The Second Chance Read online

  CHAPTER III

  "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER"

  Pap wunct he scold and says to me, Don't play too much, but try To study more and nen you'll be A great man by and by. Nen Uncle Sidney says: "You let Him be a boy and play. The greatest man on earth, I bet, 'Ud trade with him to-day."

  _----James Whitcomb Riley._

  PEARL started to school one Monday morning. She felt very brave untilshe got into the girls' hall, where the long row of "store" coats,fur caps and collars seemed to oppress her with their magnificence.

  Maudie Ducker's 'coon coat and red scarf seemed to be particularlyantagonistic, and she hung her mother's cut-down coat and her newwool toque as far from them as possible.

  Outwardly calm, but with a strong tendency to bolt for home, Pearlwalked into the principal's room, and up to his desk, where he satmaking his register.

  He looked up inquiringly and asked curtly: "What-do you want?"

  "I am comin' to school, if you please," Pearl said calmly.

  "What do you know?" he asked, none too gently, for it was one of hisbad days.

  "Not much yet," Pearl said, "but I want to know a whole lot."

  He put down his pen and looked at her with interest. "We've plenty ofroom for people who don't know things, but want to. We're short ofthat kind. We've plenty of people here who think they know a lot anddon't want to know any more, but you're an entirely new kind."

  Pearl laughed--the easy, infectious laugh that won for her so manyfriends.

  "You see," she said, "I've got to learn as fast as I can, now whilethe money lasts, for there's so many of us. I'm ignorant for me age,too. I'm thirteen now, and I haven't been to school since I was ten,but I should be able to learn a whole lot, for I'm going to come aslong as this dress lasts anyway, and I've got sateen sleeves to puton over it past the elbows to save it, for that's where it'll likelygo first, and I'm takin' long steps to keep my boots from wearin'out, and I'm earnin' a little money now, for I've got the job oftakin' care of the school, me and Jimmy."

  The schoolmaster forgot that he was discouraged, forgot that he hadbeen having a hard time with Grade VIII's geography, forgot that hehad just made up his mind to quit teaching. He saw nothing but alittle girl standing eagerly before him, telling him her hopes, anddepending on him to help her to realize them.

  He put out his hand impulsively, and took hers.

  "Pearl," he said, "you're all right!"

  That night, when Pearl went home, she gave her family the story ofthe Magna Charta, drawing such a vivid picture of King John's generaldepravity that even her father's indignation was stirred.

  "That lad'll have to mend his ways," he said seriously, as he openedthe stove door to get a coal for his pipe, "or there will be troublecoming his way."

  "And you bet there was," Pearl replied. "What did they do but all gittogether one day, after they got the crop cut, and they drawed up alist of things that he couldn't do, and then they goes to him, andsays they: 'Sign this, yer Highness;' and he takes the paper andwipes his glasses on his hanky, and he reads them all over politeenough, and then he says, says he, handing it back: 'The divil Iwill!'"

  "Did he really say that, Pearlie?" her Mother asked.

  "Did he?" Pearl said scornfully. "He said worse than that, Ma; andthen they says, says they: 'Sign it, or there'll be another man onyer job.' And says he, brave as ye please: 'I'll see ye some placebefore I sign it,' and with that what did they do but jist sit downwhere they were, lit their pipes, as unconcerned as could be, andsays they: 'Take yer time, your Highness, we're not in a hurry; webro't our dinners,' says they, 'an' we'll stay right here till yefind yer pen,' and they just sat there on their hunkers talkin' aboutthe crops and the like o' that, until he signed it; which he did verybad-mannered, and flung it back at them and says he: 'There now, badcess to yez, small good it'll do yez, for I'm the King,' says he,'an' I'll do as I blame please, so I will. The King can do no wrong,'says he. 'Well, then,' says one of them, foldin' up the Magna Chartaand puttin' it away careful in his breast pocket, 'the King can'tbreak his word, I guess,' and wid that he winks at the rest of them,and they says, says they: 'That's one on you, yer Majesty!' But theycouldn't put him in good humour, and they do say, Ma, that when thecompany was gone that that man cut up somethin' rough, cursed andswore, and chewed up sticks, and frothed at the mouth like a mad dog,and sure, the very next day, when he was driving through a placecalled 'The Wash,' drunk as an owl, he dropped his crown, and hislittle satchel wid all his good clothes in it, and him being the wayhe was he never heard them splash. When he missed them he felt awful,and went back to hunt for them, puddlin' round in his bare feet forhours, and some say he had et too many lampreys, whatever that is,for his breakfast, but anyway, he got a cowld in his head and hedied, so he did."

