Alethea-Belle

In the early 1880s, when my brother Ajax and I were raising cattle in the foothills of Southern California, our ranch house served as a stopping place for teamsters hauling freight across the Coast Range. After the boom began, while the village of Paradise was being built from rough timber, we had to provide board and lodging for all who came. Hardly a day passed without a canvas-covered wagon creaking into our corral, and the quiet canyons where we had once hunted quail and deer began to echo with the shouts of children from the rough folk of the Midwest and Missouri. These settlers, called "Pikers," took up land on the sagebrush hills to the south and east, claiming all they could from the government. Before spring was over, we were asked to lend an old adobe building to the village fathers as a schoolhouse until a proper one could be built. At that time, a New England family named Spafford worked for us. Mrs.

Spafford, with two children of her own, tried to win our sympathy.

"I'm tired of cooking and teaching," she told us, "and the hot weather is coming. You ought to let them have that old adobe."

"But who will teach the children?" we asked.

"We've fixed that," said Mrs. Spafford. "It's not everyone who would come into this wilderness, but my auntie's cousin, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, is willing to take the job."

"Is she able?" we asked doubtfully.

"She's her father's daughter," Mrs. Spafford replied. "Abram Buchanan was as fine and brave a man as ever preached the Gospel. And clever, too. My sakes, he never did but one foolish thing, and that was when he married his wife."

"Tell us about her," said Ajax, who was an inveterate gossip.

Mrs. Spafford sniffed. "I saw her once—that was once too much for me. One of those lackadaisical, wear-a-wrapper-in-the-morning, soft, pulpy Southerners. Pretty—yes, in a spindling, pink-and-white, soon-washed-out pattern, but without backbone. I have no patience with such."

"Her daughter won't be able to halter-break these wild colts."

"Didn't I say that Alethea-Belle takes after her father? She must have considerable snap and nerve, for she's spent the last year, since Abram died, selling books in this state."

"A book agent?"

"Yes, sir, a book agent."

If Mrs. Spafford had said road agent, meaning highwayman in California, we could not have been more surprised. A successful book agent must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the guile of a serpent, the obstinacy of a mule, and the persuasive notes of a nightingale.

"If Miss Buchanan has been a book agent, she'll do," said Ajax.

She arrived at Paradise on the ramshackle old stagecoach late one Saturday afternoon. Ajax and I carried her small hair-trunk into the ranch house; Mrs. Spafford received her. We retreated to the corrals.

The stage had pulled away, leaving a cloud of dust. Alethea-Belle stood by the gate, a slight figure in a grey linen cloak, her face pale as the dust that covered it. She looked around with wide, grey eyes, taking in the rough buildings and the bare hills. Then she smoothed her dress and walked toward the house with a quiet, determined step.

As she passed us, she gave a small nod and a shy smile. Ajax and I exchanged glances.

"She'll never, never do," said Ajax.

"Never," said I.

Alethea-Belle looked about eighteen, and her face was white as the dust that lay thick upon her grey linen cloak. Under the cloak, we caught a glimpse of a thin, slab-chested figure. She wore thread gloves and said "I thank you" in a prim, New England accent.

"Depend upon it, she's had pie for breakfast ever since she was born," said Ajax, "and it's not agreed with her. She'll keep a foothill school in order just about two minutes—and no longer!"

At supper, however, she surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but the men—the rough teamsters, for instance—could not keep their eyes off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes, said grace; but to our first questions she replied, blushing, in timid monosyllables.

After supper, Mrs. Spafford and she washed up. Later, they brought their sewing into the sitting room. While we were trying to thaw the little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the floor. In an instant, Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran around the room and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Paradise to keep in order the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down from her chair.

"I'm scared to death of mice," she confessed. My brother Ajax scowled.

"Fancy sending that whey-faced little coward—here!" he whispered to me.

"Have you taught school before?" I asked.

"Oh yes, indeed," she answered, "and I know something of your foothill folks. I've been a book agent. Oh, indeed? You know that. Well, I did first-rate, but that was the book, which sold itself—a beautiful book. Maybe you know it—The Milk of Human Kindness? When we're better acquainted, I'd like to read you," she looked hard at Ajax, "some of my favorite passages."

"Thanks," said Ajax stiffly.

Next day was Sunday. At breakfast, the schoolmarm asked Ajax if there was likely to be a prayer meeting.

"A prayer meeting, Miss Buchanan?"

"It's the Sabbath, you know."

"Yes—er—so it is. Well, you see," he smiled feebly, "the cathedral isn't built yet."

"Why, what's the matter with the schoolhouse? I presume you're all church members?"

Her grey eyes examined each of us in turn, and each made confession. One of the teamsters was a Baptist; another a Latter-Day Adventist; the Spaffords were Presbyterians; we, of course, belonged to the Church of England.

