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Cinder Pond, The

<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3> <h4>A LONELY SUMMER</h4> Jeanne had liked her first teacher, Miss Wardell, very much indeed. And pretty Miss Wardell had been very fond of Jeannette; she knew that the child was shy, and the considerate young woman managed frequently to shield her from embarrassment, and to help her over the rough places. Miss Turner was different. She said that Jeannette made her nervous. It is possible that the other thirty-nine pupils helped; but it was Jeanne whom she blamed for her shattered nerves. It is certain that Miss Turner made Jeanne nervous. No matter how well she knew her lesson, she couldn't recite it to Miss Turner. A chatterbox, with the right sort of listener, Jeanne was stricken dumb the moment Miss Turner's attention was focused upon her. "What a very bad card!" said Mrs. Huntington, at the end of May. "It is even worse than it was last month. Pearl and Clara had excellent cards and Harold had higher marks in two of his studies than you have. You are a very ungrateful child. You don't appreciate the advantages we are giving you. When school is out, I shall engage Miss Turner to tutor you through the summer." "Horrors!" thought Jeanne. "Miss Turner tutored Ethel Bailey all last summer," continued Mrs. Huntington. "Mrs. Bailey says that Ethel now receives excellent marks." "From Miss Turner," said Jeanne, shrewdly. "Ethel doesn't know a thing about her lessons. She's the stupidest girl in our grade. I know mine, but it's hard to recite. If I must have a tutor, couldn't I have Miss Wardell?—I liked her and she'd be glad of the extra money because she takes care of her mother. Oh, please let me have Miss Wardell." "No," returned Mrs. Huntington, firmly, "Miss Turner will know best what is needed for your grade. You are learning nothing. Only forty in history." "Well," sighed Jeanne, "I'm not surprised. I said that Benedict Arnold wrote 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and that Lafayette painted Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington. I knew better, but oh, dear! When Miss Turner looks me in the eye and asks a question, my poor frightened tongue always says the wrong thing." "She'd freeze a lamp-post," said Harold, for once agreeing with his cousin. "I had her last year. Don't look at her eyes—look at her belt-buckle when you recite." "I have to look at her eyes," sighed Jeanne, miserably. "One is yellow, the other is black. I hate to look at them, but I always have to." "I know," agreed Harold. "I had ten months of those eyes myself. I hope you'll never meet a snake. You'd be so fascinated that you couldn't run." "Miss Turner's eyes have nothing to do with the question," said Mrs. Huntington. "Mrs. Bailey said she made an excellent tutor, so I shall certainly engage her." "Perhaps," suggested Harold, consolingly, when his mother had left the room, "she won't be able to come. She may want a vacation." "Oh, I hope so." "So do I," said Harold, making a face. "You see, my marks in Latin are about as bad as they make 'em. It may occur to mother to let Miss Turner use up her spare time on me. Wow!" "Anyhow," said Jeanne, "I'm much obliged to you for trying to help." All too soon it was June. School was out and Jeanne hadn't passed in a single study. Even her deportment had received a very low mark. Miss Turner, contrary to Jeanne's fervent hope, had gladly accepted the position Mrs. Huntington had offered her. Mrs. Huntington broke the discouraging news at the breakfast table. "Your lessons will begin at nine o'clock next Monday, Jeannette," said she, firmly believing that she was doing the right thing by a strangely backward student. "With only one pupil, Miss Turner will be able to give all her attention to you." Again Harold agreed with his cousin. "I'm sorry for you," said he. "All of Miss Turner's attention is more than any one human pupil could stand." "Mother," suggested Clara, not without malice, "why don't you let Miss Turner help Harold with his lessons—ouch! you beast! stop pinching me." "Why, that," approved Mrs. Huntington, "is a very good idea. I'm glad you mentioned it. Still, you are going to your grandmother's so soon—I fear Harold's Latin will have to be postponed." So great was Harold's relief that he collapsed in his chair. The summer was to prove a dreary one. Besides a daily dose of Miss Turner, Jeanne was worried, because, for six weeks, there had been no letter from her father. Previously, he had written at least twice a month and, from time to time, had sent her money; that she might have a little that was all her own. Indeed, Mr. Duval, who had no lack of pride, had every intention of repaying the Huntingtons as soon as he could for whatever they had expended for his daughter. But that would take time, of course. At any rate, Jeanne was well provided with pocket money. To be sure, Pearl, who loved to order expensive concoctions with queer names at soda-water fountains, usually borrowed the money, sometimes forgetting to return it. Also, thus adding insult to injury, Pearl always invited her own friends to partake of these delicacies without inviting Jeanne, even though that wistful small person were at the very door of the ice-cream parlor. Pearl, several years older than her cousin and much taller, didn't want children tagging along. But now, for six weeks, there had been no letter from her father and no money. She didn't care about the money. When you are going home in three years, eleven months, and fourteen days, you are so afraid that you won't have enough money for your ticket when the time comes that you save! Jeanne had saved her money whenever she could, and, with the thrift that she had perhaps inherited from some remote French ancestor, had hidden it in the fat pincushion of the work-box that Mrs. Huntington had given her for Christmas. She had hidden it so neatly, too, that no one would ever suspect that dollar bills had gradually replaced the sawdust. Only her grandfather knew about the money, and he had promised not to tell. But after Jeanne had intrusted him with the secret, and when James was shaving the old gentleman, Mr. Huntington had suddenly chuckled. "I beg your pardon, sir?" "I am thinking about my youngest grand-child," explained his master. "She is the wisest little monkey I ever knew. She has enough common sense for a whole family." "She