Dawn of the Morning Part 25

There was much curiosity in the village concerning the new teacher, who was reported to have come from New York, and to be exceedingly young.

Some thought the minister had made a great mistake to hire a woman, for the school was a hard one to manage, and even a master found it difficult to control the big boys. There was so much talk about it that the scholars themselves were quite excited. Even the big boys, who usually preferred to get out of the summer session although it meant hard work in the hayfields, decided to go to school and see for themselves.

Quite early the scholars might have been seen wending their way toward the old red school-house. They huddled in groups about the steps or under the great elm tree which grew in front and spread its branches far on every side, making a lovely leafy bower for the playground. Peggy Gillette was among the first to arrive. From her point of vantage at the Golden Swan, she was in a position to give accurate information concerning the new teacher, so she knew that she would be most popular this morning. She had, therefore, packed her little dinner-pail hastily and departed soon after breakfast, after making sure that Dawn had gone up to her room to make ready for school.

"She's awful pretty," Peggy told the first knot of eager listeners, "and she's got a lot of real curls on top what ain't tied on. I know, fer I peeked through the crack of the door when she was fixin' her hair last night, and it was down and reached ever so far below her waist. An'

she's got dimples when she laughs, and twinkles in her eyes like the stars make, an' she ain't much bigger'n I am. She looks just like a little girl."

"H'm! We'll soon do her up!" remarked Daniel b.u.t.terworth, the tallest and strongest boy in the school.

Daniel had a shock of yellow hair that was roughly curly, big blue eyes with curly yellow lashes, and an irresponsible wide mouth, always on a defiant grin. Peggy looked up at him in terror.

"Now, Dan b.u.t.terworth," she began, "ef you boys go to playin' pranks on her, it'll be just pusly mean. She's jest a girl, an' she's so pretty an' don't look like she was used to rough boys like you."

"We don't want no sissy-baby to teach us," declared 'Liakim Morse, a bold, black-eyed boy, who always followed Daniel's lead in everything and then went a step further. "We want a _man_ to teach us. The selectmen'll soon find out they can't put no baby teachers off on us, fer we won't stand it."

Peggy made a face at them and turned her back, but Daniel only grinned.

He had his plan, and he knew it would be carried out. He did not need to say much to his followers. The program was well understood by them.

One of the selectmen, who lived near the school-house, came over with the key, and stayed about the place, opening the windows and setting the teacher's desk in order.

The scholars were all seated demurely with books before them when the minister came walking in with Dawn, shy and smiling, by his side. Not one of them seemed to be looking her over curiously, for it was done from the side of their eyes; but a kind of groan went softly over the back rows, where the bigger boys sat, as much as to say, "This job is too easy. It's scarcely worth our attention. Why didn't you send us some one worthy of our valor?"

Dawn looked them over, bright-eyed, her heart beating a trifle fast, but her face on the whole quite confident and happy. They noted the confidence in the tilt of her chin, and it gave them intense pleasure to think how soon they could dispel it. They failed, however, to note, the firmness of that chin, or the determination in the line of the softly curving red lips. They looked at their victim warily, and rejoiced in her youth and beauty. They had vanquished many before, but never one so lovely, so child-like, or so confident. It was an insult to their manhood that the selectmen should have thought she could teach them.

The minister introduced Miss Montgomery to the selectman, who shook hands with her, wished her well, and departed. Then the good old man made a few gentle remarks to the effect that they should reflect on the goodness of the new teacher, to whom he referred as "our young friend,"

in coming to teach them and guide them into the devious ways of knowledge, and that they should refrain from all annoying conduct during her stay, and behave as model scholars should.

The minister had spent much thought upon this speech, and felt that he had worded it in such a way as to appeal to the sympathy of all the children. In all his mild and reasonable life, he had never been able to comprehend the sinful workings of the unregenerate heart of a boy.

He could conceive of no reason why a boy or a girl would be mischievous in school, if the matter were presented rightly to their minds. He felt that he had put it before them as it should be made to appear, and, looking into the demure faces, he hoped that he had accomplished his end, and that the sweet young stranger would have opportunity to prove that she was capable of teaching that school. Though exceedingly doubtful of the experiment, he wanted her to have a fair chance.