"We ought to have a prayer meeting," said the little schoolmarm.

"Yes, we ought to," assented Mrs. Spafford.

"I can pray first-rate when I get started," said the Baptist teamster.

The prayer meeting took place. Afterwards, Ajax said to me: "She's very small, is Whey-face, but somehow she seemed to fill the adobe."

In the afternoon, we had an adventure that gave us further insight into the character and temperament of the new schoolmarm.

We all walked to Paradise across the home pasture, for Miss Buchanan was anxious to inspect the site—there was nothing else then—of the proposed schoolhouse. Her childlike simplicity and assurance in taking for granted that she would eventually occupy that unbuilt academy struck us as pathetic.

"I give her one week," said Ajax, "not a day more."

Coming back, we called a halt under some willows near the creek. The shade invited us to sit down.

"Are there snakes—rattlesnakes?" Miss Buchanan asked nervously.

"In the brush-hills—yes; here—no," replied my brother.

By a singular coincidence, the words were hardly out of his mouth when we heard the familiar warning, the whirring, never-to-be-forgotten sound of the beast known to the Indians as "death in the grass."

"Mercy!" exclaimed the schoolmarm, staring wildly about her. It is not easy to localize the exact position of a coiled rattlesnake by the sound of its rattle.

"Don't move!" said Ajax. "Ah, I see him! There he is! I must find a stick."

The snake was coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised its hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a willow; then he advanced.

"Oh!" entreated Miss Buchanan, "please don't go so near."

"There's no danger," said Ajax. "I've never been able to understand why rattlers inspire such terror. They can't strike except at objects within half their length, and one little tap, as you will see, breaks their backbone. Now watch! I'm going to provoke this chap to strike, and then I shall kill him."

He held the end of the stick about eighteen inches from the glaring, lidless eyes. With incredible speed, the poised head shot forth. Ajax laughed. The snake was recoiling, as he struck it on the neck. Instantly it writhed impotently. My brother set the heel of his heavy boot upon the skull, crushing it into the ground.

"Now let's sit down," said he.

"Hark!" said the little schoolmarm.

Another snake was rattling within a yard or two of the first.

"It's the mate," said I. "At this time of year they run in pairs. We ought to have thought of that."

"I'll have him in a jiffy," said my brother.

As he spoke, I happened to be watching the schoolmarm. Her face was painfully white, but her eyes were shining, and her lips were set above a small, resolute chin.

"Let me kill him," she said, in a low voice.

"You, Miss Buchanan?"

"Yes."

"It's easy enough, but one mustn't—er—miss."

"I shan't miss."

She took the willow stick from my brother's hand. Every movement of his she reproduced exactly, even to the setting of her heel upon the serpent's head. Then she smiled at us apologetically. "I hated to do it. I was scared to death, but I wanted to conquer that cowardly Belle. It's just as you say, they're killed mighty easy. If we could kill the Old Serpent as easy——" she sighed, not finishing the sentence.

Ajax, who has a trick of saying what others think, blurted out: "What do you mean by conquering—Belle?"

We sat down.

"My name is Alethea-Belle, a double name. Father wanted to call me Alethea; but mother fancied Belle. Father, you know, was a Massachusetts minister; mother came from way down south. She died when I was a child. She—she was not very strong, poor mother, but father," she spoke proudly, "father was the best man that ever lived."

All her self-consciousness had vanished. Somehow we felt that the daughter of the New England parson was speaking, not the child of the invertebrate Southerner.

"I had to take to selling books," she continued, speaking more to herself than to us, "because of Belle. That miserable girl got into debt. Father left her a little money. Belle squandered it sinfully on clothes and pleasure. She'd a rose silk dress——"

"A rose silk dress?" repeated Ajax.

"It was just too lovely—that dress," said the little schoolmarm, reflectively.

"Even Alethea could not resist it," said I.

She blushed, and her shyness, her awkwardness, returned. "Alethea had to pay for it," she replied primly. "I ask your pardon for speaking so foolishly and improperly of—myself."

After this, behind her back, Ajax and I invariably called her Alethea-Belle.

School began at nine sharp the next morning. We expected a large attendance, and were not disappointed. Some of the boys grinned broadly when Alethea-Belle appeared carrying books and maps. She looked absurdly small, very nervous, and painfully frail. The fathers present exchanged significant glances; the mothers sniffed. Alethea-Belle entered the names of her scholars in a neat ledger, and shook hands with each. Then she made a short speech.

"Friends," she said, "I'm glad to make your acquaintance. I shall expect my big boys and girls to set an example to the little ones by being punctual, clean, and obedient. We will now begin our exercises with prayer and a hymn. After that, the parents will please retire."

