Little Lowizy: The Quare Women’s Discovery

THE previous Fourth of July there had been a great picnic on the quare women’s hill, with songs and speeches, to which all the country had come. This Fourth was to be celebrated differently: by a big ‘Working,’ at which the new schoolhouse was to be ‘raised.’ All things were now ready — logs all hewn, foundations completed, stone hauled for chimneys.

Long before dawn on the Fourth, Uncle Lot, who was to be joint master of ceremonies with Uncle Ephraim Kent at the Working, started for the Forks, leaving Aunt Ailsie to feed all the property and do her own work as well. It was therefore late when, in her best linsey dress and black sunbonnet, she rode into the village. Nags were tied to palings all along the street, and riders were coming in from three directions to the school bottom. Not only were the nags loaded, but the people as well, for they were taking this occasion to housewarm the women and bring gifts — pokes of beans, corn, potatoes, and apples, strings of chickens, baskets of eggs, gourds of butter.

Many men were at work in the bottom, where the great log-pen was already two or three feet high. In the cottage yard two quilting-frames had been set up in shady spots, and loud calls came from the women surrounding these for Aunt Ailsie to join them. But she had no intention whatever of seeking the society of her contemporaries. She made straight for the two young newcomers, Christine and Susanna, who, at the cottage door, were helping Virginia and Amy to welcome the people and put away the gifts.

Already the string beans began to make such a tall pile on a sheet in the yard that the quare women were troubled, not knowing what they could do to save them. But Aunt Ailsie was ready with a suggestion.

‘Muster a crowd of the young-uns that’s so thick underfoot, and let ’em thread them bean pods; and then you can hang ’em up and dry ’em, and have all the shucky beans you need for winter. Hit would be a scandal to see ’em spile.’

Susanna ran for needles and strong thread, Christine rounded up a number of children, mostly girls, and in five minutes they were sitting on the ground around the sheet, having an exciting competitive bean-threading.

They had hardly taken a good start when, on an old blind nag, four children arrived at the horse block, and a little procession came down the walk, led by a small girl of apparently eight or nine, who walked with a painful limp, wore a long-skirted gray calico dress and sunbonnet, and carried two hens by their feet. Two slightly taller boys and a smaller girl, all bearing gifts, followed.

The first child stopped to inquire of the bean-threaders: —

‘Where’s the quare women at?’

Cries of ‘Lowizy! Lowizy!’ greeted her, and Aunt Ailsie exclaimed, ‘Well, if hit hain’t Phœbe’s young-uns! How you come on, Lowizy, and how’s your maw? Here, Dovey, you hain’t too big to hug your granny’s neck, air you? I hain’t seed none of you sence last summer in the women’s tents, you live so fur—you four mile up Troublesome and me three mile down. Hain’t Phœbe a-coming?’

‘The least-one hit’s teething, and colicky too, and so pettish maw allowed she would n’t see no peace if she come. Pappy he ’s been here sence sunup,’ replied Lowizy.

‘How did the winter sarve you this time, Lowizy?’

‘Hit was kindly bad; but I come through all right, like I allus do. Where’s the quare women at? We fotched ’em some presents.’

‘Amy and Virginny they gone in the house to put away things. But here’s a new one hain’t been here long — Christeeny’s her name; she come from New England beside the briny deep. I allow she’ll take in your presents.’

Christine arose and conducted the four children through the hall-sitting-room-library, crowded scene of all the socials, sings, and clubs, and back to the kitchen, where Virginia and Amy were deep in consultation with a number of the village women about dinner. Everything stopped, however, when they saw Lowizy, who was affectionately greeted from all sides.

‘How very nice to see you again, Lowizy!’ said Amy. ‘Why have n’t you been in before?’

‘I been so busy minding and teaching young-uns, and making gyarden, and cooking, while maw and tothers tended the crap, seemed like I could n’t make out to come in. But I have thought about you a sight sence last summer, and I got that pretty book you sont me a-Christmas.’

‘We had your letter about it. How did you get through the winter?’

‘All right, same as I gen’ally do; I was n’t no wusser than common. And now I’m pyeert and feeling fine. And hit holps me up to see your faces again.’

Through the kitchen door Christine had glimpses of Susanna in the back yard, with gangs of boys building fires under the big iron wash-kettles, filling them from the well, chopping the necessary wood, and the like.

