Chapter 3. Reforms Not Easy To Discuss

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_ CHAPTER III. REFORMS NOT EASY TO DISCUSS

Elizabeth kept her tears and regrets to herself. She cried them out on her pillow that night, all the disappointments and handicaps of that wonderful year of experience and aspiration, but as she cried she planned the arrangements of her going.

The letter was received on Thursday night; Elizabeth decided that she would go for her books the next day, and say her farewells to desk, recitation room, and the halls that had been dear to her. When Elizabeth was called to the blackboard that afternoon to explain a problem in algebra, the board, the pointer, the very chalk in her fingers cried aloud their unity with her life and thought, and she sat down when it was over with a great throbbing in her throat and ears, and a sense of overwhelming disaster.

As Elizabeth carried her books home under her arm, bulging out one side of her circular like an unevenly inflated pudding-bag, the throbbing continued, and she turned into the less frequented streets with the certainty that she was going to disgrace herself with tears shed publicly. It had been a trying day, and in spite of all efforts her emotions broke loose before she could gain the shelter of home. Hurrying blindly to get the last block covered, she nearly dropped her books as she turned the corner.

"The Unknown" was coming toward her!

Her startled glance of recognition was so unexpectedly open that he thought that he had probably met her. He looked puzzled, but lifted his hat as she hurried past him, wiping the tears from her face with her free hand.

A boy called from across the street an instant later.

"Oh, Hugh, I'm coming over for some help on that chem. ex. to-night."

"All right," came the answer from "The Unknown," and mixed with Elizabeth's mortifying confusion was a quick thrill at knowing his name.

"Hugh!"

No opportunity had ever come to meet him or to find out what his name might be. Elizabeth was conscious that her life on the farm had made of her an impossible mate for this young man who, even among the young men of the city, was set apart by a peculiar grace and culture. She remembered the hat which had not merely been lifted from the head, but had been carried below the chin as he bowed distantly, and also the well-bred curiosity of his look. The rest of the leave-taking was made easier by having met him, and received his bow, and acquired the glorious, mystical knowledge of his name.

To round out the experiences of the winter, fate decreed that Mr. Farnshaw could not come for her, and the glitter of the inside of a railway coach, with its brass lamps, plush seats, and polished woods, was added to her experimental knowledge. Luther was somehow connected in her mind with the day's experiences and she wished devoutly that she could talk to him about the disappointment of leaving her school before the end of the term, and of this journey home on the train, and of Hugh. Yes, Elizabeth would have told Luther even of Hugh. Luther Hansen was to Elizabeth Farnshaw unchanged and unchangeable. The transformations of her own life did not call for any such transformations in him. He was Luther. It had been his mental processes which had won and now sustained her attachment for him. Their two minds had worked together as one mind while they had struggled with the innocent problems of their childhood days, and Elizabeth still felt incomplete without him. She had been less conscious of Luther's absence the first year than at any time since his going away, but in Topeka, and now that she was approaching the scene of their association together, Elizabeth wanted him with a depth of homesickness she had never felt before. It was hard to go back to the old battleground and not find him there. The prospects in store for her at home made her shrink. Elizabeth fell to wondering if any improvement in that home were possible. She had had them quite cheerfully in mind all winter, but now that the distance between her home and herself lessened rapidly a feeling of inadequacy came upon her, and the glitter of the wonderful coach in which she was riding was forgotten. Could she help? The only thing that was very clear to her was that much patience would be necessary. At Uncle Nathan's they had been gentle and loving and tolerant.

"Can I make them see it--and see how?" she asked herself so many times that the wheels beneath her took up the refrain.

"Gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle and loving and tolerant," they sang for miles as she sat with her young brow puckered into a deep frown.

The realities of life were thrust into the foreground the moment Elizabeth arrived, and for new reasons she missed Luther. Mr. Farnshaw resented the new circular.

"Is that th' damned fool kind of coat she was talkin' about?" he inquired as his daughter alighted from the farm wagon at the kitchen door that afternoon. "It ain't got no warmth," he added scornfully. "Th' ain' nothin' to it but looks, an' not much of that. What 'd y' you do with th' coat you had?"

The old heartsickening contention had begun.

"I've got it."

