"Mother," said Peter Kronborg to his wife one morn-
ing about two weeks after Wunsch's departure,
"how would you like to drive out to Copper Hole with me
to-day?"
Mrs. Kronborg said she thought she would enjoy the
drive. She put on her gray cashmere dress and gold
watch and chain, as befitted a minister's wife, and while
her husband was dressing she packed a black oilcloth
satchel with such clothing as she and Thor would need
overnight.
Copper Hole was a settlement fifteen miles northwest of
Moonstone where Mr. Kronborg preached every Friday
evening. There was a big spring there and a creek and a
few irrigating ditches. It was a community of discour-
aged agriculturists who had disastrously experimented
with dry farming. Mr. Kronborg always drove out one
day and back the next, spending the night with one of
his parishioners. Often, when the weather was fine, his
wife accompanied him. To-day they set out from home
after the midday meal, leaving Tillie in charge of the
house. Mrs. Kronborg's maternal feeling was always gar-
nered up in the baby, whoever the baby happened to be.
If she had the baby with her, the others could look out for
themselves. Thor, of course, was not, accurately speaking,
a baby any longer. In the matter of nourishment he was
quite independent of his mother, though this independence
had not been won without a struggle. Thor was conserva-
tive in all things, and the whole family had anguished with
him when he was being weaned. Being the youngest, he
was still the baby for Mrs. Kronborg, though he was nearly
four years old and sat up boldly on her lap this afternoon,
holding on to the ends of the lines and shouting "`mup,
'mup, horsey." His father watched him affectionately and
hummed hymn tunes in the jovial way that was sometimes
such a trial to Thea.
Mrs. Kronborg was enjoying the sunshine and the bril-
liant sky and all the faintly marked features of the dazzling,
monotonous landscape. She had a rather unusual capacity
for getting the flavor of places and of people. Although
she was so enmeshed in family cares most of the time, she
could emerge serene when she was away from them. For
a mother of seven, she had a singularly unprejudiced
point of view. She was, moreover, a fatalist, and as she
did not attempt to direct things beyond her control, she
found a good deal of time to enjoy the ways of man and
nature.
When they were well upon their road, out where the first
lean pasture lands began and the sand grass made a faint
showing between the sagebushes, Mr. Kronborg dropped
his tune and turned to his wife. "Mother, I've been think-
ing about something."
"I guessed you had. What is it?" She shifted Thor to
her left knee, where he would be more out of the way.
"Well, it's about Thea. Mr. Follansbee came to my
study at the church the other day and said they would like
to have their two girls take lessons of Thea. Then I sounded
Miss Meyers" (Miss Meyers was the organist in Mr.
Kronborg's church) "and she said there was a good deal of
talk about whether Thea wouldn't take over Wunsch's
pupils. She said if Thea stopped school she wouldn't
wonder if she could get pretty much all Wunsch's class.
People think Thea knows about all Wunsch could teach."
Mrs. Kronborg looked thoughtful. "Do you think we
ought to take her out of school so young?"
"She is young, but next year would be her last year any-
way. She's far along for her age. And she can't learn much
under the principal we've got now, can she?"
"No, I'm afraid she can't," his wife admitted. "She
frets a good deal and says that man always has to look in
the back of the book for the answers. She hates all that
diagramming they have to do, and I think myself it's a
waste of time."
Mr. Kronborg settled himself back into the seat and
slowed the mare to a walk. "You see, it occurs to me that
we might raise Thea's prices, so it would be worth her
while. Seventy-five cents for hour lessons, fifty cents for
half-hour lessons. If she got, say two thirds of Wunsch's
class, that would bring her in upwards of ten dollars a
week. Better pay than teaching a country school, and
there would be more work in vacation than in winter.
Steady work twelve months in the year; that's an advan-
tage. And she'd be living at home, with no expenses."
"There'd be talk if you raised her prices," said Mrs.
Kronborg dubiously.
"At first there would. But Thea is so much the best
musician in town that they'd all come into line after a
while. A good many people in Moonstone have been
making money lately, and have bought new pianos. There
were ten new pianos shipped in here from Denver in the
last year. People ain't going to let them stand idle; too
much money invested. I believe Thea can have as many
scholars as she can handle, if we set her up a little."
"How set her up, do you mean?" Mrs. Kronborg felt a
certain reluctance about accepting this plan, though she
had not yet had time to think out her reasons.
"Well, I've been thinking for some time we could make
good use of another room. We couldn't give up the parlor
to her all the time. If we built another room on the ell and
put the piano in there, she could give lessons all day long
and it wouldn't bother us. We could build a clothes-press
in it, and put in a bed-lounge and a dresser and let Anna
have it for her sleeping-room. She needs a place of her
own, now that she's beginning to be dressy."
"Seems like Thea ought to have the choice of the room,
herself," said Mrs. Kronborg.
"But, my dear, she don't want it. Won't have it. I
sounded her coming home from church on Sunday; asked
her if she would like to sleep in a new room, if we built on.
She fired up like a little wild-cat and said she'd made her
own room all herself, and she didn't think anybody ought
to take it away from her."
"She don't mean to be impertinent, father. She's made
decided that way, like my father." Mrs. Kronborg spoke
warmly. "I never have any trouble with the child. I
remember my father's ways and go at her carefully. Thea's
all right."