The gifts bestowed, Christine and the four returned to the front yard, where Lowizy promptly took her place in the bean-threading circle, motioning to her two brothers and little sister to do the same.

‘This-here new woman, Christeeny here, aims to teach in the new school,’ said Aunt Ailsie to Lowizy. ‘Maybe she’ll be your teacher.’

The child looked up at Christine with sudden grave interest in the large, lustrous, wonderfully beautiful eyes that lighted her thin face.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Christine, ‘since I’m to teach the higher grades, from fifth to eighth. Lowizy looks rather young to be in any of these.’

‘Giles he allowed I could take eighth reader,’ remarked the small creature.

‘The eighth! Why, you hardly look old enough for the fourth!’

‘Her looks is deceiving,’ explained Aunt Ailsie. ‘She jest hain’t growed good, on account of them risings in her hip-j’int. How old air you, Lowizy? I got so many grands I can’t no-way keep track of their ages.’

‘Going on eleven,’ replied the child.

‘But even eleven is amazingly young for the eighth grade,’ said Christine, in astonishment.

‘Hit is that, woman,’ agreed Aunt Ailsie, ‘but that-air Little Lowizy hain’t to be measured by no sot rules. She is famious for her larning, and the most knowingest child on Troublesome. I maybe ought n’t to say it, her being my grand, but everybody knows hit for the truth.’

Lowizy received the praise calmly and without self-consciousness, as she might any other mere statement of fact, and, pushing back her sunbonnet, took another long look into Christine’s face.

‘You look like a good woman — and pretty, too,’ was her grave verdict.

‘All but her hair,’ agreed Aunt Ailsie. ‘Hain’t hit a pity she’s a redhead?'

‘She hain’t no redhead; her hair’s jest goldy,’ declared Lowizy.

‘Hit’s red, too,’ maintained Aunt Ailsie. ‘Any man that laid eyes on it would say the same.’

During this appraisement Christine had not been so successful as Lowizy in keeping her composure. Seeing her flush of amused embarrassment, Lowizy spoke again, even more decidedly than her granny. ‘Hit hain’t red, and I like hit fine; and I allow she’ll make a right teacher, too!’

‘I hope so,’ said Christine. ‘I shall certainly try.’

‘Of course a body can’t expect you to teach as good as Giles — nobody could n’t do that,’ continued Lowizy.

‘No, of course not. I have heard what splendid work he has done here in the past four years, and teaching the entire school alone, too. I can’t imagine how he did it!’

‘Giles, he can do anything!’ affirmed the child.

‘He can that,’ said Aunt Ailsie.

‘I would n’t put anything beyand that-air Giles Kent. Though he never tuck a start at larning till he were seventeen — his paw being kilt in the war with Fallons when he was eight, and his maw bedrid up’ards of eight year more — in three schools he larned all the teacher knowed, and got a certificate to teach hisself. And the four years he teached here at the Forks he studied of nights on high-school books and history books and law books, — I have heared his lamp never went out a many of a night, — till he got him more larning than any man in the county. He allus contended, though, he never knowed enough to teach right; and when the quare women come in last summer he was the main-chiefest one, with his granddaddy, Uncle Ephraim, to beg ’em to come back and start a proper school. And afore he left for law-college a-Christmas, he allowed he was glad for all the young-uns the women was a-coming back, but gladdest of all for Little Lowizy here.’

Christine put out a hand and clasped Lowizy’s pitiable little claw. ‘I shall feel it a joy and a privilege to teach you,’ she said. ‘I’m only afraid I can’t do you justice, as I am new at teaching.’

Lowizy smiled reassuringly into her eyes. ‘You ’ll teach good, too, you will,’ she said. ‘And if any of the young-uns tries to sass you or fight you, jest call on me. I allus holped Giles with ’em, and they are afeared not to mind me.’

Very soon Aunt Ailsie became restless and suggested to Christine that they leave the bean-threading in Lowizy’s charge and walk about.

Everywhere they found things moving. In the back yard groups of women and big girls were picking chickens, peeling potatoes, rolling out dumpling-dough— all for the stew that was beginning to bubble in the great wash-kettles. Other women of the village were bringing in stacks of plates, saucers, cups; and still others were unpacking baskets of biscuit, corn bread, cake, and pie.

