That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's: A Story for Young People

by Jean K. Baird

  CHAPTER IV.

  The months passed. Before Eliza was aware of it, the winter had passed.They had been strange months, filled with new experiences to the woman.When twilight fell, Beth had always crawled up into her lap and,snuggling close, demanded a story.

  Eliza had never been fed on stories. She knew absolutely nothing aboutthem. She had never tried to make up any, for the demand for them hadnever come.

  "Tory, Adee. Tory, Adee." There was no resisting that little appeal.There could be no denial for the tender caressing hands, and the sweetrose-bud mouth.

  "What shall I tell about?" asked Eliza pausing for a time.

  "Anyfing. F'owers what talk and tell tories; efefants, and Santa Clausand fings like that."

  Eliza gasped for breath. Flowers were the only things she knew about.She did her best with the material on hand. She told a story of a poppywhich was proud and haughty because its gown was gay and because itstood high above the other flowers. In its pride it ignored the humble,modest little violet which could barely raise its head above the sod.But when the second morning had come, the petals of the poppy layscattered. Its glory was gone; but the violet yet smiled up from itslowly place and gave color to all about it.

  "I's booful, Adee. Tell me--a more one."

  Eliza put her off. One story at bed time was quite enough. A strangesensation of thrills had gone through her body while the story had beengrowing. She had never believed herself capable of anything half sofine. She had created something. The sensation of power was tinglingthrough every nerve and muscle. She did not know it; neither did thechild whose eyelids were closing in slumber; but with this experienceshe had crawled from the shell of dead customs, hide-bound, worn-outideas and laws. There had been a real self hidden away for many years.It had never found a way for self-expression until now.

  The black silk gown had undergone renovation since the day of theaccident. A new sleeve had replaced the torn one, and the torn breadthin the skirt had been hidden by a broad fold. It was quite as good asever.

  The first time Eliza put it on, Beth took exception to it. The childstood in the middle of the room at a distance from her foster-parent,and could not be induced to come near her.

  "Ug-e, ug-e dwess. Baby don't like ug-e dwess."

  "Don't you like Adee's Sunday dress?" asked Eliza. The child shook herhead to and fro, and persisted in calling it "ug-e dwess".

  "Then I shall wear another," said Eliza. She made her way upstairs andBeth toddled after her. Going to the closet, the child began to tug andpull at a cheap little gown of dimity. Eliza had paid a shilling a yardfor it the season before and had made it for "comfort". But she couldnot keep the artist soul from showing in it any more than she could keepit from showing in the living room and gardens. The neck was just alittle low and the sleeves reached just to the elbow. The ground waswhite with sprigs of pale pink roses scattered over it.

  "Pitty dwess--pitty dwess," Beth kept repeating. To please her, Elizatook it down and put it on. She looked at herself in the mirror and wasbetter pleased with what she saw than she had been with the reflectionof the black-robed figure. While she was dressing, Beth danced abouther, exclaiming with delight at her pretty lady and the pretty dress.

  So two things became fixed habits in the new household,--a story beforebedtime and the pretty dresses in place of black.

  So the year passed. The Jersey cow, the chickens, the vegetables fromthe summer provided for their needs. They needed little money. Wood wassupplied from the trees on Eliza's land.

  Beth needed clothes; but her dresses were yet so small that littlematerial was needed, and the shoes were so tiny that they cost butlittle.

  Eliza made the little dresses. She went to the Bend for patterns andmaterial. She even bought a book of styles to see how a child should bedressed. When she sat in the big living room with needle and thread,Beth sat beside her sewing diligently at doll clothes, or cuttingfantastic shapes out of paper.

  Beth quite fell in love with the pictures in the fashion plates andselected the finest ones of all as Adee.

  "'Is is Adee and 'is is Adee," she would repeat again and again, layingher finger on the representations of splendid womanhood shown on thepages.

  Eliza began to look beyond the year. She felt now that no one would everclaim Beth. She would have the child always. She was glad of that. Shewould need money to educate her. She would need more each year as thechild grew older. So she watched the pennies closely. She wore shabbygloves all year in order to lay the money by.

