Trent's Trust, and Other Stories Part 24

"Now that's jest what's botherin' me, Mr. Brooks," returned Mrs. Hoover, with a troubled face, "for you see she is a growin' girl," and she concluded, with some embarra.s.sment, "I can't quite make up my mind how to dress her."

"How old is she?" asked the master abruptly.

"Goin' on twelve, but,"--and Mrs. Hoover again hesitated.

"Why, two of my scholars, the Bromly girls, are over fourteen," said the master, "and you know how they are dressed;" but here he hesitated in his turn. It had just occurred to him that the little waif was from the extreme South, and the precocious maturity of the mixed races there was well known. He even remembered, to his alarm, to have seen brides of twelve and mothers of fourteen among the native villagers. This might also account for the suggestion of equality in her manner, and even for a slight coquettishness which he thought he had noticed in her when he had addressed her playfully as a muchacha. "I should dress her in something Spanish," he said hurriedly, "something white, you know, with plenty of flounces and a little black lace, or a black silk skirt and a lace scarf, you know. She'll be all right if you don't make her look like a servant or a dependent," he added, with a show of confidence he was far from feeling. "But you haven't told me her name," he concluded.

"As we're reckonin' to adopt her," said Mrs. Hoover gravely, "you'll give her ours."

"But I can't call her 'Miss Hoover,'" suggested the master; "what's her first name?"

"We was thinkin' o' 'Serafina Ann,'" said Mrs. Hoover with more gravity.

"But what is her name?" persisted the master.

"Well," returned Mrs. Hoover, with a troubled look, "me and Hiram consider it's a heathenish sort of name for a young gal, but you'll find it in my brother's letter." She took a letter from under the lid of a large Bible on the table and pointed to a pa.s.sage in it.

"The child was christened 'Concepcion,'" read the master. "Why, that's one of the Marys!"

"The which?" asked Mrs. Hoover severely.

"One of the t.i.tles of the Virgin Mary; 'Maria de la Concepcion,'" said Mr. Brooks glibly.

"It don't sound much like anythin' so Christian and decent as 'Maria' or 'Mary,'" returned Mrs. Hoover suspiciously.

"But the abbreviation, 'Concha,' is very pretty. In fact it's just the thing, it's so very Spanish," returned the master decisively. "And you know that the squaw who hangs about the mining camp is called 'Reservation Ann,' and old Mrs. Parkins's negro cook is called 'Aunt Serafina,' so 'Serafina Ann' is too suggestive. 'Concha Hoover' 's the name."

"P'r'aps you're right," said Mrs. Hoover meditatively.

"And dress her so she'll look like her name and you'll be all right,"

said the master gayly as he took his departure.

Nevertheless, it was with some anxiety the next morning he heard the sound of hoofs on the rocky bridle path leading to the schoolhouse. He had already informed his little flock of the probable addition to their numbers and their breathless curiosity now accented the appearance of Mr. Hoover riding past the window, followed by a little figure on horseback, half hidden in the graceful folds of a serape. The next moment they dismounted at the porch, the serape was cast aside, and the new scholar entered.

A little alarmed even in his admiration, the master nevertheless thought he had never seen a more dainty figure. Her heavily flounced white skirt stopped short just above her white-stockinged ankles and little feet, hidden in white satin, low-quartered slippers. Her black silk, sh.e.l.l-like jacket half clasped her stayless bust clad in an under-bodice of soft muslin that faintly outlined a contour which struck him as already womanly. A black lace veil which had protected her head, she had on entering slipped down to her shoulders with a graceful gesture, leaving one end of it pinned to her hair by a rose above her little yellow ear. The whole figure was so inconsistent with its present setting that the master inwardly resolved to suggest a modification of it to Mrs. Hoover as he, with great gravity, however, led the girl to the seat he had prepared for her. Mr. Hoover, who had been a.s.sisting discipline as he conscientiously believed by gazing with hushed, reverent reminiscence on the walls, here whispered behind his large hand that he would call for her at "four o'clock" and tiptoed out of the schoolroom. The master, who felt that everything would depend upon his repressing the children's exuberant curiosity and maintaining the discipline of the school for the next few minutes, with supernatural gravity addressed the young girl in Spanish and placed before her a few slight elementary tasks. Perhaps the strangeness of the language, perhaps the unwonted seriousness of the master, perhaps also the impa.s.sibility of the young stranger herself, all contributed to arrest the expanding smiles on little faces, to check their wandering eyes, and hush their eager whispers. By degrees heads were again lowered over their tasks, the scratching of pencils on slates, and the far-off rapping of Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs again indicated the normal quiet of the schoolroom, and the master knew he had triumphed, and the ordeal was past.