In the school bottom, herculean labors were in progress. The huge log-pen, forty by fifty-five feet, was already breast-high. A log would be dragged by ox-teams to the bottom of the skidpoles, then a score of powerful men would push and shoulder it up, while a dozen more pulled with ropes from the top of the wall. On arrival, it would be quickly and skillfully notched by the men at the corners — Uncle Ephraim and Uncle Lot, or two other equally famous notchers—and dropped into its place. Other men, not needed for the main job, worked about in groups, finishing the hewing of joists, beams, and rafters, or with froes riving boards for the roof or palings for the fence.

But the raising was the great sight, and Aunt Ailsie and Christine returned to it, fascinated.

‘What a meracle to see so much peace at a gathering!’ exclaimed Aunt Ailsie. ‘Hit’s the first ever I seed where there wa’n’t drinking and shooting. Allus at ’lection time and Christmas and big funeral meetings hit’s the same old story, and has been for twenty year, ever sence the war betwixt Kents and Fallons tuck a start. Last summer Fult and Darcy, the two main-heads, — them two boys a-shouldering far eends of that-air log, — give their word to drap the war if the women would come back; and yander works Fallons and Kents side by side, peacified as doves. I ’m afeared every minute I ’II wake up and see ’em start to shooting. But Uncle Ephraim he allows the peace will hold, and so does Giles. Giles he never would take no part in the war, though some faulted him scandalous for not revenging his paw.’

A spur of Uncle Ephraim’s mountain ran down to the creek edge almost opposite the school bottom, and down it, below the timber line, a figure was now seen to be hurrying.

‘If it hain’t Giles, my eyes has sartain failed me!’ continued Aunt Ailsie. In another moment a tall young man had swung down the point, along the bank to the foot-log, and was coming swiftly across.

Aunt Ailsie left Christine and ran forward. ‘Giles!’ she cried. ‘Where did you drap from?’

‘From the ridge-tops,’ he said, gravely smiling, and taking her hand. ‘Am I much late?’

‘They been at it sence sunup, but there ’s a plenty left to do,’ she said. ‘Why did n’t you tell nobody you was a-coming?’

‘I was n’t sure I could get away between the college term and summer school,’ he said.

Calls of ‘Eh, Giles!’ ‘Howdy, Giles!’ rose from the men on the pen. He went and shook hands all around, impartially with Kents and Fallons, and last with Uncle Ephraim, perched on his corner.

‘I’m hunting a job, grandsir’,’ he said. ‘I traveled a long way to have a hand in this.’

‘Did you walk acrost from the railroad ?’

‘Yes, all day yesterday and most of the night. But I’m not werried; I feel better than when I started out.’

The news had spread, and from all directions shrill childish voices were crying ‘Howdy, howdy, Giles!’ and then the youthful population bore down upon him, the bean-threaders in a body, Lowizy limping along last of all, but with the most radiant face.

Christine stood apart, watching the reception of Giles by his townspeople. As he stood beneath the corner where his grandfather was perched, she noted the striking resemblance between the two men — the same nobly modeled brows and heads and features, the same fine, intelligent dark eyes. But where Uncle Ephraim’s hair floated in a white wavy cloud about his head, that of Giles was straight and dark; and in the face of the older man life had softened the austerity noticeable in that of the younger.

In another moment Giles, throwing off his coat and broad black hat, had climbed up to take his grandsire’s place at the notching. Aunt Ailsie had returned to Christine, and the two again set forth on their rounds.

Christine saw no more of Giles until dinner-time, when she helped the other women serve the men at the long plank tables; and then she did not meet him. The men having eaten and gone, the women and children began their dinner, but were scarcely half through when word came for all hands to hurry to a ‘speaking’ in the school yard.

On their arrival, Uncle Ephraim, wearing the flax shirt and trousers and moccasins in which he had been working, was mounted on a log, saying: —

‘Folks has been a-faulting me and Lot severe for mustering so many here on the birth of our nation and not having no speaking or glorifying, like we had last year. I hain’t minded to be contrarious, and sence hit’s the feeling of this gathering to speak, let ’em speak. Hit is everly human natur’ to ruther speak than do. Still, a leetle talk can’t hurt nothing, if everybody bears in mind this-here house has to be raised by sundown, and talks quick and to the p’int— the p’int being this: that instid of fighting over old dead-and-gone battles, and scandalizing the British and the Rebels and the Spanish, let every man tell what he’ll do here and now for his country by giving more timber and labor for tother houses the women aims to raise here, so’s not only our young-uns at the Forks, but them out in the country that has will to come, may set here in the light of knowledge. I have fit in two wars — in Mexico, and again’ the Rebels; but I allow I am doing a better job for my country when I roll up my sleeves and raise this-here schoolhouse than ever I done, or could do, with my rifle-gun.

