IT was late in October
and the Woman's Academy of Starboro was waking from its Summer's doze, and
making ready for the Winter's work. The Academy, being a feeder for a great
Woman's College, stood, so its prospectus declared, "in the van of the
Movement for the Highest Development of Woman." Even the gardeners, who
were taking up the dead leaves on the great lawns which sloped from the
pillared porches to the bay, and the scrubbers, flooding the classrooms, their
skirts pinned up and their heads swathed in dusty cheesecloth, worked as if
they knew the tremendous importance of this building to the world's progress.
Miss Clemens, the
Principal, gave them a stately nod of approval. She knew that they would not
work so hard in an ordinary house. "Even these poor shreds of womanhood
are driven by the Zeit-Geist upward--upward!" She repeated the word aloud.
She always felt that the spirit of a great reformer was on fire within her
gaunt, tall body.
She went round the
veranda to find the painters, who should have been at work days ago, and
observed that the windows of the apartment occupied by the Professor of
Literature were open. She stopped, catching her breath with a look of
annoyance.
"Has Professor
Murray arrived?" she asked a passing scrubber.
"If you mean Mrs.
Jenny Murray, she come here days ago. She's gettin' her rooms ready for school.
They'll be as nate as two pins by tonight."
The Principal walked
on, uncertainly, forgetting the delinquent painters. Of course, the Irish woman
would take part with Mrs. Murray! That woman always had a singular attraction
for the lower classes. All the servants treated her as if she were the head of
the school! She sat down on a bench, digging holes in the sward with her
umbrella. She had meant to write to Professor Murray that night a letter
conveying certain unpleasant tidings. But as she was here, she must give her
the information at once. The Principal was seriously annoyed. Not because her
message would be as a sentence of death to the older woman. She had not
imagination enough to enter into the pain of any other human being than
herself. But she knew that she should have given the information months ago.
"I shall be
criticised because I did not tell her in the Spring!" she said. Trustees,
parents, all the other dull folk with whom the world was filled were always
criticising her! The water stood in her pale eyes at the thought of how little
she was appreciated.
At that moment Jane
Murray put the last book into its shelf, and looked around, smiling, at her
little apartment. How homelike and tranquil her old rooms were. The very place,
she thought, for a young girl to first hear the truths which the thinkers of
the world had brought into it.
For to this little
teacher the study of Literature was an actual daily companionship with the
leaders of human thought. Her girls had plodded with Cicero to his farm, and
loitered thru the muddy lanes of Stratford with Shakespeare; they had been
barred with Savonarola into the cell at St. Mark's, and hated as fiercely as he
did the mob outside; they had strolled on the Strand with Lamb and Dickens and
Thackeray, and loved with them its old shops and homes and ways.
When Jane Murray's
husband and baby died, leaving her alone in the world, she had slowly taken
these great living folk in books into her life, making them her friends and
companions. Then she made them the friends and companions of her scholars. She
had begun with a class which soon grew into a school. An idea went abroad that she
gave to her pupils a hungry desire to learn. Besides, she had a curious charm
of manner and speech, and anxious parents sent their daughters to her--as
Northern girls now are sent to certain schools in Virginia and Maryland--that
they might be trained, not so much into scholars as gentlewomen.
When the founders of
the present Academy wished to establish it at Starboro, they found this
prosperous, old-fashioned school already there, and proposed to Mrs. Murray
that they should take it, enlarge and rechristen it (tho in fact Jane's school
had no name), giving her charge of the Department of Literature. She was
greatly flattered and pleased, and promptly accepted the offer. Some of her
friends whispered that the good-will of the school should have been bought for
a certain sum in cash. But Jane Murray seldom considered sums in cash. She
hardly noticed that her salary was small. It was all that she needed for her
board and clothes. For nine years now she had been busy bringing raw,
well-meaning farmer's daughters into the presence of the great thinkers and
seers of all ages, giving to the dullest girl a belief that she, too, could
gain some help from them in her long journey.
When Mrs. Murray came
up to her window and saw Miss Clemens' lean figure approaching, she shrugged
her shoulders and drew back. Secretly she considered the Principal a bore, and
seldom wasted time with her. The next moment a strange figure on horseback came
thru the gate, and Jane drew still farther out of sight. That was Maria Price.
How big and loud she had been, even as a girl, when she took the course in
Literature, and called Scott a vaporing old humbug, and threw Dante down,
declaring that American girls would do better to study the ins and outs of a
Presidential election rather than the hell and heaven of a crazy Italian. She
had gone into all sorts of public work, now that she had come into her money.
She wore a coat and trousers of Khaki, and sat on the horse like a man. Jane,
when she saw that, shivered and turned her back.
Maria, at that moment,
alighted and was talking to Miss Clemens. She was a trustee of the Academy, and
one of its largest stockholders.
"School opens next
week, and you have not yet told her she is to go!" she exclaimed.
Miss Clemens lost
color. "That is all right! I will attend to that duty in season. I have
provided her successor."
