Mary Erskine, Jacob Abbott [booksvooks txt] 📗

right shape; and then draw the lines and finish it all exactly as it is in the book."

Bella looked over very attentively, while her mother was explaining these things to Mary Bell, and then said that she would rather draw a house than make letters.

"No," said her mother, "you must make letters."

"But it is harder to make letters than it is to make a house," said Bella.

"Yes," said her mother, "I think it is."

"And I think," said Bella, "that the littlest scholar ought to have the easiest things to do."

Mary Erskine laughed, and said that in schools, those things were not done that seemed best to the scholars, but those that seemed best to the teachers.

"Then," said Mary Bell, "why must not you write marks."

Mary Erskine laughed still more at this, and said she acknowledged that the children had got her penned up in a corner.

"Now," said Mary Erskine, "are you ready to begin; because when you once begin, you must not speak a word till the half hour is out."

"Yes," said the children, "we are ready."

"Then begin ," said Mary Erskine.

The children began with great gravity and silence, each at her separate task, while Mary Erskine went on with her own regular employment. The silence continued unbroken for about five minutes, when Bella laid down her chalk in a despairing manner, saying,

"O dear me! I can't make a a ."

"There's one basket of chips," said Mary Erskine.

"Why I really can't," said Bella, "I have tried three times."

"Two baskets of chips," said her mother. "Make two marks on the corner of your board," she continued, "and every time you speak put down another, so that we can remember how many baskets of chips you have to pick up."

Bella looked rather disconsolate at receiving this direction. She knew, however, that she must obey. She was also well aware that she would certainly have to pick up as many baskets of chips as should be indicated by the line of chalk marks. She, therefore, resumed her work, inwardly resolving that she would not speak another word. All this time, Mary Bell went on with her drawing, without apparently paying any attention to the conversation between Bella and her mother.

[Illustration: THE SCHOOL.]

Bella went on, too, herself after this, very attentively, making the letters which had been assigned her for her lesson, and calling the names of them as she made them, but not speaking any words.

At length Mary Erskine told the children that the half hour had expired, and that they were at liberty. Bella jumped up and ran away to play. Mary Bell wished to remain and finish her house. Mary Erskine went to look at it. She compared it very attentively with the original in the picture-book, and observed several places in which Mary Bell had deviated from her pattern. She did not, however, point out any of these faults to Mary Bell, but simply said that she had done her work very well indeed. She had made a very pretty house. Mary Bell said that it was not quite finished, and she wished to remain at her desk a little longer to complete it. Mary Erskine gave her leave to do so.

Bella, who had gone away at first, dancing to the door, pleased to be released from her confinement, came back to see Mary Bell's picture, while her mother was examining it. She seemed very much pleased with it indeed. Then she asked her mother to look at her letters upon the board. Mary Erskine and Mary Bell both looked at them, one by one, very attentively, and compared them with the letters which Mary Bell had made for patterns, and also with specimens of the letters in the books. Bella took great interest in looking for the letters in the book, much pleased to find that she knew them wherever she saw them. Her mother, too, learned a and b very effectually by this examination of Bella's work. Mary Erskine selected the two best letters which Bella had made, one of each kind, and rubbed out all the rest with a cloth. She then put up the board in a conspicuous place upon a shelf, where the two good letters could be seen by all in the room. Bella was much pleased at this, and she came in from her play several times in the course of the day, to look at her letters and to call them by name.

When Bella's board had thus been put up in its conspicuous position, Mary Bell sat down to finish her drawing, while Bella went out to pick up her two baskets of chips. Mary Bell worked upon her house for nearly the whole of another half hour. When it was finished she cut the part of the paper which it was drawn upon off from the rest, and ruled around it a neat margin of double black lines. She obtained a narrow strip of wood, from the shop which served her as a ruler. She said that she meant to have all her drawing lessons of the same size, and to put the same margin around them. She marked her house No. 1, writing the numbering in a small but plain hand on one corner. She wrote the initials of her, name, M.B., in the same small hand, on the opposite corner.