That evening, Alethea-Belle went early to bed with a raging headache. Next morning, she appeared whiter than ever, but her eyelids were red. However, she seemed self-possessed and even cheerful. Riding together across the range, Ajax said to me: "Alethea-Belle is scared out of her life."

"You mean Belle. Alethea is as brave as her father was before her."

"You're right. Poor little Belle! Perhaps we'd better find some job or other around the adobe this afternoon. There'll be ructions."

But the ructions did not take place that day. It seems that Alethea-Belle told her scholars she was suffering severely from headache. She begged them politely to be as quiet as possible. Perhaps amazement constrained obedience.

"These foothill imps will kill her," said Ajax.

Within a week, we knew that the big boys were becoming unmanageable, but no such information leaked from Alethea-Belle's lips. Each evening at supper we asked how she had fared during the day. Always she replied primly: "I thank you; I'm getting along nicely, better than I expected."

Mrs. Spafford, a peeper through doors and keyholes, explained the schoolmarm's methods. "I just happened to be passing by," she told me, "and I peeked in through the window. That great big hoodlum of a George Spragg was sassing Miss Buchanan and making faces at her. The crowd was whooping him up. In the middle of the uproar, she kneels down. 'O Lord,' says she, 'I pray Thee to soften the heart of poor George Spragg, and give me, a weak woman, the strength to prevail against his everlasting ignorance and foolishness!' George got the color of a beet, but he quit his fooling. Yes sir, she prays for them, and she coaxes them, and she never knows when she's beat; but they'll be too much for her. She's losing her appetite, and she don't sleep good. We won't be boarding her much longer."

But that night, as usual, when I asked Alethea-Belle how she did, she replied, in her prim, formal accents: "I'm doing real well, I thank you; much, much better than I expected."

Two days later, I detected a bruise upon her forehead. With great difficulty, I extracted the truth. Tom Eubanks had thrown an apple at the schoolmarm.

"And what did you do?"

Her grey eyes were unruffled, her delicately cut lips never smiled, as she replied austerely: "I told Thomas that I was sure he meant well, but that if a boy wished to give an apple to a lady, he ought to hand it politely, and not throw it. Then I ate the apple. It was a Newtown pippin, and real good. After recess, Thomas apologized."

"What did the brute say?"

"He is not a brute. He said he was sorry he'd thrown the pippin so hard."

Next day, I happened to meet Tom Eubanks. He had a basket of Newtown pippins for the schoolmarm. He was very red when he told me that Miss Buchanan liked apples. Apples at that time did not grow in the brush-hills.

Tom had bought them at the village store.

But Alethea-Belle grew thinner and whiter.

Just before the end of the term, the climax came. I happened to find the little schoolmarm crying bitterly in a clump of sagebrush near the water troughs.

"It's like this," she confessed presently: "I can't rid myself of that weak, hateful Belle. She's going to lie down soon, and let the boys trample on her; then she'll have to quit. And Alethea sees the Promised Land. Oh, oh! I do despise the worst half of myself!"

"The sooner you leave these young devils, the better."

"What do you say?"

She confronted me with flashing eyes. I swear that she looked beautiful. The angularities, the lack of color, the thin chest, the stooping back were effaced. I could not see them, because—well, because I was looking through them, far beyond them, at something else.

"I love my boys, my foothill boys; and if they are rough, brutal at times, they're strong." Her emphasis on the word was pathetic. "They're strong, and they're young, and they're poised for flight—now. To me, me, has been given the opportunity to direct that flight—upward, and if I fail them, if I quit——" She trembled violently.

"You won't quit," said I, with conviction.

"Tomorrow," said she, "they've fixed things for a real battle."

She refused obstinately to tell me more, and obtained a solemn promise from me that I would not interfere.

Afterwards, I got most of the facts out of George Spragg. Three of the biggest boys had planned rank mutiny. Doubtless they resented compulsory attendance at school, and with short-sighted policy, made certain that if they got rid of Alethea-Belle, the schoolhouse would be closed forever. And what chance could she have—one frail girl against three burly young giants?

A full attendance warned her that her scholars expected something interesting to happen. Boys and girls filed into the schoolroom quietly enough, and the proceedings opened with prayer, but not the usual prayer. Alethea-Belle prayed fervently that right might prevail against might, now, and forever. Amen.

Within a minute, the three mutineers had marched into the middle of the room. In loud, ear-piercing notes, they began to sing "Pull for the Shore." The girls giggled nervously; the boys grinned; several opened their mouths to sing, but closed them again as Alethea-Belle descended from the rostrum and approached the rebels. The smallest child knew that a fight to a finish had begun.

