A Pupil Of Chestnut Ridge

The schoolmaster of Chestnut Ridge was interrupted in his after-school solitude by the click of hoof and sound of voices on the little bridle path that led to the scant clearing in which his schoolhouse stood. He laid down his pen as the figures of a man and woman on horseback passed the windows and dismounted before the porch. He recognized the complacent, good-humored faces of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, who owned a neighboring ranch of some importance and who were accounted well to do people by the community. Being a childless couple, however, while they generously contributed to the support of the little school, they had not added to its flock, and it was with some curiosity that the young schoolmaster greeted them and awaited the purport of their visit. This was protracted in delivery through a certain polite dalliance with the real subject characteristic of the Southwestern pioneer.

"Well, Almiry," said Mr. Hoover, turning to his wife after the first greeting with the schoolmaster was over, "this makes me feel like old times, you bet! Why, I ain't bin inside a schoolhouse since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Thar's the benches, and the desks, and the books and all them 'a b, abs,' jest like the old days. Dear! Dear! But the teacher in those days was ez old and grizzled ez I be—and some o' the scholars—no offense to you, Mr. Brooks—was older and bigger nor you. But times is changed: yet look, Almiry, if thar ain't a hunk o' stale gingerbread in that desk jest as it uster be! Lord! how it all comes back! Ez I was sayin' only t'other day, we can't be too grateful to our parents for givin' us an eddication in our youth;" and Mr. Hoover, with the air of recalling an alma mater of sequestered gloom and cloistered erudition, gazed reverently around the new pine walls.

But Mrs. Hoover here intervened with a gracious appreciation of the schoolmaster's youth after her usual kindly fashion. "And don't you forget it, Hiram Hoover, that these young folks of to-day kin teach the old schoolmasters of 'way back more'n you and I dream of. We've heard of your book larnin', Mr. Brooks, afore this, and we're proud to hev you here, even if the Lord has not pleased to give us the children to send to ye. But we've always paid our share in keeping up the school for others that was more favored, and now it looks as if He had not forgotten us, and ez if"—with a significant, half-shy glance at her husband and a corroborating nod from that gentleman—"ez if, reelly, we might be reckonin' to send you a scholar ourselves."

The young schoolmaster, sympathetic and sensitive, felt somewhat embarrassed. The allusion to his extreme youth, mollified though it was by the salve of praise from the tactful Mrs. Hoover, had annoyed him, and perhaps added to his slight confusion over the information she vouchsafed. He had not heard of any late addition to the Hoover family, he would not have been likely to, in his secluded habits; and although he was accustomed to the naive and direct simplicity of the pioneer, he could scarcely believe that this good lady was announcing a maternal expectation. He smiled vaguely and begged them to be seated.

"Ye see," said Mr. Hoover, dropping upon a low bench, "the way the thing pans out is this. Almiry's brother is a pow'ful preacher down the coast at San Antonio and hez settled down thar with a big Free Will Baptist Church congregation and a heap o' land got from them Mexicans. Thar's a lot o' poor Spanish and Injin trash that belong to the land, and Almiry's brother hez set about convertin' 'em, givin' 'em convickshion and religion, though the most of 'em is Papists and followers of the Scarlet Woman. Thar was an orphan, a little girl that he got outer the hands o' them priests, kinder snatched as a brand from the burnin', and he sent her to us to be brought up in the ways o' the Lord, knowin' that we had no children of our own. But we thought she oughter get the benefit o' schoolin' too, besides our own care, and we reckoned to bring her here reg'lar to school."

Relieved and pleased to help the good-natured couple in the care of the homeless waif, albeit somewhat doubtful of their religious methods, the schoolmaster said he would be delighted to number her among his little flock. Had she already received any tuition?

"Only from them padres, ye know, things about saints, Virgin Marys, visions, and miracles," put in Mrs. Hoover; "and we kinder thought ez you know Spanish you might be able to get rid o' them in exchange for 'conviction o' sins' and 'justification by faith,' ye know."

"I'm afraid," said Mr. Brooks, smiling at the thought of displacing the Church's "mysteries" for certain corybantic displays and thaumaturgical exhibitions he had witnessed at the Dissenters' camp meeting, "that I must leave all that to you, and I must caution you to be careful what you do lest you also shake her faith in the alphabet and the multiplication table."

"Mebbee you're right," said Mrs. Hoover, mystified but good-natured; "but thar's one thing more we oughter tell ye. She's—she's a trifle dark complected."

The schoolmaster smiled. "Well?" he said patiently.

"She isn't a nigger nor an Injin, ye know, but she's kinder a half-Spanish, half-Mexican Injin, what they call 'mes—mes'"—

"Mestiza," suggested Mr. Brooks; "a half-breed or mongrel."

