BESIDES Lucy’s studies at home, she went to school, where she had other studies to attend to. The school was a small one, including the children of only one or two families, and was kept in a room which opened into a large and beautiful garden, as is more fully described in the book called LUCY’S STORIES. To go to this school, the children went through a gate on the street, and then, passing through a green alley, they went around a corner, with trees, flowers, and shrubbery on each side, to the garden, and there, up stairs, was the school-room. There were not many children there. But, besides the teacher, there was a girl about fifteen, whom the children generally called Mary Jay. She could not walk very well, for she was very lame; but her countenance had a very mild and beautiful expression, and she was always very kind to the children. She used to read them stories out of a great book of stories, which she had written, and which she called the Morocco Book.
The reason why Mary Jay went to the school, was because she wanted to learn to be a teacher herself; and all the children thought that she would make a very excellent teacher. For she often heard the scholars recite their lessons, and explained their difficulties; and the children liked to go to her very much. She was very gentle and kind, and yet she always made them obey. In fact, they liked to obey. One day, when they were going home from school, Lucy said to her,—
“When are you going to have a school of your own, Mary Jay?”
“Why?” said Mary Jay; “why do you wish to know?”
“Because,” said Lucy, “I mean to come and be one of your scholars.”
“Well,” said Mary Jay, “the school which we go to now, isn’t going to be kept but two or three weeks longer, and then you may come to the house where I live, and be my scholar.”
“I don’t know where the house is that you live in,” said Lucy.
“You know the road that leads to the mill,” said Mary Jay.
“Yes,” said Lucy.
“And do you remember a guide-post, at the foot of a hill, fastened to a great tree?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “with bridge and two mills written on it.”
“Two miles,” said Mary Jay, “not mills. It says that to the bridge it is two miles. Did you think it was mills?”
“Yes,” replied Lucy; “I thought it meant that that road led to a place where there was a bridge and two mills.”
“O no,” said Mary Jay, laughing. “It means that it is two miles to the bridge. The house that I live in, is about a half a mile along that road.”
As Mary Jay said this, they reached the place where the road to the house, which Lucy lived in, turned away from the road which Mary Jay was to take. So Lucy bade her good bye; and Mary Jay, after resting a moment upon her crutch, looking at Lucy as she walked along, turned away into her own road, and Lucy saw her no more.
That evening, however, Lucy told her mother what Mary Jay had said. Her mother inquired about it, and found that it was true that the school where Lucy had been admitted was to be closed in a few weeks, because the family where it had been kept were going away, and it wasn’t to be opened again until the next spring. But there were to be three more months of pleasant weather; and so Lucy’s mother went to see Mary Jay, and made an arrangement with her to take Lucy for a scholar.
Accordingly, a few days after this, Lucy set off, one morning, with Royal to guide her, to go to Mary Jay’s house, to begin at her new school. They walked along very pleasantly together, Royal carrying Lucy’s slate and book for her, in a green satchel. When they came to the guide-board, Lucy stopped to examine it more particularly. She found it was miles, not mills.
“You might have known,” said Royal, “by there being no and. If it had meant two mills, it would have been, bridge and two mills.”
“Then it means,” said Lucy, “that it is two miles to the bridge down this road.”
“Yes,” said Royal.
“How far is two miles?” asked Lucy.
“O, it isn’t very far,” said Royal. “I can walk two miles easily enough.”
“I should like to see the bridge,” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Royal. “Some day we will take a walk down and see it.”
So Royal and Lucy walked on. After a time, the road turned a little, coming round a pretty green hill covered with trees; and on the other side of it, there came into view a small farm-house, painted white, with a garden on one side, and a few small sheds and barns upon the other. Between the house and the garden there was a little gate, and a path leading up to a door in the end of the house; and there was quite a pleasant little grass yard in front of the door, with the garden gate on the opposite side of it.
“There,” said Royal, “that is Mary Jay’s house.”