"Successor? I
should say so! The girls must have no more of such fancy training; they must go
thru the regular textbooks to make ready for the college exams. I tried them
last spring on a page of dates--births and deaths of English writers--and they
all flunked by a dozen years. On which Mrs. Murray remarked: 'It is not as
important that the girls should know when these men lived as why they lived.'
But what about her salary? What provision has she?"
"Oh, no doubt she
has saved plenty of money. What expenses had she? A widow with not a human
being of her kin."
"What's that? No
kin? She's not young, either. Nigh to seventy, I should say." Maria struck
her yellow trousers with her whip. "Well, you can tell her she's got to
go. I'm off. I don't like the job," she said, jumping into the saddle.
Even Miss Clemens felt
an uneasy qualm of pity as she sat in Mrs. Murray's pretty room ready for her
task. What if the woman had not saved any money? Why were these unpleasant jobs
in life always laid on her?
She bowed and smiled,
however, as she delivered her message, and was pleased at her own fluency. But
Mrs. Murray was unusually dull. She rose uncertainly, staring at the other
woman.
"I don't
understand. I am to give up my school?" she said.
"Oh, really! Your
school! We may as well face facts, my dear madam. You are only a teacher here.
The trustees consider that another system of instruction would be better for
the school--questions and answers learned by rote from text-books. In fact, we
have secured the services of Professor Johns in your place. He is himself, as
you know, a well-known author."
"No, I never wrote
anything," said Jane with a dreary laugh. Her eyes wandered over the
class-room, the cases of old books, the dainty little chamber with its easy
chair and wood fire on the hearth.
"You mean--that I
am to go away from here?"
"Of course. This
wing is the Department of Literature, and Professor Johns--" Miss Clemens
rose with an air of finality. "Be assured, madam, you will carry with you
the best wishes of the Trustees and Faculty. I hope you have made provision for
a comfortable old age?" she added, with a curious glitter in her light
eyes.
But Jane had come to
herself now. It never had been her habit to make comrades of strangers.
"I have no reason
to dread the future," she said, smiling. There always was something in the
little woman's carriage of her head, with its rolls of white hair, and the
gleam in her dark blue eyes, which made Miss Clemens feel dull and awkward.
"I am glad you are
provided for," she said; "you could not expect to find any position
elsewhere. The modern custom of discharging all employees at seventy obtains
with women as with men; no chance for them. Too bad, but so it is!" Then
she bowed herself out with a smile.
Jane shut the door and
went back into the room, stooping to pick up a roll of paper which she had
dropped. It was her lecture to beginners on folk-lore, that first groping of
the human mind for enduring expression. She opened it, and then suddenly let it
fall.
"Why, I shall not
use it!" she cried. "I never shall use it again! I am not to teach
anybody any more! Not my girls! What does it mean? I am nothing--nothing in the
world!"
She sat for a long
time, her hands over her eyes. An hour ago she had power over many human lives.
She thought she had a great work to do. Now her hands were empty. She was
thrown out useless into the highway, and her work was given to a cheap, tawdry
pretender.
She turned, shivering,
to stir the fire, and then stopped.
"I have no right
here! Professor Johns-- I have no home," she said, with a queer laugh.
"I told her I had no reason to dread the future. I had some dull notion
that God would take care of me."
Some sudden thought
made her turn to her desk and take out her pocket-book.
"Ten dollars and a
half," she said, staring out into the gathering twilight, "and that
is all, every cent I have! There is not more coming anywhere. That is all I've
brought out of my work of seventy years!"
Just then she saw Miss
Clemens driving out of the gate in her new victoria, the coachman in livery.
"I've done better
work than she in the world," she muttered.
And then Jane Murray,
as most of us have done some time in life, when we were worsted or tortured,
called God to account. Had this dumb, unseen Force that put her here no sense
of pity or justice? If men were cruel, why did He not interfere? Was He blind
or deaf?
She cried out to the
gray darkness overhead:
"I have worked
hard for seventy years, and my hands are empty! Is that right? Is that
just?"
But there was no
answer.
Jane's ten dollars took
her to Plowden. Plowden was the old Murray farm on the Shenandoah. They had
sold it all but two acres of stony land and the old farmhouse, which was a
wreck. Jane had owned it, but eight years ago, when her Cousin Polly Vance's husband
had a stroke, Jane had put them into it. It had at least a roof to cover them.
Her salary went down to Plowden regularly until Jim Vance died, and Polly sent
it back, declaring she "could fend for herself." A year later, she
bought the old place from Jane.
Now, in her extremity,
Mrs. Murray remembered the old shanty and Polly's kind face, and betook herself
to them. Two days had passed since she left the school. They seemed like a
waste of years. One reason for this was that whenever she knelt, from habit, at
night, she quickly scrambled to her feet again.
"I have nothing to
say to Him!" she would say. "He has forgotten me."
When she reached the
little station, there was Polly with a stout mare and a buckboard, her face red
and beaming. She eyed Jane's boxes of books.
