Bunch Grass | Page 5

the village store.
* * * * *
But Alethea-Belle grew thinner and whiter.
Just before the end of the term the climax came. I happened to find the
little schoolmarm crying bitterly in a clump of sage-brush near the
water-troughs.
"It's like this," she confessed presently: "I can't rid myself of that weak,
hateful Belle. She's going to lie down soon, and let the boys trample on
her; then she'll have to quit. And Alethea sees the Promised Land. Oh,
oh! I do despise the worst half of myself!"
"The sooner you leave these young devils the better."
"What do you say?"
She confronted me with flashing eyes. I swear that she looked beautiful.
The angularities, the lack of colour, the thin chest, the stooping back
were effaced. I could not see them, because--well, because I was
looking through them, far beyond them, at something else.
"I love my boys, my foothill boys; and if they are rough, brutal at times,
they're strong." Her emphasis on the word was pathetic. "They're strong,
and they're young, and they're poised for flight-- now. To me, me, has
been given the opportunity to direct that flight-- upward, and if I fail
them, if I quit----" She trembled violently.
"You won't quit," said I, with conviction.
"To-morrow," said she, "they've fixed things for a real battle."
She refused obstinately to tell me more, and obtained a solemn promise
from me that I would not interfere.

* * * * *
Afterwards I got most of the facts out of George Spragg. Three of the
biggest boys had planned rank mutiny. Doubtless they resented a
compulsory attendance at school, and with short-sighted policy made
certain that if they got rid of Alethea-Belle the schoolhouse would be
closed for ever. And what chance could she have--one frail girl against
three burly young giants?
A full attendance warned her that her scholars expected something
interesting to happen. Boys and girls filed into the schoolroom quietly
enough, and the proceedings opened with prayer, but not the usual
prayer. Alethea-Belle prayed fervently that right might prevail against
might, now, and for ever. Amen.
Within a minute the three mutineers had marched into the middle of the
room. In loud, ear-piercing notes they began to sing "Pull for the
Shore." The girls giggled nervously; the boys grinned; several opened
their mouths to sing, but closed them again as Alethea-Belle descended
from the rostrum and approached the rebels. The smallest child knew
that a fight to a finish had begun.
The schoolmarm raised her thin hand and her thin voice. No attention
was paid to either. Then she walked swiftly to the door and locked it.
The old adobe had been built at a time when Indian raids were common
in Southern California. The door was of oak, very massive; the
windows, narrow openings in the thick walls, were heavily barred. The
children wondered what was about to happen. The three rebels sang
with a louder, more defiant note as Alethea-Belle walked past them and
on to the rostrum. Upon her desk stood a covered basket. Taking this in
her hand, she came back to the middle of the room. The boys eyed her
movements curiously. She carried, besides the basket, a cane. Then she
bent down and placed the basket between herself and the boys. They
still sang "Pull for the Shore," but faintly, feebly. They stared hard at
the basket and the cane. Alethea-Belle stood back, with a curious
expression upon her white face; very swiftly she flicked open the lid of
the basket. Silence fell on the scholars.

Out of the basket, quite slowly and stealthily, came the head of a snake,
a snake well known to the smallest child--known and dreaded. The flat
head, the lidless, baleful eyes, the grey-green, diamond- barred skin of
the neck were unmistakable.
"It's a rattler!" shrieked one of the rebels.
They sprang back; the other children rose, panic-stricken. The
schoolmarm spoke very quietly--
"Don't move! The snake will not hurt any of you."
As she spoke she flicked again the lid of the basket. It fell on the head
of the serpent. Alethea-Belle touched the horror, which withdrew. Then
she picked up the basket, secured the lid, and spoke to the huddled-up,
terrified crowd--
"You tried to scare me, didn't you, and I have scared you." She laughed
pleasantly, but with a faint inflection of derision, as if she knew, as she
did, that the uncivilised children of the foothills, like their fathers, fear
nothing on earth so much as rattlers and-- ridicule. After a moment she
continued: "I brought this here to-day as an object-lesson. You loathe
and fear the serpent in this basket, as I loathe and fear the serpent which
is in you." She caught the eyes of the