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 laborer. 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; it's a chore
to live with Mrs. Wilson—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 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 needlewoman 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 vigor 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 its beams. Mary Hull was heard
to say, quite as often as the beauty of the expression would
justify, “the Lord be thanked, Jane 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 acquaintance 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
Saxon `churls,' than the anticipation of the exhibition produced
upon the young people of —. Labor 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 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 Moore'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 old ladies 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 Housatonic
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 colors 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, grammar,
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 wagons 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 disappointment
and vexation; 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, and a white sarcenet 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 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 self-elected heroine. 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 kind o' 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 schoolmaster 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 plagiary was
but too probable, fidgeted from one side of the pew to the
other; and the conscience-stricken girl, on the pretence of
being seized with a violent toothache, 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 greatness that was thrust 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 confined by 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 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 one give one's self to little
artifices and deceits 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 justly), 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 soothe 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.”