Kilmeny of the Orchard | Page 8

sober, matter-of-fact little urchin, with not the slightest embryonic
development of a sense of humour, had, acting upon the whispered
suggestion of a roguish desk-mate, elected to write upon "Courting."
His opening sentence made Eric's face twitch mutinously whenever he
recalled it during the day. "Courting is a very pleasant thing which a
great many people go too far with."
The distant hills and wooded uplands were tremulous and aerial in
delicate spring-time gauzes of pearl and purple. The young,
green-leafed maples crowded thickly to the very edge of the road on
either side, but beyond them were emerald fields basking in sunshine,
over which cloud shadows rolled, broadened, and vanished. Far below
the fields a calm ocean slept bluely, and sighed in its sleep, with the
murmur that rings for ever in the ear of those whose good fortune it is
to have been born within the sound of it.
Now and then Eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad on

horseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called
out cheerily, "Howdy, Master?" A young girl, with a rosy, oval face,
dimpled cheeks, and pretty dark eyes filled with shy coquetry, passed
him, looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better
acquaintance with the new teacher.
Half way down the hill Eric met a shambling, old gray horse drawing
an express wagon which had seen better days. The driver was a woman:
she appeared to be one of those drab-tinted individuals who can never
have felt a rosy emotion in all their lives. She stopped her horse, and
beckoned Eric over to her with the knobby handle of a faded and bony
umbrella.
"Reckon you're the new Master, ain't you?" she asked.
Eric admitted that he was.
"Well, I'm glad to see you," she said, offering him a hand in a much
darned cotton glove that had once been black.
"I was right sorry to see Mr. West go, for he was a right good teacher,
and as harmless, inoffensive a creetur as ever lived. But I always told
him every time I laid eyes on him that he was in consumption, if ever a
man was. YOU look real healthy--though you can't aways tell by looks,
either. I had a brother complected like you, but he was killed in a
railroad accident out west when he was real young.
"I've got a boy I'll be sending to school to you next week. He'd oughter
gone this week, but I had to keep him home to help me put the pertaters
in; for his father won't work and doesn't work and can't be made to
work.
"Sandy--his full name is Edward Alexander--called after both his
grandfathers--hates the idee of going to school worse 'n pisen-- always
did. But go he shall, for I'm determined he's got to have more larning
hammered into his head yet. I reckon you'll have trouble with him,
Master, for he's as stupid as an owl, and as stubborn as Solomon's mule.
But mind this, Master, I'll back you up. You just lick Sandy good and
plenty when he needs it, and send me a scrape of the pen home with
him, and I'll give him another dose.
"There's people that always sides in with their young ones when there's
any rumpus kicked up in the school, but I don't hold to that, and never
did. You can depend on Rebecca Reid every time, Master."
"Thank you. I am sure I can," said Eric, in his most winning tones.

He kept his face straight until it was safe to relax, and Mrs. Reid drove
on with a soft feeling in her leathery old heart, which had been so
toughened by long endurance of poverty and toil, and a husband who
wouldn't work and couldn't be made to work, that it was no longer a
very susceptible organ where members of the opposite sex were
concerned.
Mrs. Reid reflected that this young man had a way with him.
Eric already knew most of the Lindsay folks by sight; but at the foot of
the hill he met two people, a man and a boy, whom he did not know.
They were sitting in a shabby, old-fashioned wagon, and were watering
their horse at the brook, which gurgled limpidly under the little plank
bridge in the hollow.
Eric surveyed them with some curiosity. They did not look in the least
like the ordinary run of Lindsay people. The boy, in particular, had a
distinctly foreign appearance, in spite of the gingham shirt and
homespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation, work-a-day
outfit for the Lindsay farmer lads. He had a lithe, supple body, with
sloping shoulders, and a lean, satiny brown throat above his open shirt
collar. His head