was raining, and the sea was hidden in mist. As she walked along the wet road, Elliott Sherwood came splashing along in a little two-wheeled gig and picked her up. He wore a raincoat and a small cap, and did not look at all like a minister — or, at least, like Frances’s conception of one.
Not that she knew much about ministers. Her own minister at home — that is to say, the minister of the fashionable uptown church which she attended — was a portly, dignified old man with silvery hair and gold-rimmed glasses, who preached scholarly, cultured sermons and was as far removed from Frances’s personal life as a star in the Milky Way.
But a minister who wore rubber coats and little caps and drove about in a two-wheeled gig, very much mud-bespattered, and who talked about the shore people as if they were household intimates of his, was absolutely new to Frances.
She could not help seeing, however, that the crisp brown hair under the edges of the unclerical-looking cap curled around a remarkably well-shaped forehead, beneath which flashed out a pair of very fine dark-grey eyes; he had likewise a good mouth, which was resolute and looked as if it might be stubborn on occasion; and, although he was not exactly handsome, Frances decided that she liked his face.
He tucked the wet, slippery rubber apron of his conveyance about her and then proceeded to ask questions. Jacky Hart’s case had to be reported on, and then Mr. Sherwood took out a notebook and looked over its entries intently.
“Do you want any more work of that sort to do?” he asked her abruptly.
Frances felt faintly amused. He talked to her as he might have done to Corona, and seemed utterly oblivious of the fact that her profile was classic and her eyes delicious. His indifference piqued Frances a little in spite of her murdered heart. Well, if there was anything she could do she might as well do it, she told him briefly, and he, with equal brevity, gave her directions for finding some old lady who lived on the Elm Creek road and to whom Corona had read tracts.
“Tracts are a mild dissipation of Aunt Clorinda’s,” he said. “She fairly revels in them. She is half blind and has missed Corona very much.”
There were other matters also — a dozen or so of factory girls who needed to be looked after and a family of ragged children to be clothed. Frances, in some dismay, found herself pledged to help in all directions, and then ways and means had to be discussed. The long, wet road, sprinkled with houses, from whose windows people were peering to see “what girl the minister was driving,” seemed very short. Frances did not know it, but Elliott Sherwood drove a full mile out of his way that morning to take her home, and risked being late for a very important appointment — from which it may be inferred that he was not quite so blind to the beautiful as he had seemed.
Frances went through the rain that afternoon and read tracts to Aunt Clorinda. She was so dreadfully tired that night that she forgot to cry, and slept well and soundly.
In the morning she went to church for the first time since coming to Windy Meadows. It did not seem civil not to go to hear a man preach when she had gone slumming with his sister and expected to assist him with his difficulties over factory girls. She was surprised at Elliott Sherwood’s sermon, and mentally wondered why such a man had been allowed to remain for four years in a little country pulpit. Later on Aunt Eleanor told her it was for his health.
“He was not strong when he left college, so he came here. But he is as well as ever now, and I expect he will soon be gobbled up by some of your city churches. He preached in Castle Street church last winter, and I believe they were delighted with him.”
This was all of a month later. During that time Frances thought that she must have been re-created, so far was her old self left behind. She seldom had an idle moment; when she had, she spent it with Corona. The two girls had become close friends, loving each other with the intensity of exceptional and somewhat exclusive natures.
Corona grew strong slowly, and could do little for her brother’s people, but Frances was an excellent proxy, and Elliott Sherwood kept her employed. Incidentally, Frances had come to know the young minister, with his lofty ideals and earnest efforts, very well. He had got into a ridiculous habit of going to her — her, Frances Farquhar! — for advice in many perplexities.
Frances had nursed Jacky Hart and talked temperance to his father and read tracts to Aunt Clorinda and started a reading circle among the factory girls and fitted out all the little Jarboes with dresses and coaxed the shore children to go to school and patched up a feud between two ‘longshore families and done a hundred other things of a similar nature.
Aunt Eleanor said nothing, as was her wise wont, but she talked it over with Margaret Ann Peabody, and agreed with that model domestic when she said: “Work’ll keep folks out of trouble and help ’em out of it when they are in. Just as long as that girl brooded over her own worries and didn’t think of anyone but herself she was miserable. But as soon as she found other folks were unhappy, too, and tried to help ’em out a bit, she helped herself most of all. She’s getting fat and rosy, and it is plain to be seen that the minister thinks there isn’t the like of her on this planet.”
One night Frances told Corona all about Holcomb. Elliott Sherwood was away, and Frances had gone up to stay all night with Corona at the manse. They were sitting in the moonlit gloom of Corona’s room, and Frances felt confidential. She had expected to feel badly and cry a little while she told it. But she did not, and before she was half through, it did not seem as if it were worth telling after all. Corona was deeply sympathetic. She did not say a great deal, but what she did say put Frances on better terms with herself.
