"Not so very," confessed Rebecca; "but it's hard to tell all by yourself. The Perkinses and the Cobbs always said they were wonderful, but when Mrs. Cobb told me she thought they were better than Mr. Longfellow's I was worried, because I knew that couldn't be true."
This ingenuous remark confirmed Miss Maxwell's opinion of Rebecca as a girl who could hear the truth and profit by it.
"Well, my child," she said smilingly, "your friends were wrong and you were right; judged by the proper tests, they are pretty bad."
"Then I must give up all hope of ever being a writer!" sighed Rebecca, who was tasting the bitterness of hemlock and wondering if she could keep the tears back until the interview was over.
"Don't go so fast," interrupted Miss Maxwell.
"Though they don't amount to anything as poetry, they show a good deal of promise in certain direc-tions. You almost never make a mistake in rhyme or metre, and this shows you have a natural sense of what is right; a `sense of form,' poets would call it. When you grow older, have a little more experience,--in fact, when you have something to say, I think you may write very good verses.
Poetry needs knowledge and vision, experience and imagination, Rebecca. You have not the first three yet, but I rather think you have a touch of the last."
"Must I never try any more poetry, not even to amuse myself?"
"Certainly you may; it will only help you to write better prose. Now for the first composition.
I am going to ask all the new students to write a letter giving some deion of the town and a hint of the school life."
"Shall I have to be myself?" asked Rebecca.
"What do you mean?"
"A letter from Rebecca Randall to her sister Hannah at Sunnybrook Farm, or to her aunt Jane at the brick house, Riverboro, is so dull and stupid, if it is a real letter; but if I could make believe I was a different girl altogether, and write to somebody who would be sure to understand everything I said, I could make it nicer."
"Very well; I think that's a delightful plan," said Miss Maxwell; "and whom will you suppose yourself to be?"
"I like heiresses very much," replied Rebecca contemplatively. "Of course I never saw one, but interesting things are always happening to heiresses, especially to the golden-haired kind. My heiress wouldn't be vain and haughty like the wicked sisters in Cinderella; she would be noble and generous. She would give up a grand school in Boston because she wanted to come here where her father lived when he was a boy, long before he made his fortune. The father is dead now, and she has a guardian, the best and kindest man in the world; he is rather old of course, and sometimes very quiet and grave, but sometimes when he is happy, he is full of fun, and then Evelyn is not afraid of him. Yes, the girl shall be called Evelyn Abercrombie, and her guardian's name shall be Mr. Adam Ladd."
"Do you know Mr. Ladd?" asked Miss Maxwell in surprise.
"Yes, he's my very best friend," cried Rebecca delightedly. "Do you know him too?"
"Oh, yes; he is a trustee of these schools, you know, and often comes here. But if I let you `suppose' any more, you will tell me your whole letter and then I shall lose a pleasant surprise."
What Rebecca thought of Miss Maxwell we already know; how the teacher regarded the pupil may be gathered from the following letter written two or three months later.
Wareham, December 1st My Dear Father,--As you well know, I have not always been an enthusiast on the subject of teaching. The task of cramming knowledge into these self-sufficient, inefficient youngsters of both ***es discourages me at times. The more stupid they are, the less they are aware of it. If my department were geography or mathematics, I believe I should feel that I was accomplishing something, for in those branches application and industry work wonders; but in English literature and composition one yearns for brains, for appreciation, for imagination! Month after month I toil on, opening oyster after oyster, but seldom finding a pearl. Fancy my joy this term when, without any violent effort at shell-splitting, I came upon a rare pearl; a black one, but of satin skin and beautiful lustre! Her name is Rebecca, and she looks not unlike Rebekah at the Well in our family Bible; her hair and eyes being so dark as to suggest a strain of Italian or Spanish blood. She is nobody in particular. Man has done nothing for her; she has no family to speak of, no money, no education worthy the name, has had no advantages of any sort; but Dame Nature flung herself into the breach and said:--
"This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine and I will make A Lady of my own."
Blessed Wordsworth! How he makes us understand!
And the pearl never heard of him until now!
Think of reading Lucy to a class, and when you finish, seeing a fourteen-year-old pair of lips quivering with delight, and a pair of eyes brimming with comprehending tears!
You poor darling! You, too, know the discouragement of sowing lovely seed in rocky earth, in sand, in water, and (it almost seems sometimes) in mud; knowing that if anything comes up at all it will be some poor starveling plant. Fancy the joy of finding a real mind; of dropping seed in a soil so warm, so fertile, that one knows there are sure to be foliage, blossoms, and fruit all in good time!
I wish I were not so impatient and so greedy of results! I am not fit to be a teacher; no one is who is so scornful of stupidity as I am. . . . The pearl writes quaint countrified little verses, doggerel they are; but somehow or other she always contrives to put in one line, one thought, one image, that shows you she is, quite unconsciously to herself, in possession of the secret. . . . Good-by; I'll bring Rebecca home with me some Friday, and let you and mother see her for yourselves.
Your affectionate daughter, Emily.