"Well, you see that you wear it and don't go makin' a fool out of yourself around here. I'd 'a' kept my money if I'd 'a' knowed it was goin' t' be put into a thing that'd swell up in th' wind like a balloon."

Mrs. Farnshaw saw the look that swept over Elizabeth's face and instinctively ranged herself on the side of the young girl. She saw with a woman's eyes the style in the garment and its importance in her daughter's appearance. When Elizabeth took it off her mother took it to the bedroom to put it away, remarking in a whisper that it made her look quite like a school-teacher ought to look. She was secretly glad that her daughter had it, since it was already paid for and she did not have to make it. It would be the most observed wrap in the schoolhouse the next Sunday if she could only persuade Elizabeth to go to meeting. The metal clasp had virtues all its own.

"I think it's ever so much more stuck-up than if it had buttons," she whispered.

The undertone rasped on Elizabeth's nerves. Aunt Susan never differed with Uncle Nate in undertones.

"Let's get supper, ma," she said, to shake herself from threatened despondency.

But though Elizabeth bustled energetically about the getting of that meal, the eating of it was not a very great success. Mr. Farnshaw discoursed upon the senselessness of prevailing styles, with the new cape plainly in mind, and Mrs. Farnshaw nudged her daughter's knee under the table whenever Elizabeth seemed inclined to defensive retorts.

When Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milk pails on his arm and repaired to the corral, however, Mrs. Farnshaw turned from a belated churning and administered the caution in words:

"Don't ever say anything back to your pa, Lizzie; he gets worse and worse all th' time."

Elizabeth considered the subject for some minutes. The wear and tear of the discords of her mother's life she knew were far more responsible for her mother's broken health than anything she did in the way of hard work. It seemed a good time to begin the reforms upon which her heart was set.

"Ma, I've been thinking about you a good deal this winter," she began slowly. "Something is wrong with us all." The girl thought again for a moment. Her mother watched her with sharp attention and waited. Reforms were not easy to discuss with her mother; they were very different, Elizabeth and her mother. Elizabeth hardly dared express her longing to reorganize their home. If only she could effect a reformation! Her heart had been set on it all winter. She knew now how people could live if only they understood how to do it. Her help here was needed. When she began to speak again it was very slowly, and with a careful consideration of the words she was using.

"We ought all of us to be different. We go along day after day hating our work, scolding and fretting at each other, and never really happy, any of us, and I've been wondering why?"

Her mother eyed her closely. Something of the girl's mood stirred a responsive chord.

"I've thought of it too," she said, "but I can't never tell why it is though, unless"--she spoke slowly and Elizabeth was encouraged--"unless it's because we don't never belong to ourselves. Now your pa wants t' run th' house, an' th' farm, an' you children, an' me, an' everything, an' I'm so tired, an' never have any help, that anybody'd be cross. Nobody ever pities me, though. Here, take this dasher an' finish this here churnin' for me."

Elizabeth took the dasher into her own hand and stood looking down meditatively at the cream gathered about the hole in the churn lid. The first sentence of her mother's remark struck her attention.

"Why can't folks belong to themselves?" she asked, letting the dasher rest while she churned mental problems of greater moment.

Mrs. Farnshaw looked up quickly. "Well, if you think you can marry an' belong t' yourself, just you try it," she replied.

"But, ma, if a man loved a woman couldn't she get him to leave her free? Now--"

Mrs. Farnshaw cut her short. "Love! Men don't know how to spell th' word. They get a woman, an' after she's got children they know she can't help herself. She's got t' stick to it 'cause she can't raise 'em alone an'--an' it don't make no difference whether he takes care of 'em or not--" Words failed the exasperated woman.

Elizabeth studied her mother with a new interest. She began to apply her mother's words to her own case. She knew that her mother had wanted her services this spring as much as her father, and remembered the letter calling her home.

"But that don't cover your case, ma. You love pa more than you do us children; you know you do, and we know that you do too."

Mrs. Farnshaw usually denied the most obvious thing if her protective instincts prompted her to do so, but her daughter had hit the bull's-eye so exactly that for the moment she had no defence ready. Elizabeth was encouraged by her mother's silence. Mrs. Farnshaw talked so much that it was not easy to get her attention. The young girl, glowing with the discoveries made in Aunt Susan's home, desired to get at the bottom of the causes of inharmony in her own and to reorganize it on a better basis. It looked as if she was to be granted a hearing upon her schemes.

