Janie's School Days

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Title:     Janie's School Days
Author: Margaret White Eggleston [More Titles by Eggleston]

Janie was sixteen years old, but she looked as though she might be only thirteen as she sat on the front seat of the little schoolhouse far up on the mountainside of Kentucky. Her black hair was plastered tightly to her head. Her calico dress was much too long and the sleeves were much too short. Mother had made it long so that she might wear it for several years, while the sleeves were short so that she might have no excuse for not getting her hands in the dish water. Her bare feet were very dirty but her face shone from its recent scrubbing.

This was a great day for Janie, for the missionary had once again come to the schoolhouse. It had been three years since she was there before, and all that time Janie had waited for her. So she had hurried with her work in order that she might sit on the very front seat and hear every word. Last time she had told much about the school many miles away and Janie had said over and over to herself, "I shall go there; I shall go there." But of course it was foolish to say so, for there wasn't any chance that she ever could go. Why, there were seven brothers and sisters younger than she, and she had to work all day long to help to get them enough to eat. She could never go.

But she listened eagerly as the missionary told of all that was being done in the little schoolhouses all about the mountains and of the need of teachers to do the work.

"We like best to take a boy or girl from some hamlet and let them work with us for several years and then send them back to their own homes to serve there. I am wondering if there isn't a girl here who would like to be the teacher here and help to make Round Creek what it ought to be. If there is such a one, send them to us and we will do our best. If you will pay $10 a term, we will do the rest."

Janie's little body was leaning far forward and her eyes were big with excitement. She knew a girl that would like to go. But $10 a term! Why, one dollar seemed big in their home. So she crept out into the darkness of the night without saying a word to any one about her great, big longing. But up in the loft of the log house she lay long after the rest went to sleep trying to think of a way. Auntie was coming to stay with them in the fall. If she could just get the ten dollars by that time, maybe she could be spared for a term. That would help a little, anyway.

In the morning she loosened one of the boards of the woodshed. Beneath it she placed a little tin can, and in the can she put the five pennies that she owned. It was berry time and she thought she knew of a way to earn some money that should be all her own. Near the mill, there were beautiful pieces of bark. In the woods there were many rare ferns. She would make some little baskets like she had made many times for the home, fill them with ferns and try to sell them when she went into the town with the berries. It meant getting up at four instead of five, but she could do that. It meant getting the ferns when the rest of the children were playing at lunch time--but that wasn't hard. And after her first day in town she had fifty cents to put into the cup. Oh, how rich she felt!

An extra quart of berries here and there, some flowers sold from her little garden patch on the hill, two little kittens sold instead of being drowned--and so the money in the cup grew very, very slowly and no one dreamed it was there. But her dream grew with the contents of the cup. She could see herself all dressed in a neat dress going up the hill to the school and the little children following her and calling her teacher.

But in August, George fell from the hay-mow and for days he lay there white and still. Mother had done all she could and there was no money to send for the doctor. Then it was that a little black-haired girl went out in the shed and for the first time counted the money in the cup--one, two, three, four, five, six, almost seven dollars. Long she looked at it. Then she went into town to do the errand for her mother and five of the precious dollars were counted into the hands of the doctor with the repeated statement,

"Tell mother that you happened to be going by and just stopped, so all she needs to pay you is a dollar, for she has that."

So mother never knew, nor did the sick boy know, of the sacrifice the girl had made. Auntie came and went, and because it was winter the money in the cup hardly increased one bit. Sometimes she was almost discouraged, but then she would say to herself,

"Why, it took years and years for Abraham Lincoln to get to the White House. It doesn't matter if it takes twenty years. I am going to get to that schoolhouse. I will be a teacher."

She could crochet and she could embroider, so these helped a bit. She planted more things in her own garden and the money from these was her own. So again as the summer drew to a close, she knew there must be several dollars in the cup--but she daren't count it, for if it should be ten and still she couldn't go--oh, that would be worse than all!

It was five days before school was to open that there came a letter from grandmother saying that she was coming to stay for the winter, and while mother was happy over this, Janie asked if she might not be spared to go to school. At first there was a firm "No" for an answer. But she begged so hard to be allowed to go for only one term that she saw signs of relenting in her mother's face. Then she ran to get the cup--and in it was nearly nine dollars.

Where should she get the rest? Mother had none--yet she must have it. There was only one way. She could sell Biddy, her pet hen whom she loved so much. She would ask her brother to take her in the morning, for she could never do it herself. So with tears in her eyes, she patted her pet and put it into a box ready for the morning. Oh! ten dollars was such a lot of money for a little girl to get!

It was thirty miles to the school, so she had only one day to get ready. But she had few clothes and so it was an easy matter. She put them neatly in a bundle and with a queer feeling underneath the little red dress, now too short instead of too long, she started bright and early to walk the thirty miles to school. Many times she turned to look back at the little log cabin till it was hidden from her sight by a turn in the road. Then somehow she felt very much alone in the world.