“Oh, I shall get over it,” the latter declared finally. “Once I thought I never would — but the truth is, I’m getting over it now. I’m very glad — but I’m horribly ashamed, too, to find myself so fickle.”
“I don’t think you are fickle, Frances,” said Corona gravely, “because I don’t think you ever really loved that man at all. Y
ou only imagined you did. And he was not worthy of you. You are so good, dear; those shore people just worship you. Elliott says you can do anything you like with them.”
Frances laughed and said she was not at all good. Yet she was pleased. Later on, when she was brushing her hair before the mirror and smiling absently at her reflection, Corona said: “Frances, what is it like to be as pretty as you are?”
“Nonsense!” said Frances by way of answer.
“It is not nonsense at all. You must know you are very lovely, Frances. Elliott says you are the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.”
For a girl who has told herself a dozen times that she would never care again for masculine admiration, Frances experienced a very odd thrill of delight on hearing that the minister of Windy Meadows thought her beautiful. She knew he admired her intellect and had immense respect for what he called her “genius for influencing people,” but she had really believed all along that, if Elliott Sherwood had been asked, he could not have told whether she was a whit better looking than Kitty Martin of the Cove, who taught a class in Sunday school and had round rosy cheeks and a snub nose.
The summer went very quickly. One day Jacky Hart died — drifted out with the ebb tide, holding Frances’s hand. She had loved the patient, sweet-souled little creature and missed him greatly.
When the time to go home came Frances felt dull. She hated to leave Windy Meadows and Corona and her dear shore people and Aunt Eleanor and — and — well, Margaret Ann Peabody.
Elliott Sherwood came up the night before she went away. When Margaret Ann showed him reverentially in, Frances was sitting in a halo of sunset light, and the pale, golden chrysanthemums in her hair shone like stars in the blue-black coils.
Elliott Sherwood had been absent from Windy Meadows for several days. There was a subdued jubilance in his manner.
“You think I have come to say good-bye, but I haven’t,” he told her. “I shall see you again very soon, I hope. I have just received a call to Castle Street church, and it is my intention to accept. So Corona and I will be in town this winter.”
Frances tried to tell him how glad she was, but only stammered. Elliott Sherwood came close up to her as she stood by the window in the fading light, and said —
But on second thoughts I shall not record what he said — or what she said either. Some things should be left to the imagination.
Why Mr. Cropper Changed His Mind
“Well, Miss Maxwell, how did you get along today?” asked Mr. Baxter affably, when the new teacher came to the table.
She was a slight, dark girl, rather plain-looking, but with a smart, energetic way. Mr. Baxter approved of her; he “liked her style,” as he would have said.
The summer term had just opened in the Maitland district. Esther Maxwell was a stranger, but she was a capable girl, and had no doubt of her own ability to get and keep the school in good working order. She smiled brightly at Mr. Baxter.
“Very well for a beginning. The children seem bright and teachable and not hard to control.”
Mr. Baxter nodded. “There are no bad children in the school except the Cropper boys — and they can be good enough if they like. Reckon they weren’t there today?”
“No.”
“Well, Miss Maxwell, I think it only fair to tell you that you may have trouble with those boys when they do come. Forewarned is forearmed, you know. Mr. Cropper was opposed to our hiring you. Not, of course, that he had any personal objection to you, but he is set against female teachers, and when a Cropper is set there is nothing on earth can change him. He says female teachers can’t keep order. He’s started in with a spite at you on general principles, and the boys know it. They know he’ll back them up in secret, no matter what they do, just to prove his opinions. Cropper is sly and slippery, and it is hard to corner him.”
“Are the boys big?” queried Esther anxiously.
“Yes. Thirteen and fourteen and big for their age. You can’t whip ’em — that is the trouble. A man might, but they’d twist you around their fingers. You’ll have your hands full, I’m afraid. But maybe they’ll behave all right after all.”
Mr. Baxter privately had no hope that they would, but Esther hoped for the best. She could not believe that Mr. Cropper would carry his prejudices into a personal application. This conviction was strengthened when he overtook her walking from school the next day and drove her home. He was a big, handsome man with a very suave, polite manner. He asked interestedly about her school and her work, hoped she was getting on well, and said he had two young rascals of his own to send soon. Esther felt relieved. She thought that Mr. Baxter had exaggerated matters a little.
“That plum tree of Mrs. Charley’s is loaded with fruit again this year,” remarked Mr. Baxter at the tea table that evening. “I came past it today on my way ‘cross lots home from the woods. There will be bushels of plums on it.”