The schoolmarm raised her thin hand and her thin voice. No attention was paid to either. Then she walked swiftly to the door and locked it. The old adobe had been built at a time when Indian raids were common in Southern California. The door was of oak, very massive; the windows, narrow openings in the thick walls, were heavily barred. The children wondered what was about to happen. The three rebels sang with a louder, more defiant note as Alethea-Belle walked past them and onto the rostrum. Upon her desk stood a covered basket. Taking this in her hand, she came back to the middle of the room. The boys eyed her movements curiously. She carried, besides the basket, a cane. Then she bent down and placed the basket between herself and the boys. They still sang "Pull for the Shore," but faintly, feebly. They stared hard at the basket and the cane.

Alethea-Belle stood back, with a curious expression upon her white face; very swiftly, she flicked open the lid of the basket. Silence fell on the scholars.

Out of the basket, quite slowly and stealthily, came the head of a snake, a snake well known to the smallest child—known and dreaded. The flat head, the lidless, baleful eyes, the grey-green, diamond-barred skin of the neck were unmistakable.

"It's a rattler!" shrieked one of the rebels.

They sprang back; the other children rose, panic-stricken. The schoolmarm spoke very quietly: "Don't move! The snake will not hurt any of you."

As she spoke, she flicked again the lid of the basket. It fell on the head of the serpent. Alethea-Belle touched the horror, which withdrew. Then she picked up the basket, secured the lid, and spoke to the huddled, terrified crowd: "You tried to scare me, didn't you, and I have scared you." She laughed pleasantly, but with a faint inflection of derision, as if she knew, as she did, that the uncivilized children of the foothills, like their fathers, fear nothing on earth so much as rattlers and—ridicule. After a moment, she continued: "I brought this here today as an object lesson. You loathe and fear the serpent in this basket, as I loathe and fear the serpent which is in you." She caught the eyes of the mutineers and held them. "And," her eyes shone, "I believe that I have been sent to kill the evil in you, as I am going to kill this venomous beast. Stand back!"

They shrank back against the walls, open-eyed, open-mouthed, trembling. Alethea-Belle unfastened for the second time the lid of the basket; once more the flat head protruded, hissing. Alethea-Belle struck sharply.

"It is harmless now," she said quietly; "its back is broken."

But the snake still writhed. Alethea-Belle shuddered; then she set her heel firmly upon the head.

"And now,"—her voice was weak and quavering, but a note of triumph, of mastery, informed it—"and now I am going to cane you three boys; I am going to try to break your stubborn wills; but you are big and strong, and you must let me do it. If you don't let me do it, you will break my heart, for if I am too weak to command here, I must resign. Oh, I wish that I were strong!"

The mutineers stared at each other, at the small white face confronting them, at the boys and girls about them. It was a great moment in their lives, an imperishable experience. The biggest spoke first, sheepishly, roughly, almost defiantly: "Come on up, boys; we'll have to take a licking this time."

Alethea-Belle went back to the rostrum, trembling. She had never caned a boy before, and she loathed violence. And yet she gave those three lads a sound thrashing. When the last stroke was given, she tottered and fell back upon her chair—senseless.

Later, I asked her how she had caught the snake.

"After you left me," she said, "I sat down to think. I knew that the boys wanted to scare me, and it struck me what a splendid thing 'twould be to scare them. Just then I saw the snake asleep on the rocks; and I remembered what one of the cowboys had said about their being stupid and sluggish at this time of year. But my! when it came to catching it alive—I—nearly had a fit, I'd chills and fever before I was able to brace up. Well, sir, I got me a long stick, and I fixed a noose at the end of it; and somehow—with the Lord's help—I got the creature into my work basket; and I carried it home, and put it under my bed, with a big stone atop of the lid. But I never slept a wink. I'm teetotal, but I know now what it is to have the—the——"

"Jim-jams," said I.

"I believe that's what they call it in California. Yes, I saw snakes, rattlers, everywhere!"

"You're the pluckiest little woman in the world," said I.

"Oh no! I'm a miserable coward, and always will be. Now it's over, I kind of wish I hadn't scared the little children quite so bad."

About a month later, when Alethea-Belle was leaving us and about to take up new quarters in Paradise, near the just-finished village schoolhouse, Mrs. Spafford came to me. The schoolmarm, it seemed, had stepped off our scales. She had gained nearly ten pounds since the day of the great victory.

"Your good cooking, Mrs. Spafford——" Mrs. Spafford smiled scornfully.

"Did my good cooking help her any before she whacked them boys? Not much. No, sir, her scholars have put the flesh on to her poor bones; and I give them the credit. They are trying to pay for what their schoolmarm's put into their heads and hearts."

"Miss Buchanan has taught us a thing or two," I suggested.

"Yes," Mrs. Spafford replied solemnly, "she has."