[Sidenote: Copies Science]
It was the evening of the first day of mid-year examinations at Mount
Hope High School. Miss Noland was correcting algebra papers and wore a
troubled frown as she glanced over Oliver Geigler’s paper, not because
it was so incorrect but because it was so well done. Oliver could never
have written it unaided. That she knew. She resolved to keep a lookout
the next day while Oliver was writing examination papers, and if she
could get conclusive evidence that he had cheated she would deal with
him accordingly.
Fifteen minutes after the class in general science began to write their
examination, Miss Noland very stealthily crossed the room apparently to
get a pamphlet from the bookcase, but really to see why Oliver Geigler
was sitting back so far from his desk while he wrote. Sure enough, his
open science book was halfway out of his desk on his lap and he was
looking at it. The slight noise made by the shutting of the bookcase
door caused Oliver to look up and to see that Miss Noland was near. He
instantly moved up nearer to his desk, thus shoving the open book into
it and assuming studiousness, gazed fixedly across the room as if trying
to recall the answer to a question.
Miss Noland went to him, reached into his desk and took out the open
book and said:
“You march right into the office and tell Mr. Russel that you were
cheating! I’ll be in there as soon as I can get away from here to see
what you have told him. Nobody can cheat in this room and escape being
caught at it.”
Resentment was marked even in the boy’s slow movements as he got up and
went to the office. Mr. Russel suspended him from school for a week and
told him that he must promise to stop cheating when he returned to
school.