On Agate Hill (25 page)

“What? What’s this?” Dr. Snow stuck his head in the classroom door, & the jig was up.

Thus I have yielded, deferred to him as in all things, yet it is a bitter blow, undermining my Authority with Sister Agnes & with my Staff now containing
four new teachers who must know not what to think. Am I the Director of this Academy, or am I not? Molly Petree has been moved into a dormitory room with Emma Belle Page, a minister’s daughter from Goldsboro; Courtney Leigh Lutz, a reliable girl who has been with us for years; Jemima Jane Peeler, the most musical of all my girls; Eliza Valiant, the friendliest & gayest; & Phoebe Taylor, who ought to be a good influence at least! We shall see how Miss Petree likes to have so much companionship! And we shall see how the girls like her—a development I await with great trepidation though I must say, so far her Deportment has been restrained & exemplary as far as I can tell. I have had no bad reports. Her marks are excellent. Indeed, Olive Reid has switched her from Composition to Advanced English Studies. She seems neat in her habits and assiduous in her daily chore of trimming the lamps. So far, so good. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Yet there is something hidden, something sly and held back about her. I shall keep watching her closely.

But now to the bath, at last.

Mariah Rutherford Snow
Headmistress, Gatewood Academy
Hopewell, Virginia

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September 19, 1873

Found Washing & Ironing unfinished & badly done, found Mahala tipsy again, do not know where she gets it. She was laughing! Surely negroes are a lower order of being altogether, this is readily apparent, though one cannot say it, of course. There were Slaves in the Bible, after all. I shall dismiss her as soon as a suitable Replacement can be found. I was forced to have Claude & Parker help out though they did a poor job being inexperienced, I am at
my wit’s end! Dear God, I am sorely tried. Violent headache, fear I shall miss Church.

Mariah Rutherford Snow
Headmistress, Gatewood Academy
Hopewell, Virginia

“Impressions”

As duly recorded by Agnes Rutherford

To the attention of Mrs. Mariah Snow
,

Headmistress, Gatewood Academy

September 22, 1873

My Dear Sister,

I have a very interesting story to tell you as regards Molly Petree.

Today as you know was the younger girls’ picnic to Onaluskee Mountain, accompanied by myself, the new Miss Vest, and Olive Reid. We took the omnibus with Claude at the reins, plus a hack from the livery stable, as usual. The girls sang all the way; I thought we should all go deaf (though they were ably led and encouraged by Laura Vest who is scarcely more than a girl herself).

We traveled up the gentle incline of the mountain road beneath the arch of trees, at length reaching the overlook where we spread our cloths and cushions upon the flat gray rocks quite warm from the sun, and looked out upon the countryside. “See, there is the Academy,” said Olive Reid, who pointed out the sights and passed her telescope around. The girls fell upon their fried chicken and gingerbread, eating ravenously, and I did not have the heart to comment upon their manners or slow them down. There is something about
a meal taken en plein air which always activates the appetite, I have noticed. But Molly Petree took her food and repaired to a spot beside a great pine tree a bit distant from the others, though she had sung as lustily as the rest . . . at length I joined her, surprised to find that she had left half her food upon her plate, and seemed pensive.

“What is it, dear? Is anything the matter?” I asked.

She sighed mightily. “No . . . ,” she said. “Only this makes me think of Agate Hill, this view. I miss Spencer,” she added. Spencer is the giant’s name. This was the first time I had ever heard her mention “home,” though the others speak constantly of their families, their pets, their brothers and sisters, etcetera.

I squeezed her hand. “A bit of homesickness is to be expected,” I said. “Come, let’s join the others. Look, they are making daisy chains.”

“Molly! Where have you been?” Mime Peeler scooted over to make room for Molly, showing her how to split the stems and intertwine the daisies. Soon all the girls were wearing daisy crowns.

“Now let’s make a really long chain,” somebody said, and they started in on that, each one creating a section.

Olive Reid, never one to miss an educational opportunity, began to tell the girls that the word flora, which designates flowers and plants, comes from Flora, the goddess of flowers; while fauna, meaning animal life, comes from the fauns of classical mythology.