‘Now you, Tutt, being the main-oldest man here next to me, and one of the talkingest, lead off— but ricollect: timber, not Gettysburg, is where you air headed for!’

The fires of oratory were somewhat damped by this exhortation, only two or three old men having to be called back from ancient battlefields to the business in hand. The younger men, a number of whom had fought in the Spanish War a short while before, needed no reminders, but came forward with offers of timber or labor or both. Giles was the last of these.

‘All the poplar timber in our boundary of land, and any other they want, I and my brothers and sister are glad to give to the women,’ he said.

He dropped modestly back into the crowd. But there were cries of ‘Speak, Giles—you speak! You allus had a tongue in your head. Tell us about what you seed in the level land!’

Mounting the log, Giles began, quietly: —

‘Friends and kindred: I am proud to be home again, even for a day. My heart is always here with my own people. Yesterday, when I walked across from the railroad, following the ridge-tops mostly, was to me from rosy morn till misty moonlight a day of remembrance. To-morrow, when I take the back trail, will be another. But to-day, when I see my dreams for the young of this country come true, this fine schoolhouse raised for them, these good women here to lighten their darkness, is a greater day — the very best of all my life. It’s a terrible thing, friends, to starve for knowledge, as many of you know, but none better than me. You all remember how I started in here at seventeen in the first-reader class. You know, too, how when I went to teaching three years later I never felt anyways equal to the task, and how I rejoiced when, in answer to my grandsir’s prayers, these women came in. And now that they are here to stay, and start the school where our children will get training for mind and hand, and learn to make better homes, and to go out as teachers in dark corners, it is rightly a day of thanksgiving, and of praise to God that windows in Heaven have been opened for us.

‘You ask me to tell you about the level land. I used to follow standing on one of these ridge-tops, friends, gazing out over these steep hills and valleys, and picturing in my mind the world beyond — a world where, because everybody had knowledge, everybody was virtuous and law-abiding and God-fearing, a Kingdom of Heaven on earth. When I went out, I never found that Kingdom, that city which hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God. It’s not in the level land, or anywhere in our great country.

I had to learn that it is not knowledge but righteousness that exalteth a nation. Everywhere men are seeking riches, success, pleasure, more earnestly than the Kingdom of God, forgetting the Hand that led them to these shores, the purpose for which they came.

‘We mountain people, shut away here for so long in our rugged hills, knowing nothing but hard work and plain living, never tendering ourselves with ease and pleasure, have been freer from temptation, better able to keep the faith of our fathers. We never forget that some day we must give an account to the Judge of all the earth. The wickedest man among us believes and trembles. Our good Old Primitive preachers — all honor and love to them — may not have had learning and education, but they had what was better, the Word of God, and never ceased for a hundred years and more to hold it up before us. And not because of the written Word only are we a believing people. Like the patriarchs of old, we listen for the Voice of God, and hear it. We call upon Him and He answers. In the gray of the morning, climbing through the mists to hoe corn, in the cool of the evening when work is done, He meets with us, and blesses us. In dreams and visions of the night, too, He makes Himself known to us. We are men of faith in the Living God.

‘Looking through the length and breadth of this great land of America, reading and inquiring about all sections, it seems to me that maybe the people of these mountains are more like the founders of this nation, the old Pilgrim Fathers, than anybody else now in it. You know the Pilgrims were plain, honest, hard-working men that sailed across the wide sea from Old England nearly three hundred years ago, in a little boat called the Mayflower, and other boats, and settled on a wild bleak shore, that they might have freedom to serve God according to their conscience. Who knows but that some day plain, rugged men like us may again be needed to make the nation safe — that we have not been shut away here so long for some divine purpose? My prayer and hope is that we may be ready when our time comes, may be to our country in our day what the Pilgrims were in theirs: bulwarks of truth and righteousness, haters of sin, builders of the Kingdom of God in a backsliding world.

‘And now, since work is waiting and everybody werried of talking, I will say no more, save that my prayers rise daily for these good women who have cast in their lot with us, and whose lives aim to reflect back into the lives of our children the light of knowledge and the love of God.’