Mr. Kronborg laughed indulgently and pinched Thor's
full cheek. "Oh, I didn't mean anything against your girl,
mother! She's all right, but she's a little wild-cat, just the
same. I think Ray Kennedy's planning to spoil a born old
maid."
"Huh! She'll get something a good sight better than
Ray Kennedy, you see! Thea's an awful smart girl. I've
seen a good many girls take music lessons in my time, but
I ain't seen one that took to it so. Wunsch said so, too.
She's got the making of something in her."
"I don't deny that, and the sooner she gets at it in a
businesslike way, the better. She's the kind that takes
responsibility, and it'll be good for her."
Mrs. Kronborg was thoughtful. "In some ways it will,
maybe. But there's a good deal of strain about teaching
youngsters, and she's always worked so hard with the
scholars she has. I've often listened to her pounding it
into 'em. I don't want to work her too hard. She's so
serious that she's never had what you might call any real
childhood. Seems like she ought to have the next few
years sort of free and easy. She'll be tied down with re-
sponsibilities soon enough."
Mr. Kronborg patted his wife's arm. "Don't you believe
it, mother. Thea is not the marrying kind. I've watched
'em. Anna will marry before long and make a good wife,
but I don't see Thea bringing up a family. She's got a
good deal of her mother in her, but she hasn't got all. She's
too peppery and too fond of having her own way. Then
she's always got to be ahead in everything. That kind
make good church-workers and missionaries and school
teachers, but they don't make good wives. They fret all
their energy away, like colts, and get cut on the wire."
Mrs. Kronborg laughed. "Give me the graham crackers
I put in your pocket for Thor. He's hungry. You're a
funny man, Peter. A body wouldn't think, to hear you,
you was talking about your own daughters. I guess you see
through 'em. Still, even if Thea ain't apt to have children
of her own, I don't know as that's a good reason why she
should wear herself out on other people's."
"That's just the point, mother. A girl with all that
energy has got to do something, same as a boy, to keep her
out of mischief. If you don't want her to marry Ray, let
her do something to make herself independent."
"Well, I'm not against it. It might be the best thing for
her. I wish I felt sure she wouldn't worry. She takes things
hard. She nearly cried herself sick about Wunsch's going
away. She's the smartest child of 'em all, Peter, by a long
ways."
Peter Kronborg smiled. "There you go, Anna. That's
you all over again. Now, I have no favorites; they all have
their good points. But you," with a twinkle, "always did
go in for brains."
Mrs. Kronborg chuckled as she wiped the cracker crumbs
from Thor's chin and fists. "Well, you're mighty conceited,
Peter! But I don't know as I ever regretted it. I prefer
having a family of my own to fussing with other folks'
children, that's the truth."
Before the Kronborgs reached Copper Hole, Thea's des-
tiny was pretty well mapped out for her. Mr. Kronborg
was always delighted to have an excuse for enlarging the
house.
Mrs. Kronborg was quite right in her conjecture that
there would be unfriendly comment in Moonstone when
Thea raised her prices for music-lessons. People said she
was getting too conceited for anything. Mrs. Livery John-
son put on a new bonnet and paid up all her back calls to
have the pleasure of announcing in each parlor she entered
that her daughters, at least, would "never pay professional
prices to Thea Kronborg."
Thea raised no objection to quitting school. She was
now in the "high room," as it was called, in next to the
highest class, and was studying geometry and beginning
Caesar. She no longer recited her lessons to the teacher she
liked, but to the Principal, a man who belonged, like Mrs.
Livery Johnson, to the camp of Thea's natural enemies.
He taught school because he was too lazy to work among
grown-up people, and he made an easy job of it. He got
out of real work by inventing useless activities for his
pupils, such as the "tree-diagramming system." Thea had
spent hours making trees out of "Thanatopsis," Hamlet's
soliloquy, Cato on "Immortality." She agonized under
this waste of time, and was only too glad to accept her
father's offer of liberty.
So Thea left school the first of November. By the
first of January she had eight one-hour pupils and ten
half-hour pupils, and there would be more in the sum-
mer. She spent her earnings generously. She bought a
new Brussels carpet for the parlor, and a rifle for Gunner
and Axel, and an imitation tiger-skin coat and cap for
Thor. She enjoyed being able to add to the family posses-
sions, and thought Thor looked quite as handsome in his
spots as the rich children she had seen in Denver. Thor
was most complacent in his conspicuous apparel. He could
walk anywhere by this time--though he always preferred
to sit, or to be pulled in his cart. He was a blissfully lazy
child, and had a number of long, dull plays, such as mak-
ing nests for his china duck and waiting for her to lay
him an egg. Thea thought him very intelligent, and she
was proud that he was so big and burly. She found him
restful, loved to hear him call her "sitter," and really liked
his companionship, especially when she was tired. On Sat-
urday, for instance, when she taught from nine in the
morning until five in the afternoon, she liked to get off in a
corner with Thor after supper, away from all the bathing
and dressing and joking and talking that went on in the
house, and ask him about his duck, or hear him tell one of
his rambling stories.
Read next: PART I - FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD#Chapter 15
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