  "We'll both need new clothes by summer time," she told herself."There'll not be much. We'll get along on little."

  Indeed they needed little. The people about them had enough to keep themwarm--and no more. So Eliza and the little girl needed, for the time,only necessities. The flowers which filled the bay windows; the greatfire-place with its burning, snapping logs; Old Jerry, the cat, who madeup the domestic hearth; Shep, the dog, who played guard to them, and thestories at twilight were sufficient to develop the cultural, sentimentalside of life.

  During the winter, few callers came. The roads were not good. Sometimesfor days the drifts would fill them. It was impossible to go out atnight, for no way was lighted. There were services of some kind eachSunday morning; Sunday-school and prayer meeting combined. Twice a monththe supply minister came from one of the adjoining towns and heldregular services, yet in spite of being alone, these two were neverlonely.

  The following summer, Eliza found that she would find an unexpectedexpense in her household account. The sugar box was emptied more quicklythan ever before. Sometimes, she would fill a sugar bowl after themidday meal and would find it empty before supper time.

  Yet Beth did not care for sugar. She would not touch it in her victuals,if it were there in sufficient amount to be noticeable.

  One afternoon, Eliza found Beth standing on a chair before the shelfwhich bore the household supplies. Her little fists were crammed withsugar.

  "What are you doing with it, Beth?" asked Eliza.

  "I'se feed'n em. Ey wikes it. Tome and see."

  She made her way out the back door, crossed the yard and garden towhere, at the border of the woodland, was a slight elevation.

  Eliza followed. The slopes of the hill were alive with ants hurrying toand fro, each carrying a burden. Round about the entrance to the anthills, Beth had made a circle of sugar.

  "Ey wike it so. Ey is so very hungry." Eliza did not scold her. Sheherself had been repressed along such lines when she was a child.Although she had long since forgotten the experience, the sympathy andunderstanding still remained with her.

  Later she explained to Beth about not helping herself from the householdstore. She compromised, however, by promising to fill, and place whereBeth could reach it, a small tin cup of sugar with which to feed theants for the day.

  Two years passed in such fashion. There came a time when Beth wasundoubtedly of school age. The township school was a mile or more fromthe old Wells place.

  Eliza thought little of that. A mile meant little to one accustomed towalking. She remembered something of the conditions of the school in herown childhood. She herself had been of such a nature that she had notbeen contaminated. Her presence had repudiated all that was not pure andfine. From the standpoint of a woman, she saw the matters in a differentlight. She visited the school several times. Forty children were packedin one small room. There were classes from primary to grammar grades.The poor little tots in the chart class sat on hard seats until theirbacks ached. At recess and noon--almost all carried their dinners--theywere turned out to play without restraint, the rough and boisterous withthe gentle and timid, the vicious and unruly of older age with thetractable little folks whose minds were as a sheet of clean paper uponwhich no impression had been made.

  Miss Eliza decided then that that particular school was not what shewished for the little girl she was to train for womanhood. For somemonths, she had learned all she could of new methods of teaching. Forthe first time in he
r life, she knew that the A, B, C's were out of dateand that children were taught after a different fashion.

  The school at the Bend had grown during the last five years. Asupervisor with new ideas, and trained progressive teachers were makingthe grades equal to the best in the country. Eliza had heard of thework. Because she was interested, she had questioned and investigated.

  The Bend was too far away for a child of Beth's age to walk alone, butEliza was not one to give up easily.

  "If the main road's closed against me, I'll find a foot-path or--I'llbreak a way through the underbrush," she was accustomed to say. She didthat very thing now.

  She visited the primary grades at the Bend. She sat an entire afternoondrinking in everything she could about teaching children. When thepupils were dismissed, she talked long with Miss Davis.

  This teacher, who thought only of the help she might be to the child,copied the work she had laid out for the month, gave a first reader andslate to Miss Eliza, and explained how "Willie has a slate" should betaught for the first lesson.

  Eliza started in her work. At the close of each month she visited MissDavis and copied the teacher's plan for the next four weeks. So thesecond year of Beth's life with Miss Eliza passed. The child learned thenumbers to twelve. She knew the stories which the first grade childrenshould know, and she read the reader through from cover to cover. Addedto this was a vocabulary of fifty words which she could write.

