Chapter II: Part 2

It was late in the year when a rumour ran around the Second Reader room. The trustees were coming that day to visit the school.

Emmy Lou wondered what trustees were. She asked Hattie. Hattie explained. "They are men, in black clothes. You daren't move in your seat. They're something like ministers." Hattie knew everything.

"Will they come here, in our room?" asked Emmy Lou. It was terrible to be at the front desk. Emmy Lou remembered the music man. He still pointed his bow at her on Fridays.

"Of course," said Hattie; "comp'ny always comes to our room."

Which was true, for Dear Teacher's room was different. Dear Teacher's room seemed always ready, and the Principal brought company to it accordingly.

It was after recess they came--the Principal, the Trustee (there was just one Trustee), and a visiting gentleman.

There was a hush as they filed in. Hattie was right. It was like ministers. The Principal was in black, with a white tie. He always was. And the Trustee was in black. He rubbed his hands and bowed to the Second Reader Class, sitting very straight and awed. And the visiting gentleman was in black, with a shiny black hat.

The Trustee was a big man, and his face was red, and when urged by the Principal to address the Second Reader Class, his face grew redder.

The Trustee waved his hand toward the visiting gentleman. "Mr. Hammel, children, the Hon. Samuel S. Hammel, a citizen with whose name you are all, I am sure, familiar." And then the Trustee, mopping his face, got behind the visiting gentleman and the Principal.

The visiting gentleman stood forth. He was a short, little man--a little, round man, whose feet were so far back beneath a preponderating circumference of waist line, that he looked like nothing so much as one of Uncle Charlie's pouter pigeons.

He was a smiling-and-bowing little man, and he held out his fat hand playfully, and in it a shining white box.

Dear Teacher seemed taller and very far off. She looked as she did the day she told the class they were to have a medal. Emmy Lou watched Dear Teacher anxiously. Something told her Dear Teacher was troubled.

The visiting gentleman began to speak. He called the Second Reader Class "dear children," and "mothers of a coming generation," and "moulders of the future welfare."

The Second Reader Class sat very still. There seemed to be something paralysing to their infant faculties, mental and physical, in learning they were "mothers" and "moulders." But Emmy Lou breathed freer to have it applied impartially and not to the front seat.

Their "country, the pillars of state, everything," it seemed, depended on the way in which these mothers learned their Second Readers. "As mothers and moulders, they must learn now in youth to read, to number, to spell--exactly--to spell!" And the visiting gentleman nodded meaningly, tapped the white box and looked smilingly about. The mothers moved uneasily. The smile they avoided. But they wondered what was in the box.

The visiting gentleman lifted the lid, and displayed a glittering, shining something on a bed of pink cotton.

Then, as if struck by a happy thought, he turned to the blackboard. He looked about for chalk. The Principal supplied him. Fashioned by his fat, white hand, these words sprawled themselves upon the blackboard:

The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal.

There was silence. Then the Second Reader class moved. It breathed a long breath.

A whisper went around the room while Dear Teacher and the gentleman were conferring. Rumour said Kitty McKoeghany started it. Certainly Kitty, in her desk across the aisle from Hattie, in the sight of all, tossed her black head knowingly.

The whisper concerned the visiting gentleman. "He is running for Trustee," said the whisper.

Emmy Lou wondered. Hattie seemed to understand. "He puts his name up on tree-boxes and fences," she whispered to Emmy Lou, "and that's running for Trustee."

The rumour was succeeded by another.

"He's running against the Trustee that's not here to-day."

No wonder Kitty McKoeghany was head. The extent of Kitty's knowledge was boundless.

The third confidence was freighted with strange import. It came straight from Kitty to Hattie, who told it to Emmy Lou.

"When he's Trustee, he means the School Board shall take his pork house for the new school."

Even Emmy Lou knew the pork house which had built itself unpleasantly near the neighbourhood.

Just then the Second Reader class was summoned to the bench. As the line took its place a hush fell. Emmy Lou, at its foot, looked up its length and wondered how it would seem to be Kitty McKoeghany at the head.

The three gentlemen were looking at Kitty, too. Kitty tossed her head. Kitty was used to being looked at because of being head.

The low words of the gentleman reached the foot of the line. "The head one, that's McKoeghany's little girl." It was the Trustee telling the visiting gentleman. Emmy Lou did not wonder that Kitty was being pointed out. Kitty was head. But Emmy Lou did not know that it was because Kitty was Mr. Michael McKoeghany's little girl that she was being pointed out as well as because she was head, for Mr. Michael McKoeghany was the political boss of a district known as Limerick, and by the vote of Limerick a man running for office could stand or fall.

Now there were many things unknown to Emmy Lou, about which Kitty, being the little girl of Mr. Michael McKoeghany, could have enlightened her.

Kitty could have told her that the yard of the absent Trustee ran back to the pork house. Also that the Trustee present was part owner of that offending building. And further that Emmy Lou's Uncle Charlie, leading an irate neighbourhood to battle, had compelled the withdrawal of the obnoxious business.

But to Emmy Lou only one thing was clear. Kitty was being pointed out by the Principal and the Trustee to the visiting gentleman because she was head.

Dear Teacher took the book. She stood on the platform apart from the gentlemen, and gave out the words distinctly but very quietly.

