When Sarah Went to School

Across the angle of the post-and-rail fence at the lower corner of the Wenners' yard, a board had been laid, and behind the board stood a short, slender, bright-eyed young girl, her hands busy with an assortment of small articles spread out before her. There were a few glass beads, a string of buttons, half a dozen small, worn toys, a basket of early apples, and a plate of crullers. When they were arranged to her satisfaction, she took an apple in one hand and a cruller in the other, and, climbing the fence, perched on the upper rail and began to eat.

Before she had taken more than two bites an extraordinary procession appeared round the corner of the house. Ellen Louisa, one of the Wenner twins, dressed in a long gingham dress of her sister-in-law's, leaned affectionately upon the arm of the other twin, Louisa Ellen, who wore with ludicrous effect a coat and hat of their brother William's. Clinging to Louisa Ellen's hand was a small fat boy. They solemnly approached the improvised store.

"Is any one at home in this store?" asked Louisa Ellen in a gruff voice.

The proprietress slid down from the top of the fence. She spoke carefully, but she did not quite succeed in disguising her Pennsylvania-German accent.

"Well, sir, what is it to-day?"

"I want--" It was Ellen Louisa, who spoke in a simpering tone--"I want a penny's worth of what you can get the most of for a penny, missis. I want it for my little boy. Apples will do. He has it sometimes in his stomach, and--"

A loud crash interrupted Ellen Louisa's account of Albert's delicate constitution. He had seized the propitious moment for the purloining of two crullers, and in order to establish his ownership, had taken a large bite out of each. It was the storekeeper's quick grab which brought the counter to the ground, and mingled all the wares in wild confusion on the grass.

Albert looked frightened. When, instead of scolding, Sarah dropped to her knees and helped him gather up the toys, he stared at her, bewildered.

"You'd catch it if I wasn't going to the Normal to-morrow to be learned!" said Sarah. "But to-day is a special day. What shall we play next?"

The twins swiftly shed their superfluous garments, and became two thin little girls, who could scarcely be told apart. Their plaid gingham aprons waved in the breeze as they danced about.

"Let us play 'Uncle Daniel,'" they cried together.

Even sixteen-year-old Sarah hopped up and down at the brilliancy of the suggestion. Uncle Daniel Swartz was their mother's brother, who lived on the next farm. After their mother and father had died, and their older brother had apparently disappeared into the frozen North, whither he had gone to seek his fortune, Uncle Daniel, who had long coveted the fine farm, had attempted to divide the little family and add the fertile acres to his own. It was Sarah who had stubbornly opposed him, holding bravely out until William had come home. William had married pretty Miss Miflin, the district-school teacher, and, giving up his plans for further adventure, had settled down to become a truck farmer. Already he was succeeding beyond his rosiest hopes.

Both he and his wife were anxious that Sarah should go to school, and all the summer Laura had been helping her to recall the small knowledge she had had before heavy care and responsibility had taken her from the district school. To-morrow she was to enter the sub-Junior class of the Normal School, which William and Laura had attended. Laura had corresponded with the principal, Doctor Ellis, and had engaged Sarah's room. It had been a busy summer. Sarah had kept up her Geography after she had left school, but in other branches she had needed a good deal of tutoring.

No one who saw her now, in her wild game with the twins, would have guessed that she had ever had any care or responsibility. She assumed first the character of Uncle Daniel; she told the twins that they must go to live with Aunt Mena, she tried to entice Albert away. Then she was Uncle Daniel's hired man, Jacob Kalb, who had translated his name to Calf, because he was anxious to be thought English. In this rôle she was pursued round the barn by the twins, who brandished an old, disabled gun, which in Sarah's hands had once terrified Jacob Kalb.

Once, in this delightful game, they passed close to the fence beyond which Jacob himself was working. Sarah balanced for a second on the upper rail.

"Jacob Calf, You make me laugh!"

she shrieked, and then jumped down backward. The twins held the gun aloft, screaming with delight.

The game closed with a scene in the Orphans' Court, where Uncle Daniel demanded that he be made their guardian, and where William returned at exactly the proper and dramatic moment.

"And now," announced Sarah breathlessly, when it was all over, "I am going to say good-by to everything."

A feeling of solemnity fell suddenly upon the twins and Albert. Who would be storekeeper on the morrow? Who would be Uncle Daniel and Jacob Kalb and the judge of the Orphans' Court in swift succession? Who would help them with their lessons? Who would defend them if Uncle Daniel should ever come threatening again? Who would draw bears and tigers and "nelephunts" and all manner of birds and beasts? "May we go fishing?" they would ask Sister Laura, and Sister Laura would answer, "Yes, if Sarah will go with you." "May we write with ink?"--"Yes, if Sarah will spread some newspapers on the table, and sit beside you with her book." Would these treats be forbidden them? Or would they be allowed to do as they chose? But even independence would be distasteful without Sarah. Each twin seized her by the hand.

"It is a long time till Christmas," mourned Louisa Ellen.

"_Ach_, stay by us!" wailed Ellen Louisa.

"And grow up to be like Jacob Calf!" cried Sarah derisively. "I guess not! I am going to be a teacher, and if you ever get in my school, then look out! You will then find out once if you don't study. I will then learn you Latin and Greek and Algebray and more things than you ever heard of in the world, Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen. You would like to grow up like the fishes in the crick. Good-by, crick!" Sarah drew her hands away from the twins, and dabbled them in the cool, fresh water. "Good-by, fishes! Good-by, bridge! Good-by, bushes! Why, Ellen Louisa! Louisa Ellen!" Sarah looked at them with an expression of comical surprise. Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa were crying. "Stop it this minute!" She seized Albert by the hand. Albert had already opened his mouth, preparatory to joining his sisters in a wail. "Albert and I will beat you to the barn."

"One for the money, Two for the show, Three to make ready, And four to go!"

Louisa Ellen and Ellen Louisa did not stop to dry their tears, but scampered over the ground like young colts, their skirts flying. When Albert and Sarah got to the door, the twins had vanished, and there ensued a game of hide and seek such as the old barn had never smiled upon. Sarah climbed about like a monkey. She seemed to be in half a dozen places at once. The twins thought she was downstairs in one of the mangers, when suddenly her voice was heard from the top of the haymow. They played tag on the barn-floor, they sang, they danced, with Sarah always in the lead. It was certain that the stately Normal School would open its doors on the morrow to no such hoyden as this.