  "Wasn't that a bad state for the poor man to die in, childer dear,"said Mrs. Watson, wishing to give Pearl's story a moral value; "andhim full of wickedness and cursin'!"

  "And lampwicks, too, Ma!" Bugsey added.

  "Where he wuz now?" asked Danny, who had a theological bent.

  "Faith, now, that's not an easy thing to say for certain," said thefather gravely. "Things look pretty bad for him, I'm thinkin'."

  After some discussion as to John's present address, Pearlie summed itup with a fine blending of charity and orthodoxy by saying: "Well, wejust hope he's gone to the place where we're afraid he isn't."

  The days passed fleet-footed with the Watson family--days full ofhealthy and happy endeavour, with plenty to eat, clothes to wear, Maat home, and everybody getting a chance to be somebody. Pearl was thehappiest little girl in the world. Every night she brought homefaithfully what she had learned at school, at least the interestingpart of it, and when the day's work had been dull and abstract, outof the wealth of her imagination she proceeded to make itinteresting.

  Under Pearl's sympathetic telling of it, they wept over the untimelyfate of Mary, Queen of Scots, and decided that Elizabeth was a badlot, and Mrs. Watson declared that if she "had aknowed all thisbefore, she would never ha' called Mary, Mary Elizabeth, because thatjust seems like takin' sides with both parties," and she justcouldn't "abear people that do that!"

  Lady Jane Grey, the Princes in the Tower, Oliver Cromwell, theunhappy Charles I, were their daily guests, and were discussed withthe freedom and interest with which dwellers in small towns arepopularly supposed to discuss their neighbours.

  All of the evening was not given up to pleasure. Pearl saw to it thateach child did his stint of home work, and very often a spellingmatch was held, with Pearl as the teacher and no-fair-to-try-over.The result of this was that Teddy Watson, Class V; Billy Watson,Class III; Tommy and Jimmy Watson, Class IIA; Patsey and BugseyWatson, Class I, were impregnable rocks at the head of their classeson whom the troublesome waves of "ei's" and "ie's," one "l" or two"l's," beat in vain.

  Even John Watson, hard though his hands were with the handling of ashovel, was not immune from this outburst of learning, and atPearlie's suggestion even he was beginning to learn! He filled pagesof her scribbler with "John Watson," in round blocky letters, andthen added "Millford, Manitoba."

  "Now, Pa," Pearlie said one night, "ain't there some of yer friendsye'd like to write to, seein' as yer gettin' on so fine?"

  John had not kept up a close touch with his friends down east sincehe came to Manitoba.

  "It's fifteen year," he said, "since I left the Ottaway valley, butI'm thinkin' me sister Katie is alive. Katie was me oldest sister,but I'm thinkin' it would take a lot to kill her!"

  "What was she like, Pa?" Pearl asked.

  John smoked on reminiscently. "She was a smart girl, was Kate, widher tongue. I always liked to hear her usin' it, on someone else. Imind once me poor, father and Katie went to a circus at Arnprior andfather got into a bean and shell game. It looked rale easy at firstsight, and me father expected to make a bunch o' money, but insteado' that, he lost all he had on him, and his watch, and so he came toKatie and told her what had hap
pened. Well, sir, they say that Katiejust gave a le'p and cracked her heels together, and, sir, she wentat yon man, and he gave back the money, every cent of it, and mefather's watch, too. The people said they never heerd language likeKatie used yon time."

  "She didn't swear, did she, John?' Mrs. Watson asked, in a shockedtone, giving him a significant look which, interpreted, meant thatwas not the time to tell the truth if the truth were incriminating.

  "No," John said slowly, "Katie would not waste her breath swearin'.She told the man mostly what she thought of him, and how his looksstruck her, and what he reminded her of. I mind she said a rang o'tang would lose friends if he changed faces with him, and a fewthings like that, but nobody could say that Katie used languageunbecomin' a lady. She was always partick'ler that way."

  "Would you like to write to her and see how she is, Pa?" Pearl asked.

  "Well, now I don't care if I do," her father answered.

  The letter was written with infinite pains. The composition wasPearlie's, and Pearlie was in her happiest mood, and so it really wasa very pleasant and alluring picture she drew of how John Watson hadprospered since coming west, and then, to give weight to it, she senta snapshot that Camilla had taken of the whole family in their goodclothes.

  "It seems to me," Mrs. Watson said one night, "like as if we aregettin' on too prosperous. The childer have been gettin' on so well,and we're all so happy like, I'm feart somethin' will happen. This istoo good to last."