Emmy Lou felt that Dear Teacher was troubled. Emmy Lou thought it was because Dear Teacher was afraid the poor spellers were going to miss. She made up her mind that she would not miss.

Dear Teacher began with the words on the first page and went forward. Emmy Lou could tell the next word to come each time, for she knew her Second Reader by heart as far as the class had gone.

She stood up when her time came and spelled her word. Her word was "wrong." She spelled it right.

Dear Teacher looked pleased. There was a time when Emmy Lou had been given to leaving off the introductory "w" as superfluous.

On the next round a little girl above Emmy Lou missed on "enough." To her phonetic understanding, a _u_ and two _f_'s were equivalent to an _ough_.

Emmy Lou spelled it right and went up one. The little girl went to her seat. She was no longer in the race. She was in tears.

Presently a little girl far up the line arose to spell.

"Right, to do right," said Dear Teacher.

"W-r-i-t-e, right," said the little girl promptly.

"R-i-t-e, right," said the next little girl.

The third stood up with triumph preassured. In spelling, the complicated is the surest, reasoned this little girl.

"W-r-i-g-h-t, right," spelled the certain little girl; then burst into tears.

The mothers of the future grew demoralised. The pillars of state of English orthography at least seemed destined to totter. The spelling grew wild.

"R-i-t, right."

"W-r-i-t, right."

Then in the desperation of sheer hopelessness came "w-r-i-t-e, right," again.

There were tears all along the line. At their wits' end, the mothers, dissolving as they rose in turn, shook their heads hopelessly.

Emmy Lou stood up. She knew just where the word was in a column of three on page 14. She could see it. She looked up at Dear Teacher, quiet and pale, on the platform.

"R," said Emmy Lou, steadily, "i-g-h-t, right."

A long line of weeping mothers went to their seats, and Emmy Lou moved up past the middle of the bench.

The words were now more complicated. The nerves of the mothers had been shaken by this last strain. Little girls dropped out rapidly. The foot moved on up toward the head, until there came a pink spot on Dear Teacher's either cheek. For some reason Dear Teacher's head began to hold itself finely erect again.

"Beaux," said Dear Teacher.

The little girl next the head stood up. She missed. She burst into audible weeping. Nerves were giving out along the line. It went wildly down. Emmy Lou was the last. Emmy Lou stood up. It was the first word of a column on page 22. Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher.

"B," said Emmy Lou, "e-a-u-x, beaux."

The intervening mothers had gone to their seats, and Kitty and Emmy Lou were left.

Kitty spelled triumphantly. Emmy Lou spelled steadily. Even Dear Teacher's voice showed a touch of the strain.

She gave out half a dozen words. Then "receive," said Dear Teacher.

It was Kitty's turn. Kitty stood up. Dear Teacher's back was to the blackboard. The Trustee and the visiting gentleman were also facing the class. Kitty's eyes, as she stood up, were on the board.

"The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal,"

was the assurance on the board.

Kitty tossed her little head. "R-e, re, c-i-e-v-e, ceive, receive," spelled Kitty, her eyes on the blackboard.

"Wrong."

Emmy Lou stood up. It was the second word in a column on a picture page. Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher.

"R-e, re, c-e-i-v-e, ceive, receive," said Emmy Lou.

One person beside Kitty had noted the blackboard. Already the Principal was passing an eraser across the words of the visiting gentleman.

Dear Teacher's cheeks were pink as Emmy Lou's as she led Emmy Lou to receive the medal. And her head was finely erect. She held Emmy Lou's hand through it all.

The visiting gentleman's manner was a little stony. It had quite lost its playfulness. He looked almost gloomily on the mother who had upheld the pillars of state and the future generally.

It was a beautiful medal. It was a five-pointed star. It said "Reward of Merit."

The visiting gentleman lifted it from its bed of pink cotton.

"You must get a ribbon for it," said Dear Teacher.

Emmy Lou slipped her hand from Dear Teacher's. She went to the front desk. She got her Second Reader, and brought forth a folded packet from behind the criss-cross stitches holding the cover.

Then she came back. She put the paper in Dear Teacher's hand.

"There's a ribbon," said Emmy Lou.

They were at dinner when Emmy Lou got home. On a blue ribbon around her neck dangled a new medal. In her hand she carried a shiny box.

Even Uncle Charlie felt there must be some mistake.

Aunt Louise got her hat to hurry Emmy Lou right back to school.

At the gate they met Dear Teacher's carriage, taking Dear Teacher home. She stopped.

Aunt Cordelia came out, and Aunt Katie. Uncle Charlie, just going, stopped to hear.

"Spelling match!" said Aunt Louise.

"Not our Emmy Lou?" said Aunt Katie.

"The precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia.

"Hammel," said Uncle Charlie, "McKoeghany," and Uncle Charlie smote his thigh.

"I SING OF HONOUR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART"

The Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties with a Substitute. The Principal announced it to the class, looking at them coldly and stating the matter curtly. It was as though he considered the Third Reader Class to blame.

Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched the door. A Substitute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's desk-mate, watched the door, too, but covertly, for Hattie did not like to acknowledge she did not know.

The Substitute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty--as pretty as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. She seemed a little uncertain as to what to do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see what she would do.

The Substitute stepped hesitatingly up on the platform. She gripped the edge of the desk, and opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them and swallowed. Then she said, "Children----"

"She's goin' to cry!" whispered Hattie, in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt it would be terrible to see her cry. It was evidently something so unpleasant to be a Substitute that Emmy Lou's heart went out to her.