I drew back, struck by the beauty of this scene, very like a French painting, with the girls’ bright skirts and beribboned straw hats set vividly against the green grass and flat gray “table rocks” of the mountainside, the blue sky above, and back at the edge of the clearing, the thick old forest.
How sweet this is!
I thought. And yet I could see what they could not see, dark stacked clouds rising rapidly over the brow of the mountain behind them. I was reminded of how fast youth flies, how soon these girls—including the young Laura Vest—shall be ladies with pressing duties and girls of their own, ladies who cannot while away long afternoons in an alpine meadow. This thought brought tears to my eyes, Mariah. I thought of you who never had such a
carefree girlhood yet have fashioned it for so many others. And I confess I cried a tear for myself as well, the little shepherdess of the alpine meadow, who will remain at the Academy long after these girls and other girls have come and gone, for it came to me in that instant that I shall be neither wife nor mother, that I shall grow old here, like Bessie Barwick, and become a character. Olive Reid began to tell the story of how the ancient Greek gods became supreme, led by Jupiter. “He lived with his daughters, the Muses, and their famous winged horse Pegasus, upon Mount Olympus, which might have looked something like
this
mountain,” she added.

“Oh, we already know all about the Muses!” Ida, the younger of the Brown girls, announced scornfully. “We went to a tableau vivant about them last year in Hillsborough, didn’t we, Adeline?”

“What is a tableau vivant?” Courtney Leigh Lutz comes from an old plantation outside Reidsville; she is one of our loveliest and least worldly students.

“You don’t know what a tableau vivant is?” Ida Brown turned to see who could possibly be so backward.

But this question was not answered, for just then Molly Petree looked up from the daisy chain on her lap. “Why, I went to that too!” she exclaimed as if involuntarily, then turned rueful and red-faced, and bit her lip, and looked down.

It was too late.

“Why, we know you, don’t we?” cried Adeline, standing up. “Look, Ida, it’s that poor girl, that bad girl from out in the country—”

“You mean the one who pushed you down the stairs?” Ida cried.

“Yes—she’s the orphan girl, don’t you remember? The one whose daddy married the whore.”

Needless to say, these words produced a sensation, with all the girls craning their necks to look at Molly. Before any of us faculty members could think what to do or say, Adeline and Ida Brown were prancing around the outside of the daisy circle chanting, “Orphan! Orphan! We know you’re an orphan!”

Molly turned brick red; she kept looking down.

“Bad girl! Orphan!” the Brown girls sang.

“Well, what if she is an orphan?” cried Eliza Valiant, leaping to her feet. “What’s wrong with that? Aren’t we supposed to be kind to orphans?”

“That’s right,” said the exemplary Phoebe Taylor, “and it’s wrong to make fun of people. It’s not Christian, is it, Sister Agnes?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “You Brown girls sit back down.”

“Come on, Molly,” said Emma Page. “Race you to the bridge and back!”

Molly jumped up and they all took off in a flash, hats and links of daisy chain scattered about on the grass. The Brown girls linked arms, pouting, while Olive, Laura, and I hid our pleased giggles as best we could. The girls had just reached the old swinging bridge when thunder began to roll; big raindrops spattered the rocks as they ran back, squealing. We all rushed round packing up the picnic things and got thoroughly drenched in the process though no one minded. All were in a great good humor singing “The Old Gray Mare” on the way back to the Academy, wet curls plastered to their foreheads. Finally, even Ida and Adeline Brown joined in.

The result of this escapade is: never has a moral lesson been better taught, Mariah, charity and kindness to one’s neighbor having ruled the day thanks to the aptly named Miss Valiant. I do not believe this issue need be addressed any further with any of these girls, even Ida and Adeline. For their revelation has had the opposite effect from their intentions. Now everybody vies for Molly Petree’s friendship. Both Emma and Phoebe insisted upon helping her trim the lamps this morning before church. At exercise time, Eliza Valiant and Molly strolled arm in arm then whirled round and round upon the flying jenny until I feared they should both lose their sense of balance permanently (which they did not).

Indeed, our orphan Molly Petree is become the pet and darling of them all.

And I remain

Your Devoted,
Agnes

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September 26, 1873

Ah, it is like those Chinese Boxes within boxes—for dear Sister Agnes’s report has had quite the opposite effect upon me from what SHE intended. I DO NOT want Molly Petree to thrive, there, it is out! I know not why. Overnight she has gone from being sullen to obstreperous. She does not know her Place; she does not appreciate her Good Fortune. Now—now, her True Nature comes out. As does mine.

Mariah Rutherford Snow
Headmistress, Gatewood Academy
Hopewell, Virginia

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November 13, 1873

If I could sleep, if I could but sleep instead of awakening so early assailed by such troublesome thoughts and dreams as I shall not attempt to write here lest I legitimize them, evil Phantoms of the Night. Oh I am Vile, to think such thoughts as these. Yet they will not leave me though I pray to God for Deliverance. Why, why will He not come to me, and bring me His Peace? Patience, Mariah, I counsel myself, yet I have no Patience. I know I do not deserve Him. I am ungrateful, I am impatient, I am full of temper and evil thoughts, I do not deserve His intervention, to ask for it at all is doubtless a sin of Pride.