A JOKE AT SCHOOL
WHEN the two D’s reached school next morning, they found a group of
their friends giggling and whispering in a corner of the Recreation
Room.
“What’s the joke?” asked Dotty as they drew near.
“Hello, Two D’s,” cried Tod Brown. “How are you, Toodies? Just wait till
you hear what’s up! The greatest sell ever! The biggest joke of the
season. Oh, me, oh, my!”
“Tell us,” begged Dolly. “Tell us, Tod, what is it?” She was taking off
her hat and coat as she talked, and as she stepped into the coatroom to
hang them up, Celia Ferris slipped in and whispered to her. “Now don’t
jump on the scheme, Dolly Fayre. You’re such a goody-goody, I’m half
afraid to let you in on it.”
“Why, is it mean?” and Dolly’s blue eyes flashed, for she hated a mean
joke.
“No, it isn’t mean, at least no meaner than she deserves. But I wish
they wouldn’t tell you; you’re an old spoilsport, and I know you’ll say
you won’t join in.”
“Join in what? Do tell me, or I can’t say _what_ I’ll do.”
“Come on out. Tod will tell you,” and the two girls joined the others.
“What is it, Tod?” asked Dolly, as she came up to the laughing boy.
“Now, Dollykin, do be real nice and don’t be a horrid old Miss Prim! You
see, Miss Partland, the Geometry teacher, is so cross and horrid and
unjust to us, we’re going to pay her out. And we’ve thought up the
greatest scheme! Just listen!”
“No, let me tell her,” said Joe Collins; “you’ll make it seem worse’n it
is. Why, Doll, it’s only this. You see, Miss Partland isn’t looking very
well, and we are all going to tell her so. She ought to know the truth.
And she keeps a lot of us in every afternoon, and we don’t want her to.
So we’re each going to tell her, as we get the chance, that she looks
sort of ill, and then, we think she’ll want to go home early, herself,
and she won’t stay to keep us in. Isn’t that all right?”
“Why, that doesn’t seem very bad,” said Dolly, dimpling as she smiled.
“How are you going to bring it in?”
“Oh, just casually, you know. If you have a chance, you just say,
‘Aren’t you feeling well, Miss Partland?’ or something like that.”
“I’d just as lieve say that, if she looks ill; but I won’t if she
doesn’t,” returned Holly, very decidedly.
“All right; you’ll find she looks ill. Why, the poor lady is on the
verge of nervous prostration, and so will we all be, if she is so hard
on us.”
“Did she keep you in, yesterday?”
“Yep; just ’cause I had a little mite of a mistake in one example! Oh,
she’s the limit, she is!”
“And do you think she’ll be any sweeter-natured if we sympathise with
her for feeling bad?”
“Well, maybe; you never can tell.”
“I think it’s a grand scheme!” declared Dotty. “She’s an old fuss
anyway. She found fault with my examples because I didn’t take a
separate sheet of paper for each one. I’d just as lieve, only I didn’t
know she wanted me to.”
“How’s your house comin’ on, Dot?” sang out Lollie Henry.
“Perfectly great! It’ll be done by Hallowe’en, and maybe we won’t have
one rollicking good time!”
“Won’t we just! You want to look out, you know Hallowe’en is the time
for tricks, and I dunno what the boys will get off.”
“Not in our new house! If anybody takes our doors off of their hinges or
does anything mean, I won’t stand it, that’s all!” and Dotty shook her
curly black head and her dark eyes sparkled with anger at the thought of
such desecration.
“Well, look out, that’s all,” said Lollie, teasingly, and then the bell
called them to the schoolroom.
Soon after they all trooped to a classroom for the Geometry lesson. As
he passed the teacher’s desk, Tod Brown tripped against her platform,
and nearly fell over on it.
“What a clumsy boy!” exclaimed Miss Partland, frowning, and indeed the
stumble was an awkward one. Small wonder, as it was done entirely on
purpose!
Tod straightened himself up, made a nice, boyish bow, and said, “Please
excuse me, Miss Partland. Oh, don’t feel alarmed, I’m not hurt.”
“And I’m not alarmed, you silly boy! I am annoyed at you, not sorry for
you.”
“Yes’m. But, Miss Partland, you’re so white. Why, you look quite ill!
Mayn’t I get you a glass of water?”
“Go to your seat!” Miss Partland turned scarlet, both from irritation at
Tod’s speech, and a sudden nervous fear for herself.
Tod went to his place, and when it was Tad’s turn to go to the
blackboard, he paused a moment, and looked straight into the teacher’s
face. “Why, Miss Partland,” he whispered to her, “don’t you feel well?