"I don't care about him running over us so much," she said diplomatically, "but you let him run over you in the same way. Now isn't there some way to come at him and get him to see it. When we're alone you talk about him domineering over you, but when he's here you let him say anything he wants to and you never try to help yourself. Why don't you strike out on a new tack and say you won't do it when he makes unreasonable demands? Why don't you reason with him good-naturedly, if you think that's better, without crying, I mean, and then if he won't listen at all----"

"I don't know, Lizzie," the mother interposed slowly. "I sometimes think I will an' then when he's here something won't let me. It ain't what he says to you; it's--it's--something he does to you when he looks at you. I'm as weak as water when he looks at me. I don't know why. I guess it's because I've always give up--an'--an'--I can't tell why. A woman does just like a horse--there's more'n one kind of whippin' a man can give--an' she gets scared--an' minds. A man begins right from th' first t' tell her what to do an' she loves 'im and wants t' please 'im, an' before long she don't have her way no more'n a nigger."

Some of the truth of the statement came within the grasp of the daughter, who was looking across the idle churn with her mind fixed in singleness of purpose upon remedies, and yet she felt that there was some other element in the matter not yet accounted for. The hopeless tone of the older woman, however, goaded her young spirit into forgetting the caution necessary to dealing with the subject. Her blood fired with resentment that one life should be so crushed by another. It was her mother whose shoulders drooped with a burden too heavy for her to throw off.

"If you're sure of that, why don't you leave him? We children are old enough to support ourselves and----"

"Lizzie!"

Elizabeth had overshot the mark. Her mother was of another generation.

"But, ma," the girl protested quickly, "I don't say leave him if you can find any way of settling matters. Can't you have a talk with him--and get him to let you alone if you are willing to do the very best you can? That's the best way. Have you tried it?"

"No I hain't," the mother replied shortly; "it wouldn't do no good. But if my talkin' t' you is goin' t' make you say such things, I ain't goin't' talk t' you no more. When folks is married they're married, an' I don't believe in partin', nor talk of partin'."

"Well, I think maybe you are right, but if you and pa are going to live together you ought to try and have it out, and be a help to each other instead----" She broke off and thought a moment, "Now Aunt Susan and Uncle Nate----"

"Stop right there!" Mrs. Farnshaw cried, afire with jealousy. "That woman's brought more trouble into this house a'ready than She'll ever take out. Your pa's been rantin' about her all winter an'--an' he said you'd be pokin' her ways into our faces th' very day you got home. I 'spect she's th' one that got it into your head to talk of partin', most likely."

"Oh, now, ma, don't go on like that. You don't know about Aunt Susan. She's the last person in the world to ever suggest such a thing. That's just what I started out to say--they never have a word about anything. It's the loveliest home to live in, and I was just thinking that they must have found----"

"I said I didn't want t' hear nothin' more about them folks, an' I don't," Mrs. Farnshaw cried, caught on the other horn of the argument and even more deeply offended than before. "She'll most likely get all your love just like she got all your father's money last winter. You needn't mention her here no more. Th' school directors 'll be over to see you about fillin' out that term, to-night," Mrs. Farnshaw ended shortly, and turned the subject of conversation to other channels.

"Me? To fill out the term?" Elizabeth exclaimed in surprise. "What's gone wrong with the school here? I don't want a piece of a term, and I don't want, ever, to teach in this district where I've gone to school."

"Well, you're goin' to," was the brief reply. "Your pa an' me told 'em you'd take it."

"But how does it happen that the school is without a teacher?" Elizabeth asked with curiosity, ignoring the curt disposal of her services. She was accustomed to the peremptory measures of her parents.

"Jake Ransom run him out. He just piked off after he got his money order cashed last Saturday mornin'."

"And you expect me to take a school that's all upside down from that kind of handling--and me without any experience?"

"You'll take it an' You'll do your best, an' we won't hear no more about it. Here, ma, tie up this finger," Mr. Farnshaw said. He had just come in from the barn in time to hear his daughter's objections.

