PHYLLIS'S "MATH" PAPER
Examination week had come. Every face in the big study hall gave ample
proof to the fact. Bowed heads and narrowed eyes pored over open
text-books, and a strained and unnatural silence hung over the room.
Even in the ten-minute recess only whispers could be heard, and most of
the heads kept on over their books.
"Sally's Aunt Jane's poll parrot," Phyllis whispered. "I haven't a
chance in a thousand of passing math. I wouldn't mind so much if I
didn't know that Ducky Lucky will be delighted. How do you feel, Jan?"
"Scared to death," Janet admitted. "My hands are frozen, and my tongue
is sticking to the roof of my mouth."
"Oh, I wish you'd keep still," Muriel fretted. "I'm trying to study."
"What's the use?" Rosamond asked. "You can't learn things at the last
minute, so why try?"
Muriel put her fingers in her ears and bowed again over her book.
The bell rang, and every girl gave a deep sigh. It was partly relief
and partly dread.
Miss Baxter entered the room, her arms full of papers.
"She's having the time of her life," Phyllis said crossly. "I bet she
flunks every one of us."
The papers were distributed to the various classes, and Miss Baxter
took her place on the platform. A heavy silence descended upon the
room, only broken by the scratching of many pen points. Miss Baxter
insisted in having her papers written in ink and written neatly; the
combination was not always easy to achieve.
Phyllis, who had moved her seat half way across the room, surveyed the
questions before her in dismay. There did not appear to be one out of
the ten that she could do. She buried her head in her hands and waited
for an inspiration. None came, and she looked over at Janet.
"She looks as though she positively liked it," she said to herself.
"Well, I suppose I might as well do something."
She settled to work and scratched away for two long hours. She knew
she was making mistakes, but she went ahead, determined to have a
filled and neatly written paper if nothing else.
She had finished long before Janet, but she waited until she saw her
folding her paper before she signed her name to her own. They followed
each other to the desk, Miss Baxter not at all sure which was which.
"Well?" Phyllis demanded as they met in the hall.
"Well, what?" Janet inquired.
"Did you flunk?"
"I don't believe so; it was easy."
"Easy!"
"I thought so, anyway. I answered them all, and they seemed to work
out right."
"Hum."
"What's the trouble?"
"Oh, nothing, only I flunked."
"How do you know?"
"Because I just wrote numbers."
"Oh, well, cheer up. Maybe they were the right numbers." Janet was
determined to be cheerful. She had found the examination much easier
than she had expected and she felt reasonably sure that she had passed.
"I don't much care; we've the rest of the day to ourselves anyway;
let's go home." Phyllis made the suggestion light heartedly enough,
for lessons never worried her for very long and mathematics least of
all.
They walked home through the park and met Don. He was chasing brownies
as usual, and poor Nannie was finding it difficult to keep up with him.
She never let him out of her sight for even an instant, and every man
that passed was a possible kidnapper in her old eyes.
Don greeted the girls with joy.
"I were chasing a brownie!" he exclaimed, "but he got away from me."
He took Phyllis by the hand and led her towards the lake. Janet sat
down on the bench beside his nurse.
"Why does Don always say were, instead of was?" she inquired.
"'Deed, miss, that's his father's fault," Nannie replied. "One day
Master Don said 'they was going' and his father picked him up on his
lap and he said to him, said he, 'Don, never say was, say were.' The
poor lamb was so startled that he never forgot, and I can't make him
change for the life of me."
"Don't try," Janet laughed; "it's awfully cunning to hear him say were!
I hope he never changes."
Phyllis came back, a brown leaf in her hand, and Don tugging at her
skirts.
"Here we are, Nannie, all safe and sound, and we caught the brownie."
She gave the leaf to Don, and she and Janet went on their way.
"Let's stop and see Akbar," Phyllis suggested.
"I knew you'd say that," Janet laughed. "What makes you so fond of
that animal."
"Oh, I don't know; he always makes me want to do something with my
hands."
"Paint?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Mold, perhaps?" Janet asked the question idly, but Phyllis spun around
and stopped as she heard it.
"That's it!" she cried excitedly. "I want to mold him. I never
realized it until this minute. Come on, let's hurry home. There's
some putty in the cellar and I'm going to try."
Janet, used to her twin's sudden whims, followed in amused silence.
When they reached home they found a letter from Sally awaiting them.
"Oh, read it quick!" Phyllis exclaimed. "No, wait a minute. Let's go
up to the snuggery and get comfy." She went off to find some putty and
joined Janet a few minutes later.
"Now read," she said, as she cuddled down into the corner of the couch.
Janet opened the letter and began,
"Dearest of Twins (she read):
"I am in the infirmary, pretending to have a cold but don't waste time
worrying about me for it's all a fake to get a chance to breathe, which
is something that I find you are not supposed to do at Hilltop (isn't
that a precious name for a school? I like it better every time I think
of it), except when you sleep.
"I know you both think me a heartless wretch for not having written
oftener, but honestly I haven't time. It is go, go, go, from morning
till night. I used to think we kept pretty busy but we were tortoises
compared to the rate here. Up every morning at seven, lessons begin at
nine, lunch is at twelve-thirty; more lessons until two, and then the
rest of the day is yours. No study hours unless you are reported by
some teacher for not being prepared, then the wrath of the gods
descends upon your head and you are packed off to Assembly Hall and
made to work for two hours a day for a whole week. You may better
believe that we study to keep our blessed privilege.
"The girls have a joke on me, and they tease all the time. I said Aunt
Jane's poll parrot just once. That was enough! They pretend now that
there is such a bird and that I keep him hidden in my room. They ask
after his health morning, noon and night, and ask me quite seriously to
consult him. Even the teachers do it. I nearly died in history class
when Miss Jenks, a love and nothing but a girl, just out of college,
asked me the date of the Battle of Hastings, I couldn't remember and
she looked at me so impishly and said, 'Better ask Aunt Jane's poll
parrot.' Imagine Ducky Lucky doing such a thing.
"I haven't told you one thing that I wanted to and this letter is all
one grand jumble, but I'll try to do better next time.
"You simply must come next year; must, must, must. I've written Mother
to persuade your aunt, and she has promised to try.
"Write soon and forgive blots. One of the girls is reading over my
shoulder and she says to blame the blots on Aunt Jane's poll parrot,
and to be sure and come next year.
"Oceans of love,
"SALLY."
Janet folded up the letter and laughed softly.
"Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"
Phyllis stop trying to produce Akbar's image in putty long enough to
reply.
"I should say it does. No study hours! What bliss! Auntie Mogs
simply has to let us go!" she exclaimed. "And what is better still, no
Ducky Lucky! I wish I knew if our papers were corrected or not."
She would have been more than surprised had she known what was going on
at that very moment.
Miss Baxter was busy correcting papers. She finished Janet's and
marked it with a big red B; then the fates stepped in. Miss Baxter was
called to the telephone. When she returned to her desk the paper next
for correction happened to be Phyllis's. Miss Baxter saw the name and
frowned; she always frowned when she thought of the twins.
"Funny," she said to herself. "I thought I corrected this paper. So I
did and I decided to give it a B. The telephone confused me."
With her usual precision she marked a B on the right-hand corner of the
paper and pushed it from her.
Phyllis gazed at it the next morning in joyful surprise. Had she been
any one but Phyllis she would have at least glanced at her mistakes,
but being Phyllis, she accepted her good luck with joy and threw the
paper into the waste-paper basket. Not seeing Miss Baxter's mistake,
she could not draw her attention to it.
So the Page twins tricked Miss Baxter once again, and the joke was no
less amusing because of their ignorance.