Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1872-02-22
MISS WARNINGS LOVER.
BY MARY A. P. HUMP HREY.

BY MARY A. P. HUMP HREY.
1t was not an attractive school-room.
The bare walls were guiltless of white
wash, and the knife marks on desks and
benches-like those strange exhumed
bird-tracks of the Old Red Sandstone
showed where the first rude outlines
had been traced of many life hidden,
long ago, under the debris of years.
Across the lower half of every window
a square of faded green baize had been
tackled closely to the easement, lest
some pair of child-eyes, heavy with re-
viewing the. endless lines marshaled in
tedious uniformity on book or slate,
should rest awhile upon the blessed
contrast of green fields and gurgling
waters.
Miss Warnings eyes darkened with
quiet indignation. As if a schoolroom
were prison? AS if one lesson from
springing grass, and spreading tree
reaching up to the life-giving sunshine
one element of modest beauty in
meadow lily and wild rosebud, of happy
trust in tender bird, provident squirrel,
or care-free butterfly, could be spared
from the place where young minds
should learn how to expand and grow,
young heart to aspire and yet be hum
BILE, young lives to assume the divenely
appointed relations of faith and work.
But the school-room, like many other
things of sufficiently unpromising ex-
terror, was rich in possibilities. Miss
Waring made rapid inventory of such
intangible wealth, and nodded to her
self from her little chair of state upon
the platform.
The offending baize, its faded ugli-
ness yelled by short curtains of cheap,
-, ~, Io la - Il
service higher up the windows, in
softening the glare of the mid-day sun
shine. The broad window inches gave
ample room for pots of ivy, wandering
Jew, and Madeira vine, needing only
time and care to improvise festoons and
draperies more graceful than the most
elaborate designs of the old tapestries.
Then, in he- portfolio-for the little
school mistress thought with her eye
and hand-she remembered some il
Illuminated texts, bright as the pages of
an old missal; sketches, too, in pencil
and colors, simple bits, which the chill
dren could get at the heart oi-waiting g
only to be framed with the cones and
willow-witches they would be only too
glad to gather for her on the first half
holiday. Their own hands should help
to weave and bind; they should have a
rangement; for this home making, she
thought, like the rest of the worlds
work, must be cooperative. if it were
really to be worth anything.
The sound of footsteps and voices
broke in upon her morning dream, and
the pleasant vision of the renovated
room faded in the light of the days
duties.
The scholars came by twos and threes
gathering in and about the half-oper
door, with shy, curious glances at the
new teacher.
Children are the most unerrine
physiognomists, since no others are sc
.helplessly dependent upon the varying
moods, which leave unfailing imprint or
the face. A few bolder ventured inside
in advance of her pleasant invitation tC
all. Two or three offered little bunches
of wild flowers, dewy and sweet, making
her cheek flush with pleasure. Eve
since she could remember, flowers hac
been her friends she knew them by
heart, and had fancy more clearly de
fined than she would have been quit,
willing to confess, that they, in turn
understood her. when human sympathy
failed. The Germans call their fra
GRANGE the "speech of flowers" Mis-
Waring placed her own eloquent treas
Qres in a cracked tumbler, which a littl,
girl found for her in the ante room, anc
more than once, amid the cares anC
anxieties of that" first day." their fresh
ness and beauty entered into her heart
and kept it strong.
"You'l be apt to have some troubl,
with Hal Thorn, the deacon's boy,
widow Moss, her hostess, had said t.
her that morning, over the breakfas
coffee.
"He is bad boy, then?"
eyes; cares for nothing and nobody
His father can't keep him in school hal
the time. A smart lad, too, and quicl
with his books, when he chooses. HoJ
well L remember the Sunday his mothe
first led him into meeting. He wa
scarcely more than a baby, and so brigh
and pretty-the people turned in thei
seats to get a second look at his laugh
ing face. Little she thought, poo
woman, of how he would be CROWN
upl"
"M1s. Thorn is not living, think
heard 2' said Miss Waring.
"Oh mol She died-let me think
it will be ten years come Christina
Hal must be fourteen-how the yeal
fly The deacon never married again,
went on the good woman, fairly launche
upon the tide of gossip. Mary-she
the ldest-keeps house. Susan ma
ried Falconer-her boy will be in yor
AB C class. Steve helps his father o
the farm he's the deacon right over,
real chip of the old block. Hal is ii
youngest"
" Would it have been the same wit
Hal, if his mother had lived do yc
think2"
"Perhaps not. She was a qui