Later in the evening the directors came. Family pressure was strong, and with reluctance Elizabeth accepted the month yet to be taught. It would help with the interest, and that interest clouded the family sky to the horizon on every side now. Elizabeth was divided between a fear of inability to manage a demoralized school and the desire to add twenty-five dollars to the family revenue. In anticipation she saw the unruly boys supported and encouraged in insubordination by such as Sadie Crane, who was jealously ready to resent her--a former playmate--in the role of authority. And to put herself right with the governing board Elizabeth told the new director--Sadie's own father--her fears on that score.

"They have played with me and we have had the sort of quarrels all children have, Mr. Crane, and I may not be able to manage them."

Lon Crane was ignorant and uncouth, but big of heart, and the openness of the discussion pleased him.

"You jest take that school, young lady, an' I'll see that my end of th' thing's kep' up. I'll come over there an thrash every mother's son of 'em if I have t'. I'd kind o' like t' lick a few of 'em anyhow, an' if my young ones give any trouble, you jes' stop in on your way home an' I'll see that it don't never happen ag'in."

Half the battle was won; she let him hold her hand a moment at leave-taking while he reinforced his remarks by many repetitions.

"Don't you worry, Sis," he repeated as he backed out of the door; "you needn't be afraid; this here school board's at your back. We know it's a bad school, but, by ginger! we'll see that you're stood by. You jes' let me know if that there Jake Ransom tries any more monkeyshines and I'll tan his hide till It'll be good for shoe leather."

It occurred to Elizabeth that every word they were saying would be carried to the boy long before Monday morning and that a bad matter might from the very goodness of the teller's intentions be made worse.

"How old did you say the Ransom boy was?" she asked with concern.

"Fifteen--and a stinker if there ever was one."

"Then I think maybe I'll have a show. I thought he was older than that," she said diplomatically. "Now may I ask that what we have said be kept quiet? I would rather like to have a fair show with him--and I'll admit I'd like to be on good terms. Promise me that what we have said may be a secret even from your own family till after Monday."

Elizabeth went forward and spoke confidentially. The man liked her even better than before.

"I'll do it, by jing!" he exclaimed. "They'll be wantin' t' know soon's ever I get home what we done about it, an' fur once they'll suck their thumbs. Look out fur that boy, though; he's a black sheep that lives around in any flock; ain't got no home. I'll help if I'm needed."

Elizabeth listened closely to all that she heard her brothers say about Jake Ransom, trying to form some estimate of his character, and soon came to the conclusion that whatever else the boy might be, he was at least not to be classed as a sneak. In fact, Jake seemed to have rather a surprising faculty for announcing his policies before he began action.

When school opened Monday morning the bully was easily recognizable. Elizabeth had gone through all the stages of fright, of distaste for the job, and lastly of set determination to show this district that she could take that boy and not only conquer him but become friends with him. Instead of being nervous about the coming encounter, however, Elizabeth grew more steady and self-reliant as she felt his eyes upon her, and actually became interested in the small affairs preceding the ringing of the bell, and forgot him altogether till it was time to call the roll.

Jacob Ransom's name came last on the list. A titter ran around the room when it was called. The tone of reply was louder than the rest and defiant of manner. Elizabeth looked around the room with frank inquiry and the titter died down. She let her gaze wander quietly and naturally down the aisle to the seat of the bully and was surprised to find that she liked the boy.

Closing the roll book and following an instinct rather than a formulated plan, Elizabeth walked slowly down the room to his desk. A faint giggle behind her spoke of the hushed expectations of trouble.

"If I hear any more laughing in this room, I shall inquire into the matter," she said sternly, facing about beside Jake's desk.

The instant response to that remark gave her confidence in her own powers. It was the first time she had ever used the tone of authority and she instinctively recognized that the quality of her personality in that position was good. Both she and Jake Ransom were on trial in that room.

"So you are the 'Jake' I have heard about?" she said, looking him frankly in the face and letting him see that she was measuring him openly. "Is your name Jake or Jacob?" she asked, as if it were an important matter to get settled.

"Don't call me Jacob," the boy snapped.

"I think I like the nickname better myself," Elizabeth replied easily. Her good fairy beckoned her on. "These children are all laughing because they think we are going to pull each other's hair presently. We will show them at least that we are a lady and a gentleman, I trust. Let me see your books." She looked at him with such straightforward sincerity that the boy returned the look in the same spirit.

