CHAPTER IV.
WINTER SCHOOL-DAYS
Soon beautiful, misty Indian summer had vanished before the sternapproach of winter. The chestnut burs had all opened; the wildgrapevines, clinging to fence rails along the roadside and twining indrooping profusion over the trees in wood and thicket, had long agobeen robbed of their glistening, dark clusters of frost-ripened fruit.The squirrels had laid in their supply of nuts; the birds had giventheir last Kentucky concert of the season and had departed to filltheir winter engagements in the Southland; and the forest trees wavedtheir bare arms and bowed their heads to the wind that wailed amournful requiem for departed summer.
By this time the wheat had been sown, and the last shock of corngathered. The school forces were, therefore, augmented by the advent ofa dozen or more larger boys and young men, eager to gain all thelearning that could be compassed in the months which intervened beforeearly spring plowing and seeding would call them again to the fields.
In the icy gray dawn of these winter days the boy whose week it was tobuild the schoolhouse fire, would resist the temptation to snug downagain in the soft folds of the big feather bed for another trip intodelicious dreamland, and would hurry from his warm nest to attend tohis morning chores, so that as soon as the early breakfast was over hecould hasten through the snow-covered fields to the schoolhouse. Therehe would pile the fagots high in the big fireplace, eager to have themblazing and crackling before the clap of the master's ferule upon hisdesk at eight o'clock should summon the school to its daily work.
Cane Ridge school, under the gentle yet energetic sway of Abner Dudley,presented a busy scene. The click of the soapstone pencil upon theframeless slate, the scratch of the quill pen across the bespatteredcopybook, the shrill tone of the solitary reader as he stood with therest of the class "toeing the mark" before the master, or the shrillertones of the arithmetic class reciting in concert the multiplicationtable, kept up a pleasant discord throughout the short day. The rearguard of this army of busy workers, the rows of chubby-faced littleboys in short-legged pants and long-sleeved aprons, and of rosy-cheekedlittle girls in linsey dresses and nankeen pantalets, sat on their slabbenches, droning mechanically "a-b, ab; e-b, eb," and looked withwonder at the middle rank of this army, adding up long columns offigures or singing the long list of capitals. Those of the middle rank,in their turn, as they gave place before the master's desk to the threebright pupils of the vanguard, wondered no less to see them performingstrange maneuvers called "parsing and conjugating," or battlingsuccessfully against Tare and Tret, or that still more insidious foe,Vulgar Fractions. Ahead of this vanguard, on a far-off, dizzy peak oferudition, was Betsy Gilcrest, the courageous color-bearer of thearmy--actually speaking in an unknown tongue called Latin, andexecuting surprising feats of legerdemain with that strange trio, x, yand z, who had somehow escaped from their lowly position at the tailend of the alphabet, to play unheard-of antics and to assume charactersutterly bewildering.
There was not one of those fifty pupils who did not soon find a warmplace in the master's heart; but, though he took care by specialkindness to the others to hide his partiality, yet soon pre-eminent inhis regard were the four advanced pupils, Henry and Susan Rogers,plodding, thoughtful, thorough; John Calvin Gilcrest, shrewd,retentive, independent; and Betsy Gilcrest, bright, original andambitious.
Betsy at sixteen was a capable, well-grown girl, such as the freedomand vigor of those pioneer days produced--glowing with health, instinctwith life, and of saucy independence to her finger-tips. She possesseda fund of native wit which might, perhaps, often have taken the turn ofwaywardness, had not her scholarly pride held her girlish love of funand frolic somewhat in check. Kindly-natured, bright-faced Betsy,champion of the poorest and meanest, helper of the dull and backward,idol of the little children, and object of the shy and silent butsincere adoration of all the big, uncouth boys! She was an exceedinglywinsome lassie, with a light, graceful figure, and a richly expressiveface framed in by a wealth of clustering dark hair. The sparkling lightin the great brown eyes, the saucy curve of the scarlet lips, and thedimple in the rounded cheek betokened a laughter-loving nature; whilethe proud poise of head, the exquisite turn of sensitive nostrils, andthe firm moulding of chin indicated dignity, refinement, and force ofcharacter. In her stuff dress of dark red, her braided black silk apronwith coquettish little pockets, and her trim morocco shoes, shepresented a striking contrast to the linsey-clad, coarsely shod girlson each side of her at the rude writing-desk, or even to her especialchum and chosen friend, Susan Rogers, in homespun gown, cottonneckerchief and gingham apron. It was well for the young schoolmasterthat his heart was fortified by its growing love for Abby Patterson,else he could not, perhaps, have withstood the charming personality ofBetsy Gilcrest, and a deeper regard than would have been in keepingwith their character of master and pupil might have mingled with hisinterest in this warm-hearted, brilliant girl.
The fashionable people from Lexington who visited at "Oaklands," thehome of the Gilcrests, wondered that Major Gilcrest sent his onlydaughter to this backwoods school, and his wife sometimes urged thatBetsy be sent to some finishing-school in Virginia, or at least to thefashionable female seminary at Lexington, or to the lately opened youngladies' college at Bourbonton. Probably, had Betsy seconded the hintsof these friends and the rather languid suggestions of her mother, thismight have been done; but this independent child of nature loved herhome and the humble little schoolhouse by the spring; and her father,whether at the pleading of his daughter, or because of his ingraineddislike of any suggestions from outsiders, continued to send her to thelittle neighborhood school. In so doing he was building better than heknew; for humble as was the Cane Ridge school, there was in it anatmosphere of happiness and refinement more real than could be foundamid the superficial culture, genteel primness and underlyingselfishness of most of the fashionable female seminaries of that day.The young Virginian schoolmaster was teaching these boys and girls farbetter things than could be found in any text-books--independence ofthought, reverence for learning, and love of purity and truth; and itwas lessons such as these that made these Bourbon County boys and girlsreverence their master and love their backwoods school.