TOMMY FINNEMORE’S foolish boasting lost nothing in repetition. When it
came with accretions to his father’s ear, that gentleman, who shared
the general high respect and admiration for Meadowcroft on the part
of the village, and who was, moreover, secretly very proud of the
latter’s friendliness towards his son, threatened Tommy with such dire
punishment in case of the slightest misbehavior while Mr. Meadowcroft
acted as principal of the school, that the boy told Betty and Rose on
the way to school Monday morning that he felt as if he ought to remove
his shoes before crossing the floor. George Pogany, too, heard at the
store of Tommy’s boast, and commenting on it to his daughter declared
that he was more than ever glad to know that she was always a good girl
in school and would make things as easy for the substitute teacher as
she knew how. Mrs. Phillips, who, considering that she had nothing to
do with her neighbors, kept up amazingly with local news and gossip,
rather gleefully repeated to her brother her own version of the remark
as she had received it, which had, even then, little in common with
Tommy’s idle words.
For a few seconds, Meadowcroft was hurt and a bit indignant. Already
deeply attached to the boy as he was, the remark as he heard it
sounded more than unfriendly--it seemed almost malicious. But after
his sister had left him alone, and he considered the matter calmly,
he recollected the fact that Isabel, who did not in any case care for
children, seemed almost to have a grudge against the boy and girl he
found so engaging, companionable, and altogether delightful. He knew,
moreover, by sad, even bitter experience that she was capable, in the
arrogance of her wealth and independence, of quite misconstruing facts
or statements of others even when such action served no purpose unless
that of affording herself amusement. Tommy might make foolish remarks,
and he was quite capable of boasting; but he would never be hateful and
upstart as Isabel would have made him believe. Before the end of the
evening, Meadowcroft had dismissed the matter from his mind, forgotten
it utterly as he believed, though it was to come up again later.
Having prevailed upon Mrs. Appleton to allow him to send a trained
nurse of his acquaintance from Philadelphia to care for her husband,
and being assured that all was going as well with his friend as could
be expected, Humphrey Meadowcroft was able to give himself wholly to
the service of the school, and truly it was with immense satisfaction
that he did so. And success seemed to be with him from the start. The
enthusiastic welcome that he received seemed to endure permanently
in the fact of a school extraordinarily amenable and well-disposed.
The pleasure he gained from his teaching, great as it was, seemed
to be exceeded by that which it imparted. In truth, Meadowcroft’s
polished manners, his beautiful voice, his refined face, his finished
scholarliness, the quiet elegance of his dress, his familiarity
with a world almost unknown to the quiet country town, exerted a
romantic spell over the impressionable boys and girls who made up the
seventy-odd pupils. Even his lameness added to his utter difference
from other folk; and very shortly his genuine kindness and sympathetic
insight had warmed their romantic admiration into real hero-worship.
For himself, Humphrey Meadowcroft had never been so content. It seemed
to him as if he had never known happiness until now. And though the
labor involved was not slight in preparing for and teaching from six to
eight subjects a day, having at the same time that he held his classes
oversight of as many of the pupils as were not having a recitation
in another classroom to the one assistant teacher, his zeal and zest
rather increased than abated.
This endured for three weeks. But directly after the end of the
third week, the clear horizon seemed on a sudden to be clouded over.
There was a change. Meadowcroft did not know when, how, or whence
the intimation came to him, but he found himself subtly aware that
something was wrong. He actually heard or saw nothing to which
exception could be taken: everything appeared quiet, orderly, pleasant
as before. But somehow he gathered the impression of something amiss,
seemed to deduce it from silence and negation. And the impression
became more and more strong without being really definite. Finally it
seemed like actual suspicion, though there was nothing upon which the
acting master could center or base it.
Then quite suddenly and inexplicably, quite appallingly, indeed, it
narrowed down and seemed to connect itself with the three pupils he had
known well before he came to take Mr. Appleton’s place--the three South
Paulding children, two of whom he considered his intimate friends. He
had decided at the beginning that he must bear himself towards Betty,
Rose, and Tommy just as he bore himself towards the other pupils, to
hold his relationship to them to exactly the same plane of formality or
informality--that is, with just enough formality to keep the relation
of master and pupils dignified and seemly and yet all friendliness.
No particular effort had been required, for these three had appeared
quite as thoughtful and well-disposed as the others--which was much
to say. But now that something seemed to single them out, Meadowcroft
suddenly recollected Tommy’s boast and decided that he was the culprit.
Somehow or other, the boy was misbehaving. He was putting up some game
on the substitute master which the other children understood but which
he himself had hitherto been too unsuspecting to detect. Betty Pogany
wouldn’t, he was assured, have anything to do with such plot; she
would use her influence against it. But that failing, she wouldn’t, of
course, tell, and he wouldn’t have her. None the less, he determined to
catch and punish the malefactor as he deserved.
Which undertaking was not, however, simple. Constant watching and
surveillance spoiled Mr. Meadowcroft’s fourth week and availed nothing.
He saw Betty and Tommy outside of school hours fairly often, though not
of course so frequently as he had been accustomed to do when his days
were less full. He did not return to South Paulding until the half-past
four train, arriving after dark, and when the children came in, their
visits were naturally curtailed. In any event, he didn’t feel like
bringing up this matter at home, still believing it better to keep the
spheres of home and school, neighbors and school-master separate.
And when finally he discovered what was amiss, it was quite by
accident. It happened in the midst of his fifth week at the high
school--on a Wednesday.