But not as regarded himself, for although the new pupil had accepted his instructions with childlike submissiveness, and even as it seemed to him with childlike comprehension, he could not help noticing that she occasionally glanced at him with a demure suggestion of some understanding between them, or as if they were playing at master and pupil. This naturally annoyed him and perhaps added a severer dignity to his manner, which did not appear to be effective, however, and which he fancied secretly amused her. Was she covertly laughing at him? Yet against this, once or twice, as her big eyes wandered from her task over the room, they encountered the curious gaze of the other children, and he fancied he saw an exchange of that freemasonry of intelligence common to children in the presence of their elders even when strangers to each other. He looked forward to recess to see how she would get on with her companions; he knew that this would settle her status in the school, and perhaps elsewhere. Even her limited English vocabulary would not in any way affect that instinctive, childlike test of superiority, but he was surprised when the hour of recess came and he had explained to her in Spanish and English its purpose, to see her quietly put her arm around the waist of Matilda Bromly, the tallest girl in the school, as the two whisked themselves off to the playground. She was a mere child after all!

Other things seemed to confirm this opinion. Later, when the children returned from recess, the young stranger had instantly become a popular idol, and had evidently dispensed her favors and patronage generously.

The elder Bromly girl was wearing her lace veil, another had possession of her handkerchief, and a third displayed the rose which had adorned her left ear, things of which the master was obliged to take note with a view of returning them to the prodigal little barbarian at the close of school. Later he was, however, much perplexed by the mysterious pa.s.sage under the desks of some unknown object which apparently was making the circuit of the school. With the annoyed consciousness that he was perhaps unwittingly partic.i.p.ating in some game, he finally "nailed it"

in the possession of Demosthenes Walker, aged six, to the spontaneous outcry of "Cotched!" from the whole school. When produced from Master Walker's desk in company with a horned toad and a piece of gingerbread, it was found to be Concha's white satin slipper, the young girl herself, meanwhile, bending demurely over her task with the bereft foot tucked up like a bird's under her skirt. The master, reserving reproof of this and other enormities until later, contented himself with commanding the slipper to be brought to him, when he took it to her with the satirical remark in Spanish that the schoolroom was not a dressing room--Camara para vestirse. To his surprise, however, she smilingly held out the tiny stockinged foot with a singular combination of the spoiled child and the coquettish senorita, and remained with it extended as if waiting for him to kneel and replace the slipper. But he laid it carefully on her desk.

"Put it on at once," he said in English.

There was no mistaking the tone of his voice, whatever his language.

Concha darted a quick look at him like the momentary resentment of an animal, but almost as quickly her eyes became suffused, and with a hurried movement she put on the slipper.

"Please, sir, it dropped off and Jimmy Snyder pa.s.sed it on," said a small explanatory voice among the benches.

"Silence!" said the master.