“Is that it?” said Lucy; “what a pleasant house! Do you think she will let me go in that garden?”
“No,” said Royal, “not she.”
“Why not?” said Lucy.
“O, because you’d pull up the flowers, and trample on the beds. They don’t let children go in such pretty gardens as that.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “I shouldn’t trample on the beds, I am sure. I should be very careful.”
“Well,” replied Royal, “you’ll see whether she’ll let you go in her garden. But now you can find your way to the door, and I am going back.”
“No, Royal,” said Lucy; “you must come and knock for me.”
“O no,” replied Royal; “you must knock for yourself.”
“I can’t knock hard enough,” said Lucy; “besides, I am afraid.”
Royal only laughed at Lucy’s fears, and said he only came to show her the way, and not to knock for her. But he did wrong. He ought to have been willing to have gone up to the door with her, since she wished it; but he would not.
He, however, finally consented to remain where he was, to watch and see whether she got in safely.
So Lucy took her satchel and walked along, while Royal sat down upon a stone by the roadside, to watch her progress.
There was a little gate next to the street, which Lucy would have to pass through in going up to the door. There were two large lilac bushes hanging over the gate, one on each side. When she came to it, she found it fastened by a kind of wooden latch; and at first she did not know how to open it. She turned around, and beckoned to Royal to come and help her; but Royal sat still. He thought that she might have climbed over, if she couldn’t open the gate.
There was another large gate beyond the house, which seemed to lead from the street into a yard, where the little barns and sheds were; and Lucy had a great mind to go in there, for the large gate was open. But she was afraid that there might be some cows in there; and besides, she did not know that there was any door leading into the house around that way; so she tried once more to open the gate. This time she succeeded; the gate came open, and Lucy, much relieved, went through, and shut it after her.
She walked along the path, toward the door. Before the door there was a large stone step, of irregular form, but smooth upon the top. There was a rose-bush on each side of the step. One of the rose-bushes was very large. There were apple-trees in the garden, and Lucy thought she saw a bird’s nest on one of them.
Lucy knocked gently and timidly at the door; but nobody heard her. Then she knocked again, a little louder. She listened, and presently she thought she heard somebody coming. A moment after, the door opened, and a little girl, who yet seemed to be considerably older than she was herself, appeared. She smiled when she saw Lucy, as if she knew her, but did not speak. She opened the door wide, and Lucy went in.
Then Royal, who had been all this time sitting upon the stone by the roadside, watching Lucy’s motions, as soon as he saw that Lucy had gone in, and that the door was shut, and that there was nothing more for him to do, got up from his seat, and walked away towards home.
The girl who had opened the door for Lucy, conducted her along through a kind of sitting-room, into a little bed-room, where Lucy found Mary Jay sitting at a window at work.
“Ah! Lucy,” said Mary Jay, “I am glad to see you; how did you find your way?”
“Royal showed me,” said Lucy.
“I expected that Royal would show you the way; but where is he?”
“He did not come quite here,” said Lucy, “but stopped out in the road; and now I suppose that he has gone home.”
“O, I am sorry that he didn’t come in. He would have liked to see our bird’s nest.”
“Have you got a bird’s nest?” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Mary Jay, “with three young birds in it. And there is a little ladder, so that we can climb up very easily and see it. But you may take off your bonnet and put it away. You’ll find a nail to hang it upon in that closet.”
Mary Jay pointed to a closet door, which Lucy opened, and found there two nails, driven on purpose for her, low enough for her to reach. She put her bonnet upon one, and hung her satchel upon the other, after having taken out her book and slate. Then Lucy went back to Mary Jay.
“There,” said Mary Jay, “look there, and see what a table I have prepared for you.”
Lucy looked where Mary Jay pointed. There were two chairs placed near the window, with a board passing across from one chair to the other. The board was pretty wide, but not very long. It was smooth, and it looked very new. One end of the board rested upon one chair, and the other end upon the other chair, so that it made a sort of table. There was a small chair with a seat made of a kind of basket work, before this table. Lucy knew at once that this little chair was for her.
