"Elizabeth Campbell!" The master's tone was quite terrible.
"I don't care! He won't leave me alone. He's just--just (sob)pu--pulling at me (sob) all the time."By this time Betsy's apron was up to her eyes, and her sobs were quite tempestuous.
"James, stand up!" Jimmie slowly rose, red with laughter, and covered with confusion.
"I-I-I di-dn't touch her!" he protested.
"O--h!" said little Aleck Sinclair, who had been enjoying Jimmie's prank hugely; "he was--""That'll do, Aleck, I didn't ask you. James is quite able to tell me himself. Now, James!""I-I-I was only just doing that," said Jimmie, sober enough now, and terrified at the results of his mischief.
"Doing what?" said the master, repressing a smile at Jimmie's woebegone face.
"Just-just that!" and Jimmie touched gingerly with the point of his finger the bows of Betsy Dan's apron-strings.
"Oh, I see. You were annoying Elizabeth while she was reading. No wonder she found it difficult. Now, do you think that was very nice?"Jimmie twisted himself into a semicircle.
"N-o-o."
"Come here, James!" Jimmie looked frightened, came round the class, and up to the master.
"Now, then," continued the master, facing Jimmie round in front of Betsy Dan, who was still using her apron upon her eyes, "tell Elizabeth you are sorry."Jimmie stood in an agony of silent awkwardness, curving himself in varying directions.
"Are you sorry?"
"Y-e-e-s."
"Well, tell her so."
Jimmie drew a long breath and braced himself for the ordeal. He stood a moment or two, working his eyes up shyly from Betsy Dan's shoes to her face, caught her glancing at him from behind her apron, and began, "I-I-I'm (tchik! tchik) sor-ry," (tchik). Betsy Dan's look was too much for the little chap's gravity.
A roar swept over the school-house. Even the grim dominie's face relaxed.
"Go to your seat and behave yourself," said the master, giving Jimmie a slight cuff. "Now, Margaret, let us go on."Margaret's was the difficult verse. But to Margaret's quiet voice and gentle heart, anything like shriek or battle-cry was foreign enough, so with even tone, and unmodulated by any shade of passion, she read the cry, "To arms! They come! The Greek! The Greek!"Nor was her voice to be moved from its gentle, monotonous flow even by the battle-cry of Bozzaris, "Strike! till the last armed foe expires!""Next," said the dominie, glad to get on with his task.
The master breathed freely, when, alas for his hopes, the minister spoke up.
"But, Margaret, do you think Bozzaris cheered his men in so gentle a voice as that?"Margaret smiled sweetly, but remained silent, glad to get over the verse.
"Wouldn't you like to try it again?" suggested the minister.
Margaret flushed up at once.
"Oh, no," said his wife, who had noticed Margaret's flushing face.
"Girls are not supposed to be soldiers, are they, Margaret?"Margaret flashed a grateful look at her.
"That's a boy's verse."
"Ay! that it is," said the old dominie; "and I would wish very much that Mrs. Murray would conduct this class."But the minister's wife would not hear of it, protesting that the dominie could do it much better. The old man, however, insisted, saying that he had no great liking for this part of the examination, and would wish to reserve himself, with the master's permission, for the "arith-MET-ic" class.
Mrs. Murray, seeing that it would please the dominie, took the book, with a spot of color coming in her delicate, high-bred face.
"You must all do your best now, to help me," she said, with a smile that brought an answering smile flashing along the line. Even Thomas Finch allowed his stolid face a gleam of intelligent sympathy, which, however, he immediately suppressed, for he remembered that the next turn was his, and that he must be getting himself into the appearance of dogged desperation which he considered suitable to a reading exercise.
"Now, Thomas," said the minister's wife, sweetly, and Thomas plunged heavily.
"They fought like brave men, long--"
"Oh, Thomas, I think we will try that man's verse again, with the cries of battle in it, you know. I am sure you can do that well."It was all the same to Thomas. There were no words he could not spell, and he saw no reason why he should not do that verse as well as any other. So, with an extra knitting of his eyebrows, he set forth doggedly.
"An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was-his-last."Thomas's voice fell with the unvarying regularity of the beat of a trip-hammer.
"He-woke-to-hear-his-sentries-shriek-to-arms-they-come-the-Greek-the-Greek-he-woke--""But, Thomas, wait a minute. You see you must speak these words, 'To arms! They come!' differently from the others. These words were shrieked by the sentries, and you must show that in your reading.""Speak them out, man," said the minister, sharply, and a little nervously, fearing that his wife had undertaken too great a task, and hating to see her defeated.
"Now, Thomas," said Mrs. Murray, "try again. And remember the sentries shrieked these words, 'To arms!' and so on."Thomas squared his shoulders, spread his feet apart, added a wrinkle to his frown, and a deeper note of desperation to his tone, and began again.
"An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was--"The master shuddered.
"Now, Thomas, excuse me. That's better, but we can improve that yet." Mrs. Murray was not to be beaten. The attention of the whole school, even to Jimmie Cameron, as well as that of the visitors, was now concentrated upon the event.
"See," she went on, "each phrase by itself. 'An hour passed on:
the Turk awoke.' Now, try that far."
Again Thomas tried, this time with complete success. The visitors applauded.
"Ah, that's it, Thomas. I was sure you could do it."Thomas relaxed a little, but not unduly. He was not sure what was yet before him.
"Now we will get that 'sentries shriek.' See, Thomas, like this a little," and she read the words with fine expression.
"You must put more pith, more force, into those words, Thomas.