As Giles stepped down from the log, his hand was seized by Little Lowizy, who gazed at him for an instant in a kind of rapture, then drew him in the direction of Christine, saying, ‘Here’s the woman aims to be my new teacher — Christeeny is her name. She come from the land of New England, beside the briny deep.’

Giles put out a hand to Christine. ‘I’m proud to meet you,’ he said, gravely. Then he looked searchingly, even a little anxiously, into her face, as Lowizy had done earlier in the day.

‘You are wondering whether I shall be worthy of my task,’ said Christine. ‘I must tell you I feel quite unequal to it, being just out of college. I shall do my best, however — though I can never hope to do the splendid work you have done here.’

‘I?’ questioned Giles. ‘I was n’t able to do much — I could n’t give what I never had! But you,’ wistfully, ‘you have the bread of knowledge to break to them — you can lead them into green pastures.’

They stood looking into one another’s eyes for a moment. Then Giles smiled — a smile surprisingly kind and beautiful, melting all the austerity of his countenance. ‘You will be a good shepherd to them — I feel it,’ he said.

A pause fell, which was broken at last by Lowizy.

‘Giles,’ she said, in an anxious tone, ‘her hair hain’t red, is it?’

Giles gazed hard at the log-pen, and seemed not to hear.

‘Hit’s just goldy, hain’t it?’ demanded Lowizy.

Giles looked still more sternly at the pen, and made no reply.

Lowizy jerked his hand vigorously, and insisted in a sharp voice, ‘Hit hain’t red, now, is it?’

Thus cornered, he glanced desperately about, as if seeking a way of escape, but, finding none, replied, in the tone of one from whom the truth is being extracted by torture, ‘Yes, it’s red.’

Christine broke the awful tension by laughing pleasantly. ‘Don’t feel so sorry for me,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind it a bit — I really don’t.’

He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I’m glad,’ he said. Then, gravely, with a shy glance at her hair, ‘It’s sightly, anyway.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. Then, ‘In your talk you spoke of the Pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower. I wonder if you would be interested to know that a forefather and foremother of mine were in it — the foremother dying from the hardships of that first winter?’

Embarrassment all gone now, his fine eyes glowed, the strong and beautiful light shone again in his face. ‘It’s a noble heritance,’ he said, ‘and I’m not a bit afraid you won’t live up to it.’

And if a Pilgrim father or a prophet of Israel had expressed faith in her, Christine could not have felt more cheered and heartened.

Twice after the school-raising little Lowizy Rideout rode in to beg Christine Potter, her prospective teacher, to take the day with her, but for weeks various things prevented. There was so much social work of all kinds on week days, and Sunday School and Bible Class on Sundays. Then the usual typhoid epidemic broke out at the Forks, and the women had to abandon the social work and put in their time nursing.

One morning, when the quare women were at breakfast at the cottage, an old man, Uncle Tutt Logan, rode up, begging that someone come to nurse a family of five — renters on his place — down with typhoid. ‘I hain’t got ary woman to my name,’ he said, ‘and a man-person don’t know no more’n a sheep when hit comes to tending the sick.’

It seemed impossible for anybody to go, with school opening on Monday and so very much to be done; but to everyone’s surprise — and probably her own — Susanna Reeves, the visitor from the Blue Grass, who had intended returning home the day after school began, volunteered. Half an hour later Uncle Tutt rode off with a canvas cot before him and Susanna and various supplies behind.

The following day was Friday, — mill-day in the mountains, — and Christine prepared as usual to take the women’s corn and Uncle Ephraim’s to mill on his sorrel mare. As she started off, with the two pokes across her sidesaddle, Amy said to her, ‘While you’re that far, why not go on and visit Little Lowizy Rideout, and have dinner at her house?’

Leaving the pokes at the water-mill a mile up Troublesome, where half a dozen men and boys were already waiting for their turn, she rode on along the beautiful, winding creek, with its steep green sides, until she came to the ‘shut-up, lonesome house’ described to her by Lowizy as belonging to Giles. It was a comfortable house, surrounded by large apple-trees, but had that desolate air common to deserted houses and ownerless dogs.

Christine knew that the branch emptying into Troublesome just beyond the house must be Bee Tree, and she turned up, coming in a few minutes to the Rideout home.

In response to her knock at the open door, a small mild-faced woman, carrying a large fretful-looking baby and followed by two near-babies and little six-year-old Dovey, came through the house.

‘If hit hain’t the woman aims to be Lowizy’s new teacher!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’d know you by the color of your hair. Lowizy she’s been keen for you to come, but has nigh give you out now. Fetch a cheer for the woman, Dovey. I allow she’ll take the day with us.’