“I don’t suppose poor Mrs. Charley will get one of them any more than she ever has,” said Mrs. Baxter indignantly. “It’s a burning shame, that’s what it is! I just wish she could catch the Croppers once.”
“You haven’t any proof that it is really them, Mary,” objected her husband, “and you shouldn’t make reckless accusations before folks.”
“I know very well it is them,” retorted Mrs. Baxter, “and so do you, Adoniram. And Mrs. Charley knows it too, although she can’t prove it — more’s the pity! I don’t say Isaac Cropper steals those plums with his own hands. But he knows who does — and the plums go into Mehitable Cropper’s preserving kettle; there’s nothing surer.”
“You see, Miss Maxwell, it’s this way,” explained Mr. Baxter, turning to Esther. “Mrs. Charley Cropper’s husband was Isaac’s brother. They never got on well together, and when Charley died there was a tremendous fuss about the property. Isaac acted mean and scandalous clear through, and public opinion has been down on him ever since. But Mrs. Charley is a pretty smart woman, and he didn’t get the better of her in everything. There was a strip of disputed land between the two farms, and she secured it. There’s a big plum tree growing on it close to the line fence. It’s the finest one in Maitland. But Mrs. Charley never gets a plum from it.”
“But what becomes of them?” asked Esther.
“They disappear,” said Mr. Baxter, with a significant nod. “When the plums are anything like ripe Mrs. Charley discovers some day that there isn’t one left on the tree. She has never been able to get a scrap of proof as to who took them, or she’d make it hot for them. But nobody in Maitland has any doubt in his own mind that Isaac Cropper knows where those plums go.”
“I don’t think Mr. Cropper would steal,” protested Esther.
“Well, he doesn’t consider it stealing, you know. He claims the land and says the plums are his. I don’t doubt that he is quite clear in his own mind that they are. And he does hate Mrs. Charley. I’d give considerable to see the old sinner fairly caught, but he is too deep.”
“I think Mr. Baxter is too hard on Mr. Cropper,” said Esther to herself later on. “He has probably some private prejudice against him.”
But a month later she had changed her opinion. During that time the Cropper boys had come to school.
At first Esther had been inclined to like them. They were handsome lads, with the same smooth way that characterized their father, and seemed bright and intelligent. For a few days all went well, and Esther felt decidedly relieved.
But before long a subtle spirit of insubordination began to make itself felt in the school. Esther found herself powerless to cope with it. The Croppers never openly defied her, but they did precisely as they pleased. The other pupils thought themselves at liberty to follow this example, and in a month’s time poor Esther had completely lost control of her little kingdom. Some complaints were heard among the ratepayers and even Mr. Baxter looked dubious. She knew that unless she could regain her authority she would be requested to hand in her resignation, but she was baffled by the elusive system of defiance which the Cro
pper boys had organized.
One day she resolved to go to Mr. Cropper himself and appeal to his sense of justice, if he had any. It had been an especially hard day in school. When she had been absent at the noon hour all the desks in the schoolroom had been piled in a pyramid on the floor, books and slates interchanged, and various other pranks played. When questioned every pupil denied having done or helped to do it. Alfred and Bob Cropper looked her squarely in the eyes and declared their innocence in their usual gentlemanly fashion, yet Esther felt sure that they were the guilty ones. She also knew what exaggerated accounts of the affair would be taken home to Maitland tea tables, and she felt like sitting down to cry. But she did not. Instead she set her mouth firmly, helped the children restore the room to order, and after school went up to Isaac Cropper’s house.
That gentleman himself came in from the harvest field looking as courtly as usual, even in his rough working clothes. He shook hands heartily, told her he was glad to see her, and began talking about the weather. Esther was not to be turned from her object thus, although she felt her courage ebbing away from her as it always did in the presence of the Cropper imperviousness.
“I have come up to see you about Alfred and Robert, Mr. Cropper,” she said. “They are not behaving well in school.”
“Indeed!” Mr. Cropper’s voice expressed bland surprise. “That is strange. As a rule I do not think Alfred and Robert have been troublesome to their teachers. What have they been doing now?”
“They refuse to obey my orders,” said Esther faintly.
“Ah, well, Miss Maxwell, perhaps you will pardon my saying that a teacher should be able to enforce her orders. My boys are high-spirited fellows and need a strong, firm hand to restrain them. I have always said I considered it advisable to employ a male teacher in Maitland school. We should have better order. Not that I disapprove of you personally — far from it. I should be glad to see you succeed. But I have heard many complaints regarding the order in school at present.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 643