But the Substitute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a moment went on: "--you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each desk the needs of the Third Reader."

She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The Substitute was young, and new to her business.

Reading over the needs of the Third Reader printed on the slips of paper, Emmy Lou found them so complicated and lengthy she realised one thing--she would have to have a new school-bag, a larger, stronger one, to accommodate them.

Now, there is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Substitute. The Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants of the rows of desks she holds dominion over.

But a Substitute tells the class all about her duty and its duty, and about what she is planning and what she expects of them. A Substitute makes the occupants of the desks feel flattered and conscious and important.

The Substitute's name was Miss Jenny. The class speedily adored her. Soon her desk might have been a shrine to Pomona. It was joy to forego one's apple to swell the fruitage of adoration piled on Miss Jenny's desk. The class could scarcely be driven to recess, since going tore them from her. They found their happiness in Miss Jenny's presence.

So, apparently, did Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was the Principal. He wore his black hair somewhat long and thrown off his forehead, only Mr. Bryan would have called it brow.

Mr. Bryan came often to the Third Reader room. He said it was very necessary that the Third Reader should be well grounded in the rudiments of number. He said he was astonished, he was appalled, he was chagrined.

He paused at "chagrined," and repeated it impressively, so that the guttural grimness of its second syllable sounded most unpleasant. Appalled and astonished must be bad, but to be chagrined, as Mr. Bryan said it, must be terrible.

He was chagrined, so it proved, that a class could show such deplorable ignorance concerning the very rudiments of number.

It was Emmy Lou who displayed it, when she was called to the blackboard by Mr. Bryan. He called a different little girl each day, with discriminating impartiality. When doing so, Mr. Bryan would often express a hope that his teachers would have no favourites.

Emmy Lou went to the board.

"If a man born in eighteen hundred and nine, lives--" began Mr. Bryan. Then he turned to speak to Miss Jenny.

Emmy Lou took the chalk and stood on her toes to reach the board.

"Set it down," said Mr. Bryan, turning--"the date."

Emmy Lou paused, uncertain. Had he said one thousand, eight hundred and nine, she would have known; that was the way one knew it in the Second Reader, but eighteen hundred was confusing.

Again Mr. Bryan looked around, to see the chubby little girl standing on her toes, chalk in hand, still uncertain. Mr. Bryan's voice expressed tried but laudable patience.

"Put it down--the date," said Mr. Bryan, "eighteen hundred and nine."

Emmy Lou put it down. She put it down in this way:

18
100
9

Then it was he was astonished, appalled, chagrined; then it was he found it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground it in the rudiments of number.

But he did not always go when the lesson ended. Directly following its work in the "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the class was given over to mastering "Townsend's New System of Drawing."

While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, rearrange his white necktie, and talk to her. Miss Jenny was pretty. The class gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have her more for its own if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended.

Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in "Book No. 1," but the class never tried his system. There is a chance Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public school before, and Miss Jenny was only a Substitute.

So the class drew with no supervision and with only such verbal direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions. Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there, she seemed helpless and nervous.

Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often copied pictures out of books, and she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system.

On the first page of "Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these in the space below. To do this Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced a piece of tissue-paper folded away in her "Montague's New Elementary Geography"--Emmy Lou was a saving and hoarding little soul--which she laid over the lines and traced them with her pencil.

It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully over the space below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil, carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth.

Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny said it was the best page in the room.

Emmy Lou could not take her book home, for drawing-books must be kept clean and were collected and kept in the cupboard, but she told Aunt Cordelia that her page had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia could hardly believe it, saying she had never heard of a talent for drawing in any branch of the family.

Now Hattie had taken note of Emmy Lou's system in drawing, and the next day she brought tissue-paper. That day Miss Jenny praised Hattie's page. Emmy Lou's system immediately became popular. All the class got tissue-paper. And Mr. Bryan, finding the drawing-hour one of undisturbed opportunity, stayed until the bell rang for Geography.

A little girl named Sadie wondered if tissue-paper was fair. Hattie said it was, for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own mamma know?

Sadie was reassured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant.

The class felt that they, too, abhorred stories. They loved Miss Jenny. And Miss Jenny disliked stories. Just then a little girl raised her hand. It was Sadie.

Sadie said she was afraid she had told Miss Jenny a story, a fib-story, the day before, when Miss Jenny had asked her if she felt the wind from the window opened above, and she had said no. Afterward she had realised she did feel the wind. A thrill, deep-awed, went around the room. In her secret soul every little girl wished she had told a story, that she might tell Miss Jenny.

Miss Jenny praised Sadie, she called her a brave and conscientious little girl. She closed the book and came to the edge of the platform and talked to them about duty and honour and faithfulness.

Emmy Lou, her cheeks pink, longed for opportunity to prove her faithfulness, her honesty; she longed to prove herself a Sadie.

There was Roll Call in the Third Reader. The duties were much too complicated for mere Head and Foot. After each lesson came Roll Call.

As Emmy Lou understood them, the marks by which one graded one's performance and deserts in the Third Reader were interpreted:

6--The final state which few may hope to attain.

5--The gate beyond which lies the final and unattainable state.

4--The highest hope of the humble.

3--The common condition of mankind.

2--The just reward of the wretched.

