Chapter XLI: The Greatest Teacher in the World

Rosie kept her promise faithfully. During the week that elapsed before Ellen's departure, she was careful not to mention George Riley's name. The time for discussion of any subject that might prove unpleasant to Ellen was past. Ellen was going, never to return--at any rate, never as one of them in the sense that she had been one of them and, for their own sakes as well as for hers, it behooved them all to make those last days as frictionless as possible. The approaching separation did not bring Rosie any closer to Ellen nor Ellen any closer to her, but it made them both strangely considerate of one another and also a little shy.

Like Rosie, Terence and Jack regarded Ellen's going with deep interest but with very little feeling. Between them and her there had always been war and there probably always would be if they continued to live under the same roof. They had their mother's word for it that Ellen was their own sister and that they ought to love her, but they did not for that reason love her nor did she love them. Yet they did not question that pretty fallacy which their mother offered them as an axiom, namely, that love is the inevitable bond between brothers and sisters, since boys and girls, like men and women, have a way of keeping separate the truths of experience and the forms of inherited belief. With Rosie they instinctively called a truce. Ellen will soon be gone, their attitude said, so let's not fight any more. To show their sincerity, Terry polished Ellen's shoes and asked if there was anything more he could do, and Jack ran numberless errands without once asking payment.

Mrs. O'Brien more than made up for the indifference of the rest of the family. Her grief at Ellen's departure was very genuine and very loud. Ellen had always seemed to her mother a paragon of beauty and talent and now she had made a fine match and was going off to St. Louie, poor girl, where she'd be far away from her own people in case of illness or distress. Mrs. O'Brien was so nearly overcome at the actual moment of farewell that Jamie and Terry had to drag her off to a soda fountain before the train was fairly started.

Ellen, too, was affected at the last as Rosie had never seen her affected. She kissed Rosie, then looked at her a moment sadly. "Say, kid," she said, "I'm sorry we haven't been better friends. I'm afraid it was my fault."

Rosie gulped. "I was as much to blame as you. I see it now."

Ellen touched Rosie's cheek impulsively. "If ever I get a home of my own in St. Louie, will you come and make me a visit?"

Rosie's thought was: "If ever you get a home of your own, you'll never remember me." Her spoken answer, though, was all that it should be: "Ellen, I'd love to."

Rosie, you see, knew Ellen's character pretty well. What she did not know and could not as yet know was this: that the Ellen of tomorrow might not be quite the Ellen of today; that life probably held experiences for Ellen that would at last make her look back on home and family with a new understanding and a feeling of genuine tenderness.

Ellen's train pulled out and Rosie watched it go with a sigh of relief. The chapter of Family Chronicles entitled Ellen was finished. That is, it was finished so far as any new interest was concerned. Yet, like the hand of a dead man touching the living through the clauses of a last will, so Ellen, though gone, continued to touch Rosie on a spot already sensitive beyond endurance.

Rosie had not spoken of George Riley during Ellen's last week. She had tried to suppress even the thought of him. Now the time was come when she had again to think of him, and she was so tired and weary of the whole problem that she felt unequal to the task of working out its solution.

"Do you know, Danny," she remarked that afternoon to her old friend, "I'd give anything to go off somewheres where I don't know anybody and where nobody knows me. I'm just so tired of this old town that I don't know what to do."

Danny nodded sympathetically. "I'm thinking you're in need of a little change, Rosie. Maybe you could go out to the country for a day or two at Thanksgiving."

Rosie knew perfectly well what Danny meant but, for conversational reasons, she asked: "Where in the country, Danny?"

"Well, I was thinking of the Riley farm. I'm sure Mrs. Riley would be crazy to have you."

Rosie shook her head. "I can't go out there because Jarge is coming here." She paused a moment. "He's coming to see Ellen. You know, Danny, he thinks he's engaged to Ellen."

"What!" Danny's little eyes blinked rapidly. "Don't he know yet that she's married to the other fella?"

"How can he know when no one's told him? Ellen said she would, but of course she didn't."

Danny's expression grew serious. "Rosie dear, he ought to be told! He ought t' have been told at once! You don't mean to say, Rosie, you'll let him come down on Thanksgiving without a word of warning?"

Rosie shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see that it's any of my business."

Danny looked at her sharply. "Why, Rosie dear, what's come over you?"

Rosie sighed. "I don't know, Danny. I'm just kind o' tired of things." She made a sudden change of subject. "Wisht I didn't have to go to school! I hate school this year. I don't see why I have to go, anyway. I'm not going to be a teacher."

There was no mistaking Rosie's dejection and Danny, instead of scoffing it away, accepted it quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear you say that about school, Rosie. I was thinkin' you'd be in High School next year."

"I would be, if I passed. Ellen went through High School, and now Terry's in the first year, and of course dad wants me to go, too. But I don't see why I should. You know, Danny, I'm not very bright in school. I'm not a bit like Janet. I've got to work awful hard just barely to pass. I don't think I'd have passed last year if Janet hadn't helped me. But I can cook and do a lot of things that Janet can't do. I know perfectly well I could never be a teacher, so I don't see the use of keeping on at school."

