"Come to order!" commanded Miss Carrington, rapping on her desk with a
hard knuckle.
She quickly gave the class in general a task and sent Jess to her seat.
"I will speak with you later, young lady," she said, in her most
scornful way.
Jess's eyes were almost blinded by tears when she went back to her seat.
But they were angry tears. The unkind suspicion and accusation of the
teacher cut deeply into the girl's soul. She could see some of the girls
looking at her askance--girls like Hester Grimes and Lily Pendleton, and
their set. Of course, they had not heard all that Miss Carrington said;
but they could easily suspect. And the whole class knew that the trouble
was over the disappearance of the papers for the review.
Bobby wickedly whispered to her neighbor that she hoped the papers
wouldn't ever be found. But that would not help Jess Morse out of
trouble.
To Jess herself, hiding her face behind an open book, the printed page
of which was a mere blur before her eyes, it seemed as though this
trouble would overwhelm her. It was worse than the poverty she and her
mother had to face. It was worse than having no party dress fit to be
seen in. It was worse than being refused credit at Mr. Closewick's
grocery store. It was worse than having old Mr. Chumley hound them for
the rent
Reviewing the whole affair more calmly, Jess could understand that Miss
Carrington would consider her guilty--if she could bring herself to
think any girl of Central High would do such a thing.
Jess sat there, dumb, unable to work, unable to concentrate her mind on
anything but the horribly unjust accusation of her teacher. How she
disliked Gee Gee!
The other girls were not particularly devoted to the task set them for
the moment, either. Laura did not sit very near her chum in this room.
She asked permission to speak with Jess and Miss Carrington said:
"No, Miss Belding; sit down!" and she said it in her very grimmest way.
Usually the teacher was very lenient with Mother Wit, for of all her
pupils Laura gave her the least trouble.
A feeling of expectancy controlled the whole roomful of girls. It came
to a crisis--every girl jumped!--when the door opened and Mr. Sharp
walked in.
The principal of Central High seldom troubled the girls' class rooms
with his presence. When he addressed the young ladies it was usually _en
masse_. He trusted Miss Carrington, almost entirely, in the management
of the girls.
His rosy cheeks shone and his eyes twinkled through his glasses as he
walked quickly to the platform and sat down beside Gee Gee at her table,
which faced the girls, whereas her roll-top desk was at the rear of the
platform, against the wall of the room.
Principal and teacher talked in low voices for some moments. Mr. Sharp
cast no confusing glances about the room. He ignored the girls, as
though his entire business was with their teacher.
At length he looked around, smiling as usual, Mr. Sharp was a pleasant
and fair-minded man and the girls all liked him. He had their undivided
attention in a moment, without the rapping of Miss Carrington's hard
knuckle on the table top. Bobby said that that knuckle of Gee Gee's
middle finger had been abnormally developed by continued bringing the
class to order.
"Young ladies!" said Gee Gee, snappily. "Mr. Sharp will speak to you."
The principal looked just a little annoyed--just a little; and for only
the moment while he was rising to speak. He never liked to hear his
pupils treated like culprits. He usually treated them at assembly with
elaborate politeness if he had to criticise, and with perfect
good-fellowship if praise was in order. This little scene staged by Miss
Carrington grated on him.
"Our good Miss Carrington," said he, softly, "has sustained a loss.
Important papers have been mislaid, we will say."
He raised his hand quickly when Miss Carrington would have spoken, and
she was wise enough to let him go on in his own way.
"Now, the question is: How have the papers been lost, and where are they
at the present moment? It is a problem--in deduction, we will say. We
must all partake of the character of some famous detective. It used to
be a rule in our family when I was a boy that, if a thing were lost, it
was wisest to look for it in the most unlikely places first. I can
remember once, when father lost a horse, that mother insisted in shaking
out all the hens' nests and giving them new nests. But father never
_did_ find that horse."
The girls had begun to smile now; and some of them giggled. Miss
Carrington looked as she usually did when Mr. Sharp joked--it pained her
and set her teeth on edge. Bobby declared she looked as though she had
bitten into a green persimmon.