You look awful queer!”
“Go to the board,” she said, but she was evidently disturbed at his
remark.
Tad went obediently, and did his work well, then, as he returned to his
seat, he gave Miss Partland a long, searching look, and gravely shook
his head. The other pupils saw him, and saw, too, that the teacher
looked worried. The joke was working. Surely, she would not stay
to-night to keep anybody in.
Next was Dotty’s turn. She went toward the blackboard, but on the way,
she stopped in front of Miss Partland, and looked at her. Then, with an
anxious look on her face, she stepped up on the platform, and whispering
in the teacher’s ear, said: “If you’re not feeling well, Miss Partland,
why don’t you go to the rest room for a while?”
“I’m perfectly well, child, what’s the matter with you?”
“You don’t look so,” said Dotty, shaking her head, and looking back at
her victim, as she moved slowly to the board.
Several others did similarly; some not commenting on the teacher’s
looks, but merely staring at her, and then looking away quickly.
Dolly Fayre had not noticed much of the whole performance, for she was
behind with her lesson, and was struggling with a refractory problem,
hoping to get it done before she had to go to the blackboard to
demonstrate it.
And so, when she rose from her seat, she was surprised and shocked to
see how alarmed Miss Partland looked. Indeed the poor lady was all upset
with bewilderment at the observations made by her pupils. She had begun
to think there must be something serious and noticeable the matter with
her. She was trembling with nervous apprehension, and was on the verge
of tears. And so, Dolly, who had forgotten Tod’s joke, said, most
honestly, “Why, what _is_ the matter, Miss Partland? You look awfully
ill!”
The other pupils, hearing this, chuckled silently, thinking what a good
little actress Dolly was.
But to Miss Partland it was the last straw.
“I am ill,” she cried out; “very ill. Help me, Dolly, to the rest room.”
Leaning on the shoulder of Dolly, who was pretty well frightened, Miss
Partland stumbled along to the rest room,—a place provided for any one
suddenly indisposed.
Dolly assisted her teacher to lie down on a couch, and dipping her
handkerchief in cold water, held it to her forehead.
“Let me call somebody,” said Dolly. “I don’t know what I ought to do.”
“No, I feel better now,” said Miss Partland. “But I can’t go back to the
classroom. I think I must go home. You may go to Mr. Macintosh, Dolly,
and tell him I went home, ill.”
“Yes, Miss Partland,” replied Dolly, and then it suddenly came to her,
that this was the result of Tod’s joke! “Were you ill this morning?” she
asked.
“No, not in the slightest. It is a sudden attack of some sort. Perhaps I
shall die!”
“Oh, no. You’ll be all right in an hour or so. What sort of pain do you
feel, Miss Partland?”
“Not any definite pain. But queer all over, as if some illness were
impending.”
I do believe, thought Dolly to herself, that it’s all the fault of those
horrid boys, telling her she looked ill! And then she suddenly
remembered that she herself had told Miss Partland so, too, and very
emphatically. But she had told her in earnest, while the others had been
carrying out their jest.
However, her comment was just the same as theirs, and doubtless helped
to produce this effect. She wondered what to do. At first, she thought
she would tell the whole story, and let the boys and girls take the
consequences of their ill-timed joke. Then, she feared it might so
enrage Miss Partland to know of it, that it would make her worse.
She decided not to tell at present, anyway, and she helped the teacher
on with her hat and coat, and went with her to the door.
“Tell Mr. Macintosh I am quite ill,” she said as she went away. And
Dolly went to the Principal’s room to do her bidding.
“Did Miss Partland say what the trouble was?” asked the surprised man.
“Is she subject to these attacks?”
“She didn’t say, Mr. Macintosh, and I have never known her to be ill
before. I think she will be all right, to-morrow.”
“You seem to know a great deal for a miss of your age! Have you had much
experience with heart attacks?”
“I didn’t say it was a heart attack,” said poor Dolly, torn by her
knowledge of what had really caused the trouble.
“It must have been, from what you say. That’s what I mean, you are too
young and inexperienced to attend alone on a suffering victim of heart
disease. Why didn’t you call some help?”
“I did want to, sir, but Miss Partland wouldn’t let me.”
“You may go. Return to the class and tell them they are dismissed. Let
them all go to their next recitation at the proper time.”
“Yes, Mr. Macintosh.”
“Stop a minute.” Dolly turned. “Do you know anything more about this
affair than you have told me?”
