Chapter 2

The teacher at the Guild was even more beautiful than Amarilly's fancy, fed by the little girl's vivid description, had pictured.

"Her hair ain't boughten," decided the keen-eyed critic as she gazed adoringly at the golden braids crowning the small head. The color of her eyes was open to speculation; when they had changed from gray to green, from green to hazel, and from hazel to purple, Amarilly gave up the enigma. The color of her complexion changed, too, in the varying tints of peaches.

"I do b'lieve she ain't got no make-up on," declared Amarilly wonderingly.

The little daughter of the stage-hand had not overappraised the diamond. It shone resplendent on a slender, shapely hand.

"Miss King, I've brung a new scholar," introduced the little girl importantly. "She's Amarilly."

As she glanced at her new pupil, the young teacher's eyes brightened with spontaneous interest, and a welcoming smile parted her lips.

"I'm glad to see you, Amarilly. Here's a nice little pile of blue carpet rags to sew and make into a ball. When you have made a lot of balls I'll have them woven into a pretty blue rug for you to take home and keep."

"For the Boarder's room!" thought Amarilly joyously, as she went at her work with the avidity that marked all her undertakings.

Presently a small seamstress asked for instruction as to the proper method of putting the strips together. The fair face of the young teacher became clouded for a moment, and she was unmistakably confused. Her wavering, dubious glance fell upon Amarilly sitting tense and upright as she made quick, forceful, and effective stabs with her needle, biting her thread vigorously and resonantly. The stitches were microscopic and even; the strips symmetrically and neatly joined.

The teacher's face cleared as she saw and seized her avenue of escape.

"You may all," she directed, "look at Amarilly's work and sew the strips just as she does. Hers are perfect."

Amarilly's wan little face brightened, and she proceeded to show the children how to sew, bringing the same ease and effectiveness into her tutoring that she displayed when instructing her brothers and Cory.

The sewing lesson continued for an hour. Then the children sang songs to a piano accompaniment, and there followed a lesson in cooking and the proper setting of a table. All this instruction was succeeded by an informal chat.

"I want you all to tell me what you are going to do when you grow to be women," said Miss King.

In most cases the occupations of their parents were chosen, and the number of washerwomen, scrubbers, and seamstresses in embryo was appalling.

"And you, Amarilly?" she asked, addressing the new pupil last of all.

Amarilly's mien was lofty, her voice consequential, as she replied in dramatic denouement:

"I'm goin' on the stage!"

The young teacher evinced a most eager interest in this declaration.

"Oh, Amarilly! We all have a stage-longing period. When did you first think of such a career?"

"I'm in the perfesshun now," replied Amarilly pompously.

"Really! Tell me what you do, Amarilly."

"I scrub at the Barlow Theatre, and I went to the matinee day afore yisterday. I hed a pass give to me."

These statements made such a visible impression on her audience that Amarilly waxed eloquent and proceeded to describe the play, warming to her work as she gained confidence. The gestures of Lord Algernon and the leading lady were reproduced freely, fearlessly, and faithfully.

With a glimmer of mischief dancing in her eyes, the young teacher listened appreciatively but apprehensively as she noted the amazed expression on the faces of the teachers of adjacent classes when Amarilly's treble tones were wafted toward them. Fortunately, the realistic rendering of Lord Algernon's declaration of love was interrupted by the accompaniment to a song, which was followed by the dismissal of the school.

"Kin I take my strips home to sew on?" asked Amarilly.

"Oh, no!" replied Miss King. "That is not permitted."

Seeing the look of disappointment in the child's eyes, she asked in kindly tone:

"Why are you in such a hurry to finish the work, Amarilly?"

"We've took a Boarder," explained Amarilly, "and I want the rug fer his room. It'll take an orful long time to git it done if I only work on it an hour onct a week. He's so good to me, I want to do something to make his room look neat, so he'll feel to hum."

The young teacher reflected a moment.

"I'll tell you what we'll do, Amarilly. I will buy one of the rugs that are to be on sale at the church fair this week. They have some very nice large ones. I will give it to you, and when yours is finished you may give it to me in return."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Amarilly, her countenance brightening, "But won't you need it afore I kin git this one done?"

"No; I am sure I shall not," replied the young lady gravely.

When they left the building the teacher paused as she was about to step into her electric brougham. "Where do you live, Amarilly?"

Amarilly gave her street and number.

"You must live farther away than any of the other children. Get in, dear; I will take you home."

She had opened the door as she spoke, and the little scrubber's eyes were dazzled by the elegance of the appointments--a silver vase filled with violets, a silver card-case, and--but Amarilly resolutely shut her eyes upon this proffered grandeur and turned to the lean but longing little daughter of the stage-hand.

"You see, I come with her," she explained simply and loyally.