  Miss Eliza was happy. The child had ability to learn. Eliza had a greatadmiration for book knowledge. She had lacked so much in that lineherself. It was the unattainable to her; consequently she put greatvalue upon it.

  Miss Davis and her corps of teachers taught Eliza more than methods inteaching first grade work. They were fully as old as Eliza herself; butthey wore gowns which were quite up-to-date. They arranged their hair tobring out the very best of their features.

  They talked about skating and literary clubs, and calls, and afternoonteas. One had even gone out with her pupils and coasted down hill, andnot one was shocked or even thrilled when she related it.

  Eliza listened. She was not a dullard. To use the vernacular ofShintown, "Eliza Wells was no one's fool, in spite of her queer oldways." Her queer old way was loving flowers, giving artistic touch tothe dullest places.

  She showed her best qualities now in listening and culling the best fromthese teachers whose opportunities were broader and whose lives werefuller than hers had been.

  They found her enjoyable; for she had a quaint wit, and a refined,gentle manner.

  That night when she went home to Beth, she cuddled her close in herarms.

  "What story to-night, Adee dear?" was the first question.

  "A make-believe story which is really true," she said.

  Beth gave a little sigh of satisfaction. The make-believe stories whichwere true were better even than fairy stories which never can be true.This was the story she told:

  _The Wood Baby_.

  Once upon a time, the angels brought from heaven a little child andplaced her in a little house in the woods and gave her a plain oldfarmer and his wife as parents.

  The hut in which they lived was small--only four bare walls, a door anda window. It was night when the angel carried the child to its new home.The child was asleep. It lay in slumber in the arms of its mother. Theneighbor folk came and looked at it, and spoke dolefully of the cold,unpleasant world into which it had come.

  The child awakened, but it did not open its eyes. It lay and listened.

  "It's only a poor bare hut with smoke-covered walls that I have to giveas a home for my baby," the mother was saying.

  "It will find only work and trouble here," a neighbor wailed. "It's ahard, hard life."

  The baby heard, and being nothing but a baby and knowing nothing of theworld, believed what it heard. It grew as the days and months passed.The time came for it to walk, but it would only creep upon the floor. Itwould not raise itself on its feet to look from the window. It would notopen its eyes. It had never done so since the night that the angel hadcarried it to its new home.

  Years passed. The baby, now a woman in years, moved about between thefour walls which its great-grandparents had built. Yet she opened nother eyes; she never let a ray of light enter.

  "What is the use?" she told herself. "Is not the world dark andmiserable and barren? Why should I look at anything which is sopainfully homely? As to walking, why should I take the trouble? I cannotgo beyond this hut which my great-grandparents built. Creeping will dovery well."

  Then one morning something happened.----

  Eliza paused in her story. She knew what effect it would have on herlistener. Beth immediately sat bolt upright with her eyes brimming withinterest and curiosity.

  "What happened?" she cried. She gave a little gasp for breath, she couldwait no longer.

  "Something happened," continued Eliza. "It was a beautiful morning, butthe woman did not know it. Suddenly she heard a song of a bird at herdoor. She did not know it was a bird; but the sound was sweet, alluring,enticing. She listened an instant. Then she got upon her feet andhurried to the door and flung it wide open.

  "A wonderful sight met her eyes. A world, a glorious world with ripeninggrain, exquisite coloring of flowers, soft breezes laden with the mostdelicate perfume, and the song of birds everywhere."

  "And then--then what did she do?" asked Beth.

  "For a time, she stood and felt sorry for herself that she had keptherself blind for so long. Then she said, 'But here is all this beautyfor me to enjoy--me and the little song-bird which made me open myeyes.' Then she took the bird in her hand and held it close up to hercheek, and went with it out into the beauty of the world, and the littlebird sang all the while."

  "O-o-h," sighed Beth. "That is beautiful. Who was the baby the angelsbrought. Who was the woman? Did you know them?"

  "I was both the babe and the woman, and you the little song-bird thatcalled me out to see the sunshine and hear the music."