  Mrs. Watson had a strain of Highland blood in her, and there was aBanshee in the family two generations back, so it was not to bewondered at that she sometimes indulged in gloomy forebodings.

  Every day she looked for something to happen. One day it did. It wasAunt Katie from "down the Ottaway!"

  Aunt Kate Shenstone came unannounced, unheralded by letter, card, ortelegram. Aunt Kate said you never could depend on the mails--theywere like as not to open your letter and keep your stamp! So shecame, carrying her two telescope valises and her handbag. She did notbelieve in having anything checked--that was inviting disaster!

  Aunt Kate found her way to the Watson home under the direction ofWilford Ducker, who had all his previous training on the subject ofcourtesy to strangers seriously upset by the way Jimmy Watson talkedto him when they met a few days afterward.

  "You see, John," Mrs. Shenstone said to her brother, when he camehome, "it seemed so lucky when I got your letter. I always did wantto come to Manitoba, but Bill, that's my man, John, he was a sort ofa tie, being a consumptive; but I buried Bill just the week before Igot your letter."

  "Wus he dead?" Bugsey asked quickly.

  "Dead?" Aunt Kate gasped. "Well, I should say he was.""My, I'm glad!" Bugsey exclaimed.

  Aunt Kate demanded an explanation for his gladness.

  "I guess he's glad, because then you could come and see us, Auntie,"Mary said. Mary was a diplomat.

  "'Tain't that," Bugsey said frankly. "I am glad my Uncle Bill isdead, cos it would be an awful thing for her to bury him if hewasn't!"

  Mrs. Shenstone sat down quickly and looked anxiously around herbrother's family.

  "John," she said, "they're all right wise, are they?"

  "Oh, I guess so," he answered cheerfully, "as far as we can tell yet,anyway."

  At supper she was given the cushioned chair and the cup and saucerthat had no crack. She made a quick pass with her hand and slippedsomething under the edge of her plate, and it was only the keen eyesof Danny, sitting beside her, that saw what had happened, and even hedid not believe what he had seen until, leaning out of his chair, helooked searchingly into his aunt's face.

  "She's tuck out her teeth!" he cried. "I saw her."

  Pearlie endeavoured to quiet Danny, but Mrs. Shenstone was by nomeans embarrassed. "You see, Jane," she said to Mrs. Watson, "I justwear them when I go out. They're real good-lookin' teeth, but they'reno good to chew with. There must be something wrong with them. Mothernever could chew with them, either--they were mother's, you know andI guess they couldn't ha' been made right in the first place."

  Patsey, who was waiting for the second table, came around and had alook at them.

  "Them's the kind to have, you bet," he said to Tommy, who was alsoone of the unemployed; "she can take them out if they ache, and letthem ache as much as they've' a mind to." Tommy had had someexperience with toothache, and spoke with feeling.

  Mrs. Shenstone was a woman of uncertain age, and was of that varietyof people who look as old when they are twenty-five as they will everlook. She was dressed in rusty mourning, which did not escape thesharp eyes of her young nephews.

  "When did you say Uncle Bill died?" Jimmy asked.

  "Just four weeks to-morrow," she said, and launched away into anelaborate description of Bill's last hours.

  "Did you get yer black dress then?" Mary asked, before Pearl couldget her nudged into silence.

  "No; I didn't," Aunt Kate answered, not at all displeased with thequestion, as Pearl was afraid she might be. "I got this dress quite awhile agone. I went into black when mother died, and I've never seenfit to lay it off. Folks would say to me: 'Oh, Mrs. Shenstone, do layoff your mournin',' but I always said: 'Mother's still dead, isn'tshe? and she's just as dead as she ever was, isn't she? Well, then,I'll stick to my crape,' says I; and besides, I knew all along thatBill was goin' sooner or later. He thought sometimes that he wasgettin' better, but, land! you couldn't fool me, him coughin' thatdreadful hollow cough and never able to get under it, and I knew Iwas safe in stickin' to the black. I kept the veil and the blackgloves and all laid away. They say keep a thing for seven years andyou'll find a use for it, if you've any luck at all. I kept mine justsix years, and you see, they did come in good at last."

  "I guess you were good and glad, weren't you, Auntie?" asked Tommy.

  Mrs. Watson and Pearl apologized as best they could for Tommy.

