The Pot of Gold, and Other Stories Part 18

The rest of the cla.s.s had their weak points, moreover their strong points, overlooked in the presence of the company. The first thing Patience knew, ever so many had missed in the nine-table, and she had gone up to the head.

Standing there, all at once a terrible misgiving seized her. "I wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't been told," she thought to herself. Martha was next below her; she knew that question in the nines, her hand had been up, so had John Allen's and Phoebe Adams'.

This was the last cla.s.s before recess. Patience went soberly out in the yard with the other girls. There was a little restraint over all the scholars. They looked with awe at the Squire's horse and chaise.

The horse was tied after a novel fas.h.i.+on, an invention of the Squire's own. He had driven a gimlet into the schoolhouse wall, and tied his horse to it with a stout rope. Whenever the Squire drove he carried with him his gimlet, in case there should be no hitching-post.

Occasionally house-owners rebelled, but it made no difference; the next time the Squire had occasion to stop at their premises there was another gimlet-hole in the wall. Few people could make their way good against Squire Bean's.

There were a great many holes in the schoolhouse walls, for the Squire made frequent visits; he was one of the committee and considered himself very necessary for the well-being of the school. Indeed if he had frankly spoken his mind, he would probably have admitted that in his estimation the school could not be properly kept one day without his a.s.sistance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT!" SAID SQUIRE BEAN SUDDENLY.]

Patience stood with her back against the school fence, and watched the others soberly. The girls wanted her to play "Little Sally Waters sitting in the sun," but she said no, she didn't want to play.

Martha took hold of her arm and tried to pull her into the ring, but she held back.

"What is the matter?" said Martha.

"Nothing," Patience said, but her face was full of trouble. There was a little wrinkle between her reflective brown eyes, and she drew in her under lip after a way she had when disturbed.

When the bell rang, the scholars filed in with the greatest order and decorum. Even the most frisky boys did no more than roll their eyes respectfully in the Squire's direction as they pa.s.sed him, and they tiptoed on their bare feet in the most cautious manner.

The Squire sat through the remaining exercises, until it was time to close the school.

"You may put up your books," said the teacher. There was a rustle and clatter, then a solemn hush. They all sat with their arms folded, looking expectantly at Squire Bean. The teacher turned to him. Her cheeks were very red, and she was very dignified, but her voice shook a little.

"Won't you make some remarks to the pupils?" said she.

Then the Squire rose and cleared his throat. The scholars did not pay much attention to what he said, although they sat still, with their eyes riveted on his face. But when, toward the close of his remarks, he put his hand in his pocket, and a faint jingling was heard, a thrill ran over the school.

The Squire pulled out two silver sixpences, and held them up impressively before the children. Through a hole in each of them dangled a palm-leaf strand; and the Squire's own initial was stamped on both.

"Thomas Arnold may step this way," said the Squire.

Thomas Arnold had acquitted himself well in geography, and to him the Squire duly presented one of the sixpences.

Thomas bobbed, and pattered back to his seat with all his mates staring and grinning at him.

Then Patience Mather's heart jumped--Squire Bean was bidding her step that way, on account of her going to the head of the arithmetic cla.s.s.

She sat still. There was a roaring in her ears. Squire Bean spoke again. Then the teacher interposed. "Patience," said she, "did you not hear what Squire Bean said? Step this way."

Then Patience rose and dragged slowly down the aisle. She hung her head, she dimly heard Squire Bean speaking; then the sixpence touched her hand. Suddenly Patience looked up. There was a vein of heroism in the little girl. Not far back, some of her kin had been brave fighters in the Revolution. Now their little descendant went marching up to her own enemy in her own way. She spoke right up before Squire Bean.

"I'd rather you'd give it to some one else," said she with a curtesy.

"It doesn't belong to me. I wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't cheated."

Patience's cheeks were white, but her eyes flashed. Squire Bean gasped, and turned it into a cough. Then he began asking her questions. Patience answered unflinchingly. She kept holding the sixpence toward him.

Finally he reached out and gave it a little push back.

"Keep it," said he; "keep it, keep it. I don't give it to you for going to the head, but because you are an honest and truthful child."

Patience blushed pink to her little neck. She curtesied deeply and returned to her seat, the silver sixpence dangling from her agitated little hand. She put her head down on her desk, and cried, now it was all over, and did not look up till school was dismissed, and Martha Joy came and put her arm around her and comforted her.

The two little girls were very close friends, and were together all the time which they could s.n.a.t.c.h out of school hours. Not long after the presentation of the sixpence, one night after school, Patience's mother wanted her to go on an errand to Nancy Gookin's hut.