Mary Erskine did not attempt her lesson until the evening. She finished her work about the house a little after eight o'clock, and then she undressed the children and put them to bed. By this time it was nearly nine o'clock. The day had been warm and pleasant, but the nights at this season were cool, and Mary Erskine put two or three dry sticks upon the fire, before she commenced her work, partly for the warmth, and partly for the cheerfulness of the blaze.

She lighted her lamp, and sat down at her work-table, with Mary Bell's copy, and her pen, ink, and paper, before her. The copy had been pinned up in sight all the day, and she had very often examined it, when passing it, in going to and fro at her work. She had thus learned the names of all the letters in the word Mary, and had made herself considerably familiar with the forms of them; so that she not only knew exactly what she had to do in writing the letters, but she felt a strong interest in doing it. She, however, made extremely awkward work in her first attempts at writing the letters. She, nevertheless, steadily persevered. She wrote the words, first in separate letters, and then afterwards in a joined hand, again and again, going down the paper. She found that she could write a little more easily, if not better, as she proceeded, but still the work was very hard. At ten o'clock her paper was covered with what she thought were miserable scrawls, and her wrist and her fingers ached excessively. She put her work away, and prepared to go to bed.

"Perhaps I shall have to give it up after all," said she. "But I will not give up till I am beaten. I will write an hour every day for six months, and then if I can not write my name so that people can read it, I will stop."

The next day about an hour after breakfast Mary Erskine had another school for the children. Bella took the two next letters c and d for her lesson, while Mary Bell took the swing hanging from the branch of the tree in the picture-book, for the subject of her second drawing. Before beginning her work, she studied all the touches by which the drawing was made in the book, with great attention and care, in order that she might imitate them as precisely as possible. She succeeded very well indeed in this second attempt. The swing made even a prettier picture than the house. When it was finished she cut the paper out, of the same size with the other, drew a border around it, and marked it No. 2. She went on in this manner every day as long as she remained at Mary Erskine's, drawing a new picture every day. At last, when she went home, Mary Erskine put all her drawings up together, and Mary Bell carried them home to show them to her mother. This was the beginning of Mary Bell's drawing.

As for Mary Erskine, her second lesson was the word Erskine , which she found a great deal harder to write than Mary. There was one thing, however, that pleased her in it, which was that there was one letter which she knew already, having learned it in Mary: that was the r . All the rest of the letters, however, were new, and she had to practice writing the word two evenings before she could write it well, without looking at the copy. She then thought that probably by that time she had forgotten Mary ; but on trying to write that word, she was very much pleased to find that she could write it much more easily than she could before. This encouraged her, and she accordingly took Forester for her third lesson without any fear of forgetting the Mary and the Erskine.

The Forester lesson proved to be a very easy one. There were only three new letters in it, and those three were very easy to write. In fine, at the end of the four days, when Mary Bell was to go home, Mary Erskine could read, write, and spell her name very respectably well.

Mrs. Bell came herself for Mary when the time of her visit expired. She was very much pleased to learn how good a girl and how useful her daughter had been. She was particularly pleased with her drawings. She said that she had been very desirous to have Mary learn to draw, but that she did not know it was possible to make so good a beginning without a teacher.

"Why I had a teacher," said Mary Bell. "I think that Mary Erskine is a teacher; and a very good one besides."

"I think so too," said Mrs. Bell.

The children went out to get some wild flowers for Mary Bell to carry home, and Mrs. Bell then asked Mary if she had begun to consider what it was best for her to do.

"Yes," said Mary Erskine. "I think it will be best for me to sell the farm, and the new house, and all the stock, and live here in this house with my children."

Mrs. Bell did not answer, but seemed to be thinking whether this would be the best plan or not.

"The children cannot go to school from here," said Mrs. Bell.

"No," said Mary Erskine, "but I can teach them myself, I think, till they are old enough to walk to the school-house. I find that I can learn the letters faster than Bella can, and that without interfering with my work; and Mary Bell will come out here now and then and tell us what we don't know."

"Yes," said Mrs. Bell, "I shall be glad to have her come as often as you wish. But it seems to me that you had better move into the village. Half the money that the farm and the stock will sell for, will buy you a very pleasant house in the village, and the interest on the other half,