has that," agreed James. "Mrs. Huntington, sir, wouldn't dast try to teach cook how to make a new pie, cook's that set in her own conceit, much less do any cooking herself; but that there little black-eyed thing comes in last month with a new dessert that she'd learned in her Domestic Science, and if cook didn't sit right down like a lamb and let her make it. What's more, Bridget asked for the rule and has made it herself every Sunday since. Cook says many a married lady is less handy than that small girl. She's got brains—" "That'll do, James. I like your enthusiasm, but not when you gesticulate with that razor—I can't spare any of my features. But I agree with you about the child. She is thoughtful beyond her years." The postman came and came and came, and still there was no letter. Old Captain, to be sure, had written oftener than usual and, when one came to think about it, had said a great deal less. She knew from him that spring had come to the Cinder Pond, that the going-to-bed swallows had returned, that the pink-tipped clover had blossomed, that the mountain-ash tree that had somehow planted itself on the dock promised an unusual crop of berries, that the herring were unusually large and abundant but whitefish rather scarce. Also the lake was as blue as ever—she had asked about that—and Barney had a boil on his neck. But not a word about her father or Mollie or the children. Usually there had been some new piece of inquisitiveness on Sammy's part for the Captain to write about; for Sammy was certainly an inquisitive youngster if there ever was one; but even news of Sammy seemed strangely lacking. And he had forgotten twice to answer Jeanne's question about Annie's clothes; if the little ready-made dress that Jeanne had sent for Christmas was still wearable or had she outgrown it. Then came very warm weather, and still no real news of her relatives and no letter from her father. Once, he and Barney had taken rather a long cruise to the north shore. Perhaps he had gone again; with Dan McGraw, for instance, who was always cruising about for fish, for berries, or for wreckage. Dan had often invited her father to go. Still, it did seem as if he would have mentioned that he was going; unless, indeed, he had gone on very short notice. Or perhaps—and that proved a most distressing thought—perhaps she had been gone so long that he was beginning to forget her. Perhaps Michael, to whom he had been giving nightly lessons, had taken her place in her father's affections. Indeed, Harold had once assured her that fathers always liked their sons better than their daughters. Perhaps it was so, for Uncle Charles, who paid no attention whatever to Pearl and Clara, sometimes talked to Harold. As before, the young Huntingtons had gone to their seashore grandmother. Jeannette, of course, had to remain within reach of Miss Turner, who now gave her better marks, in spite of the fact that her recitations were no more brilliant and even less comfortable than they had been in school. Her grandfather, who seldom interfered in any way with Mrs. Huntington's plans, had objected to Miss Turner. "She may be an excellent teacher for ordinary children," said he, "but she isn't Jeannette's kind, and she isn't pleasant." "She is not unpleasant to me," returned unmoved Aunt Agatha, whose opinions were exceedingly difficult to change. "At any rate, it is too late to discuss the matter. I have engaged her for the summer, at a definite salary. Next summer, if it seems best, we can make some different arrangement." "Then I suppose we'll have to stand it," sighed Mr. Huntington, "but it seems decidedly unfortunate that when ninety-nine school-ma'ams out of a hundred have some measure of attractiveness, you should have chosen the hundredth." Perhaps Mr. Huntington might have made some further effort toward dislodging Miss Turner; but shortly after the foregoing conversation, he was again taken ill. For more than a week he had been kept in bed and James had said something to the cook about "a slight stroke." But to Jeanne's great relief this illness was of shorter duration than the preceding one. He was up again; and spending his waking hours in a wheeled chair under the big elm in the garden. Jeanne, however, could see that he was not so well. His eyes had lost some of their keenness, and often the word that he wanted would not come. He seemed quite a good many years older; and not nearly so vigorous as he had been before this new illness. Jeanne hovered over him anxiously. Sometimes Mrs. Huntington told visitors that she feared that her father-in-law's faculties were becoming sadly impaired. "He seems to dislike me," she added, plaintively, when she mentioned "impaired faculties" to her husband. James overheard this. Indeed, James was always overhearing things not meant for his too-receptive ears, because he was so much a part of the furniture that no one ever remembered that he was in the room or gave him credit for being human. James told Bridget about it. "The old gentleman," said he, "nor anybody else doesn't need impaired faculties to dislike that lady. If she's got any real feelings inside her they're cased up in asbestos, like the pipes to the furnace. They never comes out. She's a human icicle, she is. I declare, if she'd get real mad just once and sling the soup tureen at me, I'd take the scalding gladly and say, 'Thank you kindly, ma'am; 'tis a pleasure to see you thawing, just for once.'" James, you have noticed, was much more human in the kitchen than he was in the dining-room. Mrs. Huntington, who had lived under the same roof with him for many years, would certainly have been surprised if she had heard him, for in her presence James was like a talking doll, in that he had just two set speeches. They were, "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am." "She's padded with her own conceit," said Bridget, "and there's a cast-iron crust outside that. She shows no affection for her own children, let alone that motherless lamb." "If she ever swallowed her pride," said Maggie, "'twould choke her." "Then I hope she does it," said James, going meekly to the front of the house to say "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am" to his frigid mistress. For if James were more talkative in the kitchen than he was in the dining-room he was also much braver. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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