Heart of Gold Part 1

Heart of Gold.

by Ruth Alberta Brown.

CHAPTER I

THE GIRL WHO TOOK A DARE

"Attention, children! Close copy books and pa.s.s them to the right.

Monitors, collect."

Tired Miss Phelps laid down her crayon, with one sweep of her arm erased the letter exercises she had so laboriously traced on the blackboard for her fifty pupils to copy, wiped the clinging chalk from her dry, chapped hands, and sank wearily into her chair beside the littered desk, as she issued her commands in sharp, almost impatient tones. Her head ached fiercely, her brain seemed on fire, the subdued scratching of scores of pens in unskilled fingers set her nerves on edge, and she was ready to collapse with the strain of the day. Yet another hour remained before the afternoon session would draw to a close. How was she ever to hear the stupid geography recitation, or listen to the halting, singsong voices stumble through pages of a Reader too old for their understanding?

Again she glanced at the clock. A full hour of torture, and she was simply longing for bed! A sudden determination seized her. She would read to her scholars instead of listening to the lessons they had prepared to recite! So, selecting a book from the row on her desk, she waited until the blotted, inky copy books had been gleefully whisked shut by their owners, pa.s.sed across the aisle and gathered in neat piles by the monitors, who creaked solemnly up to the corner table and laid them beside the day's written exercises for the teacher's inspection later. Then they clattered back to their seats and waited with expectant eyes fixed upon Miss Phelps for the next command.

"Take rest position!"

There was a brisk sc.r.a.ping of feet, a rustling of dresses, and fifty active bodies sat stiffly erect with hands clasped on the desk-tops in front of them. No,--not fifty. One child, a brown-eyed girl with short, riotous curls tumbling about her round, animated face, sat heedless of her surroundings, staring out of the window near her into the bright Spring suns.h.i.+ne, and from her rapt expression it was evident that her thoughts were far away from school and lessons.

Miss Phelps waited an instant, but the child was lost in her dreams and did not feel the unusual silence of the room. Following the gaze of the intent brown eyes, the teacher glanced out of the window and saw a flock of pigeons disporting themselves on the barn roof across the road; and as they fluttered and strutted, scolded and cooed, the little watcher at her desk unconsciously imitated their movements, thrusting out her chest, c.o.c.king her head pertly on one side and nodding and pecking at imaginary birds, just as her pretty feathered friends were doing as they basked in the warm suns.h.i.+ne. Involuntarily the woman smiled. Then, as the girl continued to mimic the doves, she tapped her foot impatiently on the floor and repeated emphatically, "Children, take rest position!"

Stealthily the other pupils let their eyes rove about the room in search of the guilty member, for it was very plain from the teacher's manner that someone was out of order. Instantly a pencil rapped sharply on the desk, and forty-nine pair of inquisitive eyes jerked quickly to the front again. But the fiftieth pair continued to stare out of the window, until in exasperation the woman's voice rasped out, "Peace Greenfield, will you please give me your undivided attention?"

With a start of horrified surprise the culprit awoke from her daydreams, to discover that she was flapping her outstretched arms in either aisle like some exultant c.o.c.kerel just ready to crow. Abashed and dismayed at having been caught napping, she thrust her hands hastily into her desk, seized her geography, and scrambling to her feet, started for the front of the room, remembering that her cla.s.s was the next to recite. The children t.i.ttered, and Peace, much amazed to find that no one followed, paused uncertainly, searched her brain desperately to recall the teacher's command, and then glibly recited, "Brazil is bounded on the north by--"

The scholars burst into a howl of derision, and poor Peace slumped into her seat, covered with confusion. Even the tired teacher smiled at the child's discomfort, but immediately rapped for order, and said sternly, "Rest position, please! The geography and reading cla.s.ses will not recite this afternoon. I shall read to you from our book of mythology, and when I have finished, I shall expect you to repeat the story. What was the last we read about?"

"The wooden horse in the siege of Troy," shouted a score of voices.

"Correct," smiled the teacher faintly. "And today I shall tell you about Ganymede and how he was connected with the other characters we have been studying. Ganymede--repeat the name after me."

"Ganymede," roared the obedient scholars.

"Ganymede," whispered Peace to herself. "Ganymede--what a funny name! I wonder if he was any relation to those folks Hope was talking about last night. They were Medes and--and Persians. I d'clare, I 'most forgot that word. Hist'ry like Hope's must be int'resting. I'll be glad when I get big enough to study about the Goffs and Salts and--and Sandals and the rest of that bunch." She meant Goths and Celts and Vandals, but somehow words had a bad habit of getting sadly mixed up in that active brain which tried to absorb all it heard; and she was always making outrageous speeches in consequence.

"I don't like mythology. What do we care about Herc'les and his sore heel, or Helen or Hector?--I wonder if that's the man Hec Abbott was named after? I'd rather--My! what a lovely day it is for March! No wonder the doves are talking. Wouldn't I like to be up on that barn roof in the sun! Bet I'd do some talking too. S'posing I was a really dove.