After giving one long, lingering look toward the back row of scholars whose studious appearance was almost portentous in its gravity, the old clergyman sighed with relief and turned with a smile of farewell toward the new teacher.

"Miss Montgomery, I will leave you with your school," he said. "I'm sure that they all appreciate how hard is the first day in a new school, and that they will do their best to make it easy for you."

He bowed and went out. His last glance had shown him a vision of serious faces bent upon open books; yet he felt a strange and apparently most uncalled for foreboding.

Dawn surveyed the whole quiet room with a smile, then she untied her bonnet, took off her cape, and carried them to the hook in the corner, obviously used for that purpose by other teachers.

How did the boys on the back seat time the minister exactly, so as to know just the instant he reached the corner beyond the blacksmith's and was out of hearing?

Dawn had turned from a room full of model scholars, to hang up her mantle and bonnet. Turning back, she beheld pandemonium let loose.

Something struck her on the cheek, something else stung her forehead.

The whole room seemed white with hard little flying objects. Some of them were of paper, wet and soft, some were bits of chalk. It was like a summer snow-storm, and there seemed to be no end to it.

The bewildered young teacher surveyed the scene for an instant, surprise growing into indignation at the outrage. She was young enough to like fun as well as any one, and for an instant she felt like laughing at the sight, then she realized that it was intended as an insult, and as an open rebellion against her authority. It hurt her sharply that they thus arrayed themselves against her at the outset, without giving her a chance to show them what she was. Well, if they would be enemies, she would show them she could fight. The crucial test of which she had been warned was upon her. She must make good now if she would hope to at all. This critical moment would tell whether she could ever teach that school or any other. In her imagination she saw the regretful look in the kindly minister's eyes, and the line of his mouth which would say, "I told you so," and she did not mean he should be disappointed. Or, rather, she meant that he should be happily disappointed.

In an instant she was on the alert again, her senses collected. As ever in a crisis, she was cool and able to move deliberately.

It took but a second for her to find out who was the leader of the unruly scholars. The tall form of Daniel b.u.t.terworth towered above the rest in the back line, and the grin on his impudent face showed he was enjoying the affair immensely. Without an effort, he was evidently directing the whole thing.

A great indignation came into Dawn's eyes, and the soft lips set in determination. Like a flash she dashed across the room, dodging the missiles that pelted through the air from every side.

Straight at Daniel b.u.t.terworth she came, the bully and the leader. He was the tallest and strongest boy in the school, and no teacher had ever dared make a direct attack upon him. Usually, the teachers punished the smaller boys for the sins that were really Daniel's. Dawn, with her quick perception, located the cause of the trouble, and impulsively went straight to the mark with her discipline.

The scholars paused in their entertainment to see what would happen next, and little Peggy Gillette began to cry: "Oh, Teacher, Teacher, don't ye! don't ye! He won't stand it, he won't."

But Peggy's voice was drowned in the general hubbub, which subsided suddenly into ominous silence as Dawn took hold of Daniel b.u.t.terworth's arm and jerked him into the seat.

Daniel, of course, did not expect the attack, or he would not have been so easily thrown off his balance; but coming down on the seat so unexpectedly bewildered him, and before he could understand what had happened blows began to rain upon his head and face and ears. Not that they hurt him much, for Dawn had no ruler or switch or any of the time-honored implements wherewith to exercise discipline. She used her hands, her small, soft, pink palms, that were daintily shaped and delicately eared for, and had never seen any hard labor, but yet were strong and supple.

As he sat still and allowed the new teacher to administer justice, Daniel resembled a kitten backing off, with flattened ears and ruffled fur, and submitting to a severe slapping for some misdemeanor.

Nothing so soft and wonderful as Dawn's hands had ever touched the boy's face before. He sat and took the experience in a dazed delight, subsiding and shrinking at every blow which yet gave him a delicious sense of pleasure as if it were some kind of attention she was offering him. Probably in no other way could she have ever won this boy's admiration.