  "That's all right, now, Jane," Mrs. Shenstone said, chucklingtoothlessly; "youngsters will out with such things, and, now sinceyou've asked me, Tommy, I am not what you'd call real glad, though Iam glad poor Bill's gone where there ain't no consumption, but I misshim every minute. You see, he's been with me sittin' in his chair forthe last four years, as I sat beside him sewin', and he was greatcompany, Bill was, for all he was so sick; for he had great sperrits,and could argue somethin' surprisin' and grand. 'You're a good girl,Katie,' was the last words he ever said. I never was no hand to makea big palaver, so just as soon as the funeral was over I went righton with my sewin' and finished up everything I had in the house, forI needed the money to pay the expenses; and, besides, I made thefirst payment on the stone--it's a lovely one, John, cost me $300,but I don't mind that. I just wish Bill could see it. I often wishnow I had set it up before he went, it would ha' pleased him so. Billwas real fond of a nice grave, that is, fixed up nice--he took suchan interest in the sweet alyssum we had growin' in the garden, and heshowed me just how he wanted it put on the grave. He wanted ahorseshoe of it acrost the grave with B. S. inside, made of pansies.You see B. S. stands for Bill Shenstone, Blacksmith!

  "He was a real proud man, yer Uncle Bill was, and him just alabourin' man, livin' by his anvil. Mind you, when I made himoveralls I always had to put a piece of stuff out on the woodpile tofade fer patches. Bill never could bear to look at a patch of newstuff put on when the rest was faded."

  "Well, he couldn't see the patch, could he, auntie?" Jimmy asked,making a shrewd guess at the location of it.

  "Maybe he couldn't," Bill's wife answered proudly. "But he knew itwas there."

  "Where he wuz now?" Danny asked, his mind still turning to theultimate destiny.

  Mrs. Shenstone did not at once reply, and the children were afraidthat her silence boded ill for Bill's present happiness. She stirredher tea absent-mindedly. "If there's a quiet field up in heaven, withelm-trees around it," she said at last; "elm-trees filled withsingin' birds, a field that slopes down maybe to the River of Life, afield that they want ploughed, Bill will be there with old Bess andDoll, s
teppin' along in the new black furrow in his bare feet,singin':

  There's a city like a bride, just beyond the swellin' tide.

  He always said that would be heaven for him 'thout no harp or bigprocession, and I am sure Bill would never hear to a crown or such asthat. Bill was a terrible quiet man, but a better-natured man neverlived. So I think, Tommy, that your Uncle Bill is ploughin' down onthe lower eighty, where maybe the marsh marigolds and buttercupsbloom all the year around--there's a hymn that says somethin' abouteverlasting spring abides and never witherin' flowers, so I take itfrom that that the ploughin' is good all the year around, and that'lljust suit Bill."

  When the meal was over, Aunt Katie complacently patted her teeth backinto place. "I never like no one to see me without them," she said,"exceptin' my own folks. I tell you, I suffer agonies when there's astranger in for a meal. Now, Jane, let's git the children to bed.Mary and Pearl, you do the dishes. Hustle, you young lads, git offyour boots now and scoot for bed. I never could bear the clatter ofchildren. Come here, and I'll loosen your laces"--this to Bugsey, whosat staring at her very intently. "What's wrong with you?" sheexclaimed, struck by the intent look on his face.

  "I'm just thinkin'," Bugsey answered, without removing his eyes fromthe knothole on the door.

  "And what are you thinkin'?" she demanded curiously.

  "I'm just thinkin' how happy my Uncle Bill must be upthere...ploughin'...without any one to bother him."

  Mrs. Shenstone turned to her brother and shook her head gravely:"Mind you, John," she said, "you'll have to watch yon lad--he's adeep one."

  Aunt Kate had only been a few days visiting at her brother John'swhen the children decided that something would have to be done. AuntKate was not an unmixed blessing, they thought.

  "She's got all cluttered up with bad habits, not havin' no family ofher own to raise," Pearl said. "She wouldn't jump up and screechevery time the door slams if she'd been as used to noises as Ma is,and this talk about her nerves bein' all unstrung is just plainsilly--and as for her not sleepin' at nights, she sleeps as sound asany of us. She says she hears every strike of the clock all nightlong, and she thinks she does; but she doesn't, I know. Anyway, I'mafraid Ma will get to be like her if we don't get her stopped."

  "Ma backed her up to-day when she said my face was dirty just after Ihad washed it, so she did," Mary said with a grieved air.

  Nearly every one of them had some special grievance against AuntKate.

  "Let's make her sign a Charta," Tommy said, "like they did withJohn."

  The idea became immensely popular.

