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CHAPTER XI

Miss Hanscom was nervous when she called the school to order. Her voice was sharp and her body rigid as steel. Her state of mind was felt all over the room. The silence was ominous. It was not that of a healthy, well-disciplined set of boys and girls. It was a condition impelled by fear.

The girls sat bolt upright, not daring to glance at the door through which the visitors were being ushered by Miss Ward, the vice-principal. The boys twisted the tops of the ink wells or sat with their hands deep in their pockets, trying their best to appear unconcerned, while their eyes were anywhere but upon the visitors.

Miss Ward was a wholly different type from Miss Hanscom. She never thought of herself or the impression that she might be making. Her desire was to make everyone about her comfortable and happy. It follows, of course, that one loves that person who brings out the best in one. The instant Miss Ward entered the room there was a relaxation of tense muscles and a sigh went over the room. Unconsciously each boy and girl felt easier. Miss Ward made them feel at ease. They could do their best if she were presiding in the school-room.

The guests who were being ushered in were worth notice. The dignified, stately judge with his silver hair, and judicial, yet kindly bearing; Colonel Evans, who bore the marks of military training in every move, although years were heavy upon them. Mr. Laurens, a prominent engineer and construction man who had built the finest bridges in the world, and who was always called in for conference whenever any great engineering feat was in prospect. He was a man in the forties, perhaps. He was particularly fine appearing, with no thought of self in his bearing or expression. Indeed, his whole attitude was centered upon his wife. He was careful of her comfort, and most considerate toward her in every way. She was a dainty woman, slender in physique, with delicate, exquisite coloring, and wonderfully expressive eyes. She smiled and laughed as she talked with Miss Ward, yet her face, when at rest, expressed only sadness.

Beth’s eyes rested upon her and remained there. She fairly held her breath. Never in her life had she seen anything so exquisite as this woman. Her heart gave a great leap. Beth watched her while she was talking and until she moved across the room and took her place with the others before the school. Then the woman sat silent, and the peculiar look of wistful sadness came to her face. Beth felt it. She did not know what had caused the change in her own feelings; but her heart sank, and great tears sprang to her eyes.

“She’s so sweet that it makes my heart ache,” she told herself. “Wouldn’t it be heavenly to be her little girl. I’d love her to death. I’d hug her until she couldn’t breathe.”

Poor little prosaic Beth had grown sentimental. She sat quite still with her eyes upon the woman. She neither spoke nor moved. She forgot that there was any one else in the room. As far as she was concerned, Mrs. Laurens was the only one.

But the woman’s glance never turned in Beth’s direction. After that sweet, fleeting glance over the room, she had let her eyes droop upon her hands folded in her lap, and she did not raise them again. Her husband sat near her. He talked with those about him and seemed a part of everything, yet it was evident that his wife engrossed his thoughts, for his tender, yet uneasy glances were turned upon her. She seemed unconscious of this and sat quiet as though in deep thought.

The program began. There was a general stiffening of spines. Carrie Laire leaned over to ask Beth if she didn’t think Mrs. Laurens the most beautiful creature in the world, and if she was not sorry that she did not have a mother who would come to visit school. Adee had come and was sitting up in front among the visitors. Mrs. Laire was near her.

“I have Adee. She’s better than any mother I ever saw. She’s the prettiest woman there – except Mrs. Laurens,” she said.

Tilly Jones was straightening out her hair-ribbons. She smoothed her sash and drew it over the edge of the seat that it might not muss. Then she adjusted her rings and bracelets. Her fussiness brought the eyes of the visitors upon her. Tilly was not abashed. She met their glances and turned to give a loving pat to her sash. Then she leaned forward to speak to Beth. “Look at Mrs. Laurens’ motor-coat. Isn’t it simply divine? It must have cost fifty dollars. Look at the heels of her shoes. They’re the most expensive shoes that can be bought. My aunt Tilly – .” She continued her monologue in a whisper. Beth was not listening to a word she said. Her eyes and mind were upon the wonderful woman who sat at the front of the room.