1--The badge of shame.

0--Outer darkness.

When Roll Call first began, Miss Jenny said to her class: "You must each think earnestly before answering. To give in a mark above what you feel yourself entitled, is to tell worse than a story, it is to tell a falsehood, and a falsehood is a lie. I shall leave it to you. I believe in trusting my pupils, and I shall take no note of your standing. Each will be answerable for herself." Miss Jenny was very young.

The class sat weighted with the awfulness of the responsibility. It was a conscientious class, and Miss Jenny's high ideals had worked upon its sensibilities. No little girl dared to be "six." How could she know, for instance, in her reading lesson, if she had paused the exact length of a full stop every time she met with a period? Who could decide? Certainly not the little girl in her own favour, and perhaps be branded with a falsehood, which was a lie. Or who, when Roll Call for deportment came, could ever dare call herself perfect? Self-examination and inward analysis lead rather to a belief in natural sin. The Third Reader Class grew conscientious to the splitting of a hair. It was better to be "four" than "five" and be saved, and "three" than "four," if there was room for doubt. Class standing fell rapidly.

Emmy Lou struggled to keep up with the downward tendency.

Hattie outstripped her promptly. Hattie could adapt herself to all exigencies. Emmy Lou even felt envy of Hattie creeping into her heart.

There came an awful day. It was Roll Call for drawing. It had been a fish, a fish with elaborately serrated fins. Miss Jenny had said that Emmy Lou's fish was as good as the copy. In her heart Miss Jenny wondered at the proficiency of her class in drawing, for she could not draw a straight line. But since Mr. Bryan seemed satisfied and said every day, "Let them alone, they are getting along," Miss Jenny gave the credit to Mr. Townsend's system.

She was enthusiastic over Emmy Lou's fish, which Emmy Lou brought up as soon as Mr. Bryan departed.

"It is wonderful," said Miss Jenny. "It is perfect."

Emmy Lou went back to her desk much troubled. What was she to do? She had not moved, she had not whispered, she had not lifted the lashes sweeping her chubby cheeks even to look at Hattie, yet it was the general belief that no little girl could answer "six," and not tell a falsehood, which is a lie. Yet, on the other hand, being perfect, Emmy Lou could not say less. She was perfect. Miss Jenny said so. Emmy Lou shut her eyes to think. It was approaching her turn to answer.

"Six," said Emmy Lou, opening her eyes and standing, the impersonation of conscious guilt. She felt disgraced. She felt the silence. She felt she could not meet the eyes of the other little girls. And she felt sick. Her throat was sore. In the Third Reader one's face burned from the red-hot stove so near by, while one shivered from the draught when the window was lowered above one's head.

Emmy Lou did not come to school the next day, so Hattie went out to see her. It was Friday. The class had had singing. Every Friday the singing teacher came to the Third Reader for an hour.

"He changed my seat over to the left," said Hattie. "I can sing alto."

Emmy Lou felt cross. She felt the strenuousness of striving to keep abreast of Hattie. And the taste of a nauseous dose from a black bottle was in her mouth, and another dose loomed an hour ahead. And now Hattie could sing alto.

"Sing it," said Emmy Lou.

It disconcerted Hattie. "It--isn't--er--you can't just up and sing it--it's alto," said Hattie, nonplussed.

"You said you could sing it," said Emmy Lou. This was the nearest Emmy Lou had come to fussing with Hattie.

The next Monday Emmy Lou was late in starting, that is, late for Emmy Lou, and she made a discovery--Miss Jenny passed Emmy Lou's house going to school. Emmy Lou did not have courage to join her, but waited inside her gate until Miss Jenny had passed. But the next morning she was at her gate again as Miss Jenny came by.

Miss Jenny said, "Good morning."

Emmy Lou went out. They walked along together. After that Emmy Lou waited every morning. One day it was icy on the pavements. Miss Jenny told Emmy Lou to take her hand. After that Emmy Lou's mittened hand went into Miss Jenny's every morning.

Emmy Lou told Hattie, who came out to Emmy Lou's the next morning. They both waited for Miss Jenny. They each held a hand. It was in this way they came to know the Drug-Store Man. Sometimes he waited for them at the corner. Sometimes he walked out to meet them. He and Miss Jenny seemed to be old friends. He asked them about rudiments of number. They wondered how he knew.

One day Hattie proposed a plan. It was daring. She persuaded Emmy Lou to agree to it. That night Emmy Lou packed her school-bag even to the apple for Miss Jenny. Next morning, early as Hattie arrived, she was waiting for her at the gate, though hot and cold with the daring of the expedition. They were going to walk out in the direction of the Great Unknown, from which, each day, Miss Jenny emerged. They were going to meet Miss Jenny!

They knew she turned into their street at the corner. So they turned. At the next corner they saw Miss Jenny coming. But along the intersecting street, one walking southward, one northward, toward the corner where Hattie, Emmy Lou, and Miss Jenny were about to meet, came two others--Mr. Bryan and the Drug-Store Man!

Something made Emmy Lou and Hattie feel queer and guilty. Something made them turn and run. They ran fast. They ran faster. Emmy Lou's heavy school-bag thumped against her little calves. Her apple flew out. Emmy Lou never stopped.