  "She won't sign it," said Bugsey, the pessimist. "Let her dare tonot," said Jimmy gravely, "and she shall know that the people are theking."

  Pearl said that it would do no harm to draw up the paper anyway, so alarge sheet of brown paper was found, and Pearl spread it on thefloor. Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate had gone downtown, so every personfelt at liberty to speak freely. Pearl wasn't sure of the heading andso wrote:

  Mrs. Kate Shenstone

  Please take notice of these things, and remember them to do them, andmuch good will follow here and hereafter.

  She read it over to the others, and everybody was well pleased withit.

  After receiving suggestions from all, the following by-laws wererecommended to govern the conduct of Aunt Kate in future:

  1. Keep your nerves strung.2. Don't screech at every little noise. It don't help none.3. Don't make nobody wash when they are already done so.4. Sleep at night, snore all you want to, we don't stay awake to listen to you.5. Don't bust yourself to think of things for us to do. We kep the wood-box full long before we ever saw you, also waterpail and other errings.6. Don't make remarks on freckles. We have them, and don't care, freckles is honourable. (This was Jimmy's contribution.)7. Don't always say you won't live long, we don't mind, only Mrs. Jane Watson is picking it up now from you. We don't like it, it ain't cheerful.8. Don't interfere about bedtime. We don't with you.9. Don't tell about children raised in idleness that turned out bad. It ain't cheerful, and besides we're not.

  Just then the cry was raised that she was coming, and the MagnaCharta was hastily folded up, without receiving the signatures.

  Aunt Kate, who was very observant, suspected at once that thechildren had been "up to something."

  "What have you youngsters been up to now, while we were away?" shedemanded.

  There was a thick silence. Mrs. Watson asked the children to answertheir Auntie.

  Mary it was who braved the storm. "We've been drawing up a list ofthings for you," she said steadily.

  Aunt Kate had seen signs of rebellion, and had got to the place whereshe was not surprised at anything they did.

  "Give it here," she said.

  "Wait till it's signed," Pearl said. "It's Charta, Aunt Kate," shewent on, "like 'King John to sign."

  "I didn't hear about it. Pearl explained.

  "Let me see it, anyway."Pearl gave her the document, and she retired to her room with it tolook it over.

  "Say, Pearl," said Jimmy, "go in there and get out my catapult, willyou? She may sign it and then cutup rough."

  There was no more said about it for several days, but Aunt Kate wasdecidedly better, though she still declared she did not sleep atnight, and Pearl was determined to convince her that she did. AuntKate was a profound snorer. Pearl, who was the only one who had everheard her, in trying to explain it to the other children, said thatit was just like some one pulling a trunk across the room on a barefloor to see how they would like it in this corner, and then, whenthey get it over here, they don't like it a bit, so they pull it backagain; "and besides that," Pearl said, "she whistles comin' back andgrinds her teeth, and after all that she gets up in the mornin' andtells Ma she heard every hour strike. She couldn't hear the clockstrike anyway, and her kickin' up such a fuss as she is, but I'mgoing to stop her if I can; she's our aunt, and we've got to do ourbest for her, and, besides, there's lots of nice things about her."

  The next morning Pearl was very solicitous about how her aunt hadslept.

  "Not a bit better," Aunt Kate said. "I heard every hour but six. Ialways drop off about six."

  "Did you really hear the clock last night, Auntie?" Pearl asked withgreat politeness.

  "Oh, it's very little you youngsters know about lying awake. When youget to the age of me and your mother, I tell you, it's different Iget thinkin', thinkin', thinkin', and my nerves get all unstrung."

  "And you really heard the clock?" Pearl said. "My, but that isqueer!"

  "Nothin' queer about it, Pearl. What's queer about it, I'd like toknow?"

  "Because I stopped the clock," Pearl said, "just to see if you couldhear it when it's stopped," and for once Aunt Kate, usually so readyof speech, could not think of anything to say.

  Aunt Kate went to bed early the next night, leaving the childrenundisturbed to enjoy the pleasant hour as they had done before shecame. The next morning she handed Pearl the sheet of brown paper, andbelow the list of recommendations there it was in bold writing:

  "Kate W. Shenstone."

  "See that, now," said Pearl triumphantly, as she showed it to thechildren, "what it does for you to know history!"

  "Say," said Jim, "where could we get some of them things, what didyou call them, Pearl?"

  "'Twouldn't do any good, she wouldn't eat them," Billy said.

  "Lampreys or lampwicks, or somethin' like that."

  "Now, boys," said Pearl, "that's not right. Don't talk like that. Itain't cheerful."