Dawn of the Morning Part 27

The school-children were not the only ones who admired the new teacher, and sought her society. There was not a young man in town who did not gaze after her as she went down the street, and wish himself a scholar again in the old red school-house.

About Christmas time, a new annoyance loomed up and threatened to spoil Dawn's bright prospects. Suddenly, without warning, the youngest of the selectmen, Silas Dobson, took a violent interest in the school. He would drop in at all hours, and stay the session out, taking occasion to walk home with the teacher, if possible.

Daniel, who had never presumed to walk beside her alone, frowned heavily and grew almost morose as the thing was repeated.

Dawn was very polite and a little frightened at first. It spoiled the cosy feeling of her school to have visitors. The presence of this particular selectman stirred up the latent mischief in the scholars. As his visits were repeated, the teacher was filled with a growing consternation.

Silas was a long, thin man about thirty years old, a widower with five children, and an angular mother, who kept them in order. He was the editor of the village paper, and as a literary man he claimed that he felt a deep responsibility toward the school. Daniel heard him say this one day, and told the boys he'd knock Silas's responsibility into a c.o.c.ked hat if he bothered the teacher much more.

Daniel's opportunity arrived one night when there was a quilting bee out the old turnpike road, and everybody was invited to the supper. The quilting began in the afternoon, and Dawn closed school early, so that she and the older girls might attend. The young men were coming to supper, and they were all to ride home in the moonlight.

With her thimble in her pocket and her eyes s.h.i.+ning, Dawn hurried off from the school-house in company with the older girls who could sew.

They looked back once to wave their hands toward the group of boys who lingered wistfully behind, keeping watch of them. The older boys were to come to the quilting bee later, but they felt-some of them-that the afternoon was a long blank in spite of good skating and the half-holiday. Somehow, the coming of the new teacher had made them more anxious to have the girls along and to have a good time all together.

But they consoled themselves with the antic.i.p.ation of the evening. The teacher had promised to ride home with them, and they were planning a big sleigh-load, all huddled happily on the straw, with songs and shoutings and a good time generally. Dawn was looking forward to the ride as much as any of them.

But Silas Dobson had other plans. He brought his own horse and cutter, and, having arranged that his mother should return home with a neighbor, he himself planned to monopolize the teacher. To this end, soon after supper he edged over to where she sat among the girls, and conferred the honor of his company upon her for the ride home; at least, that was the impression he gave as he told her that he wished her to go home with him.

"Oh, thank you," said Dawn politely, "but I've already promised to go with my pupils. Daniel b.u.t.terworth is to bring a big sleigh, and we are all going home together."

Silas's face darkened and his back stiffened.

"That will be quite uncomfortable for you," he said decidedly, as if it were not to be thought of. Dawn wondered why it was that people were always taking her affairs out of her hands so confidently, without asking her leave. But she was no longer the child she had been at home or school. She was feeling the strength of independence. She sat up with dignity.

"Oh, I shall enjoy it," she answered, sparkling at the thought.

"My cutter is here, and you'd better go with me," said Silas. "I'll speak to Dan about it and make it all right, so he won't expect you."

"Oh, please don't do that!" cried Dawn anxiously. (Why was it he reminded her so much of Harrington Winthrop?) "I promised Daniel and the children. I wouldn't disappoint them for anything. Thank you just the same."

Some one else came up then, and Silas turned away, but Dawn watched him uneasily. From the look on his face, one would have thought she had accepted his attention with delight. He did not act like a man who had received a rebuff.

Later, when Dan drove his horses with a flourish to the old horse-block in front of the house, Silas was waiting for him.

"You needn't wait for Miss Montgomery, Dan," said the selectman in a patronizing tone. "She's going with me."

"She's not any such a thing," growled Dan. "She promised us she'd go in our team."

"Yes, she was afraid you'd be disappointed, but I told her I'd make it right with you," said Silas, in a soothing tone. "Hurry, now, and load up and drive out of the way. Don't you see the other folks are waiting?

You wouldn't stand in the way of a lady's comfort, would you, especially when she doesn't want to go with you?"

Dan glared at his adversary in speechless wrath for an instant, while the girls and boys were climbing in, then gave a cut to his horses with the whip and drove the long sleigh with its merry load out into the white mist of the moonlit road and round a curve to the fence, where he flung the reins to another boy, telling him to wait and keep quiet. Then he stole back around the house and stood in the shadow of a great wood-pile, near enough to hear all that went on, but not to be seen.

The guests merrily trooped forth in the path of candle-light that shone from the open house door, and Dawn's musical laugh rang over them all; but when she came out to the horse-block and saw Silas standing alone beside his cutter, she drew back and looked around in dismay.

"Why, where is Daniel?" she asked anxiously. "They told me he wanted me to come now."

