Miss Prudence | Page 3

permission to whisper
about the lessons.
By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and
sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched
over the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her
elbows resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump
hands, with her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her
large slate. She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back
seat on the girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the
boys' side, and her slate was placed on the side of the double desk

wherein H.R. was cut in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as
to a refuge, when she found herself alone, with something of the same
feeling, that once two or three years ago when she was away from
home and homesick she used to kneel to say her prayers in the corner
of the chamber where her valise was; there was home about the valise
and there was protection and safety and a sort of helpfulness about this
desk where her friend Hollis Rheid had sat ever since she had come to
school. This was her first winter at school, her mother had taught her at
home, but in family council this winter it had been decided that
Marjorie was "big" enough to go to school.
The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge
Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained;
he had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled
together while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own
yard. Hollis had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the
boys, and had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one
instant at the door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she
was waiting for him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait
till I come." If the people at home were not anxious about her she
would have been willing to wait until midnight; it would never occur to
her that Hollis might forget her.
Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was
a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low
brow and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its
lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls
said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very
homely; but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and
he likes it this way." Some one says that God made the other features,
but permits us to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made
her mouth. But then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she
would rather see a girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the
boys washed her face in the snow.
Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjorie West, his favorite
among the girls, was "almost too sweet." He said to himself that he

feared she "lacked character." Marjorie's quiet, observant father would
have smiled at that and said nothing. The teacher said that she did not
know how to take her own part. Marjorie had been eleven years in this
grasping world and had not learned that she had any "part" to take.
Since her pencil had ceased scribbling the room was so still that a tiny
mouse had been nibbling at the toe of her shoe. Just then as she raised
her head and pinned her shawl more securely the door opened and
something happened. The something happened in Marjorie's face.
Hollis Rheid thought the sunset had burst across it. She did not exclaim,
"Oh, I am so glad!" but the gladness was all in her eyes. If Marjorie had
been more given to exclamations her eyes would not have been so
expressive. The closed lips were a gain to the eyes and her friends
missed nothing. The boy had learned her eyes by heart. How stoutly he
would have resisted if some one had told him that years hence
Marjorie's face would be a sealed volume to him.
But she was making her eyes and mouth to-day and years hence she
made them, too. Perhaps he had something to do with it then as he
certainly had something to do with it now.
"I came back with my sled to take you home. I gave Sam my last ten
cents to do the night work for me. It was my turn, but he was willing
enough. Where's your hood, Mousie? Any books to take?"
"Yes, my Geography and