Hattie told her afterward that it was the Drug-Store Man who brought Miss Jenny to school. Hattie peeped out from behind the shed where the water-buckets sat. She said he brought Miss Jenny to the gate and opened it for her. He had never come farther than the corner before. That day Mr. Bryan did not come to ground them in the rudiments of number, nor did he come the next day; nor ever, any more. Yet the Third Reader Class was undoubtedly poor in arithmetic. Miss Jenny found that out. Mr. Bryan's instruction seemed not to have helped them at all. Miss Jenny said that as they were so well up in drawing, they would lay those books aside, and give that time to arithmetic. And she also reminded them to be conscientious in all their work. They were, and the Roll Call bore witness to their rigourous self-depreciation.

Mr. Bryan never came for number again, but he came, one day, because of Roll Call. Once a week Roll Call was sent to the office. It was called their Class Average. The day of Class Average Mr. Bryan walked in. He rapped smartly on the red and blue lined paper in his hand. Miss Jenny's Class Average, so the class learned, was low, and she must see to it that her class made a better showing. She was a substitute, Mr. Bryan recognised that, and made allowance accordingly, "but"--then he went.

Miss Jenny looked frightened. The class feared she was going to cry. They determined to be better and more conscientious for her sake, feeling that they would die for Miss Jenny. But the Class Average was low again. How could it be otherwise with forty over-strained little consciences determining their own deserts?

One day Miss Jenny was sent for. When one was sent for, one went to the office. Little boys went there to be whipped. Sadie went there once; her grandma was dead, and they had sent for her.

Miss Jenny had been crying when she came back. Lessons went on miserably. Then Miss Jenny put the book down. It was evident she had not heard one word of the absent-minded and sympathetic little girl who said that a peninsula was a body of water almost surrounded by land.

Miss Jenny came to the edge of the platform. She looked way off a moment; then she looked at the class, and spoke. She said she was going to take them into her confidence. Miss Jenny was very young. She told them the teacher of the Third Reader, the Real Teacher, was not coming back, and that she had hoped to take the Real Teacher's place, but the Class Average was being counted against her.

Everybody noticed the tremor in Miss Jenny's voice. It broke on the fatal Class Average. Sadie began to cry.

Miss Jenny came to the very edge of the platform. She looked slight and young and appealing, did Miss Jenny.

Next week, she went on to tell them, would be Quarterly Examination. If they did well in Examination, even with the Class Average against her, Miss Jenny might be allowed to remain, but if they failed----

The Third Reader Class gathered in knots and groups at recess. It depended on them whether Miss Jenny went or stayed. Emmy Lou stood in one of the groups, her chubby face bearing witness to her concern. "What is a Quarterly Examination?" asked Emmy Lou. Nobody seemed very sure.

"Oh," said another little girl, "they give you questions, and you write down answers. My brother is in the Grammar School, and he has Examinations."

"Quarterly Examinations?" asked Emmy Lou, who was definite.

The little girl did not know. She only knew if you answered right, you passed; if wrong, you failed.

And Miss Jenny would go.

There was an air of mystery about a Quarterly Examination. It made one uneasy before the actual thing came, while the uncertainty concerning it was trying to the nerves.

The day before Examination, Miss Jenny told every little girl to clear out her desk and carry all her belongings home. Then she went around and looked in each desk, for not a scrap of paper even must remain.

Miss Jenny told them that she trusted them, it was not that, it was because it was the rule.

"To cheat at Examination," said Miss Jenny, "is worse even than to lie. To cheat is to steal--steal knowledge that doesn't belong to you. To cheat at Examination is to be both a liar and a thief."

The class scarcely breathed. This was terrible.

"About the first subject," said Miss Jenny, "I feel safe. The first thing in the morning you will be examined in drawing."

Emmy Lou at that remembered she had no tissue-paper. Neither had Hattie. Neither had Mamie. Everybody must be reminded. Miss Jenny told them to come with slate, pencils, and legal-cap paper. After school Emmy Lou and Hattie and Sadie and Mamie made mention of tissue-paper. The Drug-Store Man waited on Emmy Lou the next morning. Emmy Lou had a nickel. She wanted tissue-paper. The Drug-Store Man was curious. It seemed as if every little girl who came in wanted tissue-paper. Emmy Lou and the Drug-Store Man were great friends.

"What's it got to do with rudiments of number?" asked the Drug-Store Man.

"It's for drawing," said Emmy Lou. "It's Quarterly Examination."

The Drug-Store Man was interested. He did not quite understand the system. Emmy Lou explained. Her chin did not reach the counter, but she looked up and he leaned over. The Drug-Store Man grew serious. He was afraid this might get Miss Jenny into trouble. He explained to Emmy Lou that it would be cheating to use tissue-paper in Examination, and told her she must draw right off the copy, according to the directions set down in the book. He suggested that she go and tell the others of the class. For that matter, if they came right over, he would take back the tissue-paper and substitute licorice sticks.

Emmy Lou hurried over to tell them. Examinations, she explained, were different, and to use tissue-paper would be cheating. And what would Miss Jenny say? Little girls hurried across the street, and the jar of licorice was exhausted.

Miss Jenny saw them seated. She told them she could trust them. No one in her class would cheat. Then a strange teacher from the class above came in to examine them. It was the rule. And Miss Jenny was sent away to examine a Primary School in another district.