Dolly hesitated. What should she do? She did know more about it; she
knew of the joke the boys had made up, and she felt almost sure that it
was owing to this foolish jest that Miss Partland had imagined she felt
ill so vividly, that at last she really did feel so. And yet, if Dolly
“peached” on the boys, she well knew what they would think of her! It
was a hard position. But, she thought quickly, it couldn’t help Miss
Partland to tell of the joke now, and then again the illness might not
have been caused by the joke after all, Dolly had been so engrossed with
her difficult problem that she had not seen the successive boys and
girls look at Miss Partland with such evident sympathy, anxiety and even
consternation.
Her hesitation naturally made the Principal think she was withholding
some information of importance, and he said so.
“No, Mr. Macintosh,” said Dolly, firmly; “I do not feel sure that I am.
The only thing I know, is not positively connected with Miss Partland’s
illness, although it may be. But as I am not sure, I am not justified in
even speaking of it to you.”
The Principal looked at her attentively. “You’re a queer child,” he
said.
“Yes, I am,” replied Dolly, thoughtfully. “But I’m trying to see what is
my duty, and I can’t say anything till I find out.”
“At any rate, you’re an honest little girl, and I don’t believe you know
anything that you really ought to tell, or you’d tell it.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. That’s just it. I _don’t_ think I ought to, or I
_would_.”
Dismissed from the room, Dolly returned to the class and told them the
lesson would not be resumed that day, as Miss Partland had gone home
ill. She looked reproachfully at the boys who had been ring-leaders in
the “joke” and at Celia Ferris, too, who had also been a party to it.
But as there were many in the class who knew nothing about it, no word
was said then and there, nor could there be until after school.
Then Dolly told what had happened. “And to think,” she concluded, “that
Miss Partland was not ill at all, but so many remarks on her looking
poorly, made her think she was,—and then—she was!”
“Pooh, nonsense!” said Lollie Henry; “you can’t make a lady ill by
telling her she doesn’t look quite up to the mark.”
“Yes, you can,” declared Dolly. “It’s what they call auto-suggestion, or
something. Just the same way, if you tell anybody they look well, why,
then they get well. I’ve heard Mother talk about it.”
“Well, then,” said Tod Brown, “all we’ve got to do, is to go around to
Miss Partland’s house and tell her she’s looking as blooming as a
peach!”
“Sure!” said Tad. “That’s dead easy. Come on.”
“No,” said Dolly, “you can’t rush off like that! You’d probably make her
worse.”
“Well, what does she want, then?”
“Oh, Tad, you’re so silly!” and Dolly couldn’t help laughing at him.
“I think you’re silly, Dolly,” said Celia. “I don’t believe it was our
joke that upset her, at all. I believe she’d been sick anyway.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She said she was perfectly well this morning. You
know, Celia, that it was your speeches, one after another, that scared
her into thinking she was ill. And it was enough to, too! Why, I wasn’t
noticing at the time, I was studying, but Dot told me afterward, how you
all told her she looked so terrible, and you pretended to be scared to
death!”
“Well, you said the same thing to her!”
“Yes, but I meant it! By the time I went up to the board, you had all
frightened her so, she was white and shaky-looking. I was sure she was
going to faint.”
“Yes, Dolly was in earnest,” said Dotty. “If we did any harm, Doll can’t
be included. When she said that to Miss Partland, it was true. When we
said it, it wasn’t.”
“Oh, I’m not sticking myself up,” began Dolly. “And I’m not blaming the
rest of you. I think it was a mean joke, but never mind that now. What
I’m thinking of is what we ought to do. Seems if we ought to set matters
right somehow.”
“I don’t think so,” said Celia. “It’s always better to let well enough
alone, my mother says. I bet that by to-morrow morning, Miss Partland
will be all right and will have forgotten all about this foolishness.”
“I bet she will too,” said Lollie. “Say, Dolly, don’t worry over it. It
wasn’t your fault anyway. And I don’t believe it will make old Party
really ill. It couldn’t. And it may make her more sweet-tempered if she
thinks she’s subject to—what d’y’ call em?—heart attacks.”
“How do you know it was a heart attack?” demanded Dolly.
“I heard Mr. Macintosh tell another teacher that Miss Party had gone
home because she had a heart attack in the classroom.”
“I don’t believe it was her heart at all,” said Dolly slowly. “Why
should any one think so? It was only nervousness, caused by your foolish
trick. I’m sorry for Miss Partland. If she isn’t all right to-morrow,
I’m going to tell her the whole story.”
“Meany!” cried Celia; “it’s awful mean to tell tales.”
“Not so mean as to play tricks!” retorted Dolly, and then she and Dotty
had reached their homes, and went in, while the others went on their
way.