She went to the bell-rope and pulled with both hands. It was quite
needless to use so much force. The bell was directly over her head; and
instead of the "mellow lin-lan-lone" she expected, it made a din so
tremendous that it almost seemed as if the roof were about to fall upon
her. At the same time there was a scrambling and pounding at the door.
The children were trying to get in.
"Oh, miserable me, I've locked them out!" thought the little teacher in
dismay.
She hastened to the door and opened it, and they rushed in with a shout.
This was an odd beginning; but Kyzie said not a word. She remembered
that she was now Miss Dunlee, so she threw back her shoulders and looked
her straightest and tallest, and as much as possible like Miss Prince,
her favorite teacher. She had intended all along to imitate Miss
Prince--whenever she could think of it.
Only fourteen years old! Well, what of that? Grandma Parlin had been
only fourteen when she taught _her_ first school. Keep a brave heart,
Katharine Dunlee!
Joe Rolfe walked in as stiffly as a wooden soldier. Behind him came a
few boys and girls, some of them with their fingers in their mouths.
There were twelve in all. The last ones to enter were Nate and Jimmy,
followed by Aunt Lucy and her niece arm in arm.
"I wonder if Nate is laughing at me for locking the door?" thought
Kyzie, not daring to look at him, as she waved her hands and said in a
loud voice to be heard above the noise:--
"All please be seated."
Being seated was a work of time; and what a din it made! The children
wandered about, trying one bench after another to see which they liked
best.
"You would think they were getting settled for life," whispered Nate to
Jimmy.
The "little two" chose a place near the west window and began at once
to write on their slates.
"I'm scared of Miss Dunlee," wrote Aunt Lucy.
"Stop making me laugh," replied the niece.
When at last everybody was "settled for life," Kyzie did not know what
to do next. "What would Miss Prince do? Why she would read in the Bible.
I forgot that."
The new teacher took her stand on the platform behind the desk, opened
her Bible, and read aloud the twenty-third Psalm. Her voice shook,
partly from fright, partly from trying so hard not to laugh. But she did
not even smile--far from it. Nate and Jimmy who were watching her could
have told you that. If she had been at a funeral she could hardly have
looked more solemn.
Jimmy touched Nate's foot under the bench; Nate gave Jimmy a shove; Bab
gazed hard at Lucy's flaxen cue; Lucy gazed straight at her thumb.
After the reading "Miss Dunlee" walked about with her blank-book in one
hand and her pen in the other to take down the children's names.
"I'm Joseph Rolfe; don't you remember me?" said the boy with red hair.
"And this boy next seat is Chicken Little."
"No, I ain't either, I'm Henry Small," corrected the little fellow,
ready to cry.
Kyzie shook her finger at both the boys and resolved that "Joe should
stop calling names, and Henry should stop being such a cry-baby."
Annie Farrell was a dear little girl in a blue and white gingham gown,
and the new teacher loved her at once. Dorothy Pratt was little more
than a baby, and when spoken to she put her apron to her eyes and wanted
to go home.
"She can't go home," said her older sister Janey, "mamma's cookin' for
company!"
Kyzie patted the baby's tangled hair and sent Janey to get her some
water.
"I'll go," spoke up Jack Whiting, aged seven. "Janey isn't big enough.
Besides the pail leaks."
"I'm so glad Edith isn't here," thought Kyzie, "or we should both get to
giggling. There, it's time now to call them out to read. Let me see,
where is the best crack in the floor for them to stand on? Why didn't I
bring a quarter of a dollar with a hole in it for a medal? Oh, the medal
will be for the spelling-class; that was what Grandma Parlin said."
It seemed a "ling-long" forenoon, and the little teacher rejoiced when
eleven o'clock came. The family at home looked at her curiously, and
Uncle James asked outright, "Tell us, Grandmother Graymouse, how do the
scholars behave?"
"Well, I suppose they behaved as well as they knew how; but oh, it makes
me so hungry!"
She could not say whether she liked teaching or not.
"Wait till Friday night, Uncle James, and then I'll tell you."
"Well said, Grandmother Graymouse! You couldn't have made a wiser
remark. We'll ask no further questions till Friday night."
But when Friday night came they were all thinking of something else,
something quite out of the common; and "Grandmother Graymouse" and her
school were forgotten.