The fairy-stories and “make-believe” tales between Adee and Beth had continued all the years that they were together, so that the child’s native imagination had been well developed. This would be such a lovely story. The lady would be the princess or queen who had had a great sorrow. Beth thought it all out as she sat there. She would write about it, and read it at the next meeting of the Literary Society. She was glad that Sally Monroe had put her on the program.

The exercises were progressing nicely. Some one thumped out a solo on the piano. There were essays on subjects which a sage would have hesitated to handle. The High School Daily was presented. Harvey Lackard, the red-headed, freckle-faced boy, was editor-in-chief and read the edition. There were editorials and poems. Beth sat up to listen. This was something new and really worth while. She forgot for a time the sweet-faced woman sitting before her. She laughed aloud when Harvey read, “What They Remind Me Of.” There followed a list of the pupils with some characteristic appended.

Tilly Jones – An Animated Price List.

Carrie Laire – The Living Question Mark.

Sally Monroe – A Lubricating Oil Can.

Beth Wells – The Verbal Pugilist.

Beth laughed as heartily as any at the gibe at herself. It was a little odd. Only twice in her life had she spoken sharply. Harvey had been present. He knew nothing of the thousand times she had maintained a discreet, though painful, silence.

She laughed, but nevertheless she was sorry that Harvey had received such an unpleasant impression of her.

Tilly Jones was to recite. When her name was called, there was a little flutter of excitement about her desk, she straightened her sash and turned her bracelet about so that the sets might show. She did this while she walked up the aisle. All the while she watched the visitors to see how her elegance was impressing them. They smiled. She accepted this as a sign of admiration, and, self-confident, took her stand in the middle of the platform. There was a moment’s silence. She twisted her bracelet, put her hand back of her and coughed. This was followed by a longer silence. She raised her eyes imploringly toward Miss Ward. The teacher knew the symptoms.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” repeated Miss Ward.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” cried Tilly confidently. Then she paused, coughed, and brought her hands to the front.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf,” she said again. After this, she straightened herself, changed her weight to her left foot, and caught the ends of her sash. She bent her head as though trying to recall the elusive next line. She pressed her lips and fixed her eyes vacantly upon a picture at the farthest end of the room.

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf – like a wolf – ”

“Take your seat,” said Miss Ward.

Tilly obeyed. As she passed Harvey Lackard he whispered, and every one heard: “All price lists marked down.” Tilly smiled good-naturedly. She had not grasped the wit of his remark and in no way thought it applied to her.

Mrs. Laurens’s eyes followed her until she took her seat. Beth had moved so that her face was in full view. The eyes of the woman fell upon her. Then she leaned forward, looking intently at Beth, studying her face as an artist might study that of the subject he would put on canvas.

A moment she sat intent, rigid, with her eyes fixed on Beth’s face. Then turning to her husband, she laid her hand upon his arm and spoke to him in a low tone.

He looked startled, surprised. Then he too looked at Beth with more than passing interest. He turned to his wife and talked with her. Then he arose and, offering his arm, led her from the room.

“Mrs. Laurens has become faint,” he said. “If you will excuse us, Miss Ward.”

“Miss Hanscom, escort them to the teachers’ room,” said Miss Ward. The younger teacher did as requested. The rest room was across the hall. Mr. Laurens found a chair for his wife.

“You are very foolish, Ermann,” he said gently, ”do give up this feeling. Control yourself, please do.“

“Have I not up to this? I have kept everything to myself until now. The resemblance was startling. She looks just like you and your sisters, Joe.”

“Such resemblances often appear,” he said, sitting down beside her.

“It might be – strange things happen, you know. I’ve always had a queer feeling about coming here. I’ve had a premonition. You know how I felt. I have not been so eager for anything for years. She’s such a dear looking child, Joe, and just about the age that our girl is.”