"Joking aside, however," continued the principal. "This loss is a
serious matter. Suppose you young ladies suggest how the question papers
to be used in this mid-term examination have been whisked out of this
drawer of Miss Carrington's desk, and hidden elsewhere? Can it be
possible that it is the prank of a pixy? Of course, all of you young
ladies are too serious-minded to do such a thing yourselves."
There was a general laugh, then, and the strain of the last few minutes
began to be relieved. Somehow, even Jess Morse felt better.
"To suggest that anybody in this class--the Junior class of Central
High--would deliberately misappropriate these questions is beyond
imagination," declared Mr. Sharp, with sudden gravity. "It is a mistake.
The mistake is explainable. Has anyone a suggestion to make?"
It was Laura Belding who broke the silence. She asked her question very
modestly, but her cheeks were flushed, and she was evidently indignant.
"Is--is it positive that the papers were put in that top drawer that
Miss Carrington now has open?"
"Ask Miss Morse!" snapped the teacher, before Mr. Sharp could reply.
"We will. Nothing like corroboration," said the principal, with a bow
and smile. "Miss Morse?"
"Yes, sir," said Jess, in a low voice, rising. "I saw her put them
there. She tied them into a bundle by themselves."
"You are observant, Miss Morse," said the principal, smiling again.
"Thank you. Now, Miss Belding?" for Laura was still standing.
"I notice that the drawer is very full," said Laura, quietly. "May I
come upon the platform and look at it?"
"Certainly," responded Mr. Sharp; but Miss Carrington flushed again, and
exclaimed:
"I have searched that drawer thoroughly. The papers are not there."
Again Mr. Sharp made a little deprecatory gesture, "Come forward, Miss
Belding," he said.
Mother Wit gave her chum a single reassuring glance. Somehow, without
reason, that look comforted Jess. She still stood beside her desk, too
anxious to sit down again, while Laura walked quietly forward.
"That drawer is very full, Mr. Sharp," she said, composedly enough. "May
I take it out?"
"Oh, I've had it out and felt behind it," urged Miss Carrington, all of
a flutter now.
"Maybe Miss Belding can show us something we did not know," said the
principal, in his bantering way. It had been he who gave Laura her
nickname, and he thought a great deal of the girl. He knew that she had
some serious intention or she would not have come forward.
Laura pulled out the over-full drawer and set it down upon the carpet.
"Oh, it isn't there," said Miss Carrington. "The packet was tied with a
mauve ribbon--a narrow ribbon----"
Laura pulled out the next drawer.
"Oh, that's quite useless," exclaimed the lady teacher. "And to have
everything disarranged in this way----"
"We must give the counsel for the defense every opportunity, Miss
Carrington," said the principal softly.
Laura drew out the third drawer--just glancing at the top layer of
papers--and then the fourth and last. No bundle tied with a mauve ribbon
appeared.
"Not there!" exclaimed Gee Gee, and was there a spice of satisfaction in
her voice?
But Laura dropped upon her knees, ran her arm to the shoulder into the
aperture where the last drawer came out, and drew forth the missing
packet of papers, which lay crowded back upon the carpet.
"There!" said Mr. Sharp, quite in a matter-of-fact tone, "I have
suggested to the Board of Education more than once that all these old
unsanitary desks should be done away with. The only roll-top desk fit to
use in the schools are those which stand upon feet, the bottom of the
lower drawer being a few inches from the floor. Thank you, Miss Belding!
We will now go on with the afternoon session."
But he rested his hand for a moment upon Laura's shoulder, as she was
about to step down after returning the drawers to their places in the
desk.
"The counsel for the defense did very well," he whispered, and then left
the room as quietly as he had entered it.
Mr. Sharp had relieved Miss Carrington of the embarrassment of his
presence; but she certainly was troubled by the untoward incident. Laura
returned to her seat by the way of Jess's and boldly squeezed her hand.
And Jess thanked her, in her heart. The rebound from being suspected of
the loss of the papers gave her such relief that the coming examination
seemed much less terrible. Or perhaps, Miss Carrington was, after all, a
little easy on her that afternoon; for Jess Morse came through the
grilling with surprisingly high marks.