Maid Sally Part 15

Up got Mammy and trundled away. And back toward Slipside Row went Sally, laughing at Mammy's queer fright, but feeling thankful enough that she was only frightened, not hurt.

CHAPTER XIII.

TWO YEARS

With the coming of another summer there were reasons why Sir Percival Grandison did not think it best to have his son Lionel come home.

Troublous times were indeed brewing, and he did not want his enthusiastic son to hear the reports that were going from mouth to mouth and from place to place.

And when the next December came he was glad the lad was away, for in Boston, men painted and plumed like Indians had gone at night aboard some laden vessels lying in the harbor, and had thrown nearly two hundred and fifty chests of tea into the water.

For England was bound to tax the people of the Colonies for tea, beyond what they were willing to stand. And very patient had the Colonists been. Eight years before this there had been a Stamp Act put upon them by the mother country, trying to make them put a stamp on all their law papers, newspapers, and such things.

But this had made the people of the Colonies so very angry that the law was laid aside.

Now, strange as it may seem, there were yet some of the people who did not quite know whether it was right to stand up and say that England was wrong, and they would not stay on her side, or to think that they ought to obey the king in everything simply because he was the king, and it seemed wrong to break away from his rule.

And Sir Percival Grandison, really a fine, n.o.ble gentleman, found it hard to make up his mind as to what was entirely right or wrong in the important question.

Sally was now so much a student that nothing, it seemed, could stand in the way of her books and her swift way of learning. She understood all about the trouble with England, and there was not a more decided, staunch little American patriot than was she.

You know a patriot is one who loves well his or her own country, and Sally was a true, staunch young Colonist. And Mistress Kent listened in surprise to some things she said that winter, wondering that a mere child should know her own mind so well.

"I suppose," she said one day, "that we ought to love the king and obey him. But here we are way off by ourselves in another country, where the people have their own homes, and fields and lands of their very own. And why should they want to keep taxing us harder and harder over in England, when we owe them nothing at all, and ask nothing of them? _I_ wouldn't pay such unjust claims!"

Mistress Kent was timid, and watched carefully her speech, and could only warn the out-spoken child to be careful herself.

"The times are hot and full of threat," she said, "it is feared there may be fighting before long; it were better to watch our words."

And Sally tried to be prudent, although it tried her sorely when Mistress Cory Ann would raise her voice and declare that folks were fools who thought it best to oppose the king. But she said those things most frequently when the men were away.

And Sally found great comfort and delight in her lessons, which increased from time to time. She also sang in the choir and at singing-school, greatly to Master Sutcliff's help and satisfaction.

One day she picked up part of a newspaper in the road, and was surprised to find that not a word of it could she read.

This was late in the fall, after her Fairy Prince had again gone away, bound for Oxford and its halls of learning. And as time went on, not a particle of the dreamy, story-like charm that cl.u.s.tered about the young Lionel died out of her heart. If anything, it grew stronger. Nor was it strange that, with her fancy-loving nature, the lonely child had to set up a kind of dream-castle for her mind to feed upon.

Yet all was pure and innocent as could be, and, if not real, it yet was helpful. And if into her heart had grown a kind of affection for her Fairy Prince, who was so far removed from her in many ways, she felt that it must always stay just where it was, in truth a secret admiration for one far beyond and above her.

"Because," she said to herself, "we are oceans apart, not only because the great sea rolls between us, but because in every way he is so far away."

Now on this day when the strange paper came into her hands, Sally went slowly along, puzzling over the words, until she exclaimed:

"Oh, I know what it meaneth! The paper is in another language, and how I would like to understand it! I must learn it if I can find one to teach me, I must, I must!"

When she went at evening to Mistress Kent she took the sheet with her.

"Yes, it is a page of a French newspaper," said the mistress, "and although I can make out many of the words, I have not enough knowledge of the strange tongue to think of teaching it."

A new ambition, or eager desire, jumped into Sally's heart.

"And is there no one who could teach me?" she asked.

"There may be many who could," answered the teacher, "but it hath always been thought a hard matter to learn another language. Parson Kendall hath wide knowledge in Latin, Greek, and some say in French, also. But, knowing for one's self, and imparting or giving knowledge to another, are two different things. It needeth a professor, or a teacher well skilled in other tongues, to teach them properly."

Into Sally's mind leaped another thought.

"My Fairy Prince will learn these other tongues, why cannot I? I will! A way there must be. I am poor, but I can learn."

Mistress Kent then promised Sally that another year, when she would be fourteen, she should begin the study of Latin, if she kept on flying ahead with her studies as she was doing. There was no danger that Sally would forget the promise.

That night she set her wise head to planning and asking in what way she could manage to take up the study of French. Her two spare afternoons were still taken up with Dame Kent, the mother of her good teacher. The evenings, all except Sat.u.r.day, were given to lessons and the singing-school. What time was there for anything else?

"Yet I will!" she said, over and again.

"That is right," said her inner Fairy. "Since the desire has come so strongly upon you to know the French language, only persevere, and the way to learn it will open."

It opened in so simple a manner as to again surprise brave Maid Sally.

And her ever-present Fairy said:

"It doth in truth astonish me, the ease of it all."

She was on her way home from Mistress Kent's when Parson Kendall came toward her.

"Good evening, young maiden," he said, with gentle dignity, "and how do the studies progress?"

"Very fairly, I thank you, sir."

"And what are they now?"

"I have arithmetic, sir, grammar, geography, and history."

"Quite a list; and are the studies still pleasant to thee?"

"Very, very pleasant, I thank you, sir. But, ah! if only I could learn the French language!"

"Learn French! And what, prithee, would a maid of thy years be needing of that?"

"I might need it when I am older, sir."

Then she added, with the respect that was natural to her, and was always expected of the young:

"I think I should much like studying other languages. Grammar pleaseth me; I like right well knowing my own parts of speech."