"Daniel has gone," said Silas pleasantly. "I explained to him how much more comfortable it would be for you in my sleigh, and, besides, he was crowded as it was. He hadn't room enough for you. Just get right in, and I'll show you what my mare can do in getting you over the snow."

"Daniel is gone!" Dawn echoed in a troubled voice. "Oh, no, thank you"-drawing back timidly and looking toward the door. "I will see if Mrs. b.u.t.terworth is inside yet. I can go with her. I will not trouble you."

But Silas was not to be thus set aside.

"Don't think of such a thing," he commanded. "Just get right in." He reached out to grasp her arm and detain her from her purpose, but just as he touched the sleeve of her coat his arm was grasped from behind, and a skilful thrust of Daniel b.u.t.terworth's long arm sent him spinning backward into a big s...o...b..nk.

When Silas Dobson arose, disconcerted and spluttering, from the snow-bank, Dawn had vanished, whisked around the wood-pile in a jiffy by Daniel, lifted for an instant in his strong arms, carried across a broad expanse of unbroken snow, and tucked neatly into the sleigh among the girls and boys.

The whole sleigh-load had divined Dan's purpose, and they kept silent until she was safe among them, and Dan in the front seat had gathered up his reins again. Then they gave a united shout which rang through the moonlit air and struck sharply on the ears of the disconcerted Silas as he climbed hastily into his lone sleigh and turned his horse's head in the opposite direction.

The next time Silas Dobson came to visit the school he stayed after hours and said he wished to talk with the teacher.

With lowering brow, Daniel lingered in the back of the room, phenomenally busy with his books. Dawn cast a frightened look around, and her eyes rested on him with appeal. His eyes seemed to give back comfortable a.s.surance of help as he sat down with a thump and began to figure vigorously at a sum he had not finished in the arithmetic cla.s.s.

Silas eyed his youthful enemy, and finally requested that he be sent home, as he wished to have a little private conversation.

"Oh!" laughed Dawn, loud enough for Daniel to hear. "Daniel has to stay to-night to finish his sums. It would not do for me to let him go. I might lose my school if I did not act fairly, you know."

Daniel figured away vigorously, putting down any numerals that entered his head. There was a warm feeling around his heart. It was as exhilarating as scoring a point in a ball-game. He was apparently deaf to what was going on about him, and frowned over his sum in feigned perplexity.

"Sit down, Mr. Dobson," went on Dawn, summoning all her dignity. "We can talk with entire freedom here. Daniel is busy and will not notice."

She spoke in a low, distant tone, and seated herself at the desk.

"I'm one of the princ.i.p.al selectman," frowned Dobson, as he sat down at her bidding. "You needn't be afraid to send him home."

"It isn't in the least necessary," said Dawn, thankful to Daniel from the depths of her heart for his presence.

Silas Dobson lowered his voice and, drawing gradually nearer to the teacher, launched into a flowery paragraph which he had prepared and rehea.r.s.ed before his mirror. It contained phases about Miss Montgomery's starry eyes, raven locks, pearly teeth, and rosy cheeks, and was calculated to convey his admiration in a delicate editorial manner.

Noting the drooping eyelashes, and deepened color of the girl before him, he proceeded from this preamble to make her understand that his interest in the school had not been altogether for the school's sake, and that he was offering her honorable attentions, which, if all went well, would mean a proposal of marriage later.

If he could have seen the steel flash under the drooping eyelashes, he would not have gone on to impress her with the value of such an offer, nor told its advantages in half so complacent a tone.

As usual, Dawn had control of herself in this unpleasant crisis, and while his words filled her with dismay and repulsion her tone was cool, low, deliberate:

"I have no doubt you mean to be kind, Mr. Dobson--" she began.

"Not at all, not at all, it is my pleasure and my will," he interrupted effusively.

"But," she went on, ignoring his interruption, "I have no desire for attention from any one, and will have to ask you to excuse me from accepting it."

He looked at her in astonishment, and thought she must be coquetting; but his most earnest solicitations failed to get anything further from her than the fact that she would rather not receive his attentions.

"Do you know," he asked angrily, "that I am a man of importance in this town? I have influence enough with the selectmen to take this school away from you if I choose. Take care how you treat me!"

"I suppose there are schools in other places, then," answered Dawn coolly, looking him in the eye now, though she felt every fibre of her being in a tremor.

"Are you aware, Miss Montgomery, that I am an editor, and that a very slight word from my pen would go abroad through the land and ruin your reputation so that you could not get any school anywhere?"

"I cannot see why you should want to do such an unkind thing as that, after what you have said about liking me, but if you do, you need not stop on my account. I can find something else to do. I certainly could never have anything more to do with a man that threatened such things."

"I did not say I would do any such thing, Miss Montgomery," began Silas, eager now to retract his angry words. "I was merely trying to show you what risks you were taking in talking to me as you did. I mean well by you, and I think you ought to appreciate it. If I were to offer these attentions to any other girl in the village, she would feel flattered."