“I’m glad indeed that I did it,” Miss Dearborn put in, “but, of course, when the Andersons moved back to their Iowa farm and you were the only pupil we closed that coast highway school and had our lessons here, and such an inspiration as they have been to me, Jenny Warner! I just know that you are leading up to an expression of gratitude. I’ve heard it time and again and I do appreciate it, dear girl, but now that you know the great loneliness that was in my heart when I came West, you will readily understand that having you to teach filled a void, filled it beautifully, and so, I also have a deep sense of gratitude toward you.”
“And two years ago,” Jenny continued retrospectively, “when we completed the work of the sixth grade, you can’t think how unhappy I was, for I supposed that at last I would have to leave you and go by bus each day to the Santa Barbara Junior High, and I never shall forget that wonderful day when you told me you had received permission to teach me through the eighth grade.”
Miss Dearborn laughed happily. “What I never told you, Jenny, was that the board of education insisted that I take an examination at their State Normal to prove to them that I knew enough to teach one lone pupil the higher grade work. I brushed up evenings and passed creditably.”
Impulsively the girl pressed the woman’s hand to her cheek. “Oh, Miss Dearborn,” she exclaimed tremulously, “to think that you did all that just for me.”
“Wrong you are, Jenny girl!” the woman sang out. “I did it first of all for Catherine Dearborn. I felt a panic in my heart I had not dreamed possible when I thought that I was to be left all alone, day in and day out, with only memory for company. I wanted to keep you, to teach you, to love you, and I did keep you, but now along comes a letter from the same board of education. If we thought they had forgotten us, we are mistaken. That’s my news about you.”
Opening a small drawer in the end of the table, Miss Dearborn took out a letter and read:
“Miss Jenny Warner will be required to take the entrance examination in all the subjects at the High School of Santa Barbara during the week of June 10th. The results of these tests will determine where she is to continue her studies.”
The girl’s lovely face was the picture of dismay. “Oh, Miss Dearborn, I can’t! I can’t! I’d be simply frightened to death to even enter the door of that imposing building, and if any of the pupils as much as spoke to me, I’d simply expire.” Her teacher laughed. “Nonsense!” she declared. “Not only must my pupil enter the door but she must pass the tests with high grades if I am to be permitted to teach her another year.”
Then to change the girl’s thought, Miss Dearborn continued brightly: “Saturday is our mythology day, isn’t it? But since you came late and we have spent so much time visiting, we will not go up into the hills as we usually do for this lesson. Let me see. Weren’t you to write something about Apollo, Diana and Echo that I might know if you fully understand just what each stands for in poetry and art?”
“Oh, Miss Dearborn,” Jenny laughed as she drew a paper from her book, “I don’t know what you will say about the composition I tried to write. It isn’t good, I know, but I ever so much wanted to write it in verse. Shall you mind my trying?” The girl’s manner was inquiring and apologetic at the same time.
“Of course not,” was the encouraging reply. “We all reach an age when we want to write our thoughts in rhyme. Read it to me.”
And so timidly Jenny began:
Gray mists veil the dawn of day,
Silver winged they speed away,
When across a road of gold
In his shining chariot rolled
Young Apollo. Day’s fair King
Bids the birds awake and sing!
Robin, skylark, linnet, thrush
From each glen and flower-glad bush
Burst their throats with warbles gay
To welcome back the King of Day.
Diana, huntress, Apollo’s twin,
Standing in a forest dim,
A quiver on one shoulder fair
Filled with arrows. (In her hair
A moonlike crescent.) Calls her hounds
To new adventures with them bounds,
While lovely Echo in the hill,
Though grieving for Narcissus still,
Must need call back their song or bay,
And so is dawned a glad new day.
Miss Dearborn smiled as she commented: “Dear girl, there is no need to blush about this, your first effort at verse. I am going to suggest that you write all of your compositions on this poetical subject in rhyme. Keep them and let us see how much better the last will be than the first.” Then after a thoughtful moment: “Dawn is a subject much loved by the poets.”
Then she quoted from Byron:
“The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom;
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn
(Living as if earth contained no tomb)
And glowing into day.”
“Oh, Miss Dearborn,” was Jenny’s enthusiastic comment, “how happy I will be when my memory holds as many poems as you know. It will add to the loveliness of every scene to know what some poet has thought about one that was similar.”
“You are right, dear, it does.” Then rising, Miss Dearborn said: “Come with me to the porch dining room. I hear the kettle calling us to afternoon tea.”
CHAPTER VIII.
AN ADVENTURE FILLED DAY
It was late afternoon when Jenny returned from Miss Dearborn’s home high in the foothills. As she drove up the long lane leading to the farmhouse, she saw three young ladies from Granger Place Seminary on horseback cantering along the highway toward the mansion-like home of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones. She was too far away, however, to be sure that among them was the girl whom she believed to be the daughter of the rich woman who owned the farm.
Going to the barn, Jenny unhitched Dobbin, patting him lovingly and chatting in a most intimate friendly manner as though she were sure that he understood.
“We’ve had a red letter day, haven’t we, Dob? First, early this morning we drove that poor Etta Heldt to the station and loaned her money to help her buy a ticket to Belgium.” Then, in silent meditation, the girl thought: “How I wish I had a magic carpet like that of The Little Lame Prince. I would love to be over on that quaint Belgian farm when the old people first see their granddaughter arriving.”
Then as she led the faithful horse out to the watering trough under a blossoming peach tree, another thought presented itself. “Dobbin.” she again addressed her companion, “now that we have loaned part of the honey and egg money, wouldn’t it be dreadful if Mrs. Poindexter-Jones should decide to sell this farm?” She sighed. “Though I suppose that hundred dollars wouldn’t go very far toward buying it.” For a contemplative moment the girl gazed across the meadow where a pale green of early grain was beginning to show, and then at the picturesque old adobe partly hidden by the blossoming orchard. It was all the home she had ever known and it was