THE walk to school was a very delightful one, and as the trio trudged over the road from day to day, chattering like magpies, laughing, singing, shouting, and dancing in the exuberance of childish glee, all seemed equally light-hearted and joyous. Even the little slave who carried the books which she was unable to read, and the basket of dinner of which she could not by right partake, with a keen eye for the beautiful, and a sensitive heart to appreciate nature, could not apparently have been more happy, if her condition had been reversed, and she had been made the served instead of the servant.
The way for half a mile lay through a dense pine-wood,—the tall trees rising like stately pillars in some vast temple filled with balsamic incense, and floored with a clean, elastic fabric, smooth as polished marble, over which the little feet lightly and gayly tripped. In the central depths where the sun's rays never penetrated, and the fallen leaves lay so thickly on the ground, no flowers could grow, but on the outer edges spring lavished her treasures. The trailing arbutus added new fragrance to the perfumed air, frail anemones trembled in the wind, and violets flourished in the shade. The blood-root lifted its lily-white blossoms to the light, and the cream-tinted, fragile bells of the uvularia nestled by its side. Passing the wood and its embroidered flowery border, a brook ran across the road. The rippling waters were almost hidden by the bushes which grew upon its banks, where the wild honeysuckle and touch-me-not, laurels and eglantine, mingled their beautiful blossoms, and wooed the bee and humming-bird to their gay bowers. Over this stream a narrow bridge led directly to the school-house; but the homeward side was so attractive, that the children always tarried there until they saw the teacher on the step, or heard the little bell tinkling from the door. Tidy remained with them till the last minute, and there her bright face might invariably be seen when school was dismissed in the afternoon. A large flat rock between the woods and the flowery edges of Pine Run was the place of rendezvous.
One summer's morning they were earlier than usual, and emerging from the woods, warm and weary with their long walk, they threw themselves down upon the rock over which in the early day, the shadows of the trees refreshingly fell. Amelia turned her face toward the Run, and lulled by the gentle murmuring of the water, and the humming of the insects, was soon quietly asleep; Susie, with an apron full of burs, was making furniture for the play-house which they were arranging in a cleft of the rock; and Tidy, who carried the books, was busily turning over the leaves and amusing herself with the pictures.
"My sakes!" she exclaimed presently, "what a funny cretur! See that great lump on his back!" and she pointed with her finger to the picture of a camel. "Miss Susie! what IS that? Is it a lame horse?"
"Why no, Tidy, that's a camel; 'tisn't a horse at all. I was reading that very place yesterday,—let me see," and taking the book she read very intelligently a brief account of the wonderful animal.
"How queer!" said Tidy, deeply interested. "And is there something in this book about all the pictures?"
"Yes," answered Susie, "if you could only read now, you would know about every one. See here, on the next page is an elephant; see his great tusks and his monstrous long trunk," and the child read to her attentive listener of another of the wonders of creation.
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"How I wish I could read,—why can't I?" asked Tidy; and the little colored face was turned up full of animation. "I don't b'lieve but I could learn as well as you."
"Why of course you could," answered Amelia, who had risen quite refreshed by her short nap. "I don't see why not. You can't go to school you know, because mother wants you to work; but I could teach you just as well as not."
"Oh, could you? will you?—do begin!" cried the eager child. "Oh, Miss Mely, if you only would, I'd do any thing for you."
"Look here," said Amelia, seizing the book from her sister's hands, and by virtue of superior age, constituting herself the teacher; "do you see those lines?" and she pointed to the columns of letters on the first page.
"Yes," said the ready pupil, all attention.
"Well, those are letters,—the alphabet, they call it. Every one of them has got a name, and when you have learned to know them all perfectly, so that you can call them all right wherever you see 'em, why, then you can read any thing."
"Any thing?" asked Tidy in amazement.
"Yes, any thing,—all kinds of books and papers and the Bible and every thing."
"I can learn THEM, I's sure I can," said Tidy. "Le's begin now."
"Well, you see that first one,—that's A. You see how it's made,—two lines go right up to a point, and then a straight one across. Now say, what is it?"
"A."
"Yes; and now the next one,—that's B. There's a straight line down and two curves on the front. What's that?"
"B."
"Now you must remember those two,—I sha'n't tell you any more this morning, and I shall make you do just as Miss Agnes used to make me. Miss Agnes was our governess at home before we came here to school. She made me take a newspaper,—see, here's a piece,—and prick the letters on it with a pin. Now you take this piece of paper, and prick every A and every B that you can find on it, and to-morrow I'll show you some more."
Just then the bell sounded from the schoolhouse, and Amelia and Susan went to their duties, but not with half so glad a heart as Tidy set herself to hers. Down she squatted on the rock, and did not leave the place till her first task was successfully accomplished, and the precious piece of perforated paper safely stowed away for Amelia's inspection.
Day after day this process was repeated, until all the letters great and small had been learned; and now for the more difficult work of putting them together. There seemed to be but one step between Tidy and perfect happiness. If she could only have a hymn-book and know how to read it, she would ask nothing more. She didn't care so much about the Bible. If she had known, as you do, children, that it is God's word, no doubt she would have been anxious to learn what it contained. But this truth she had never heard, and therefore all her desires were centered in the hymn-book, in which were stored so many of those precious and beautiful hymns which she loved so much to hear Uncle Simon repeat and sing. Would she ever be so happy as to be able to sing them from her own book?
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