University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

There is nothing in New-England so eagerly
sought for, or so highly prized by all classes of
people, as the advantages of education. A farmer
and his wife will deny themselves all other benefits
that might result from the gains that have accrued
to them from a summer of self-denial and toil, to
give their children the privilege of a grammar-school
during the winter. The public, or as they
are called the town-schools, are open to the child
of the poorest labourer. As knowledge is one of
the best helps and most certain securities to virtue,
we doubtless owe a great portion of the morality
of this blessed region, where there are no dark
corners of ignorance, to these wise institutions of
our pious ancestors.

In the fall subsequent to the events we have recorded,
a school had been opened in the village of
—, of a higher and more expensive order,
than is common in a country town. Every mouth
was filled with praises of the new teacher, and with
promises and expectations of the knowledge to be
derived from this newly opened fountain; all was

bustle and preparation among the young companions
of Martha and Elvira for the school; for
Martha, though beyond the usual school-going
age, was to complete her education at the new
seminary.

The dancing school had passed without a sigh of
regret from Jane; but now she felt severely her
privation. Her watchful friend, Mary Hull, remarked
the melancholy look that was unheeded at
her aunt's; and she inquired of Jane, “Why she
was so downcast?”

“Ah, Mary!” she replied, “it is a long time
since I have felt the merry spirit which the wise
man says, is `medicine to the heart.”'

“That's true, Jane; but then there's nobody,
that is, there's nobody that has so little reason for
it as you have, that has a more cheerful look.”

“I have great reason to be cheerful, Mary, in
token of gratitude for my kind friends here; and,”
added she, taking Mr.Lloyd's infant, who playfully
extended her arms to her, “you and I are too
young, Rebecca, to be very sad.” The child felt
the tear that dewed the cheek to which she was
pressed, and looking into Jane's face, with instinctive
sympathy, burst into tears. Mr. Lloyd entered
at this moment, and Jane hastily replacing
the child in Mary Hull's lap, and tying on her hat,
bade them farewell.

Mr. Lloyd asked for some explanation. Mary
believed nothing particular had happened. “But,”
she said, “the poor girl's spirit wearies with the
life she leads, and its no wonder; it is a great

change from a home and mother, to such a work-house
and such a task-woman.”

Mr. Lloyd had often regretted, that it was so
little in his power to benefit Jane. The school
occurred to him, and as nothing was more improbable
than that Mrs. Wilson would, herself, incur
the expense of Jane's attendance, he consulted with
Mary as to the best mode of doing it himself, without
provoking Mrs. Wilson's opposition, or offending
her pride. A few days after, when the
agent for the school presented the subscription list
to Mrs. Wilson for her signature, she saw there,
to her utter astonishment, Jane Elton's name.
The agent handed her an explanatory note from
Mr. Lloyd, in which he said, “that as it had been
customary to send one person from the house he
now occupied to the `subscription school,' he had
taken the liberty to continue the custom. He
hoped the measure would meet with Mrs. Wilson's
approbation, without which it could not go
into effect.”

Mrs. Wilson, at first, said, it was impossible;
she could not spare Jane; but afterwards, she
consented to take it into consideration. The moment
the man had shut the door, she turned to
Jane, and misunderstanding the flush of pleasure
that brightened her usually pale face, she exclaimed,
“And so, Miss, this is one of your plans to slip
your neck out of the yoke of duty.”

Jane said, she had nothing to do with the plan,
but she trusted her aunt would not oblige her to
lose such a golden opportunity of advantage. Mrs.

Wilson made various objections, and Jane skilfully
obviated them all. At last she said, “There
would be a piece of linen to make up for David,
and that put it quite out of the question, for,” said
she, “I shall not take the girls from their studies;
and even you, Miss Jane, will probably have the
grace to think my time more precious than
yours.”

“Well, aunt,” said Jane, with a smile so sweet
that even Mrs. Wilson could not entirely resist its
influence, “if I will get the linen made by witch
or fairy, may I go?”

“Why, yes,” replied her aunt; “as you cannot
get it made without witches or fairies, I may
safely say you may.”

Jane's reliance was on kindness more potent
than any modern magic; and that very evening,
with the light-bounding step of hope, she went to
her friend Mary's, where, after having made her
acknowledgments to Mr. Lloyd with the grace
of earnestness and sincerity, she revealed to Mary
the only obstacle that now opposed her wishes.
Mary at once, as Jane expected, offered to make
the linen for her; and Jane, affectionately thanking
her, said, she was sure her aunt would be
satisfied, for she had often heard her say,
“Mary Hull was the best needle woman in the
county.”

