Bunch Grass | Page 4

way down south. She died
when I was a child. She--she was not very strong, poor mother, but
father," she spoke proudly, "father was the best man that ever lived."
All her self-consciousness had vanished. Somehow we felt that the
daughter of the New England parson was speaking, not the child of the
invertebrate Southerner.
"I had to take to selling books," she continued, speaking more to herself
than to us, "because of Belle. That miserable girl got into debt. Father
left her a little money. Belle squandered it sinfully on clothes and
pleasure. She'd a rose silk dress----"
"A rose silk dress?" repeated Ajax.
"It was just too lovely--that dress," said the little schoolmarm,
reflectively.
"Even Alethea could not resist it," said I.
She blushed, and her shyness, her awkwardness, returned.
"Alethea had to pay for it," she replied primly. "I ask your pardon for
speaking so foolishly and improperly of--myself."
After this, behind her back, Ajax and I invariably called her Alethea-

Belle.
* * * * *
School began at nine sharp the next morning. We expected a large
attendance, and were not disappointed. Some of the boys grinned
broadly when Alethea-Belle appeared carrying books and maps. She
looked absurdly small, very nervous, and painfully frail. The fathers
present exchanged significant glances; the mothers sniffed. Alethea-
Belle entered the names of her scholars in a neat ledger, and shook
hands with each. Then she made a short speech.
"Friends," she said, "I'm glad to make your acquaintance. I shall expect
my big boys and girls to set an example to the little ones by being
punctual, clean, and obedient. We will now begin our exercises with
prayer and a hymn. After that the parents will please retire."
That evening Alethea-Belle went early to bed with a raging headache.
Next morning she appeared whiter than ever, but her eyelids were red.
However, she seemed self-possessed and even cheerful. Riding
together across the range, Ajax said to me: "Alethea-Belle is scared out
of her life."
"You mean Belle. Alethea is as brave as her father was before her."
"You're right. Poor little Belle! Perhaps we'd better find some job or
other round the adobe this afternoon. There'll be ructions."
But the ructions did not take place that day. It seems that Alethea- Belle
told her scholars she was suffering severely from headache. She begged
them politely to be as quiet as possible. Perhaps amazement
constrained obedience.
"These foothill imps will kill her," said Ajax.
Within a week we knew that the big boys were becoming
unmanageable, but no such information leaked from Alethea-Belle's
lips. Each evening at supper we asked how she had fared during the day.

Always she replied primly: "I thank you; I'm getting along nicely,
better than I expected."
Mrs. Spafford, a peeper through doors and keyholes, explained the
schoolmarm's methods.
"I jest happened to be passin' by," she told me, "and I peeked in
through--through the winder. That great big hoodlum of a George
Spragg was a-sassin' Miss Buchanan an' makin' faces at her. The crowd
was a- whoopin' him up. In the middle o' the uproar she kneels down.
'O Lord,' says she, 'I pray Thee to soften the heart of pore George
Spragg, and give me, a weak woman, the strength to prevail against his
everlastin' ignorance and foolishness!' George got the colour of a beet,
but he quit his foolin'. Yes sir, she prays for 'em, and she coaxes 'em,
an' she never knows when she's beat; but they'll be too much for her.
She's losin' her appetite, an' she don't sleep good. We won't be boardin'
her much longer."
But that night, as usual, when I asked Alethea-Belle how she did, she
replied, in her prim, formal accents: "I'm doing real well, I thank you;
much, much better than I expected."
Two days later I detected a bruise upon her forehead. With great
difficulty I extracted the truth. Tom Eubanks had thrown an apple at the
schoolmarm.
"And what did you do?"
Her grey eyes were unruffled, her delicately cut lips never smiled, as
she replied austerely: "I told Thomas that I was sure he meant well, but
that if a boy wished to give an apple to a lady he'd ought to hand it
politely, and not throw it. Then I ate the apple. It was a Newtown
pippin, and real good. After recess Thomas apologised."
"What did the brute say?"
"He is not a brute. He said he was sorry he'd thrown the pippin so
hard."

Next day I happened to meet Tom Eubanks. He had a basket of
Newtown pippins for the schoolmarm. He was very red when he told
me that Miss Buchanan liked--apples. Apples at that time did not grow
in the brush- hills. Tom had bought them at