On and on she walked till at last, twenty miles from home, she came to the home of an old neighbor and rested for the night. It was two in the afternoon of the next day when she saw in the distance the large brick building which she knew must be the school. She longed to run to it but her feet were very sore and her body was very tired. So she trudged on till she came to the office.

"Please, Miss, I have come to school. I can only stay one term but I came anyway and here is the money. The missionary lady said you would do the rest," and she handed her the precious money.

"And to whom did you write about entering?" said the lady kindly.

"To nobody. You see I didn't know I could come till Tuesday," said Janie.

"Well, I am so sorry," said the lady, "but you see we have all the girls we can possibly take. So we can't have you this term. Perhaps you could come next term if you leave your name now."

The whole world seemed to fall from under Janie's feet. She was here, thirty miles from home. She had all the money--she had sold dear old Biddy--yet she could not stay. Not a word did she answer. She just stood and stared into space.

"I am very tired for I have walked thirty miles to get here. May I stay just for to-night?" she asked, rolling the ten dollars carefully in her big handkerchief.

"School doesn't open till to-morrow but we will tuck you in somewhere for to-night. I am so sorry for you, but we just haven't a bit of room after to-morrow. Sit down on the porch and rest yourself," said the lady.

She brought her a glass of milk and then left her alone with her thoughts. How could she go home? Perhaps there would never come a time when she could be spared again. Was there no way in which she could stay?

Ten minutes later, a little girl in a short red calico dress went down the steps and along the street, looking for a doctor's sign. When she found it, she rang the bell and asked for the doctor.

"Please, sir," she said, "I thought you might know some one who wanted a girl to work for them. I want to go to school this term and I have earned the money to come. And now that I am here, there is no place for me and I must walk the thirty miles back. But I am willing to work. I will work for nothing if only I can go to the school in the afternoon. Sir, I just must be a teacher and I just must stay now and get started."

The doctor whistled a little tune before he answered. "And tell me how you earned the money to come." Then he whistled another tune as she talked. "Stay here to-night," he said. "I will find out at the school just how much they will let you come in the afternoons. I am sure you can find work enough, so don't worry."

And sure enough, he found a place for her and so she started with the rest on the very first morning. She was radiantly happy till she heard a boy say,

"Look at the red dress that is coming in! Better loan her a red handkerchief to piece it down with."

Then she knew that she was different from the rest. Her shoes were coarse and rough. Her hair looked, oh, so different. Her hands were red and big. She was here where she had longed to come but oh, how unhappy she was! She was almost ready to cry. Instead she shook her head proudly and said to herself, "I will be a teacher. What do I care if they laugh?"

The lessons were very hard, for her preparation was not good; every minute that she could spare she must spend on getting ready for the next day, so she had little time to be lonely. But she still minded the fact that her clothes were so very different. Many a good cry she had in the quiet of her little room as she looked at the red dress laid out for the coming day.

The term sped by and she was making good. Oh, if she could only stay! But she had no money except the little that the good doctor had given her now and then for doing errands for him. She could take her books home and perhaps she could do it all by herself.

So she waited till almost the last day before she told the woman for whom she worked that she was leaving.

"Why, girlie," she answered, "you have much more than ten dollars coming from me. I have never paid you because the doctor told me you would ask for it if you needed it. I will give it to you and then you can go and pay your ten dollars. I wouldn't have you go home for anything."

Clasping her precious money in her hand, she flew up the stairs. Here was a letter from her brother also. What a happy day! Eagerly she opened it and read,

"Mother is counting on your coming home for we need your help badly. The cow has died and we are without milk till we can get another. Mother thinks she must spare you at home and let you work out to earn money."

Oh! Oh! She was needed! She must take the money she had earned to help to buy a cow and again she must forget school. So she went again to her mistress, told her story and began to prepare for the long walk. She went to the school, borrowed the books, and promised them she would surely come again. Then she went again to the old doctor who had been so kind to her.

He listened thoughtfully as she told him of her new plans which still had not changed her vision of being a teacher.

"I will come back, even though it be after four or five years. I will come," she said, and she rose to go.

Then the doctor turned to his desk and took from it the picture of a girl.

"That was my little girl," he said. "She, too, wanted to be a teacher and she was in this very school when sickness and death came. When you came to me that first morning and said, 'I just must be a teacher,' I could hear her say to me, 'Help her.' So I did what you asked me to do--got you a place to work for nothing though I knew you were to be paid. I have watched you work, I have watched you suffer because of the red dress; I have watched you try to do your duty at the sacrifice of yourself. And now that you have done all that you can, I am ready to do the rest. Send the money that you have earned to your mother to help to buy the cow. Come to live here and be my office girl. The money that you earn can go to your mother for I will do for you what I would have done for her and I will do it for her sake and because you have shown me that you are worth while. You shall be a teacher."

So Janie lived in the home of her new friend. There was help on her lessons, the old red dress went back to the little home in the hills to be worn by some one whom it would fit and in her new, pretty things she could see more plainly--Janie, the teacher.

[The end]
Margaret White Eggleston's short story: Janie's School Days

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