The books were produced in surprise; this was walking into the middle of the ring and bidding for an open fight, if fight they must. The boy loved a square deal. Jake Ransom's sting had been drawn.

"You are in advance of the rest of the school. Are you preparing for the high school?" Elizabeth asked, emphasizing her surprise.

"Lord, no!" the boy blurted out.

Elizabeth looked through the book in her hand slowly before she asked:

"Why don't you? I was only about as far along as this in arithmetic last year. Some one said you were ready for it."

"Oh, I kin do 'rithmetic all right, but I ain't no good in nothin' else--an'--an'--wouldn't I look fine teachin' school?" Jake Ransom exclaimed, but the bully melted out of him by way of the fact that she had heard good reports of him. He would not smoke this level-eyed girl out of the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual proceeding of the country bumpkin who failed to admire his teacher. Jake Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before and who had himself many lessons to learn in life's school. The boy brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he wiped it across, and the children had something tangible to laugh at. Elizabeth was wise enough to take no notice of that laugh.

Some one has said that experience is not as to duration but as to intensity, and it was Elizabeth's fate to live at great pressure in every important stage of her life. But for the fact that she had made a friend of Jake Ransom that month's events would have had a different story. Sadie Crane took exceptions to every move made and every mandate issued from the teacher's desk. The spirit of insubordination to which the entire school had been subjected that winter made good soil for Sadie's tares. For the most part the dissatisfaction was a subtle thing, an undercurrent of which Elizabeth was aware, but upon which she could lay no finger of rebuke, but at times it was more traceable, and then, to the young teacher's surprise, Jake Ransom had ways of dealing with the offenders outside of school hours. Sadie's tongue was sharp and she was accustomed to a wholesome attitude of fear among the scholars, but her first thrusts at Jake had aroused a demon of which she had little dreamed. Jake had no foolish pride and would admit his faults so guilelessly that her satire fell to the ground. He was an entirely new sort to the spiteful child. The terrible advantage the person who will admit his faults cheerfully has over the one who has pride and evades was never more manifest. Jake Ransom pointed out to a credulous following the causes of Sadie's disaffection, and left the envious child in such a state of futile rage that she was ready to burst with her ill-directed fury. In the end the month's work had to be granted the tribute of success, and the term closed with a distinct triumph for Elizabeth and the experience of a whole year's trial crowded into four short weeks.

At home things were not so fortunate. The young girl had come back from Topeka with higher ideals of home life, of personal conduct, and of good manners than she had ever had before. It was so good to have something better, and Elizabeth hungered to pass along the transforming things she had found; but when she tried to give the boys gentle hints about correct ways of eating she was greeted with guffaws and sarcastic chuckles about handling soup with a fork. Mrs. Farnshaw saw nothing but Susan Hornby's interference, Mr. Farnshaw told her to attend to her own affairs until her help was desired, and when the child was rebuffed and unable to hide her disappointment and retired within herself, both parents resented the evident and growing difference between her and themselves.

It was to escape from a home which was unendurable that Elizabeth flat-footedly, and for the first time, refused to accede to her parents' authority. When the matter of a spring term of school came up for discussion she refused to teach the home school again, though Mr. Crane had been so pleased with her work that he had offered it to her. When asked if Jake Ransom was the objection she indignantly asserted to the contrary.

"He was the best pupil I had," she said, "but I don't want to teach at home, and I won't do it," and that was all she would say. She secured a school ten miles north of her home; ten miles had been the nearest point which she would consider.

The interest was at last paid, but when the summer groceries were paid for there was no money left with which to go back to Topeka, and it was necessary to teach a winter school. Elizabeth went to work anew to collect funds for another year's schooling. Mr. Farnshaw sold himself short of corn in the fall, however, and the young girl was expected to make up the deficit. In the spring the interest was to be paid again, and so at the end of a year and a half the situation was unchanged. The next year a threshing machine was added to the family assets, and again the cry of "help" went up, again Elizabeth's plans were sacrificed. The next year the interest was doubled, and for four years Elizabeth Farnshaw worked against insurmountable odds. _

Read next: Chapter 4. A Cultured Man

Read previous: Chapter 2. Brushing Up To Go To Topeka

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