"Don't tell me
you've given up the school, and have come here to stay! I can't believe there
is such luck ahead for me!" she gasped. "And me just going to
advertise! to scour the country for a partner."
"I have no money
for any business," said Jane, and tried to tell her story.
"It's not money I
want," interrupted Polly. "It's brains, and a woman who will take an
interest. To get Jane Murray! Heavens! What luck! What a Thanksgiving we will
have next week!"
"I--keep--Thanksgiving?"
muttered Jane.
Polly's keen, gray eyes
flashed on her, and then she flicked the old mare.
"Get on, Coley!
Well, I say, what luck!" she muttered again.
The road wound thru the
hills, gorgeous in their fall robes of crimson and gold; below was the Shenandoah
roaring over its rocky bed--always the most picturesque of American rivers.
"There's your
farm!" said Polly, as they came thru a gap. The old farmhouse, solid and
comfortable, stood on a hill surrounded by orchards, gardens and clusters of
bee-hives. Its windows shone with welcome.
"What does this
mean?" said Jane. "How have you done it?"
"Bees and
chickens, child. Nothing else. I began with one hive and a single clutch of
eggs. But they were the best! My trade is very good. But the farm and house are
yours, Jane. I have only borrowed them from you. You gave us a roof to cover us
when we were starving. You gave him a home to die in. Now--"
She choked, and neither
woman spoke until they alighted at the porch.
She led Jane into the
very room to which she had come as a bride. There was the same old furniture,
the fire burning on the hearth, and on the walls the photographs of the
"Ecce Homo" and Tintoretto's "Descent from the Cross,"
which Miss Clemens had refused to allow Jane to take from the walls of her
room. Had Polly, then, known all about it? Had she met and worsted Miss
Clemens? Had she made ready this home for life for her?
In a few days Jane had
settled down to work at Polly's books. They were in dire confusion. She could
earn her living here fairly, she told herself. She did not want to be a beggar.
When the day's work was done the two old women, who had been young together,
had a thousand things to talk over as they sipped their tea. Jane was startled
to find that these gossips were more interesting to her now than were even
Dante or Lamb.
About a mile from the
farmhouse there was a group of cottages, called a Rest-Home, owned by a
charitable organization in the city. They were filled with tired women, worn
out shop girls, starving seamstresses, etc. One day Jane received a letter from
Maria Price, who was President of the Board of Managers, asking her to visit
the Home three times a week, to read to the inmates, or talk to them, to give
them some knowledge of books and of the help and comfort to be gained from
them. A liberal salary was to be given for the work.
Jane went at once to
the Home, and met Maria, who received her with marked deference. Jane was only
coldly civil, tho the other woman wore skirts now, and not yellow trousers.
"You will take the
work?" she said. "I thought it would attract you. The minds of these
women need new, stirring ideas of life as much as their starving bodies need
bread. Nobody can give it to them so well as you."
"Yes," said
Jane, "I will take it. But no salary. It is enough for me to have my own
work in the world again to do."
Maria was silent a
moment.
"As you choose.
Whatever will make you happiest while you live."
Jane suddenly rose and
came up to her.
"Why did you give
me this thing?" she said. "You took my work away from me--"
Maria, too, rose.
"Yes, there's no
time to train the modern young woman by your dawdling methods, Mrs. Murray. But
you--I want your old age to be warm and full. Do you remember when I was an
ugly, coarse child, years ago, one day I fought with some boys and was thrown
into the mud and hurt, how you took me to your room, and bathed and put me in
your own bed? You forget? I don't, then. Good-bye. We needn't talk things over.
We understand it is all right between us."
In a day or two letters
began to come to Jane, letters from all sorts and conditions of women--the
scholars whom she had taught and helped by little and great kindnesses. They
had heard of her dismissal, and they sent gifts to her--sometimes, even, money,
but always the tenderest love and sympathy. She sent the money back. But the
love and tenderness stayed with her and slowly made the days warmer and the
world brighter. Never had the woods worn such gorgeous splendor. Never was a
home so cozy and pleasant as this, or a comrade so considerate as Polly.
On Thanksgiving morning
a light flutter of snow fell on the woods and carpet of red leaves below. Jane
stood at her window, looking into the bright, silent Heaven beyond.
Always silent. He was
dumb, no matter how cruel life was down here, no matter how we cried to Him, He
did not answer.
But as she stood there,
warmed by the splendor of the day without and by the fire and homely comfort of
the room within, a thought suddenly stirred her heart.
Had He not answered?
There had been a wrench
and agony which drove her to Him. She had been forced to see how near she was
to the end. She had been forced to consider the few steps that were between her
and the end.
But she had been left
her own work to do until it came. Had He done this? Was it He who had sent her
from every side love and tenderness because of the poor little kindnesses which
she had been able to show in the years which were gone?
Not money, not power,
but a great content now filled her life.
On that Thanksgiving
Day, the soul of the poor little woman abased itself as it never had done
before. For she knew that she had spoken to Him and He had answered.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.