After the chastis.e.m.e.nt was over he sat still, blus.h.i.+ng and smiling sheepishly, as if he were glad of her victory, while all the rest of the school stood gaping in amazement. Their hero had fallen! He had been conquered by a woman, a woman who was only a girl! How could any of them ever again hope to stand against a teacher, if the heart of the strong Dan b.u.t.terworth melted like wax in her hands?

Dawn whirled upon them all.

"You may sit down," she commanded grandly, and they sat.

"What is your name?" she asked, turning back to Daniel.

"He'th Dan b.u.t.terwuth," volunteered an A-B-C from the front of the room.

Dawn looked Daniel straight in the eye, with a long, burning, scathing scorn.

"You great big baby!" she said at last, her cheeks a beautiful red, her eyes bright with the excitement of the encounter. "Aren't you ashamed?"

The rich red stole up into the boy's face, mantling cheek and brow, and seeming to bring a glow even into the rough, tawny hair and yellow, curling lashes, as he dropped his eyes in a kind of happy shame. It was the first shame, perhaps, that he had ever been made to feel, and it was real shame, yet it was so mixed with wholesome admiration of the small, beautiful creature who had brought it upon him, that it left him unable to understand himself. So he grew redder, though there was no look of anger about him, and soon his habitual smile was growing again, although this time it was tinged with reverence and quite lacked its usual impudence.

The scholars marvelled at him as the new teacher left him with the brand of baby, sealed with her beautiful scorn.

Dawn went back to her seat on the platform, behind the big desk, and Daniel sat still, only lifting his curly lashes to get another glimpse of the loveliness and daring which had attacked and conquered him. Bug Higginson, a small, round imp, who adored Daniel, seemed to feel that the erstwhile leader would expect something of his followers, so he delivered himself of a fiendish grimace toward the teacher, which set the girls near him to giggling, and of which Dawn had the full benefit just as she sat down.

"You may come here," commanded Dawn, pointing straight at Bug with a ruler she found on the desk. "Come here and sit on this stool."

She placed a stool near her own chair and waited for him to obey.

Bug made another grimace, and responded pertly, "I won't!"

It was very quietly and swiftly done, and no one in the school saw the beginning, because they were watching Bug and the teacher; but somehow an instant after Bug had declined to obey he was taken by the nape of his neck and the seat of his trousers, and deposited on the required stool, while Daniel b.u.t.terworth was making his way back to his seat, with a look of unconcern upon his face. Bug was too astonished and too much afraid of Daniel to make a sound or move a muscle.

Dawn looked at the long, lank boy as he sprawled back into his seat and raised his curly eyelashes, to see how she would take his action, and there flashed into her eyes a kindling of surprise, grat.i.tude, and understanding. The school sat in mild dismay. The fun had vanished, and before their halting eyes stretched a monotonous vista of uninteresting school days. For they saw plainly that the leader had gone over to the enemy, and they must surrender.

At intervals during the day some boy would attempt to bring about another insurrection, but he would be promptly silenced by Daniel, who every time received as reward a look of grat.i.tude from Dawn's expressive eyes; and every time the beautiful glance gave him a new thrill of pleasure. He sat docile as a lamb and let her make him study, a thing he had never done before in his whole life. Now and then he raised his eyes, dumb, submissive, and met hers, and the shock of a great revolution reverberated through his nature. He did not know what it meant; he did not know why he was enjoying the morning so keenly; but he entered into the new state of things as in a dream of bliss.

At recess time the boys who had always followed his lead in everything began to jeer at him about the way he had given in to a girl and let her whip him. He did not turn red nor look embarra.s.sed. He promptly settled the boldest of them with a few blows from his loosely hung arms, and the others considered it wise to desist. It was plain that the former bully of the school had fallen in the new teacher's snare, and as it was well known to be unsafe to arouse his fiery temper, the other boys had no choice but to follow in his lead.

"If you fellers say a word about her"-he nodded toward the school-house-"I'll lick every last one of yeh, an' I mean it, too!" he threatened, and then he walked away and sat down under the big elm to whittle. He always sat down to whittle after he had presented an ultimatum to the other boys.