Mrs. Wilson had seen Jane so uniformly flexible
and submissive to her wilful administration,
and in matters she deemed of vastly more consequence
than six months schooling, that she

was all astonishment to behold her now so persevering
in her resolution to accomplish her purpose.
But Jane's and Mrs. Wilson's estimate of
the importance of any given object was very different.
The same fortitude that enabled Jane to
bear, silently and patiently, the “oppressor's
wrong,” nerved her courage in the attainment of
a good end.

Mrs. Wilson had no longer any pretence to oppose
Jane's wishes; and the following day she took
her place, with her cousins, at Mr. Evertson's
school. Her education had been very much advanced
for her years; so that, though four years
younger than Martha Wilson, she was, after a very
careful examination by the teacher, classed with
her. This was a severe mortification to Martha's
pride; she seemed to feel her cousin's equality
an insult to herself, and when she reported the circumstance
to her mother, she said, she believed it
was all owing to Jane's soft answers and pretty
face; or “may be the Quaker, who takes such a
mighty fancy to Jane, has bribed Mr. Evertson.”

“Very likely, very likely,” answered her mother.
“It seems as if every body took that child's
part against us.”

Jane, once more placed on even ground with
her companions, was like a spring relieved from a
pressure. She entered on her new pursuits with
a vigour that baffled the mean attempts of the family
at home to impede or hinder her course. She
was not a genius, but she had that eager assiduity,
that “patient attention,” to which the greatest of

philosophers attributed the success which has been
the envy and admiration of the world. There was
a perpetual sunshine in her face, that delighted her
patron. He had thought nothing could be more
interesting than Jane's pensive dejected expression;
but he now felt, that it was beautiful as well
as natural for the young plant to expand its leaves
to the bright rays of the sun, and to rejoice in his
beams. Mary Hull was heard to say, quite as often
as the beauty of the expression would justify,
the Lord be thanked, our dear young lady once
more wears the “cheerfulness of countenance that
betokens a heart in prosperity.”

Double duties were laid on Jane at home, but
she won her way through them. The strict rule
of her aunt's house did not allow her to “watch
with the constellations,” but she “made acqaintance
with the gray dawn,” and learnt by “employing
them well,” (the mode recommended by
Elizabeth Smith,) the value of minutes as well as
hours. The bad envied her progress, the stupid
were amazed at it, and the generous delighted
with it. She went, rejoicing on her way, far before
her cousins, who, stung by her manifest superiority,
made unwonted exertions; and Martha
might have fairly competed with her for the
prizes that were to be given, had she not often
been confused and obstructed by the perversities
of her temper.

The winter and the spring winged their rapid
flight. The end of the term, which was to close
with an exhibition, approached. The note of

busy preparation was heard in every dwelling in
the village of—. We doubt if the expectation
of the tournament at Ashby de la Zouche excited
a greater sensation among knights-templars,
Norman lords, and wandering chevaliers, than
the anticipation of the exhibition produced upon
the young people of—. Labour and skill
were employed and exhausted in preparations
for the event. One day was allotted for the examination
of the scholars, and the distribution
of prizes; and another for the exhibition, during
which the young men and boys were to
display those powers that were developing for the
pulpit, and the bar, and the political harangue.
The young ladies were with obvious and singular
propriety excluded from any part in the exhibition,
except that on the first drawing aside, (for they
did not know enough of the scenic art to draw up
the curtain,) the prize composition was to be read
by the writer of it.

The old and the young seemed alike interested
in promoting the glories of the day. The part of
a king, from one of Miss More's Sacred Dramas,
was to be enacted, and there was a general assembly
of the girls of the village to fit his royal trappings.
A purple shawl was converted by a little
girl of ready invention into a royal robe of Tyrian
dye. The crown blazed with jewelry, which
to too curious scrutiny appeared to be not diamonds,
but paste; not gold, but gold-leaf, and
gold beads; of which fashionable New-England
necklace, as tradition goes, there were not less

than sixty strings, lent for the occasion by the kind
`auld wives' of the village. An antiquated belle
who had once flourished in the capital, completed
the decoration of the crown by four nodding ostrich
plumes, whose `bend did certainly awe the world'
of—. There might have been some want
of congruity in the regalia, but this was not marked
by the critics of—, as not one of the republican
audience had ever seen a real crown.