“Is that my table?” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Mary Jay, “or desk; you may call it your desk, if you please.”
Lucy sat down at her desk, and she said she liked it very much. She put her book and slate before her, and found that the board was just high enough for her.
“Now,” continued Mary Jay, “that will be your place to study; but the place to keep your books after you have done studying is on a shelf in the closet. You may go and see if you can find it.”
So Lucy went to the closet again. She found a small shelf there, pretty low, so that she could not only reach it, to put things on and take them off, but she could see all over it.
There was an inkstand upon this shelf, and a ruler and a pencil.
“Whose inkstand, and ruler, and pencil, are these, Mary Jay, on my shelf?” said Lucy.
“They are yours,” said Mary Jay.
“I don’t suppose I ought to call you Mary Jay,” said Lucy, “now you are my teacher.”
“Yes,” said Mary Jay, “call me by that name, just as you always have done.”
“Am I going to write with pen and ink?” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Mary Jay.
“But I don’t know how to write with pen and ink,” said Lucy.
“That’s the very reason why I got them for you, so that you might learn. Children don’t come to school to do what they know how to do already.”
“Well,” said Lucy.
So Lucy came away from her closet, and sat down before her desk.
“What am I going to learn first?”
“Why, the first thing I want you to learn, is to go alone a little.”
“To go alone?” repeated Lucy.
“Yes,” replied Mary Jay, “intellectually.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said Lucy.
“Why, you know, when children are very little, they cannot walk at all without somebody to take hold of their hands and lead them. After a while, they learn to go alone. Now, when they first come to school, it is just so with their progress in study. They can’t go alone at all. The teacher has to lead them all the way. After a time, they get along a little way, so that they can study by themselves a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, and, by and by, an hour, without any help; and this is what I call going alone. Now, when a scholar gets so as to go alone a little in her studies, it is a great deal easier to teach her.
“Now,” continued Mary Jay, “my plan is for you to study half an hour by yourself, if I can only contrive lessons which you can understand without help for so long a time; and that is what I call going alone.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I will try.”
“Now,” added Mary Jay, “your first lesson shall be to make figures on your slate. I will set you a copy.”
So Mary Jay took Lucy’s slate, and, with the ruler and the slate pencil, she ruled a line along the top of it, and then made a number of figures, very neatly and carefully, for Lucy to copy. She told Lucy to take the ruler, and sit down at her desk, and rule another line, and then to make some figures exactly like the copy, and then to rule another line, and so on down the slate.
“I want to see,” said Mary Jay, “if you can keep yourself busy doing that, without saying a word to me, for half an hour. That will be going alone. When the half-hour is out, I will let you have a recess.”
Lucy tried, but she did not succeed very well. She could not rule her lines straight, and she wanted to come and show them to Mary Jay. Then, whenever she made a bad figure, she would sigh, and exclaim, “O dear me! how hard it is!” If she made a good figure, she wanted to jump up, and come and show it to Mary Jay. When the time was about half out, she was very thirsty, and she wanted Mary Jay to go out and get her a drink of water. In reply to all her questions and complaints, Mary Jay always told her to wait until the half-hour was out, and she would attend to her. Even for the drink of water, she told her that she must wait until the recess.
When the time which Mary Jay had assigned to Lucy had expired, she said to her,—
“Now, Lucy, it is time for recess. So you may leave your slate upon the desk, and go out and play a little while.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “only may I first come and show you what I have done?”
“No,” said Mary Jay, “not till after the recess.”
“Then shall I go and put my slate away first, upon my shelf?”
“No,” said Mary Jay, “not till after recess. When you get any directions from your teacher, you must obey them exactly.”
“Where shall I go to play?” said Lucy.
“O, you may go out into the yard and garden, and see what you can find to amuse yourself with.”