“Would have been,” he corrected. “You know we decided over a year ago that we would give up hope of finding her. We’ll think of her as dead. That will be a better way of looking at it.”

“I try, but I can’t. Something within me will not let me think of her but living. Who knows, Joe? This might be. We might have been led here.”

“I think it nonsense,” was the reply. “No doubt the child’s parents live here. You saw that she was dressed well, and looked happy. She looked like a child of well-to-do parents.”

“But Joe, you might inquire,” she pleaded. No one could resist the entreaty of her eyes.

“I will, but make up your mind that the thing cannot be true. You know how you feel after a disappointment. I’ll ask, but you must expect nothing. I’ll not have you ‘fagged.’ Remember that you have me yet. You must brace up and be cheerful for my sake.”

“I’ll try, Joe. You’ll ask?”

Miss Hanscom had gone into the class-room adjoining. Mr. Laurens went to her.

“Who was the little girl who failed in her recitation?” he asked.

“Tilly Jones. We always expect Tilly to do that. We never permit her name on the program when visitors are present. We always have the same experience with her. Your coming was unexpected.”

He waved her suggested apologies away.

“And the little girl who sits in front of her?” Walking to the swinging doors, he pushed them slightly open. “She’s sitting there now. Who is she?”

Miss Hanscom peeped into the room.

“That’s Elizabeth Wells, or Beth, as we call her.”

“Ah, yes. Her face attracted me. Does the family live here?”

Miss Hanscom really did not know, but she never was at a loss at giving information. She would not say, “I have been here but a few years and do not know all the people about here.” Not to know was to argue herself unknown. So she straightened her shoulders and set forth impressions as though they were facts.

“The Wells family have lived here for a century. Their farm was one of the first cleared. It’s about two miles out of town. Eliza Wells is the last of the family, except this little girl who is her brother’s daughter.”

“If she was a sister’s child, her name would not be Wells,” thought Miss Hanscom to herself as she justified her last remark.

Mr. Laurens moved away. “You heard, Ermann?” he said to his wife who had joined them.

“Yes,” she said dully, as though she had lost interest in everything about her. “Let us go to the car. I wish to go home.”

“Yes, Ermann,” he said. He escorted her, half leaning on his arm, into the main hall. The girls in the freshman class were preparing for dismissal and were passing into the cloak room, which was a division of the main hallway.

Mrs. Laurens dropped her hand from her husband’s and, erect and intensely interested, watched them. Suddenly, as Beth came near, she threw out her arms and hugged the girl to her, kissing her on brow and cheeks.

“Dear little girl, love me a little for the sake of my baby who is gone.”

“I do – I did from the first,” said Beth.

“Ermann, dearest,” remonstrated her husband, “you are making a scene. Come, the car is waiting.”

She loosened her arms about Beth and, without another word or glance in the direction of the cloak room, permitted her husband to escort her to the car waiting below.

CHAPTER XII

Beth did not mention this occurrence to Adee. She scarcely knew why she did not. Perhaps for the same reason that one does not discuss sacred things. In each one’s heart is a tenderness, a thought which is hers alone and which she can tell no one. It was this feeling of delicacy which restrained Beth from speaking of the matter to Adee. She was very quiet on her way home. Adee was too, for that matter. There had been something about Mr. Laurens which had impressed her. She had a feeling that she had met him somewhere. His voice had thrilled her, like a voice she had heard and forgotten. She found herself trying to recall where she had met him. She checked herself, however. Her experience had been limited. She had been but rarely away from her native town. It was ridiculous to think for a moment that she had known him.

Without a word, the two walked side by side until they came to the ravine. Here they instinctively paused. “Look at the Oliver place,” cried Eliza. “I wonder who would be foolish enough to move in there. Tramps, like enough.”

