Part 24 (1/2)

”No touch my flesh unt blut,” he cried savagely; ”no touch my flesh unt blut.”

A half-rec.u.mbent figure in the rear, whose pale eyes rested upon her, gave the little girl courage. ”No one has been touched,” she replied.

”But if the school is made noisy by a pupil, then that pupil will be punished, or will leave.”

The Pole raised his gad with a grunt of rage. ”Eh?” he shouted, cursing in his own tongue. He nourished his arms and stamped up and down wildly.

Of a sudden he saw the Swede boy, who had come forward and halted beside the table. His gaze fell before the pale, half-shut eyes, his voice lowered, and he ceased to swing his whip and swear. Then he hedged adroitly, speaking in broken English again and giving quick looks at the Swede boy's huge, red hands, that hung, clenched and twitching, on either side of his stalwart person.

”I hav-v no trouble wid you,” he said to the little girl, his manner changing to one of apology, ”bud I lick my boy mineself,” and he moved down the aisle and disappeared through the door.

His son gazed after him in amazement and disgust, gave a sniff of contempt, and replied to the triumphant look on the little girl's face by extracting his geography and going to work. He played his pranks no more, and the term pa.s.sed peaceably, under the mental guidance of the little girl and the physical overlords.h.i.+p of the Swede boy.

ON the afternoon of the last day of school, when her pupils had said their good-bys and were straying homeward laden with their books and slates, the little girl stayed behind. And, sitting in the very place to which in former years she had raised reverent eyes, she looked round the building, every crack and corner of which had its memory.

On the bench by the door, close beside the leaky water-bucket, was the same battered, greasy basin in which the neighbor woman's daughter had placed a horse-hair one day, stoutly maintaining that in due time the hair would miraculously turn into a worm.

The broken pointer reminded her of a certain fierce encounter when, having confided to one of the Dutchman's seven that on the previous Sunday the farm-house had partaken of a dish of canned frogs' legs, she had been hailed in return as ”Miss Chinaman,” and the teacher had closed the event by routing her tormentors.

She thought of the morning the Dutch children first came in leather shoes, an occasion recalled by the pencil-marks behind the chart, where she had stood her punishment for too much smiling.

The stove-poker brought back the terrible moment she had dared to put her tongue against it in the icy school-room, and had had to sit with the iron cleaving to her until the teacher warmed some water.

The peg above the coal-bins reminded her of the winter day when she took down the well-rope and tied it to the faithful Luffree's collar, so that, with his keener, finer instinct for direction, he could lead teacher and pupils through a blizzard to the safety of the farm-house.

She was suddenly awakened from her day-dreams by the sound of galloping.

A horseman was approaching from the direction of the farm-house, and she hurried to the door to see who it could be. As he came near, she ran out joyfully to meet him. It was the colonel's son.

”They told me you were here,” he cried, springing from his saddle. She could scarcely answer him for sheer happiness, and when he brought out her mount and they started away through the twilight, he leading the horses, she walked beside him silently.

He told her about his trip, his months at the preparatory school, his new friends, the wonders of the big city in which he had been living, hardly taking a breath in his excitement as his narrative swept along.

Suddenly he became quiet and bent toward her anxiously, penitently.

”Go on,” she urged; ”it's fine!”

”But I've forgotten to ask you how you've been and what you've been doing. Or whether--next year--Of course I wish awfully that you could--”

He faltered, stopped. Then, after a moment, ”But you're as brave as can be to just go right on at this school and let your teacher help you all she can. It'll all count, you'll find, when you start in studying some place else.”

She laughed merrily. ”You haven't heard,” she said. Even in the dusk he could see that her face was beaming.

”Heard what?” he asked.

”That I've been going to school, but--not in the way you think.”

He halted in the road. ”What do you mean?”