‘I’ll be glad to,’ said Christine. ‘I have wanted to come ever since the Fourth of July, when I first saw Lowizy, but have been so busy that the only real visit I have made was to spend a night with Aunt Ailsie.’

‘Maw she’s might’ly tuck up with the quare women,’ said Phœbe. ‘I hain’t seed none of ’em myself sence last summer, when they lived in the cloth houses. I liked ’em fine then. But this-here last least-one is so pettish and colicky, and a-teething too now, I don’t never get nowheres.’

‘Where is Lowizy?’

‘She’s up the branch a piece, teaching her school she holds for young-uns up there — she allus starts hit up soon as the crap is laid by. Hain’t she never named it to you?’

‘No, I think not,’ said Christine.

‘Well, she’s been at it about three year now. What possesses her to squander her time on them ign’ant, feisty young-uns passes knowledge. But she allus was quare-turned.’

‘She is the most remarkable child I ever saw.’

‘She is that, woman. I hain’t disputing hit. She takes larning easier than ary young-un ever I seed; ’pears like from birth she were marked for hit. I lost my first two babes, and when Lowizy come along seemed like she could n’t noway make out to live, neither, and had to be packed on a piller for nigh a year. But she lived on somehow or nother, and was the leetlest and pyeertest young-un ever I beheld, in spite of them risings in her hipj’int, and all the rest of her puning. And from the time she sot in a-talking hit would be, “Maw, pappy, I aim to get me a big-grain of larning some day!” Where she kotched hit from I never knowed, lessen hit was from Giles Kent. He lived down yander at the mouth, and allus had craving for larning, though no show to get it till he were nigh a man.

‘The very first day Lowizy heared Giles had started in to get schooling, though she were n’t but three then, she tuck on scandalous, wanting to go too, and kep’ hit up from then on. Me ’n’ her paw would jest laugh at sech a leetle scrap a-talking so bigotty, and would n’t pay no rael attention. So one day, when she had jest turned four, we missed her round the middle of the morning, and when we could n’t find her, and I was sheered stiff, David he says, “That-air Little Lowizy has jest about lit out atter larning; she’s liable to be down yander at the Forks at school.”And shore enough, when he rid down, there she sot, as big as life, a-studying on her A B C’s, having walked them four mile all by her lone, on that leetle short leg of hern.

‘David he said that night, “’T ain’t no use, Phœbe; that-air young-un craves larning same as tother babes their mothers’ milk. Hit’s the Lord’s work, and who air we to stand out again’ it?" Then we would let Giles or Ronny or Lafe pack her down every day, till court-time, when her pappy could trade around for a old safe nag for her to travel on. And long as the weather lasted go she would, every day, getting in anyhow three good months every school, afore November come and I would have to keep her home. But she allus larnt more in three months than tother scholars in five; and atter that first school she could read most anything. And along in the second, she says to me ’n’ David, “I hain’t noways happified over getting all this larning by myself, maw and pappy. I crave for you to have some too. I aim to teach you larning of a night.”

‘Never having had no sooner chancet, — for my paw he is strong again’ larning for females, — I was glad and willing. David, manlike, naturely baulked some at being teached by a leetle splinter like her; but he could n’t hold out long; and of nights she would larn us to read and figger. And as tother young-uns got sizable she would take ’em behind her to school, and teach ’em going and coming. But ’peared like that were n’t enough to satisfy her. Up this-here branch, Bee Tree, though it hain’t more ’n three mile long, is jest scores of fighting, drinking, cussing young-uns, that never so much as heared of knowledge, let alone set in a schoolhouse; and they began to lay heavy on Lowizy’s mind. “Maw,” she would say, “hain’t hit a scandal for young-uns to grow up like them, and nobody to do nothing?” And next thing I knowed she had the whole b’iling, several-dozen head, rounded up of a Saturday and Sunday, larning ’em books and civility. Three year now she’s been at hit. Summers she holds school under a big rock-house about half a mile up the branch; winters, when she is shet in the house with them risings in her bones and that cough, she has ’em in here. Hit’s hard on a body with sech a mess of ’em underfoot; but, law! seems like me ’n’ her pappy can’t deny her nothing. If she was jest well and stout, we would n’t have nothing left to desire.’

‘She looks very, very frail,’ said Christine. ‘I suppose you do all you can to build up her health?’