"You surprise me, Rosie!" Danny peered at her earnestly. "Do you think that's the only reason for going to school--so's to be a teacher?"

Rosie nodded. "I don't see any other."

"And what do you want to be, Rosie?"

"I don't want to be anything."

"Don't you want to do something?"

"No."

"But, Rosie dear, that's no way to talk. You know you can't sit through life with folded hands, doing nothing."

Rosie protested: "But, Danny, I don't expect to do nothing. I know I have to work and I do work, too. You ask ma. I take care of Geraldine night and day, and you needn't think it isn't a big job taking care of a baby, because it is. And I used to take care of Jarge Riley, too. Old Mis' Riley herself told me I took as good care of him as she did. And she meant it, too. Oh, I could just work forever for Geraldine and Jarge."

Danny looked at her a few moments in silence. "Rosie dear," he said gently, "pull your chair over close. I want to talk to you."

Rosie obeyed and, after a slight pause, Danny continued: "You're troubled about Jarge, aren't you, Rosie?"

Rosie's eyes filled with tears. "I suppose I am, Danny."

"Rosie," Danny asked slowly, "are you in love with Jarge?"

The question startled Rosie. She stared blankly through her tears. "Why, Danny, how can you say a thing like that? I'm only a little girl and Jarge is a grown man!"

"But you'd like to take care of him all the time, wouldn't you, Rosie?"

Rosie nodded. "You bet I would! If I could have just Jarge and Geraldine, I wouldn't care how hard I'd have to work! I'd do anything for both of them. Don't you know, Danny, I just feel like they're _mine_!"

"I thought so, Rosie." Danny sighed and cleared his throat. "Now listen carefully, Rosie, what I've got to say. As you say yourself you're only a little girl now, but in a few years you'll be a big girl, as big as Ellen is today. And then perhaps, Rosie, you'll be marrying some one."

"No, Danny, no!" Rosie cried. "I don't want to be marrying some one, honest I don't!"

Danny waved aside the interruption. "As I was saying, perhaps you'll be marrying some one, and then after while you'll be having babies of your own."

"Oh, Danny!" A look of wonder, almost of ecstasy, spread over Rosie's face. Instinctively her arms reached out for the precious burden of the future. "Do you really mean it, Danny?" she whispered. "My _own_!"

"Yes, Rosie, I mean it. And you'll be a wonderful mother, for you'll know how to feed your children properly and take proper care of them. But in one way, Rosie, I fear you'll be a pretty poor mother."

The light in Rosie's eyes went out. "Why do you say that, Danny?"

"You won't be able to help them in their schoolin' and they'll probably all turn out poor ignur'nt b'ys and girls, with no opportunity to rise in the world. And if they do get on in school, they'll soon be scornin' their poor mother and lookin' down on her because she hasn't had the education she might have had. And when their father sees how they feel, I'm afeared he'll begin feelin' the same and thinkin' he'd made an awful mistake marryin' such an ignur'nt woman."

"Oh, Danny, stop! Stop!" Tears of self-pity already filled Rosie's eyes.

"So I say to you, Rosie, if I was a little girl, I'd want to keep on going to school even if I didn't expect to be a teacher. And for that matter, darlint, isn't a mother the greatest teacher in the world? Aren't you yourself Geraldine's teacher every day of your life?"

Rosie's eyes stretched wide in surprise. "Danny, I believe you're right! A mother is a teacher, isn't she?"

"Sure she is, Rosie. And the better her own education is, the better chance she has of being a good teacher. That stands to reason, don't it now?"

Rosie nodded slowly. "Do you know, Danny, I never thought of that before." She ruminated a moment. "Really and truly it just seems like every girl in the world ought to have a good education. I always did think that ignorant mothers were awful and they are, too."

"You're right, Rosie, they are. They're a hindrance to their children instead of a help."

Rosie took a deep breath. "Wouldn't it just be wonderful to have a baby really and truly your own?" She gazed off into space. Then her expression changed. "But, Danny, I'll never marry."

"Is that so?" Danny started to laugh, then checked himself.

"You see, Danny, it's this way: Maybe you're right. Maybe I am in love with Jarge. Anyway, I know I'll never love anybody else half as much as I love him."

"If that's the case," Danny remarked casually, "the only thing for you to do is to marry Jarge."

"Danny!" Rosie looked at him reproachfully. "I don't think it's kind of you to make fun of me that way. I know I'm only a kid."

"I didn't mean to marry him this minute," Danny explained. "I expected you to take your time about it--after you had finished school and were grown up and all that."

"Oh!" Rosie sat up very straight. She spoke a little breathlessly. "But, Danny, won't Jarge be too old then?"

Danny drew a long face. "I had forgotten all about that, Rosie. To be sure he will. He must be ten or fifteen years older than you this minute."

"No, Danny, no! He's not! He's only six years older--about six and a half. I'm thirteen now. I had a birthday last month. And he's nineteen and a half. I know because he's four months older than Ellen."