A meeting was called of the trustees of the
school, and the meeting-house (for thus in the
land of the Puritans the churches are still named,)
was assigned as the place of exhibition. In order
not to invade the seriousness of the sanctuary, the
pieces to be spoken were all to be of a moral or
religious character. Instrumental music, notwithstanding
the celebrations of Independence in the
same holy place were pleaded as a precedent,
was rigorously forbidden. The arrangements were
made according to these decrees, from which there
was no appeal, and neither, as usually happens
with inevitable evils, was there much dissatisfaction.
One of the boys remarked, that he wondered
the deacons (three of the trustees were deacons,)
did not stop the birds from singing, and the
sun from shining, and all such gay sounds and
sights. Oh that those, who throw a pall over the
innocent pleasures of life, and give, in the eye of
the young, to religion a dark and gloomy aspect,
would learn some lessons of theology from the
joyous light of the sun, and the merry carol of the
birds!

A floor was laid over the tops of the pews, which
was covered by a carpet lent by the kind Mr.
Lloyd. A chair, a present from Queen Anne to
the first missionary to the Housatonick Indians,
and which, like some other royal gifts, had cost
more than it came to, in its journey from the coast
to the mountainous interior, furnished a very respectable
throne, less mutable than some that
have been filled by real kings, for it remained a
fixture in the middle of the stage, while kings were
deposed and kingdoms overthrown. Curtains, of
divers colours and figures, were drawn in a cunningly
devised manner, from one end of the
church to the other.

The day of examination came, and our deserving
young heroine was crowned with honours,
which she merited so well, and bore so meekly,
that she had the sympathy of the whole school—
except that (for the truth must be told.) of her
envious cousins. When the prizes for arithmetic,
grammer, geography, history, and philosophy,
were one after another, in obedience to the award
of the examiners, delivered to Jane, by her gratified
master, Martha Wilson burst into tears of spite
and mortification, and Elvira whispered to the
young lady next her, “She may have her triumph
now, but I will have one worth a hundred prizes
to-morrow, for, I am sure that my composition
will be preferred to hers.”

To add the zest of curiosity and surprise to the
exhibition, it had been determined that the writer
of the successful piece should not be known till the

withdrawing of the curtain disclosed the secret.
The long expected day arrived. One would have
thought, from the waggons and chaises that poured
in from the neighbouring towns, that a cattle show,
or a hanging, or some such `merry-making matter,'
was going on in the village of—. The church
was filled at an early hour, and pews, aisles, and
galleries crowded as we have seen a less holy
place at the first appearance of a foreign actor.
The teacher and the clergyman were in the pulpit;
the scholars ranged on benches at the opposite extremities
of the stage; the crowd was hushed
into reverent stillness while the clergyman commenced
the exercises of the day by an appropriate
prayer. The curtains were hardly closed, before
they were again withdrawn, and the eager eyes of
the assembly fell on Elvira. A shadow of disappointment
might have been seen flitting across
Mr. Lloyd's face at this moment, while Mary Hull,
who sat in a corner of the gallery, half rose from
her seat, sat down again, tied and untied her bonnet,
and, in short, manifested indubitable signs of
a vexed spirit; signs, that in more charitable eyes
than Mrs. Wilson's certainly would have gone
against the obnoxious doctrine of `perfection.'
Elvira was seated on the throne, ambitiously arrayed
in a bright scarlet Canton crape frock, a
white sarsenet scarf, fantastically thrown over her
shoulders. Her hair, in imitation of some favourite
heroine, flowed in ringlets over her neck,
excepting a single braid, with which, as she fancied,
`à la grecque,' she had encompassed her
brow, and, to add to this confusion of the classical
and the pastoral orders, instead of the crescent of
Diana in the model, she had bound her braid with
blue glass beads.

“Who is that? who is that?” was whispered
from one to another.

“The rich widow Wilson's daughter,” the strangers
were answered.

Mrs. Wilson, whose maternal pride (for maternal
tenderness she had not) was swollen by the
consciousness of triumph over Jane, nodded and
whispered to all within her hearing, “My daughter,
sir”—“my daughter, ma'am; you see, by the
bill, the prize composition is to be spoken by the
writer of it.”

Elvira rose and advanced. She had requested
that she might speak instead of reading her piece,
and she spouted it with all the airs and graces of a
sentimentalist of the beau monde. When she
dropped her courtesy, and returned to her companions,
her usually high colour was heightened
by the pride of success and the pleasure of display.
Some were heard to say, “She is a beauty;”
while others shook their heads, and observed,
“The young lady must have great talents to
write such a piece, but she looked too bold to
please them.”

