  Monday morning dawned gloriously, but it was with great effort that Jenny made her mood match the day. Often her grandparents glanced at her and then at one another as they ate their simple breakfast. At last her grandfather asked: “What be yo’ studyin’ on so hard, dearie? Is it anything about yo’re schoolin’ that’s frettin’ you?” The girl, who had been gazing at the bowl of golden poppies on the middle of the table with unconscious abstraction, looked up with a bright smile. Luckily her grandfather’s remark gave her a suggestion to enlarge upon. Turning to the little old woman whose sweet blue eyes were watchfully inquiring, the girl said: “Something has happened, or rather it is going to happen.” She paused a moment, but her grandfather urged: “Do go on, Jenny. Don’t let’s stop for no guessin’ contest this time. I’ve got to get out early to the cultivatin’.” Jenny told how the Board of Education had required Miss Dearborn to take a teacher’s examination before she had been permitted to continue instructing her one lone pupil. “Tut! Tut! Wall now, yo’ don’ tell?” Grandma Sue was much impressed. “Did Miss Dearborn go an’ take them teachin’ examinations jest so she could keep on helpin’ yo’ wi’ your studies?” The girl nodded. “She must set a power by you,” the old woman concluded. Grandpa Si spoke up. “Huh, how could she help it? I reckon every critter as knows Jenny sets a power by her, but thar must be more to the yarn. I don’ see anything, so far, for you to fret about.” “Yes, there is more,” Jenny agreed, “Miss Dearborn has had a letter from the Board of Education saying that I must take the high school examinations next month. Think of it, Granny Sue! I’ve got to go to that big new high school over in Santa Barbara where I don’t know a single soul, and take written examinations, when I never have had even one in all my life.” Again the grandfather’s faith in his “gal” was expressed. “It’s my notion when them examinations are tuk, your’s ’ll be leadin’ all the rest. Thar ain’t many gals as sober minded as yo’ be, Jenny, not by a long ways.” The girl’s merry laughter pealed out and the twinkle in her liquid brown eyes did not suggest sober-mindedness. Rising she skipped around the table kissing affectionately her grandfather’s bald spot. “Here’s hoping that you won’t be disappointed in your granddaughter. But really she isn’t half as wise as you think she is.” Then turning toward the smiling old woman, she concluded, “Is she, Mrs. Susan Warner?” The sweet blue eyes told much more than the reply. “Wall, I reckon yo’ won’t come out tail-end.” Again the girl laughed, then donning her hat and taking her books, she merrily called “Good-bye.” But her expression changed when she reached the lane and started walking briskly toward the highway. The real cause of her anxiety returned to trouble her thoughts. “Oh, I must study so hard, so hard,” she told herself. “Then I will be able to be a teacher and make a home for my dear old grandparents. How I hope the farm will not be sold until then.” Jenny did not follow the highway, but took a short cut trail to Miss Dearborn’s hillside home. It led over a rugged upland where gnarled live oaks twisted their rough barked branches into fantastic shapes. Jenny loved low-growing oaks and she never climbed through this particular grove of them, however occupied her thoughts might be as they were on this troubled morning, without giving them a greeting. “I’m glad that Miss Dearborn is teaching me mythology, for otherwise I wouldn’t know that each of these trees is really the home of a dryad, beautiful, slender graceful sprites, born when the tree is born and dying when the tree dies. How I would love to come here some moon-lit night in the spring and watch them dance to the piping of Pan. They would have wide fluttering sleeves in their garments woven of mist and moonbeams and they would be crowned with oak leaves, but how sad it would be if a woodchopper came and chopped down one of the trees, for that night there would be one less dryad at the dance on the hill.” Beyond the trees there was a long sweep of meadowland down the hill side to the highway, and beyond to the rocky edge of the sea. On this bright, spring morning it was a glittering, gleaming carpet of waving poppy cups of gold. Joyfully the girl cried, pausing on the edge of it, “O, I know the poem Miss Dearborn would quote. I thought of it right away.” Then she recited aloud, though there was no one to hear. “I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of shining daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine, And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never ending line, Along the margin of the bay. Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee. A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company. I gazed and gazed, but little thought What wealth to me the show had brought. For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude. And then my heart with rapture fills And dances with the daffodils. “If only Wordsworth had lived in California,” she thought as she continued on her way, “he would have written just such a poem about these fields of golden poppies.” Ten minutes later, the girl, feeling an inward glow from so close a communion with Nature, the greatest of artist-poets, skipped between the two graceful pepper trees that were the gate posts of Miss Dearborn’s attractive hillside home. “Well, dearie, how bright you are this morning,” was the greeting the woman, digging about in her garden, sang out. Then, standing her hoe against a rustic bench, she began taking off her gloves, as together they walked toward the house. “I am indeed glad,” she concluded, “for you are to have a hard testing today.” Instantly the morning glow faded from the girl’s face and a troubled expression clouded her eyes. “Miss Dearborn, what now?” The older woman laughed. “No need of high tragedy,” she said. “It’s only that I have paid a visit to the principal of the high school, and have obtained from him the questions used on examinations for several years past, and today I am going to give you your first written test. We have nearly a month for review, and each week I shall ask you one complete set of questions of previous years and then, at least, you will be familiar with written examinations.” “Oh, Miss Dearborn, how kind, how wonderfully kind you are to me. It would be most ungrateful of me to fail.” “Fail? There is no such word for the earnest student who has worked faithfully day by day all through the term as my pupil has. There will be no need of that nerve-racking system called cramming for you.” Then, as they ascended the steps to the wide veranda, Miss Dearborn exclaimed, “See, I’ve put a table in the glassed-in corner. I’m going to shut you in there until noon with the questions, and I shall expect your average to be 90 at least.” Jenny felt a little thrill of excitement course over her, and she started at her new task with a determination to try her best to be worthy of the faith placed in her by the three who loved her so dearly. |
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