“Tramps.” – Beth came closer to Eliza’s side. All she knew of them was that she had a dim remembrance that Rose Burtsch had called her a tramp’s child and Adee had shaken Rose. A tramp must be a dreadful creature, so Beth had reasoned. She drew instinctively closer.

As they walked up the slope, they had a better view of the log house. The boards had been removed from the doors and windows which stood wide open to the breeze. A narrow path had been cut through the brambles to the public road. Smoke was coming from the chimney. The sound of some one whistling came to the ears of Beth and Eliza. There was the sound of an axe. As they turned the corner, they saw some one cutting the old fence rails into proper length for wood. He paused when he saw them coming up the slope and leaned lightly against the axe as he rested. What a fine looking tramp he was. Fully six feet, with broad shoulders and long, slender limbs. There were no drooping muscles about him. He had a white brow with dark hair about it. His eyes were clear and keen. His mouth was as big and firm and tender as Eliza’s own. He wore trousers of khaki cloth and a soft shirt open at the throat. The sleeves were rolled up, exposing his arms to the elbow.

“I did not know that tramps were so nice,” said Beth. “I thought that they were something dreadful.”

“They are. You can never tell by looks. Hereafter never go or come this way unless I am with you, and never come to the woods to pick flowers.”

“I’m sorry he’s moved in there. I had planned to camp out here next summer. Helen Reed and Sally Monroe and I intended to camp out and do all our own cooking.”

Eliza smiled and wondered if the other two were as ignorant of culinary arts as Beth herself. The whistling had ceased and a song had taken its place.

“Just a song at twilight when the lamps are low.”

The words followed them clear up the slope.

“He’s a queer sort of tramp,” said Eliza to herself. “I should not have believed that they knew such things.”

She might have said something about this to Beth, but at their own gate, Jim-Boy, Sam Houston’s youngest son, met them. Jim-Boy was in his bare feet. His apparel consisted of a pair of jean overalls and a hickory-colored shirt which had belonged to his father. He was a bashful lad, and braced himself against the post of the gate before he could find courage to speak. “Say, Miss Liza, pap wants the lend of your log chain.”

“Dear me. I do not know whether I have one. It’s been years since I thought of it.”

“Yes, you have. Pap says it’s hanging up in the old harness room. He’s coming over to look at your stone-boat. He doesn’t know whether it’s all right or not. He says it hain’t been used for years. If it’s all right, he’ll come over and borrow it off you.”

All this was said as though his father’s borrowing would be a great favor conferred upon Miss Eliza.

“The stone-boat. What does your father intend to do?”

“He’s got a job hauling stone to fix the wall at Paddy’s Run. The man was up to see him yesterday. The wall’s bulging out. They mean to tear some away and build it in and higher than it was.”

Miss Eliza shuddered at the mention of the wall. It was a retaining wall built to hold the public road and railroad from the water. At this point, the river had come so close to the mountain that the way for the railroad had been cut out. To make this safe, a high stone wall had been built.

It had been here that Prince had gone over. That had been ten years before, but even yet Miss Eliza could recall the sensation of dizziness, of feeling herself falling, which she had felt then.

“Look for the chain. As to the stone-boat, tell your father that I’ll sell that to him if he finds he needs it. I’ll never have use for it.”

Jim-Boy went his way. Eliza and Beth went into the house and began the preparation of the evening meal. Beth was not a cook, but there was a score of things she could do to help Adee. She arranged the table and did the errands to the cellar and milk-house.

When the meal had been finished and she sat with Adee in the living-room, she drew close and began wistfully, “I want to ask you something, Adee. One of the girls asked me questions. That put it in my mind. I couldn’t answer anything she asked. I don’t know whether I have a father or mother, or if I ever had one. I do not know if they are living or dead. She asked me if I was your niece and I could not tell her. Am I, Adee?”

There was silence. Eliza had nothing to say. She had known that the time would come when Beth could not understand and would ask questions. It had come sooner than she expected.

