Mothering on Perilous. Lucy S. Furman
eyes, before replying, coldly,
"Warring with the Cheevers."
"Gee-oh, air you one of the Marrses from Trigger Branch of Powderhorn?"
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
"Nucky."
"How old air you?"
"Going-on-twelve."
"What kin is Blant Marrs to you?"
"My brother."
"You don't say so! Gee, I wisht I could see him! Have you holp any in the war?"
"Some." Here Nucky was called in, to the evident disappointment of his interlocutor. Later, I saw him at the supper-table, gazing disapprovingly about him.
After supper I had a few minutes talk with the busy head-workers, and placed myself at their disposal, with the explanation that I really knew very little about anything, except music and gardening. They said these things are just what they have been wanting—that a friend has recently sent the school a piano (how did it ever cross these mountains!) and that some one to supervise garden operations is especially needed. "Besides, what you don't know you can learn," they said, "we are always having to do impossible and unexpected things here—our motto is 'Learn by doing.'" I am very dubious; but I promised to try it a month.
They told me that between six and seven hundred children had been turned away to-day for lack of room—only sixty can live in the school, though two hundred more attend the day-school, which begins to-morrow.
Friday Night.
What a week! Foraging expeditions and music-lessons to big girls in the mornings, and in the afternoons, gardening, with a dozen small boys to keep busy. This is an industrial school—in addition to the usual common-school subjects, woodwork, carpentry, blacksmithing, gardening, cooking, sewing, weaving and home-nursing are all taught, and the children in residence also perform all the work on the place, indoors and out. But alas, my agricultural force is diminishing—the small boys are leaving in batches. This is the first year any number have been taken to live in the school, and they are unable to endure the homesickness. Nucky Marrs left after one night's stay; three others followed Tuesday afternoon, and five on Wednesday; more were taken in, but left at once. Keats Salyer, a beautiful boy who has wept every minute of his stay, ran away a third time this morning. Yesterday Joab Atkins left when the housekeeper told him to help the girls pick chickens. Eight new boys came in to-day, but the veterans, Philip and Geordie, say these are aiming to leave to-morrow.
Friday is mill day in the mountains, and this morning, having had the boys shell corn, I took it to mill to be ground into meal, in a large "poke" (sack) slung across my saddle. When I had gone a mile up Perilous, the thing wriggled from under me and fell off in the road. Of course I was powerless to lift it, though equally of course I got off the school nag and tried. There was nothing to do but sit on the roots of a great beech until somebody came along. Two men soon rode up, and smiling, dismounted and politely set the poke and me on Mandy again, and I reached the mill in safety. When I got back, my black china-silk was ruined from sitting on the meal.
III
ACQUIRING A FAMILY
Sunday.
Sure enough, the eight new boys were gone before sun-up yesterday, only Philip and Geordie remain, and gardening is at a standstill. All day yesterday and to-day I have thought of the runaways, and wondered if there is any way of making them stay and take advantage of their opportunities. Our young manual-training teacher, and only man, lives at the cottage with the dozen small boys; but, being a man, probably he cannot give them a home feeling, and get them rooted. Only a woman could do that. If I had the courage and cheerfulness, I would go over there and live with those little boys and try to make them feel at home. But it is useless to think of such a thing—my sadness would repel them—they would run away faster than ever.
Monday Night.
The heads said to me this morning, "We shall give up trying to keep little boys in the school—it is useless, though we need them almost as much as they need us. If there were just some one who loves children to stay there and take a real interest in them, they might be satisfied to remain."
"I love children," I said, "but I would not think of inflicting myself upon them—I am not cheerful enough."
"Cheerful!" they exclaimed, "why, everybody is cheerful here—no time for anything else! Suppose you try it!"
"I really couldn't think of it," I replied; but, fifteen minutes later, under the spell of their optimism, I was moving over from the big house to the small boys' cottage, from which the manual-training teacher was departing to join the big boys over the workshop.
This small cottage is the building in which the work began here five years ago. It is separated from the rest of the school-grounds by a small branch; in its back yard is the wash-house, and beyond this the stable lot slopes down to Perilous Creek. There are four comfortable rooms, neatly papered with magazine pages—a sitting-room, two bedrooms for the boys, and one for me. The woodwork in mine being battered, I sent Philip down to the nearby village for paint. He returned with a rich, rosy red, and began laying it on my mantelpiece with gusto, while Geordie Yonts put shelves in a goods-box for my bureau. Never have I seen a small chunk of a boy with such a large, ingratiating smile as Geordie's.
In the midst I heard a call from the road, and saw at the gate a nag bearing a woman and two small boys. "Here is Keats back again—he has got to stay with you women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!" declared his Spartan mother; "and I brung Hen this time, to keep him company—he haint so tender-hearted." She sternly pushed the weeping Keats off the nag, and he flung himself down in the doorway, howling dismally. But little Hen, who cannot be more than nine, walked composedly into the house, looking about him with interest. He stopped before the almost-completed mantelpiece. "Gee, woman," he said, "that 'ere's the dad-burn prettiest fireboard ever I seed!" "If you like it, you shall have the same in your room, and all the rooms," I said. "Suppose you and Keats go down right now and buy me a gallon more of this paint. And I think we need some candy, too—say a quarter's worth of peppermint sticks."
The tears miraculously left Keats's face, they hurried off, and later we had a feast of candy flavored with paint.
Tuesday.
A terrible night with fleas, and up at five (awful hour!) to teach the boys to make their beds and clean their rooms. Hen's first question was, "Woman,