"There is room for you both. Myrtie can sit on this little seat."

Overawed by the splendor of her environment, Amarilly held her breath as they glided swiftly through the streets. There was other glory, it seemed, than that of the footlights. When the happy little Myrtle had been left at her humble home the young teacher turned with eager anticipation to Amarilly.

"Tell me more about yourself, Amarilly. First of all, who is the Boarder?"

Amarilly explained their affairs, even to the "double-decker diner," as the Boarder had called the table arrangement.

"And what has he done for you, Amarilly, that you are so anxious he should have a rug?"

"He's larnin' me readin', writin', spellin', and figgers."

"Don't you go to school?"

"No; I hev to bring in wages and help ma with the washin's."

"I'll teach you, Amarilly," she said impulsively. "I'm sure I'm more proficient in those branches than the Boarder."

"He sez," admitted Amarilly, "that it won't take him long to larn me all he knows; but you see--" She spoke with delicate hesitancy and evident embarrassment. "It's orful good in you to want to larn me--but he might feel hurt-like if I was to quit him."

"You are right, Amarilly. You are a loyal little girl. But I tell you what we will do about it. When you have learned all that the Boarder feels he can teach you, you shall go to night-school. There is one in connection with St. Mark's. I will see that you enter there."

"I didn't know thar was one fer girls," said Amarilly. "I'm glad thar's a way fer me to git eddicated, fer I must hev larnin' afore I kin go on the stage. Mr. Vedder, the ticket-seller to Barlow's, told me so."

"Amarilly,"--and an earnest note crept into the gay, young voice--"you may find things that you will like to do more than to go on the stage."

"No!" asserted the youthful aspirant, "Thar ain't nuthin' else I'd like so well."

"Amarilly, I am going to tell you something. Once, not long ago, I had the stage fever, but I think I know now there is something--something I should like better."

"What?" queried Amarilly skeptically.

"I can't tell you now, but you have a long time yet in which to decide your future. Tell me what I can do to help your mother."

"If you could git us more washin's," exclaimed Amarilly eagerly, "it would help heaps. We could take in lots more than we do now."

"Let me think. You see we keep a laundress; but--does your mother do up very fine things--like laces--carefully?"

"She does," replied Amarilly glibly. "She kin do 'em orful keerful, and we dry the colored stuffs in the shade. And our clo'es come out snow- white allers, and we never tears laces nor git in too much bluin' or starch the way some folks does."

"Then I'll give you my address and you can come for my fine waists; and let me see, I am sure I can get St. Mark's laundry work for you, too."

"You're orful good, Miss King. This is where we hev to turn down this 'ere court."

The "court" appeared to Miss King more like an alley. The advent of the brougham in the little narrow right-of-way filled every window with hawk-eyed observers. About the Jenkins's doorstep was grouped the entire household from the Boarder to the baby, and the light, musical voices of children floating through the soft spring air fell pleasantly upon the ears of the young settlement worker.

"So this is where you live, Amarilly?" she asked, her eyes sparkling as she focussed them on the family. "You needn't come for the washing the first time. I will bring it myself so I can see all your little brothers. Be sure to come to the Guild next Saturday, and then I'll have the rug for you to take home. Goodbye, dear."

Knowing that she was observed by myriad eyes, Amarilly stepped loftily from the brougham and made a sweeping stage courtesy to her departing benefactress.

"Are you on the stage now, Amarilly?" asked Co eagerly as she came to meet her sister.

"No; but she," with a wave of her hand toward the swiftly gliding electric, "is agoin to help me git eddicated, and she has give me a beautiful rug fer the Boarder, and we're agoin' to hev her waists to wash, and Mr. St. Mark's clo'es, and she told all the scholars to sew like me 'cause' I sewed the best, and I've larned how to set our table. We mustn't stack up the knife and fork and spoon on ends any more. The knife goes to the right, the fork to the left of the plate, and the spoon goes back of it and the tumbler and the napkin, when you has 'em, to the right."

"I do declare, Amarilly, if it ain't jest like a fairy story!" cried Mrs. Jenkins enthusiastically. "You allers did strike luck."

"You bet!" cried Bobby admiringly. "Things go some where Amarilly is."

Amarilly was happier even than she had been on the night of the eventful matinee day. The electric brougham had seemed a veritable fairy godmother's coach to her. But it was not the ride that stood uppermost in her memory as she lay awake far into the night; it was the little word of endearment uttered in caressing cadence.

"No one ain't ever called me that afore," she murmured wistfully. "I s'pose ma ain't hed time, and thar was no one else to keer."

Impulsively and tenderly her thin little arm encircled the baby sleeping beside her.

"Dear!" she whispered in an awed tone. "Dear!"

Iry answered with a sleepy, cooing note.