What fun it would be to fly away, away up in the blue sky. I wonder if they ever b.u.mp into the clouds. There goes a white cloud skimming right over the sun. Now it's gone and we're in the s.h.i.+ne once more. Queer how it can s.h.i.+ne in spots and be cloudy in spots at the same time. That's like laughing with one eye and bawling with the other. I don't b'lieve a body could ever do that. Wish I could, just to see what it would feel like.

"'Twon't take many days like this 'fore the gra.s.s begins to grow and the leaves to come. The trees are budded big now. I am crazy wild for the cowslips and vi'lets to get here. Hicks promised to help us plant some flowers on our Lilac Lady's grave. It looks so bare and lonely now with the snow all gone, and only that tall white stone to tell where she is.

I know where the loveliest yellow vi'lets grow."

"Peace Greenfield!"

Again Peace came to the earth with an abruptness that left her breathless and quaking. "Yes, ma'am," she responded meekly.

"You weren't paying attention, were you?" demanded the long-suffering teacher.

Peace pondered. She could scarcely say "yes" truthfully, and yet her intentions were good. She had not meant to lose herself again, nor did realize how very little she had heard of the story which the teacher had been reading.

"Were you?" repeated Miss Phelps relentlessly.

"Partly," Peace responded haughtily.

The woman gasped; then as the scholars giggled, she said sternly, "Tell us what the story was about."

Peace opened her mouth. "Gan--" she began and halted. What _had_ the story been about? Rapidly she searched through her memory. It was such a funny word. How could she have forgotten it?

The children sn.i.g.g.e.red audibly.

"Gan--what?" urged the weary teacher sarcastically.

O, yes, now she remembered it! "Gandermeats and pigeons," triumphantly finished Peace, with a saucy toss of her head.

There was a moment of dead silence in the room; then a jeering shout rose from forty-nine throats. But it was instantly quelled by a sharp rap on the desk, and when order was restored, Miss Phelps said encouragingly, "Ganymede and what, Peace? Surely not _pigeon_! You didn't mean that, now did you?"

But Peace had come to the end of her resources. If it wasn't pigeons, what was it?

"Tell her, children," prompted Miss Phelps, as Peace floundered helplessly.

"An eagle," yelled the chorus of eager voices.

An _eagle_! Queer, but she had heard no mention made of an eagle; and she trembled in her shoes for fear the teacher would ask still more embarra.s.sing questions.

Fortunately, however, Miss Phelps turned to the lad across the aisle, and said, "Johnny, you may tell us the story of Ganymede."

Johnny was nearly bursting his jacket in his eagerness to publish his knowledge; so to Peace's immense gratification and relief, he gabbled off his version of Ganymede's experience with Jupiter's eagle. And Peace breathed more freely when he sat down puffing with pride at the teacher's, "Well told, Johnny."

"Mercy! I'm glad she didn't ask me any more about the old fellow," Peace sighed. "I--I guess I didn't hear much she said, but that horrid mythology is so dry. I don't see why she keeps reading the stuff to us.

I'd a sight rather study about physiology and _cardrack_ valves and _oil-factory_ nerves in the nose like Cherry does; though I don't see how she ever remembers those long words and what part of the body they b'long to. I'd--yes, I'd rather have mental 'rithmetic every day of the week than mythology about old G.o.ds that never lived, and did only mean things to everybody when they b'lieved they lived."

"Peace Greenfield!" sounded an exasperated voice in her ear. "If you would rather watch those pigeons across the street than to pay attention to your lessons, we will just excuse you and let you stand by the window until--"

"I wasn't watching a single pigeon that time," Peace broke in hotly. "I was only thinking about those hateful G.o.ds folks used to b'lieve in, and wondering why the School Board makes us study about them when they were just clear fakes--every one of 'em--'nstead of learning things that really did happen at some time. There's enough true, int'resting things going on around us to keep us busy without studying fakes, seems to me."

Now it happened that the mythological tales with which Miss Phelps regaled her small charges from time to time were not a part of the regular course of study laid out for her grade, and at this pupil's blunt criticism, the teacher's face became scarlet; but she quickly regained her poise, and turning to the school, asked, "How many of you enjoy listening to these myths which I have been reading?"

A dozen wavering, uncertain hands went up. The rest remained clasped on their desks.

The woman was astounded. "What kind of stories _do_ you like best?" she faltered.

"Those in the new Readers," responded the pupils as with one voice.

Mechanically Miss Phelps reached for one of the volumes, and opening it at random, read the New England tale of the Pine-tree s.h.i.+llings to her delighted audience.

Peace tried to center her thoughts upon what was being read, but the lure of the Spring suns.h.i.+ne and blue sky was too great to be resisted; and before the story was ended, she was again wandering in realms of her own. Down by the river where the p.u.s.s.y willows grew, out in the marshland where the cowslips soon would blow, up the gently sloping hillside, far up where the tall shaft of marble stood sentinel over the grave of her beloved Lilac Lady, she wandered, planning, planning what she would do when the warm Spring suns.h.i.+ne had chased away the Frost King for another year.

The book closed with a sudden snap, and the teacher demanded crisply, "All who think they can tell the story as well as Johnny told us about Ganymede, raise your hands."