Before the busy hum of comment had died
away, an old man, with a bald head, a keen eye,
and a very good-humoured face, rose and said
“he would make bold to speak a word; bashfulness
was suitable to youth, but was not necessary

to gray hairs: he was kinder-loath to spoil a young
body's pleasure, but he must own he did not like
to see so much flourish in borrowed plumes; that,
if he read the notice right, the young woman was
to speak a piece of her own framing; he had no
fault to find with the speaking; she spoke as smart
as a lawyer; but he knew them words as well as
the catechism, and if the school-master or the minister
would please to walk to his house, which
was hard by, they might read them out of an old
Boston newspaper, that his woman, who had been
dead ten years come independence, had pasted
up by the side of his bed, to keep off the rheumatis.”

The old man sat down; and Mr. Evertson, who
had all along been a little suspicious of foul play,
begged the patience of the audience, while he
himself could make the necessary comparison.
Mrs. Wilson, conscious of the possession of a file
of old Boston papers, and well knowing the artifice
was but too probable, fidgetted from one side of
the pew to the other; and the conscience-stricken
girl, on the pretence of being seized with a violent
tooth-ach, left the church.

The teacher soon returned, and was very sorry
to be obliged to say, that the result of the investigation
had been unfavourable to the young lady's
integrity, as the piece had, undoubtedly, been copied,
verbatim, from the original essay in the Boston
paper.

“He hoped his school would suffer no discredit
from the fault of an individual. He should

now, though the young lady had remonstrated
against being brought forward under such circumstances,
insist on the composition being read, which
had been pronounced next best to Miss Wilson's;
and which, he could assure the audience, was, unquestionably,
original.”

The curtain was once more withdrawn, and discovered
Jane seated on the throne, looking like
the “meek usurper,” reluctant to receive the
honour that was forced upon her. She presented
a striking contrast to the deposed sovereign. She
was dressed in a plain black silk frock, and a neatly
plaited muslin vandyke; her rich light brown hair
was parted on her forehead, and put up behind in
a handsome comb, around which one of her young
friends had twisted an “od'rous chaplet of sweet
summer buds.” She advanced with so embarrassed
an air, that even Mary Hull thought her
triumph cost more than it was worth. As she unrolled
the scroll she held in her hand, she ventured
once to raise her eyes; she saw but one face
among all the multitude—the approving, encouraging
smile of her kind patron met her timid
glance, and emboldened her to proceed, which
she did, in a low and faltering voice, that certainly
lent no grace, but the grace of modesty, to the
composition. The subject was gratitude, and the
remarks, made on the virtue, were such as could
only come from one whose heart was warmed by
its glow. Mr. Lloyd felt the delicate praise. Mrs.
Wilson affected to appropriate it to herself. She
whispered to her next neighbour, “It is easy to

write about gratitude; but I am sure her conduct
is evil and unthankful enough.”

As Jane returned to her seat, her face brightened
with the relief of having got through. Edward
Erskine exclaimed to the young man next him,
“By Jove, it is the most elegant composition I
ever heard from a girl. Jane Elton has certainly
grown very handsome.”

“Yes,” replied his friend; “I always thought
her pretty, but you prefer her cousin.”

“I did prefer her cousin,” answered Erskine;
“but I never noticed Jane much before; she is
but a child, and she has always looked so pale and
so sad since the change in her family. You know
I have no fancy for solemn looks. Elvira is certainly
handsome—very handsome; she is a cheating
little devil; but, for all that, she is gay, and
spirited, and amusing. It is enough to make any
body deceitful to live with such a stern, churlish
woman, as Mrs. Wilson. The girl has infinite ingenuity
in cheating her mother, and her pretty
face covers a multitude of faults.”

“So I should think,” replied his friend, “from
the character you have given her. You will hardly
applaud the deceits that have led to the disgrace
of this morning.”

“Oh, no!” answered Erskine; “but I am sorry
for her mortification.”

The exhibition proceeded; but as our heroine
had no further concern with it, neither have we;
except to say, that it was equally honourable to
the preceptor and pupils. The paraphernalia of

the king was exceedingly admired, and some were
heard to observe, (very pertinently,) that they
did not believe Solomon, in all his glory, was arrayed
like him.

Jane's situation, at her aunt's, was rendered
more painful than ever, from the events of the
school and the exhibition. Mrs. Wilson treated her
with every species of vexatious unkindness. In
vain Jane tried, by her usefulness to her aunt, to
win her favour, and by the most patient obedience
to her unreasonable commands, by silent uncomplaining
submission, to sooth her into kindness.
It was all in vain; her aunt was more oppressive
than ever; Martha more rude, and Elvira more
tormenting. It was not hearing her called “the
just,” that provoked their hatred; but it was the
keen and most disagreeable feeling of self-reproach
that stung them, when the light of her goodness
fell upon their evil deeds; it was the “daily
beauty of her life that made them ugly.”