high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot Pupasse's dress
to gain her attention.
And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was
procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. One
by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as possible,
would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her list, would
copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold it down, and
give it to the next one, until all had written.
"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you can
have them."
Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more she
read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and so
many sins she had never thought of--never dreamed of! She set herself
with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the door--Madame
Joubert! You never could have told that those little girls had not
been sitting during the whole time, with their hands clasped and eyes
cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips as the prayer-beads
glided through their fingers. Their versatility was really marvelous.
[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNION.]
Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and madame's
increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by
the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and
never returned--or at least she returned, but only for madame. There
was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, all dressed in black, with
her bag of primary books in her hand, ready and eager to get back to
her classes and fools' caps; madame, hesitating between her interests
and her fear of ridicule; Madame Joubert, between her loyalty to
school and her conscience. Pupasse the only one free and untrammeled,
simple and direct.
That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes!
Madame Joubert detested acting--the comedy, as she called it. There
was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. And
yet--
"Pupasse, _ma fille_, give me your grammar."
The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the string
still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging around the
neck.
"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. Commence!"
"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure you."
"Commence!"
"Irregular verbs--but I assure you I know it--I know it by heart--"
"Commence, _ma fille!_"
"Irregular verbs--irregular verbs--I know it, Madame Joubert--one
moment--" and she shook her right hand, as girls do to get
inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs--give me one word, Madame
Joubert; only one word!"
"That--"
"Irregular verbs, that--irregular verbs, that--"
"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a cat
does"--Madame Joubert's favorite comparison.
"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!"
"Silence!"
"But, Madame Joubert--"
"Will you be silent!"
"Yes, Madame Joubert; only--"
"Pupasse, one more word--and--" Madame Joubert was forgetting her
comedy--"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home and learn that lesson.
When you know it, you can reënter your class. That is the punishment I
have thought of to correct your 'want of attention.'"
That was the way Madame Joubert put it--"want of attention."
Pupasse looked at her--at madame, a silent but potent spectator. To
be sent from home because she did not know the rule of the irregular
verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for that was the
way Pupasse put it. She had been in that school--it may only be
whispered--fifteen years. Madame Joubert knew it; so did madame,
although they accounted for only four or five years in each class.
That school was her home; Madame Joubert--God help her!--her mother;
madame, her divinity; fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life.
The old grandmother--she it was who had done everything for her (a
_ci-devant_ rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing to her.
Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the
handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman.
But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great
recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt
something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should
she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon
_her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement,
a _tressaillement_, of the heart.
"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall
come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I
shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word."
Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a
fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly
Couriers," by the year-full!
What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame
Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag
of books disappeared through the gate.
Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one
knows about her part of the bargain.
One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant,
a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abécédaire's eyes
could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There
sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers
stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there
sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs.
And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped
hoop-skirts!