[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH, IT HAS DONE SOMETHING TO MY MOUTH!" (missing from book)]

"You must have eaten one that was not quite ripe," said Agnes. "Let me see; oh, that one would pucker your mouth dreadfully, for it is n"t nearly ready to eat yet. See, it is only these soft ones that are ripe, and the hard ones will all pucker one"s mouth."

"And I thought that these soft ones were n"t good," said Ruby, in dismay, "and I have gathered only these old puckery ones. I could not think what you picked up the squashed ones for."

How many times that afternoon Ruby wished she had known more about persimmons, or that she had asked some of the other girls something about them.

Her mouth seemed to grow more puckery every moment, and she wondered whether it would ever be any better. It did not feel as if it would, and she could not be persuaded to taste a ripe persimmon, for she had had enough of persimmons. She emptied her basket out, and did not want to touch another, though the girls a.s.sured her that the ripe ones were delicious.

She was very glad when at last the girls had gathered as many as they wanted, and they were ready to go home again.

She went upstairs to her room, and Aunt Emma did what she could to relieve the puckered little mouth; but there was but little that could be done except to wait patiently for time to take the puckers out of it.

Ruby was quite sure that it would take a year, and when she woke up the following morning and found that there was nothing to remind her of the persimmon, she was delighted as well as surprised, but it was a long time before she wanted to hear any more about persimmons.

CHAPTER XXI.

MAUDE.

If Maude"s mother could have looked into the school and watched her little daughter for a day, I am sure she would have found it hard to believe that she was the same child as the selfish, self-willed little girl, who had made every one else miserable as well as herself if she could not have her own way when she was at home.

School life was very hard for Maude in a great many ways, and she had been more homesick than any of the other girls,--not so much because she wanted to see her father and mother as because she wanted to go where she could have her own way and do as she pleased.

All her life she had been accustomed to having her own way, and after such training it was very hard for her to submit to the same rules to which the other girls had to submit, and to obey her teachers. It was a new experience to her to find that her fine clothes did not win for her any esteem, and that unless she showed herself kind and obliging to her schoolmates, they did not care to have anything to do with her.

It was not altogether Maude"s fault that she had been so selfish; it was partly because she had never been taught to be unselfish, and she had grown so used to putting herself and her own comfort before that of every one else, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, and she was surprised when every one else did not do so too.

Nothing could have been better for her than to come to this quiet home school, where she could find a friend who would take the trouble to help her correct her faults as Mrs. Boardman did.

Maude had never really loved any one before in all her life. She had valued others only for what they did for her, but now she was learning to love from a better reason than that. She really tried to please Mrs. Boardman by obeying the rules and trying to study her lessons, and though it was hard for her to keep up with her cla.s.s, Mrs. Boardman encouraged her because she could see that Maude was really doing her best.

If Maude grew discouraged, and began to think that it was of no use for her to try to learn, that she would never be able to learn her lessons and get up to the head of any of her cla.s.ses, Mrs. Boardman would tell her how much she had improved since she first came, and encourage her to try again.

For the first few weeks Maude found herself frequently in disgrace. It seemed almost impossible for her to understand that she must obey without arguing the point, and that she must not be quarrelsome nor selfish in her intercourse with the other scholars. If Maude had been in a large school where she would not have had any one to help her, she might not have improved so much; but in this little school, where it was more like a family than a boarding-school, she was helped to conquer herself just as wisely as she could have been by a wise mother.

When at last she really learned that no one cared for her father"s money nor her mother"s servants, nor her own jewelry, which she was not allowed to wear, and had to content herself with exhibiting, she began to wish that there was something about herself which should win the love of her schoolmates.

She had made such an unpleasant impression upon them at first that they were not very anxious to make friends with her, but as they saw that she was really trying to make herself pleasant, they were more willing to invite her to join in their games and share their amus.e.m.e.nts.

She did not talk so much about her possessions, and tried to care more about others and their happiness. But all this was hard work. It is not an easy matter to be selfish and wilful and then all at once become thoughtful of others, and of their comfort; and many and many a night Maude sobbed herself to sleep, quite discouraged with the efforts she had to make to do things that seemed to come as a matter of course to the other girls.

Mrs. Boardman had grown to love the lonely little girl, when she saw how much she needed a friend, and how grateful she was for the kindness which was shown her; and sometimes she would ask Miss Chapman to let Maude spend the night with her, when she found that the little girl was very homesick and discouraged.

Perhaps because she had never known before what it was to have a friend who really wanted to help her make the most of herself, Maude loved Mrs. Boardman with all her heart, and she really tried and kept on trying, so that she should not disappoint the one who took so much interest in her.

Mrs. Boardman could see how the little girl improved from one week to another, and though there was still much room for improvement, and it might take months and perhaps years to undo the effect of Maude"s early training in selfishness, yet there was a great deal that was very sweet and lovable in her character, hidden away under all the dross; and Mrs.

Boardman knew that if she kept on trying to improve, some day she would be a very sweet girl, and one who would win love from all around her.

