Part 19 (1/2)

”No. Just before cla.s.s began. Jakey slid into that one just behind you.”

”I didn't notice.”

”_She_ may, if they are in different seats tomorrow.”

The zero hour came. Betty looked at the questions on the board. Oh, they weren't so bad. It was fair. There were the special things that Miss Heath had emphasized, some of the hardest to get, to be sure, but Betty had studied hard and she had freshened up on the vocabulary lists and some of the rules of syntax, for she dreaded the translations, sentences that Miss Heath would make up, some of them at least.

Betty's cheeks were hot, but she worked away. Mercy, her fountain pen had given out. She took a pencil and found its point blunt. Hastily she traveled to the pencil sharpener and put on it as sharp a point as possible. Miss Heath did not want them to use pencil for examinations if it were not necessary; but this wasn't the semester final, when Carolyn said you _had_ to use ink, they said. But she'd better sharpen two pencils, perhaps.

Betty scarcely saw the rest of the scholars as she returned to her desk for another pencil, so absorbed was she in thoughts of the examination questions. There was a whisking of something on several desks as she and some one else pa.s.sed down parallel aisles at the same time, she to return, the other to go to the pencil sharpener. As she sat down and looked off thoughtfully at the board, the teacher was looking in her direction and two of the boys were chuckling behind her.

The teacher rapped for order and Betty, turning, caught a glimpse of Peggy, who was looking daggers at somebody behind Betty. But Betty was finis.h.i.+ng her paper. The time was nearly up. She read over what she had, put in a long mark over a vowel in one of the declensions, looked for other omissions or mistakes, and puzzled over her last English to Latin sentence. She hoped it was right. There went the bell. Betty made ready her paper. Now it was handed in. Now they were in the hall. The test was over. What a relief!

”Did you see what those boys were doing?” asked Peggy, as Betty and Carolyn caught up with her at the door of the room where they were entering for another cla.s.s.

”No, what was it?” questioned Carolyn, but the teacher just then beckoned Betty, to give her back a paper that she had failed to return with the rest given out to the cla.s.s, and Betty missed Peggy's reply.

”That was a very good paper, Betty,” said her teacher. ”I found it with some soph.o.m.ore papers where it had gotten by mistake.”

Betty was disappointed to find only an eighty-eight for her grade, but she knew that anything over eighty was good with Miss Smith. Tests were popular just now at Lyon High. All too soon would come the semester finals!

The busy week ended and Monday came again. The same young subst.i.tute was in Miss Heath's place. She was ”terribly cross” with the boys, Peggy said, but she didn't blame her. Four or five of the freshman boys tried to see how far they could go and went a little too far for their own good, for when there was some chalk throwing at the blackboard, during written exercises there, the teacher called several boys by name to take their seats and see her after cla.s.s. ”If any one else longs to be sent to detention, he or she may just keep on with the fun as these have done!”

There was an immediate cessation of performances, for D. T., as it was called, was not popular.

”By the way,” the teacher added, ”I should like to see after cla.s.s for a moment Betty Lee and Peggy Pollard.”

Betty, who was at the board, pausing in her work to listen to the startling interruptions, was surprised to hear her own name. What could the teacher want with her? But after a surprised look at the somewhat grim face of an otherwise attractive young woman, Betty turned again to the board and finished the verb synopsis on which she was engaged. The cla.s.s work went on as usual, with correction and a.s.signments by the teacher, recitation and occasional question on the part of the cla.s.s.

The boys who had been told to stay remained in their seats at the close of cla.s.s and Betty, raising her eyebrows at Peggy, gathered up her books and went to one of the front seats to wait the teacher's pleasure. She felt in a hurry, for she was due at study hall on this day and it was on the third floor, quite a climb from the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

With eyes demurely on her books, she listened to a brief and sharp rebuke delivered to the boys, who scurried out of the room as soon as they were ordered to ”detention” that evening, immediately after the close of school. At ”detention” some victim among the teachers, who took turns at the disagreeable task, was in charge of a room devoted to the derelicts from duty who had from one cause or another been a.s.signed to an extra hour in study after their cla.s.smates and others had gone. How long that extra hour! And when there was ”doubly D. T.” or detention for several days, alas!

That Betty was to receive any rebuke was the last thing that she expected, though she was nervously wondering for what she was asked to stay. She looked inquiringly, and in Betty's unconsciously sweet way, as the boys disappeared, and was beckoned to a seat in front of the desk.

”Come also, Peggy Pollard,” said the teacher, Miss Masterman. ”I believe this is Peggy, isn't it?”

”Yes'm, and that's Betty Lee.”

”Peggy, did you exchange papers with any one Thursday?”

”No'm,” replied Peggy, looking surprised.

”Did you communicate with any one?”

”No'm.”

”Think a minute. Are you sure that you did not say anything?”