“Will you tell me, Adee? I do not know what to say when people ask me, and I feel ashamed that I do not know. Every little girl in school has a father and mother and I have none. I cannot understand it.”

“Your mother is dead. She is buried near my mother, in our own family lot. I do not know her name. I saw her but once in my life. I always feel that I caused her death. This is how it happened.”

Then Eliza recounted the events of that dreadful day when she had asked the mother to ride. She described Beth’s mother, her dress and manner.

“That accounts for the dreams I have – waking dreams, Adee. Do you remember that I told you once that you did not look like you used to. It was some one else I remembered. I can see, as plain as can be, a lady with coils about her head, and flowers stuck in her hair. She wore dresses trailing over the floor. I can see her bending over my crib to kiss me. There was always a man with her.”

“But the woman who had you did not look like a woman who would dress so. She was a respectable person, but poorly dressed and, I am afraid, not very cultivated. Do you remember what they called you? Do any names stay with you?”

“No, except Bena and Baby. I remember that I tried to say those words. Bena must have been a made-up word. Surely no one was ever called so.”

“No, it seems hardly possible,” said Eliza. “We looked over the ground everywhere where the accident occurred, but could find no purse. We thought she might have had her checks or name somewhere in that. I have a dim remembrance that she had such an article in her hand, but we could find nothing. I saved everything that you or the woman wore. You had a little baby pin with E. L. engraved on it. I called you Elizabeth for that reason.”

“Have you them yet, Adee? Will you show them to me?” There was a high-strung, nervous eagerness in Beth’s voice. She was trembling from head to foot. There was a sadness because of the loss of parents she had never known; and an eagerness to see those things which were part of her life somewhere else.

“Would it not be better to put it off until tomorrow?” asked Eliza.

“No, please, Adee, this evening – now.” There was no denying the eager, trembling request. Without another word, Adee arose and, taking up the lamp, made her way upstairs.

“They are packed away in a trunk in the closet in the spare-room,” she said. Beth ran ahead, and in the dark had pulled out the trunk on to the middle of the floor before Eliza appeared.

There was nothing said as they knelt before it and opened the lid. Eliza had put everything away so that moths nor air could destroy it. She slowly removed the papers and covers and at last laid out all on the floor before them.

“This is what your mother wore – that day.”

Beth’s hands touched the plain black skirt, the belt and waist.

“I’ll speak plainly, Beth. It is better so, now. I do not wish you to raise any false hopes about who your parents were. I really think, child, that you are as well off, as far as material affairs are concerned, with me as with them. This is why I think so. Look at the underwear. It is coarse and very poorly made. I think your mother was a very good woman. I’m sure she was. She had a good face, and she was gentle with you; but I am quite sure that she was poor and not well educated. Here are the rings which were in the traveling bag. I think they are of some value – not much. I should say ten or twelve dollars.

“I wish you would always keep these until you find your own people. It may be years from now when I am gone. I have written the date and all the circumstances down in this little book, so that you may have it, if you need it.”

She began to fold the articles. She pinned each one close in its foldings of paper as carefully as though it were a most precious thing, and laid them away in the trunk.

“Some day, we’ll know everything about who you are,” she said as they were about to leave the room. She tried to speak lightly but failed. Putting her arm about Beth’s shoulders and drawing her close to her, she continued, “But just now you are my own little girl, and I’m thankful for it.”

The scene was hard for them both. It was well that an interruption came. A knock was heard at the living-room door. Beth hurried downstairs.

“Don’t open the door until I come. It might be a tramp,” Eliza called after her. Beth hesitated. Eliza came into the living-room with a lamp in hand. Beth kept close to her while the door was opened.

It really was a tramp – the same one they had seen at the Oliver place. But he was good looking, clean and smiling. He even removed his hat while he addressed Miss Eliza.

“Good evening; I have come up to ask a favor,” he said.