"Six years, do you say?" Danny mumbled. "Well, now, that's a good many, Rosie. Let's see: when you're eighteen, he'll be twenty-four. H'm. At twenty-four a lad's getting on, ain't he? Of course a lot of them don't marry nowadays till thirty but, if they'd ask me advice, I'd tell them to settle down with the right girl by the time they're twenty-five.... Yes, Rosie, you're right: Jarge'd be pretty old. Six years is a pretty big difference."

Rosie tossed her head. "I'm not so sure about that! Let's see now: Harry Long is twenty-six and that makes him seven years older than Ellen, and I'm sure Harry and Ellen look fine together! No one would ever think of calling Harry old! Why, he don't look a bit old!"

Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Rosie, have it your own way!"

"Danny Agin, how you talk! Have it my own way, indeed! It isn't my way, it's just facts!"

Danny looked bored. "Well, anyway, it's all in the future, so why are we arguin' now? You'll be falling in love and probably falling out again with half a dozen lads before you're eighteen, and by the time you're twenty you'll probably be happily married to some one you've never yet laid eyes on. That's how it goes. And in that case, you'll have long since forgotten all about poor old Jarge Riley."

"Is that so?" Rosie spoke rather coldly, not to say sarcastically. However, she did not dispute Danny's word. If that was his opinion, he was, of course, welcome to it. By the same token, Rosie claimed a like privilege for herself. The way she pressed her lips together told very plainly that her opinion differed somewhat from Danny's.

Presently Danny opened on another subject. "Now about Jarge Riley: If you ask me advice, Rosie, I think you had better write him a letter. It would be a bad thing to have him come down here not knowin' about Ellen."

Rosie's face changed. "But, Danny, it would be an awful hard letter to write and, besides, it isn't my business."

"That's so," Danny agreed. "Perhaps now you'd better not meddle. When I suggested it, it was only because I was thinkin' that you and Jarge were such good friends that you'd be wantin' to spare him a little. But, after all, he's a man, so he might as well come down and find things out for himself. It'll be an awful shock, but no matter. Besides, maybe Ellen'll write him. In fact, I'm sure she will."

"Ellen!" Rosie snorted scornfully. "Ellen never yet has done anything she hasn't wanted to do and I don't see her beginning now!"

"We've all got to begin some time," Danny remarked.

Rosie pointed her finger impressively. "Danny Agin, I know Ellen O'Brien Long better than you do and, when I say she'll never write a line to Jarge, I guess I know what I'm talking about."

"I'm sure you do," Danny murmured meekly. "If you say she won't, she won't. I wouldn't question your word for a hundred dollars. If you tell me that Jarge is not to get a letter, then it's settled. He won't get a letter." Danny sighed. "Poor Jarge! I do feel sorry for him! It'll be an awful shock to him!" Danny sighed again. "But, of course, every one has to take a few shocks in this life. Ah, me!"

Rosie sighed, too. "If I was to write him, Danny, what would I say?"

Danny wagged his head. "It'd be a pretty hard letter and, as you say yourself, why should you?"

"I know it would be hard," Rosie agreed, "but, if I wanted to write it, I guess it wouldn't be too hard for me. Only I'm not quite sure what to say."

Danny squinted his little eyes thoughtfully. "Well, Rosie, if I was writing such a letter, to begin with I'd tell me bad news as quickly as I could and have it over with. Then, if it was some one I was real fond of, I'd tell him what I thought of him. It don't hurt any one to be told he has a friend or two. Then I'd fill in with all the family news and talk I could, so's he wouldn't feel lonely. At first he wouldn't have eyes for anything but the bad news, but, after while, he'd begin to take comfort from the rest of the letter and, if it was written with lots of love and feelin', I'm thinkin' there'd come a time when he'd be readin' that part over and over and over again, I dunno how many times, and takin' a little more comfort from it each time."

Rosie stood up a little breathlessly. "Good-bye, Danny. I must hurry home. I've got something to do."

"Don't be runnin' off," Danny begged. "Besides, I'm not done yet with the letter. As I was sayin', I wouldn't try to finish it in one sitting. I'd write at it as much as I could every day and in a week's time it'd be a good big letter."

"But, Danny, Thanksgiving's not more than three weeks off!"

"Three weeks, do you say? That's bad. The poor lad ought to be given two weeks' notice at least. So if any one was to write him, they'd better begin at once. They'd have to write every day for a week pretty steadily."

"Is that all, Danny?"

"It's all I think of just now. If you was to sit awhile longer, Rosie, maybe something more would come to me."

"I don't believe I better, Danny. I'm awful busy. I must get home."

"But you'll stop awhile tomorrow, darlint, won't you? Promise me you will."

Rosie thought a moment. "It's this way, Danny: I'm a little behind in school and I've got to catch up. And, besides that, I'll be very busy for a week on something else. I don't believe I'll have time to stop tomorrow but, if I have, I will. Good-bye."

Rosie started off, then turned back a little shyly. She put her arm about old Danny's neck and kissed him on the cheek. "Danny, you're awful good to me. And do you know, Danny, after Jarge and Geraldine and Janet I think I love you best of all!"

Danny chuckled. "Well, I suppose fourth ch'ice is better than no ch'ice at all!"