"I reckon. Now thar wouldn't be any objection to that, eh?" said Mr. Hoover a little uneasily.

"Not by me," returned the schoolmaster cheerfully. "And although this school is state-aided it's not a 'public school' in the eye of the law, so you have only the foolish prejudices of your neighbors to deal with." He had recognized the reason of their hesitation and knew the strong racial antagonism held towards the negro and Indian by Mr. Hoover's Southwestern compatriots, and he could not refrain from "rubbing it in."

"They kin see," interposed Mrs. Hoover, "that she's not a nigger, for her hair don't 'kink,' and a furrin Injin, of course, is different from one o' our own."

"If they hear her speak Spanish, and you simply say she is a foreigner, as she is, it will be all right," said the schoolmaster smilingly. "Let her come, I'll look after her."

Much relieved, after a few more words the couple took their departure, the schoolmaster promising to call the next afternoon at the Hoovers' ranch and meet his new scholar. "Ye might give us a hint or two how she oughter be fixed up afore she joins the school."

The ranch was about four miles from the schoolhouse, and as Mr. Brooks drew rein before the Hoovers' gate he appreciated the devotion of the couple who were willing to send the child that distance twice a day. The house, with its outbuildings, was on a more liberal scale than its neighbors, and showed few of the makeshifts and half-hearted advances towards permanent occupation common to the Southwestern pioneers, who were more or less nomads in instinct and circumstance. He was ushered into a well-furnished sitting room, whose glaring freshness was subdued and repressed by black-framed engravings of scriptural subjects. As Mr. Brooks glanced at them and recalled the schoolrooms of the old missions, with their monastic shadows which half hid the gaudy, tinseled saints and flaming or ensanguined hearts upon the walls, he feared that the little waif of Mother Church had not gained any cheerfulness in the exchange.

As she entered the room with Mrs. Hoover, her large dark eyes—the most notable feature in her small face—seemed to sustain the schoolmaster's fanciful fear in their half-frightened wonder. She was clinging closely to Mrs. Hoover's side, as if recognizing the good woman's maternal kindness even while doubtful of her purpose; but on the schoolmaster addressing her in Spanish, a singular change took place in their relative positions. A quick look of intelligence came into her melancholy eyes, and with it a slight consciousness of superiority to her protectors that was embarrassing to him. For the rest he observed merely that she was small and slightly built, although her figure was hidden in a long "check apron" or calico pinafore with sleeves—a local garment—which was utterly incongruous with her originality. Her skin was olive, inclining to yellow, or rather to that exquisite shade of buff to be seen in the new bark of the madrono. Her face was oval, and her mouth small and childlike, with little to suggest the aboriginal type in her other features.

The master's questions elicited from the child the fact that she could read and write, that she knew her "Hail Mary" and creed (happily the Protestant Mrs. Hoover was unable to follow this questioning), but he also elicited the more disturbing fact that her replies and confidences suggested a certain familiarity and equality of condition which he could only set down to his own youthfulness of appearance. He was apprehensive that she might even make some remark regarding Mrs. Hoover, and was not sorry that the latter did not understand Spanish. But before he left he managed to speak with Mrs. Hoover alone and suggested a change in the costume of the pupil when she came to school. "The better she is dressed," suggested the wily young diplomat, "the less likely is she to awaken any suspicion of her race."

"Now that's jest what's botherin' me, Mr. Brooks," returned Mrs. Hoover, with a troubled face, "for you see she is a growin' girl," and she concluded, with some embarrassment, "I can't quite make up my mind how to dress her."

"How old is she?" asked the master abruptly.

"Goin' on twelve, but,"—and Mrs. Hoover again hesitated.

"Why, two of my scholars, the Bromly girls, are over fourteen," said the master, "and you know how they are dressed;" but here he hesitated in his turn. It had just occurred to him that the little waif was from the extreme South, and the precocious maturity of the mixed races there was well known. He even remembered, to his alarm, to have seen brides of twelve and mothers of fourteen among the native villagers. This might also account for the suggestion of equality in her manner, and even for a slight coquettishness which he thought he had noticed in her when he had addressed her playfully as a muchacha. "I should dress her in something Spanish," he said hurriedly, "something white, you know, with plenty of flounces and a little black lace, or a black silk skirt and a lace scarf, you know. She'll be all right if you don't make her look like a servant or a dependent," he added, with a show of confidence he was far from feeling. "But you haven't told me her name," he concluded.

"As we're reckonin' to adopt her," said Mrs. Hoover gravely, "you'll give her ours."

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