Part 2 (2/2)
”Stand by the pail, Rebecca!--Samuel Simpson how many times have you asked for water already?”
”This is the f-f-fourth.”
”Don't touch the dipper, please. The school has done nothing but drink all day; it has had no time whatever to study. What is the matter with you, Samuel?”
”It is a v-very thirsty m-morning,” remarked Samuel, looking at Rebecca while the school t.i.ttered.
”I judged so. Stand by the other side of the pail, with Rebecca.”
Rebecca's head was bowed with shame and wrath. Life looked too black a thing to be endured. The punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled in correction with Seesaw Simpson was beyond human endurance.
Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon, and Minnie Smellie chose ”Shall we Gather at the River?” It was a curious choice and seemed to hold some secret a.s.sociation with the situation and general progress of events; or at any rate there was apparently some obscure reason for the energy and vim with which the scholars looked at the empty water pail as they shouted the choral invitation again and again:--
”Shall we gather at the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river?”
Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca's bent head, and was frightened.
The child's face was pale save for two red spots glowing on her checks.
Tears hung on her lashes; her breath came and went quickly, and the hand that held her pocket handkerchief trembled like a leaf.
”You may go to your seat, Rebecca,” said Miss Dearborn at the end of the first song. ”Samuel, stay where you are till the close of school.
And let me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand by the pail only to break up this habit of incessant drinking, which is nothing but empty-mindedness and desire to walk to and fro over the floor. Every time Rebecca has asked for a drink to-day the whole school has gone to the pail like a regiment. She is really thirsty, and I dare say I ought to have punished you for following her example, not her for setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice?”
”'The Old Oaken Bucket,' please.”
”Think of something dry, Alice, and change the subject. Yes, 'The Star Spangled Banner' if you like, or anything else.” Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing book from her desk. Miss Dearborn's public explanation had s.h.i.+fted some of the weight from her heart, and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem.
Under cover of the general relaxation of singing, offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine.
Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he pa.s.sed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map of Maine, while Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place.
Altogether existence grew brighter, and when she was left alone with the teacher for her grammar lesson she had nearly recovered her equanimity, which was more than Miss Dearborn had. The last clattering foot had echoed through the hall, Seesaw's backward glance of penitence had been met and answered defiantly by one of cold disdain.
”Rebecca, I am afraid I punished you more than I meant,” said Miss Dearborn, who was only eighteen herself, and in her year of teaching country schools had never encountered a child like Rebecca.
”I had n't missed a question this whole day, nor whispered either,”
quavered the culprit; ”and I don't think I ought to be shamed just for drinking.”
”You started all the others, or it seemed as if you did. Whatever you do they all do, whether you laugh, or write notes, or ask to leave the room, or drink; and it must be stopped.”
”Sam Simpson is a copycoat!” stormed Rebecca. ”I would n't have minded standing in the corner alone--that is, not so very much; but I couldn't bear standing with him.”
”I saw that you could n't, and that's the reason I told you to take your seat, and left him in the corner. Remember that you are a stranger in the place, and they take more notice of what you do, so you must be careful. Now let's have our conjugations. Give me the verb 'to be,'
potential mood, past perfect tense.”
”I might have been Thou mightst have been He might have been We might have been You might have been They might have been”
”Give me an example, please.”
”I might have been glad Thou mightst have been glad He, she, or it might have been glad”
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