‘My Lord, yes! We’ve tried every yarb-tea and salve and charm we ever heared of, and oncet David he rode plumb to the railroad to get her a bottle of physic we had knowed folks to brag on.’

‘Did the nurse who was here with the women last summer see her?’

‘She did, too; and she said give her a lavish of milk; and David he got a extry cow straightway. Then, too, Lowizy had follered laying in bed of a night with tother young-uns, and sometimes of a morning she would be all bruised up from them a-wallowing over her in their sleep, them being stout as mules; and the nurse allowed hit was too hard on her. And David he tuck and made her that leetle ’stead yander, so she could rest more peaceabler.’

Christine looked at the little handmade ‘stead,’ with its feather-bed, patchwork quilt, and dark-blue calico pillow-slip, to match the two large beds in the room.

‘And that-air’s the shelf he made for to hold her pretties,’ continued Phœbe.

The ‘pretties’ on the small shelf were two little stacks of books, apparently schoolbooks.

‘You say she has to stay in the house all winter?’

‘Lord, yes — from November to Aprile I don’t never let her poke her nose outside! Of summers she pyeertens up a right smart; but come cold weather her risings starts up, and she gets a hacking cough, and hain’t never off my mind a minute, I’m that consarned to keep a breath of air from getting to her.’ ‘But it must be very dark in here in winter-time with the doors shut — I see you have no windows.’

‘We allus have good firelight. And David he’ll go miles to get fatty pine for her to read by.'

‘But she needs sunshine — it is the best possible medicine. I tell you what I should love to do: the school women have just brought in a lot of small windows to trade off to people who have none in their homes. I’ll give Lowizy one if your husband will cut out a hole in the wall there by her bed for it. Do you think he’ll be willing?’

‘Sartain he will — there hain’t nothing he would n’t do for Lowizy. And I allow a glass window would pleasure her a sight.’

‘All right, I’ll send it up early in the week.’

‘Thank you kindly. Dovey, you and tother young-uns go out along, now, and run down a chicken for dinner.’

Dovey and the two near-babies disappeared, and soon there was a sound of wild squawking as the children brought the loudly protesting captive into the room.

‘Mind the least-one, now,’ directed Phœbe, trading with Dovey, baby for chicken, and forever silencing the poor bird’s cries by a deft twist of its neck.

‘Maybe you’ll get lonesome whilst I pick the chicken and cook dinner,’ she said to Christine. ‘If you feel to, you might go up the branch to Lowizy’s school; hit hain’t far, and time ’s ample.’

‘I shall love to,’ said Christine.

Walking up the beautiful, wild branch, its sides rising sometimes in rocky, moss-hung cliffs, sometimes in steep slopes covered halfway with tasseled corn, Christine came at last upon a memorable sight. Under an overhanging cliff that made a deep and perfect shelter, forty or more children sat in rows on the ground, all with eyes fixed upon the small figure that stood, stick in hand, pointing to a sum done in chalk upon a rough, propped-up slab of slate.

The pupils were so intent upon the words of their young teacher that nobody saw the visitor until she was almost upon them. Then Lowizy’s happiness shone in her face.

‘Here, scholars,’ she said, ‘is the woman aims to be my new teacher, down at the women’s school, where they have rael larning. Christeeny Potter is her name. If you’ll be civil and mind your manners, I’ll leave you come up by and shake her hand. Line up now proper, and see you don’t do no scrouging, less’n you want to be sont home!’

The ‘scholars’ began to file past in perfect order, forty-odd small dingy hands being poked forward to Christine. Many of the boys wore nothing but long-tailed flax or cotton shirts, while the girls were usually clad in but one garment, a faded cotton dress. They were dirty and unkempt; they may have been, as Mrs. Rideout said, ‘ign’ant and feisty,’ but there was not a stupid face in the lot.

‘Now,’ announced Lowizy, importantly, ‘we aim to have a Speaking. My new teacher will now speak to this school.’

Christine had never made a speech in her life, except to reply to toasts at college; but, gathering her wits as best she could, she praised the pupils for their eagerness to learn, congratulated them upon having such a teacher as Lowizy, and also told them of the chance there would be in another year for some of them to come down and live at the women’s school, when the big log house of twenty-four rooms and the smaller buildings should be put up. ‘The first child we shall want when we get into the new big house is Lowizy,’ she said, ‘and the next ones will be those most highly recommended by her.’