Nancy Gookin was an Indian woman, who did a good many odd jobs for the neighbors. Mrs. Mather was expecting company, and she wanted her to come the next day and a.s.sist her about some cleaning.

Patience was usually willing enough, but to-night she demurred. In fact, she was a little afraid of the Indian woman, who lived all alone in a little hut on the edge of some woods. Her mother knew it, but it was a foolish fear, and she did not encourage her in it.

"There is no sense in your being afraid of Nancy," she said with some severity. "She's a good woman, if she is an Injun, and she is always to be seen in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day."

As her mother spoke, Patience could see Nancy's dark harsh old face peering over the pew, where she and some of her nation sat together, Sabbath days, and the image made her shudder in spite of its environments. However, she finally put on her little sunbonnet and set forth. It was a lovely summer twilight; she had only about a quarter of a mile to go, but her courage failed her more and more at every step. Martha Joy lived on the way. When she reached her house, she stopped and begged her to go with her. Martha was obliging; under ordinary circ.u.mstances she would have gone with alacrity, but to-night she had a hard toothache. She came to the door with her face all tied up in a hop-poultice. "I'm 'fraid I can't go," she said dolefully.

But Patience begged and begged. "I'll spend my sixpence that uncle Joseph gave me, and I'll buy you a whole card of peppermints," said she finally, by way of inducement.

That won the day. Martha got few sweets, and if there was anything she craved, it was the peppermints, which came, in those days, in big beautiful cards, to be broken off at will. And to have a whole card!

So poor Martha tied her little napping sunbonnet over her swollen cheeks, and went with Patience to see Nancy Gookin, who received the message thankfully, and did not do them the least harm in the world.

Martha had really a very hard toothache. She did not sleep much that night for all the hop-poultice, and she went to school the next day feeling tired and cross. She was a nervous little girl, and never bore illness very well. But to-day she had one pleasant antic.i.p.ation. She thought often of that card of peppermints. It had cheered her somewhat in her uneasy night. She thought that Patience would surely bring them to school. She came early herself and watched for her. She entered quite late, just before the bell rang. Martha ran up to her. "I haven't got the peppermints," said Patience. She had been crying.

Martha straightened up: "Why not?"

The tears welled out of Patience's eyes. "I can't find that sixpence anywhere."

The tears came into Martha's eyes too. She looked as dignified as her poulticed face would allow. "I never knew you told fibs, Patience Mather," said she. "I don't believe my mother will want me to go with you any more."

Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her seat, and the others thought it was on account of her toothache. Patience kept back her tears. She was forming a desperate resolution. When recess came, she got permission to go to the store which was quite near, and she bought a card of peppermints with the Squire's sixpence. She had pulled out the palm-leaf strand on her way, thrusting it into her pocket guiltily. She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy scholars from time to time, were ostensibly for the purpose of book-marks. That was the reason for the palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to the blacksmith who stamped them with B's, and then, with his own hands, he adjusted the palm-leaf.

The man who kept the store looked at the sixpence curiously, when Patience offered it.

"One of the Squire's sixpences!" said he.

"Yes; it's mine." That was the argument which Patience had set forth to her own conscience. It was certainly her own sixpence; the Squire had given it to her--had she not a right to do as she chose with it?

The man laughed; his name was Ezra Tomkins, and he enjoyed a joke. He was privately resolving to give that sixpence in change to the old Squire and see what he would say. If Patience had guessed his thoughts--

But she took the card of peppermints, and carried them to the appeased and repentant and curious Martha, and waited further developments in trepidation. She had a presentiment deep within her childish soul that some day she would have a reckoning with Squire Bean concerning his sixpence.

If by chance she had to pa.s.s his house, she would hurry by at her utmost speed lest she be intercepted. She got out of his way as fast as she could if she spied his old horse and chaise in the distance.

Still she knew the day would come; and it did.

It was one Sat.u.r.day afternoon; school did not keep, and she was all alone in the house with Martha. Her mother had gone visiting. The two little girls were playing "Holly Gull, Pa.s.sed how many," with beans in the kitchen, when the door opened, and in walked Susan Elder. She was a woman who lived at Squire Bean's and helped his wife with the housework.

The minute Patience saw her, she knew what her errand was. She gave a great start. Then she looked at Susan Elder with her big frightened eyes.

Susan Elder was a stout old woman. She sat down on the settle, and wheezed before she spoke. "Squire Bean wants you to come up to his house right away," said she at last.