But at the door she turned. Every eye was following her. They loved Miss Jenny. Her cheeks were glowing, and the draught, as Miss Jenny stood in the open doorway, blew her hair about her face. She smiled back at them. She turned to go. But again she turned--Miss Jenny--yes, Miss Jenny was throwing a kiss to the Third Reader Class.

The door closed. It was Examination. The page they were to draw had for copy a cup and saucer. No, worse, a cup in a saucer. And by it was a coffee-pot. And next to that was a pepper-box. And these were to be drawn for Quarterly Examination--without tissue-paper.

When Emmy Lou had finished she felt discouraged. In the result one might be pardoned for some uncertainty as to which was coffee-pot and which pepper-box. The cup and saucer seemed strangely like a circle in a hole. There was a yawning break in the paper from much erasure where the handle of the coffee-pot should have been. There were thumb marks and smears where nothing should have been. Emmy Lou looked at Hattie. Hattie looked worn out. She had her book upside down, putting the holes in the lid of the pepper-box. Sadie was crying. Tears were dropping right down on the page of her book.

The bell rang. Examination in drawing was over. The books were collected. Just as the teacher was dismissing them for recess she opened a book. She opened another. She turned to the front pages. She passed a finger over the reverse side of a page. She was a teacher of long years of experience. She told the class to sit down. She asked a little girl named Mamie Sessum to please rise. It was Mamie's book she held. Mamie rose.

The teacher's tones were polite. It made one tremble, they were so polite. "May I ask," said the teacher, "to have explained the system by which the supposedly freehand drawing in this book has been done?"

"It wasn't any system," Mamie hastened to explain, anxious to disclaim a connection evidently so undesirable; "it was tissue-paper."

"And this confessed openly to my face?" said the teacher. She was, even after many years at the business of exposing the natural depravity of the youthful mind, appalled at the brazenness of Mamie.

Mamie looked uncertain. Whatever she had done, it was well to have company. "We all used tissue-paper," said Mamie.

It proved even so. The teacher, that this thing might be fully exposed, called the roll. Each little girl responded in alphabetical sequence. The teacher's condition of shocked virtue rendered her coldly laconic.

"Tissue-paper?" she asked each little girl in turn.

"Tissue-paper" was the burden, if not the form, of every alarmed little girl's reply.

"Cipher," said the teacher briefly as each made confession, and called the next.

O--Outer darkness!

The teacher at the last closed her book with a snap. "Cipher and worse," she told them. "You are cheats, and to cheat is to lie. And further, the class has failed in drawing."

A bell rang. Recess was over.

The teacher, regarding them coldly, picked up the chalk, and turned to write on the board, "If a man----"

Examination in "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic" had begun.

The Third Reader Class, stunned, picked up its pencils. Miss Jenny had feared for them in arithmetic. They had feared for themselves. They were cheats and liars and they had failed. And the knowledge did not make them feel confident. They were cheats, and a suspicious and cold surveillance on the part of the teacher kept them reminded that she looked upon them as cheats and watched them accordingly. Misery and despair were their portion. And further, failure. In their state of mind it was inevitable for them to get lost in the maze of conditions surrounding "If a man----"

They did better next day in geography and reading. They passed on Friday in spelling and penmanship.

But the terrible fact remained--the teacher had declared them cheats and liars. If they could only see Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny would understand. Miss Jenny would make it all right after she returned.

When the Third Reader Class assembled on Monday, a tall lady occupied the platform. She was a Real Teacher. But at the door stood a memory of Miss Jenny, the hair blown about her face, kissing her hand.

The Third Reader Class never saw Miss Jenny again.

THE PLAY'S THE THING

It was the day of the exhibition. At close of the half year the Third Reader Class had suffered a change in teachers, the first having been a Substitute, whereas her successor was a Real Teacher. And since the coming of Miss Carrie, the Third Reader Class had lived, as it were, in the public eye, for on Fridays books were put away and the attention given to recitations and company.

Miss Carrie talked in deep tones, which she said were chest tones, and described mysterious sweeps and circles with her hands when she talked. And these she called gestures. Miss Carrie was an elocutionist and had even recited on the stage.

She gave her class the benefit of her talent, and in teaching them said they must suit the action to the word. The action meant gestures, and gestures meant sweeps and circles.

Emmy Lou had to learn a piece for Friday. It was poetry, but you called it a piece, and though Uncle Charlie had selected it for Emmy Lou, Miss Carrie did not seem to think much of it.

Emmy Lou stood up. Miss Carrie was drilling her, and though she did her best to suit the action to the word, it seemed a complicated undertaking. The piece was called, "A Plain Direction." Emmy Lou came to the lines:

"Straight down the Crooked Lane
And all round the Square."

Whatever difficulties her plump forefinger had had over the first three of these geometrical propositions, it triumphed at the end, for Emmy Lou paused. A square has four sides, and to suit a four-sided action to the word, takes time.

Miss Carrie, whose attention had wandered a little, here suddenly observing, stopped her, saying her gestures were stiff and meaningless. She said they looked like straight lines cut in the air.

Emmy Lou, anxious to prove her efforts to be conscientious, explained that they were straight lines, it was a square. Miss Carrie drew herself up, and, using her coldest tones, told Emmy Lou not to be funny.

"Funny!" Emmy Lou felt that she did not understand.

But this was a mere episode between Fridays. One lived but to prepare for Fridays, and a Sunday dress was becoming a mere everyday affair, since one's best must be worn for Fridays.