Lowizy then commanded her pupils to choose up for a spelling-match; and, with Webster’s old blue-back Speller in her hand, she put words to them that would have staggered many a college graduate, their response being wonderful. Christine was amazed.

‘Now you young-uns can sing that-air song the quare women teached me last summer on the hill, and I passed on to you,’ said Lowizy; ‘and when hit’s done you can go home. And ricollect Monday’s the opening of the women’s school, and I’m a-starting in there, and can’t hold no more school up here except on Saturdays and Sundays, till cold weather comes and I get down in bed. Now sing out — don’t be afeared!’

As the words ‘My country, ’t is of thee’ rose shrilly from the forty small throats, Christine’s heart contracted painfully; the quick tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of how shamefully ‘my country’ had forgotten and neglected these little citizens, capable of so much, entitled to the best it could give, but left to grow up in ignorance and evil, save for such chance ministrations as those of Little Lowizy.

The school having been dismissed, Christine and Lowizy went back down the branch.

As they reached the house, Lowizy’s father and brothers were just coming down from the field. Under Lowizy’s supervision there was a grand wash-up on the back porch, out of Christine’s sight, but not out of her hearing, some of the near-babies protesting plaintively. Seeing the look of concern on Lowizy’s face as she flitted back and forth between porch and kitchen for the next half-hour, — for in spite of her short leg she could move very fast, — Christine almost regretted that she had come.

At last she was called out to dinner and seated at one end of the oilcloth-covered table, David Rideout occupying the other. The six younger children, little Dovey still holding the heavy baby, were all lined up against the wall in solemn silence, while Phœbe and Lowizy stood by to hand dishes back and forth between guest and host. But first there was something else. Lowizy poked her father with a sharp little elbow, and he gravely requested the visitor to ‘wait on the table.’ She was nonplused for an instant, till, seeing Lowizy’s head bowed, she guessed it must mean to ask a blessing, which she proceeded to do.

The chicken, beans, potatoes, cucumbers, biscuits, corn bread, coffee, milk, honey, and preserves were then passed. Seeing the expressions of the little faces against the wall, Christine begged that the children be permitted to eat, too. But Phœbe was adamant. ‘Hit hain’t proper,’ she said. ‘Let ’em wait for the second table, like young-uns ought when there’s company.’

When Christine spoke of the glass window, Lowizy’s eyes shone with excitement.

‘Yes, I want hit,’ she said. ‘I want hit wusser than anything I ever heared of but larning. Hit’ll holp me to get more larning. Of winters then I can lay here with the sunball a-shining in all day, and study on my books, and teach my scholars. Now hit’s so dark, and fat-pine light so smoky, we can’t half see. Pappy, I aim to have it quick; you got to set it in right off.’

David Rideout smiled in his slow, kind way. ‘Anything to pleasure you, Lowizy,’ he said. ‘You know I don’t never hold back nothing from you I can get. I’d rather pay for the window myself as to have the woman pay for it, though.’

‘Whichever way will suit you best,’ said Christine, ‘though I should love to give it to her. My idea is to have two sashes, so they can be raised and lowered, and Lowizy can always have fresh air as well as sunshine, — fresh air, you know, is the great healer in cases like hers, — if you can make that kind of window-frame without too much trouble?’

‘Hit hain’t nothing to make,’ said David.

But Phœbe was regarding Christine with an expression of disapproval, her small mouth rigidly set. ‘Fraish air hain’t bad of a warm summer’s day,’ she said slowly, ‘but time out of mind folks has knowed that cold air was dangerous and night air pyore pizen, even to well folks, let alone a puny young-un like Lowizy. The nurse that was with the quare women last summer she allowed, the same as you, that fraish air ought to be turnt in on Lowizy. But I told her no, not while breath was in my body; that I loved my child too good for any sech; that hit allus had been and allus would be the business of my life to keep the air from her.’

Christine was too taken aback and shocked for a moment to make any reply. Then she considered it best not to argue the matter, merely saying, ‘At any rate, the sunshine in the wintertime will be good for her.’

As she rode back down Troublesome, she tried to persuade herself that this prejudice of Mrs. Rideout’s would not be insurmountable; that her mind must in time be open to persuasion and reason. But all the time a cold and strange foreboding tugged at her heart.

(For the next story by Lucy Furman, see “​​​​​​​Uncle Tutt’s Typhoids” in the October 1925 issue.)