Every hour Maude learned something that was of use to her, for she had much more to learn than many of her schoolmates. In the first place she had always thought that work was something that belonged only to servants, and that a lady would not know how to do anything about the house; but here Miss Chapman insisted upon each little girl"s caring for her own room, and insisted that the work should be carefully and well done, and the general feeling among the girls was that it was something to be proud of when their rooms won commendation from Mrs.

Boardman.

Maude no longer felt that it was a disgrace to be obliged to make her own bed, but on the contrary, she took a great deal of pride in making it so well that when Mrs. Boardman went around to look at the rooms after the girls had gone into school, she could find nothing to reprove, but on the contrary could leave a little card with "Good"

upon the pillow.

Once a week there was a cooking-cla.s.s which the girls attended in turn, and Maude was as proud as any of the other girls could have been upon the day when she made a plate of nice light biscuit all by herself, for supper; and she looked forward with a good deal of pleasure to the time when she should show her mother how much she could do.

Miss Chapman did not believe in education making little girls useless at home, but she tried to have them taught practical things as well as the more ornamental ones, for she wanted them to grow up useful as well as accomplished women.

So the scholars learned to sweep and dust, to make beds, and bread and cake, while they studied their other lessons; and when they went home in vacation times their mothers found them very useful little maids.

Maude had not made any special friends among the girls. In her time out of school hours she stayed with Mrs. Boardman as much as she could, and her teacher was very kind about letting the little girl come to her room whenever she wanted to, and curl up in the big rocking-chair and watch Mrs. Boardman as she sat by the window in her low sewing-chair and did the piles of mending which acc.u.mulated every week.

The boxes of cake and candy which Maude had been so anxious that her mother should send her were not permitted to any of the scholars at Miss Chapman"s school. Perhaps one reason why they were so well, and the doctor seldom, if ever, paid any of them, a visit, was because they ate such good, wholesome food and were not allowed to spoil their appet.i.tes with candy.

Once a week they had candy, and then it seemed all the nicer because it was such a treat. A little old woman kept a candy store some little distance down the street, and the girls were allowed to go down there Sat.u.r.day mornings and buy five cents" worth of candy. This little old woman was quite famous among the scholars for her mola.s.ses cocoanut candy, and they almost always bought that kind of candy.

As Ruby said to her Aunt Emma after she had been to school a few Sat.u.r.days,--

"It looks very nice, and is good, and then you get more of it for five cents than any other kind of candy, so it is really the best kind to buy, you see."

The old woman always expected Miss Chapman"s young ladies every Sat.u.r.day, and had nice little bags of candy all tied up, ready for them, so that she should not keep them waiting; and if the day was stormy, and she knew that they would not be allowed to go out, she took a covered basketful of candy-bags up to the school, that they might make their purchases there.

Sat.u.r.day morning was a very pleasant one at school. There was a short study hour, which was really a half-hour, and then the girls wrote letters home, or visited each other in their rooms.

In the afternoon they put on their very best dresses, and had a nicer supper than usual, and almost every Sat.u.r.day evening the minister and his wife came and took that meal with them.

He was not at all like the minister Ruby had known at home all her life, and whenever she looked at him, she wondered how it was possible for so young a man to be a minister. He never asked any of the girls whether they knew the catechism or not, and Ruby was quite disappointed at this, though I do not think any of the other girls wanted to say it.

Ruby was so sure that she knew it perfectly, even the longest and hardest answers, that she was always glad of a chance to show how well she knew it. Perhaps if the others had known it as well, they might have been willing to say it, but as it was, they were quite satisfied that he never asked for it; and Maude, who did not know a word of it, and who had all she could do to learn what her teachers required of her, would have been quite discouraged, I am afraid, if the recitation of the catechism each week had been added to her other tasks.

CHAPTER XXII.

SUNDAY AT SCHOOL.

Sunday morning the scholars slept nearly an hour longer than usual, and this was looked upon as a great treat, particularly in the winter months when it was scarcely light before seven. It seemed very early rising to get up by lamp-light, and all the girls were quite ready to take the extra hour of sleep upon Sunday mornings.

After breakfast, which was always nicer than upon other days, when they had made their rooms tidy, and prepared themselves for church, all but their coats and hats, Miss Chapman called them down to the school-room to study a Bible lesson for half an hour.

By this time the church bell would begin to ring, and they would go up to their rooms and get ready to start, and then the little procession would start out just as they did when they went to walk, only, instead of one of the girls walking at the head, Miss Chapman and Miss Ketchum were there, and the girls followed them.

It was a very short walk, just across the street, so it was not necessary to start until the second bell had begun to ring. The girls would have been very glad if it had been a little longer walk, but it only took two or three minutes to walk down to the crossing at the corner, and then go across to the pretty vine-covered church.

Miss Chapman had one rule that none of the girls liked at all, and yet it was one for which they were all very glad when they had grown older, and did not have to follow it unless they wished.