No other class had these recitations and the Third Reader was envied. Its members were pointed out and gazed upon, until one realised one was standing in the garish light of fame. The other readers, it seemed, longed for fame and craved publicity, and so it came about that the school was to have an exhibition with Miss Carrie's genius to plan and engineer the whole. For general material Miss Carrie drew from the whole school, but the play was for her own class alone.

And this was the day of the exhibition.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate of the school. They had spent the morning in rehearsing. At noon they had been sent home with instructions to return at half past two. The exhibition would begin at three.

"Of course," Miss Carrie had said, "you will not fail to be on time." And Miss Carrie had used her deepest tones.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou had wondered how she could even dream of such a thing.

It was not two o'clock, and the three stood at the gate, the first to return.

They were in the same piece. It was The Play. In a play one did more than suit the action to the word, one dressed to suit the part.

In the play Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou found themselves the orphaned children of a soldier who had failed to return from the war. It was a very sad piece. Sadie had to weep, and more than once Emmy Lou had found tears in her own eyes, watching her.

Miss Carrie said Sadie showed histrionic talent. Emmy Lou asked Hattie about it, who said it meant tears, and Emmy Lou remembered then how tears came naturally to Sadie.

When Aunt Cordelia heard they must dress to suit the part she came to see Miss Carrie, and so did the mamma of Sadie and the mamma of Hattie.

"Dress them in a kind of mild mourning," Miss Carrie explained, "not too deep, or it will seem too real, and, as three little sisters, suppose we dress them alike."

And now Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate ready for the play. Stiffly immaculate white dresses, with beltings of black sashes, flared jauntily out above spotless white stockings and sober little black slippers, while black-bound Leghorn hats shaded three anxious little countenances. By the exact centre, each held a little handkerchief, black-bordered.

"It seems almost wicked," Aunt Cordelia had ventured at this point; "it seems like tempting Providence."

But Sadie's mamma did not see it so. Sadie's mamma had provided the handkerchiefs. Tears were Sadie's feature in the play.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou wore each an anxious seriousness of countenance, but it was a variant seriousness.

Hattie's tense expression breathed a determination which might have been interpreted do or die; to Hattie life was a battling foe to be overcome and trodden beneath a victorious heel; Hattie was an infantile St. George always on the look for The Dragon, and to-day The Exhibition was The Dragon.

Sadie's seriousness was a complacent realization of large responsibility. Her weeping was a feature. Sadie remembered she had histrionic talent.

Emmy Lou's anxiety was because there loomed ahead the awful moment of mounting the platform. It was terrible on mere Fridays to mount the platform and, after vain swallowing to overcome a labial dryness and a lingual taste of copper, try to suit the action to the word, but to mount the platform for The Play--Emmy Lou was trying not to look that far ahead. But as the hour approached, the solemn importance of the occasion was stealing brainward, and she even began to feel glad she was a part of The Exhibition, for to have been left out would have been worse even than the moment of mounting the platform.

"My grown-up brother's coming," said Hattie, "an' my mamma an' gran'ma an' the rest."

"My Aunt Cordelia has invited the visiting lady next door," said Emmy Lou.

But it was Sadie's hour. "Our minister's coming," said Sadie.

"Oh, Sadie," said Hattie, and while there was despair in her voice one knew that in Hattie's heart there was exultation at the very awfulness of it.

"Oh, Sadie," said Emmy Lou, and there was no exultation in the tones of Emmy Lou's despair. Not that Emmy Lou had much to do--hers was mostly the suiting of the action to some other's word. She was chosen largely because of Hattie and Sadie who had wanted her. And then, too, Emmy Lou's Uncle Charlie was the owner of a newspaper. The Exhibition might get into its columns. Not that Miss Carrie cared for this herself--she was thinking of the good it might do the school.

Emmy Lou's part was to weep when Sadie wept, and to point a chubby forefinger skyward when Hattie mentioned the departure from earth of the soldier parent, and to lower that forefinger footward at Sadie's tearful allusion to an untimely grave.

Emmy Lou had but one utterance, and it was brief. Emmy Lou was to advance one foot, stretch forth a hand and say, in the character of orphan for whom no asylum was offered, "We know not where we go."

That very morning, at gray of dawn, Emmy Lou had crept from her own into Aunt Cordelia's bed, to say it over, for it weighed heavily on her mind, "We know not where we go."

As Emmy Lou said it the momentous import of the confession fell with explosive relief on the _go_, as if the relief were great to have reached that point.

It seemed to Aunt Cordelia, however, that the _where_ was the problem in the matter.

Aunt Louise called in from the next room. Aunt Louise had large ideas. The stress, she said, should be laid equally on _know not_, _where_, and _go_.

Since then, all day, Emmy Lou had been saying it at intervals of half minutes, for fear she might forget.

Meanwhile, it yet lacking a moment or so to two o'clock, the orphaned heroines continued to linger at the gate, awaiting the hour.

"Listen," said Hattie, "I hear music."

There was a church across the street. The drug-store adjoined it. It was a large church with high steps and a pillared portico, and its doors were open.

"It's a band, and marching," said Hattie.

The orphaned children hurried to the curb. A procession was turning the corner and coming toward them. On either sidewalk crowds of men and boys accompanied it.

"It's a funeral," said Sadie, as if she intuitively divined the mournful.