Nevertheless, he was glad to see that the school had not noticed the girl's familiarity even though they thought him "hard." He was not sure upon reflection but that he had magnified her offense and had been unnecessarily severe, and this feeling was augmented by his occasionally finding her looking at him with the melancholy, wondering eyes of a chidden animal. Later, as he was moving among the desks' overlooking the tasks of the individual pupils, he observed from a distance that her head was bent over her desk while her lips were moving as if repeating to herself her lesson, and that afterwards, with a swift look around the room to a.s.sure herself that she was un.o.bserved, she made a hurried sign of the cross. It occurred to him that this might have followed some penitential prayer of the child, and remembering her tuition by the padres it gave him an idea. He dismissed school a few moments earlier in order that he might speak to her alone before Mr. Hoover arrived.

Referring to the slipper incident and receiving her a.s.surances that "she" (the slipper) was much too large and fell often "so," a fact really established by demonstration, he seized his opportunity. "But tell me, when you were with the padre and your slipper fell off, you did not expect him to put it on for you?"

Concha looked at him coyly and then said triumphantly, "Ah, no! but he was a priest, and you are a young caballero."

Yet even after this audacity Mr. Brooks found he could only recommend to Mr. Hoover a change in the young girl's slippers, the absence of the rose-pinned veil, and the subst.i.tution of a sunbonnet. For the rest he must trust to circ.u.mstances. As Mr. Hoover--who with large paternal optimism had professed to see already an improvement in her--helped her into the saddle, the schoolmaster could not help noticing that she had evidently expected him to perform that act of courtesy, and that she looked correspondingly reproachful.

"The holy fathers used sometimes to let me ride with them on their mules," said Concha, leaning over her saddle towards the schoolmaster.

"Eh, what, missy?" said the Protestant Mr. Hoover, p.r.i.c.king up his ears.

"Now you just listen to Mr. Brooks's doctrines, and never mind them Papists," he added as he rode away, with the firm conviction that the master had already commenced the task of her spiritual conversion.

The next day the master awoke to find his little school famous. Whatever were the exaggerations or whatever the fancies carried home to their parents by the children, the result was an overwhelming interest in the proceedings and personnel of the school by the whole district. People had already called at the Hoover ranch to see Mrs. Hoover's pretty adopted daughter. The master, on his way to the schoolroom that morning, had found a few woodmen and charcoal burners lounging on the bridle path that led from the main road. Two or three parents accompanied their children to school, a.s.serting they had just dropped in to see how "Aramanta" or "Tommy" were "gettin' on." As the school began to a.s.semble several unfamiliar faces pa.s.sed the windows or were boldly flattened against the gla.s.s. The little schoolhouse had not seen such a gathering since it had been borrowed for a political meeting in the previous autumn. And the master noticed with some concern that many of the faces were the same which he had seen uplifted to the glittering periods of Colonel Starbottle, "the war horse of the Democracy."

For he could not shut his eyes to the fact that they came from no mere curiosity to see the novel and bizarre; no appreciation of mere picturesqueness or beauty; and alas! from no enthusiasm for the progression of education. He knew the people among whom he had lived, and he realized the fatal question of "color" had been raised in some mysterious way by those Southwestern emigrants who had carried into this "free state" their inherited prejudices. A few words convinced him that the unhappy children had variously described the complexion of their new fellow pupil, and it was believed that the "No'th'n" schoolmaster, aided and abetted by "capital" in the person of Hiram Hoover, had introduced either a "n.i.g.g.e.r wench," a "Chinese girl," or an "Injin baby" to the same educational privileges as the "pure whites," and so contaminated the sons of freemen in their very nests. He was able to rea.s.sure many that the child was of Spanish origin, but a majority preferred the evidence of their own senses, and lingered for that purpose. As the hour for her appearance drew near and pa.s.sed, he was seized with a sudden fear that she might not come, that Mr. Hoover had been prevailed upon by his compatriots, in view of the excitement, to withdraw her from the school. But a faint cheer from the bridle path satisfied him, and the next moment a little retinue swept by the window, and he understood.

The Hoovers had evidently determined to accent the Spanish character of their little charge. Concha, with a black riding skirt over her flounces, was now mounted on a handsome pinto mustang glittering with silver trappings, accompanied by a vaquero in a velvet jacket, Mr.

Hoover bringing up the rear. He, as he informed the master, had merely come to show the way to the vaquero, who hereafter would always accompany the child to and from school. Whether or not he had been induced to this display by the excitement did not transpire. Enough that the effect was a success. The riding skirt and her mustang's fripperies had added to Concha's piquancy, and if her origin was still doubted by some, the child herself was accepted with enthusiasm. The parents who were spectators were proud of this distinguished accession to their children's playmates, and when she dismounted amid the acclaim of her little companions, it was with the aplomb of a queen.

The master alone foresaw trouble in this encouragement of her precocious manner. He received her quietly, and when she had removed her riding skirt, glancing at her feet, said approvingly, "I am glad to see you have changed your slippers; I hope they fit you more firmly than the others."

The child shrugged her shoulders. "Quien sabe. But Pedro (the vaquero) will help me now on my horse when he comes for me."

The master understood the characteristic non sequitur as an allusion to his want of gallantry on the previous day, but took no notice of it.

Nevertheless, he was pleased to see during the day that she was paying more attention to her studies, although they were generally rehea.r.s.ed with the languid indifference to all mental accomplishment which belonged to her race. Once he thought to stimulate her activity through her personal vanity.

"Why can you not learn as quickly as Matilda Bromly? She is only two years older than you," he suggested.

"Ah! Mother of G.o.d!--why does she then try to wear roses like me? And with that hair. It becomes her not."

The master became thus aware for the first time that the elder Bromly girl, in "the sincerest form of flattery" to her idol, was wearing a yellow rose in her tawny locks, and, further, that Master Bromly with exquisite humor had burlesqued his sister's imitation with a very small carrot stuck above his left ear. This the master promptly removed, adding an additional sum to the humorist's already overflowing slate by way of penance, and returned to Concha. "But wouldn't you like to be as clever as she?--you can if you will only learn."

"What for should I? Look you; she has a devotion for the tall one--the boy Brown! Ah! I want him not."

Yet, notwithstanding this lack of n.o.ble ambition, Concha seemed to have absorbed the "devotion" of the boys, big and little, and as the master presently discovered even that of many of the adult population. There were always loungers on the bridle path at the opening and closing of school, and the vaquero, who now always accompanied her, became an object of envy. Possibly this caused the master to observe him closely.

He was tall and thin, with a smooth complexionless face, but to the master's astonishment he had the blue gray eye of the higher or Castilian type of native Californian. Further inquiry proved that he was a son of one of the old impoverished Spanish grant holders whose leagues and cattle had been mortgaged to the Hoovers, who now retained the son to control the live stock "on shares." "It looks kinder ez ef he might hev an eye on that poorty little gal when she's an age to marry,"

suggested a jealous swain. For several days the girl submitted to her school tasks with her usual languid indifference and did not again transgress the ordinary rules. Nor did Mr. Brooks again refer to their hopeless conversation. But one afternoon he noticed that in the silence and preoccupation of the cla.s.s she had subst.i.tuted another volume for her text-book and was perusing it with the articulating lips of the unpracticed reader. He demanded it from her. With blazing eyes and both hands thrust into her desk she refused and defied him. Mr.

Brooks slipped his arms around her waist, quietly lifted her from the bench--feeling her little teeth pierce the back of his hand as he did so, but secured the book. Two of the elder boys and girls had risen with excited faces.

"Sit down!" said the master sternly.

They resumed their places with awed looks. The master examined the book.

It was a little Spanish prayer book. "You were reading this?" he said in her own tongue.

"Yes. You shall not prevent me!" she burst out. "Mother of G.o.d! THEY will not let me read it at the ranch. They would take it from me. And now YOU!"

"You may read it when and where you like, except when you should be studying your lessons," returned the master quietly. "You may keep it here in your desk and peruse it at recess. Come to me for it then. You are not fit to read it now."