Hattie turned with a face of conviction. "I know. It's that big general's funeral; they're bringing him here to bury him with the soldiers."

"We'll never see a thing for the crowd," despaired Sadie.

Emmy Lou was gazing. "They've got plumes in their hats," she said.

"Let's go over on the church steps and see it go by," said Hattie, "it's early."

The orphaned children hurried across the street. They climbed the steps. At the top they turned.

There were plumes and more, there were flags and swords, and a band led.

But at the church with unexpected abruptness the band halted, turned, it fell apart, and the procession came through; it came right on through and up the steps, a line of uniforms and swords on either side from curb to pillar, and halted.

Aghast, between two glittering files, the orphaned children shrank into the shadow behind a pillar, while upstreamed from the carriages below an unending line--bare-headed men, and ladies bearing flowers. Behind, below, about, closing in on every side, crowded people, a sea of people.

The orphaned children found themselves swept from their hiding by the crowd and unwillingly jostled forward into prominence.

A frowning man with a sword in his hand seemed to be threatening everybody; his face was red and his voice was big, and he glittered with many buttons. All at once he caught sight of the orphaned children and threatened them vehemently.

"Here," said the frowning man, "right in here," and he placed them in line.

The orphaned children were appalled, and even in the face of the man cried out in protest. But the man of the sword did not hear, for the reason that he did not listen. Instead he was addressing a large and stout lady immediately behind them.

"Separated from the family in the confusion, the grandchildren evidently--just see them in, please."

And suddenly the orphaned children found themselves a part of the procession as grandchildren. The nature of a procession is to proceed. And the grandchildren proceeded with it. They could not help themselves. There was no time for protest, for, pushed by the crowd which closed and swayed above their heads, and piloted by the stout lady close behind, they were swept into the church and up the aisle, and when they came again to themselves were in the inner corner of a pew near the front.

The church was decked with flags.

So was the Third Reader room. It was hung with flags for The Exhibition.

Hattie in the corner nudged Sadie. Sadie urged Emmy Lou, who, next to the stout lady, touched her timidly. "We have to get out," said Emmy Lou, "we've got to say our parts."

"Not now," said the lady, reassuringly, "the programme is at the cemetery."

Emmy Lou did not understand, and she tried to tell the lady.

"S'h'h," said that person, engaged with the spectacle and the crowd, "sh-h-"

Abashed, Emmy Lou sat, sh-h-ed.

Hattie arose. It was terrible to rise in church, and at a funeral, and the church was filled, the aisles were crowded, but Hattie rose. Hattie was a St. George and A Dragon stood between her and The Exhibition.

She pushed by Sadie, and past Emmy Lou. Hattie was as slim as she was strenuous, or perhaps she was slim because she was strenuous, but not even so slim a little girl as Hattie could push by the stout lady, for she filled the space.

At Hattie's touch she turned. Although she looked good-natured, the size and ponderance of the lady were intimidating. She stared at Hattie; people were looking; it was in church; Hattie's face was red.

"You can't get to the family," said the lady, "you couldn't move in the crowd. Besides I promised to see to you. Now be quiet," she added crossly, when Hattie would have spoken. She turned away. Hattie crept back vanquished by this Dragon.

"So suitably dressed," the stout lady was saying to a lady beyond; "grandchildren, you know."

"She says they are grandchildren," echoed the whispers around.

"Even their little handkerchiefs have black borders," somebody beyond replied.

Emmy Lou wondered if she was in some dreadful dream. Was she a grandchild or was she an orphan? Her head swam.

The service began and there fell on the unwilling grandchildren the submission of awe. The stout lady cried, she also punched Emmy Lou with her elbow whenever that little person moved, but finally she found courage to turn her head so she could see Sadie.

Sadie was weeping into her black-bordered handkerchief, nor were they the tears of histrionic talent. They were real tears. People all about were looking at her sympathetically. Such grief in a grandchild was very moving.

It may have been minutes, it seemed to Emmy Lou hours, before there came a general up-rising. Hattie stood up. So did Sadie and Emmy Lou. Their skirts no longer stood out jauntily; they were quite crushed and subdued.

There was a wild, hunted look in Hattie's eyes. "Watch the chance," she whispered, "and run."

But it did not come. As the pews emptied, the stout lady passed Emmy Lou on, addressing some one beyond. "Hold to this one," she said, "and I'll take the other two, or they'll get tramped in the crowd."

Emmy Lou felt herself grasped, she could not see up to find by whom. The crowd in the aisle had closed above her head, but she heard the stout lady behind saying, "Did you ever see such an ill-mannered child!" and Emmy Lou judged that Hattie was struggling against Fate.

Slowly the crowd moved, and, being a part of it however unwillingly, Emmy Lou moved too, out of the church and down the steps. Then came the crashing of the band and the roll of carriages, and she found herself in the front row on the curb.

The man with the brandishing sword was threatening violently. "One more carriage is here for the family," called the man with the sword. His face was red and his voice was hoarse. His glance in search for the family suddenly fell on Emmy Lou. She felt it fall.

The problem solved itself for the man with the sword, and his brow cleared. "Grandchildren next," roared the threatening man.

"Grandchildren," echoed the crowd.

Hattie and Sadie were pushed forward from somewhere, Hattie lifting her voice. But what was the cry of a Hattie before the brazen utterance of the band? Sadie was weeping wildly.