Emmy Lou went out. They walked along together. After that Emmy Lou
waited every morning. One day it was icy on the pavements. Miss Jenny
told Emmy Lou to take her hand. After that Emmy Lou's mittened hand went
into Miss Jenny's every morning.
Emmy Lou told Hattie, who came out to Emmy Lou's the next morning. They
both waited for Miss Jenny. They each held a hand. It was in this way
they came to know the Drug-Store Man. Sometimes he waited for them at
the corner. Sometimes he walked out to meet them. He and Miss Jenny
seemed to be old friends. He asked them about rudiments of number. They
wondered how he knew.
One day Hattie proposed a plan. It was daring. She persuaded Emmy Lou to
agree to it. That night Emmy Lou packed her school-bag even to the
apple for Miss Jenny. Next morning, early as Hattie arrived, she was
waiting for her at the gate, though hot and cold with the daring of the
expedition. They were going to walk out in the direction of the Great
Unknown, from which, each day, Miss Jenny emerged. They were going to
meet Miss Jenny!
They knew she turned into their street at the corner. So they turned. At
the next corner they saw Miss Jenny coming. But along the intersecting
street, one walking southward, one northward, toward the corner where
Hattie, Emmy Lou, and Miss Jenny were about to meet, came two
others--Mr. Bryan and the Drug-Store Man!
Something made Emmy Lou and Hattie feel queer and guilty. Something made
them turn and run. They ran fast. They ran faster. Emmy Lou's heavy
school-bag thumped against her little calves. Her apple flew out. Emmy
Lou never stopped.
Hattie told her afterward that it was the Drug-Store Man who brought
Miss Jenny to school. Hattie peeped out from behind the shed where the
water-buckets sat. She said he brought Miss Jenny to the gate and opened
it for her. He had never come farther than the corner before. That day
Mr. Bryan did not come to ground them in the rudiments of number, nor
did he come the next day; nor ever, any more. Yet the Third Reader Class
was undoubtedly poor in arithmetic. Miss Jenny found that out. Mr.
Bryan's instruction seemed not to have helped them at all. Miss Jenny
said that as they were so well up in drawing, they would lay those books
aside, and give that time to arithmetic. And she also reminded them to
be conscientious in all their work. They were, and the Roll Call bore
witness to their rigourous self-depreciation.
Mr. Bryan never came for number again, but he came, one day, because of
Roll Call. Once a week Roll Call was sent to the office. It was called
their Class Average. The day of Class Average Mr. Bryan walked in. He
rapped smartly on the red and blue lined paper in his hand. Miss Jenny's
Class Average, so the class learned, was low, and she must see to it
that her class made a better showing. She was a substitute, Mr. Bryan
recognised that, and made allowance accordingly, "but"--then he went.
[Illustration: "The Third Reader class gathered in knots."]
Miss Jenny looked frightened. The class feared she was going to cry.
They determined to be better and more conscientious for her sake,
feeling that they would die for Miss Jenny. But the Class Average was
low again. How could it be otherwise with forty over-strained little
consciences determining their own deserts?
One day Miss Jenny was sent for. When one was sent for, one went to the
office. Little boys went there to be whipped. Sadie went there once; her
grandma was dead, and they had sent for her.
Miss Jenny had been crying when she came back. Lessons went on
miserably. Then Miss Jenny put the book down. It was evident she had not
heard one word of the absent-minded and sympathetic little girl who said
that a peninsula was a body of water almost surrounded by land.
Miss Jenny came to the edge of the platform. She looked way off a
moment; then she looked at the class, and spoke. She said she was going
to take them into her confidence. Miss Jenny was very young. She told
them the teacher of the Third Reader, the Real Teacher, was not coming
back, and that she had hoped to take the Real Teacher's place, but the
Class Average was being counted against her.
Everybody noticed the tremor in Miss Jenny's voice. It broke on the
fatal Class Average. Sadie began to cry.
[Illustration: "To use tissue-paper would be cheating."]
Miss Jenny came to the very edge of the platform. She looked slight and
young and appealing, did Miss Jenny.
Next week, she went on to tell them, would be Quarterly Examination. If
they did well in Examination, even with the Class Average against her,
Miss Jenny might be allowed to remain, but if they failed----
The Third Reader Class gathered in knots and groups at recess. It
depended on them whether Miss Jenny went or stayed. Emmy Lou stood in
one of the groups, her chubby face bearing witness to her concern. "What
is a Quarterly Examination?" asked Emmy Lou. Nobody seemed very sure.
"Oh," said another little girl, "they give you questions, and you write
down answers. My brother is in the Grammar School, and he has
Examinations."
"Quarterly Examinations?" asked Emmy Lou, who was definite.
The little girl did not know. She only knew if you answered right, you
passed; if wrong, you failed.
And Miss Jenny would go.
[Illustration: "Miss Jenny was throwing a kiss to the Third Reader
class."]
There was an air of mystery about a Quarterly Examination. It made one
uneasy before the actual thing came, while the uncertainty concerning it
was trying to the nerves.
The day before Examination, Miss Jenny told every little girl to clear
out her desk and carry all her belongings home. Then she went around and
looked in each desk, for not a scrap of paper even must remain.
Miss Jenny told them that she trusted them, it was not that, it was
because it was the rule.
"To cheat at Examination," said Miss Jenny, "is worse even than to lie.
To cheat is to steal--steal knowledge that doesn't belong to you. To
cheat at Examination is to be both a liar and a thief."
The class scarcely breathed. This was terrible.
"About the first subject," said Miss Jenny, "I feel safe. The first
thing in the morning you will be examined in drawing."
Emmy Lou at that remembered she had no tissue-paper. Neither had Hattie.
Neither had Mamie. Everybody must be reminded. Miss Jenny told them to
come with slate, pencils, and legal-cap paper. After school Emmy Lou
and Hattie and Sadie and Mamie made mention of tissue-paper. The
Drug-Store Man waited on Emmy Lou the next morning. Emmy Lou had a
nickel. She wanted tissue-paper. The Drug-Store Man was curious. It
seemed as if every little girl who came in wanted tissue-paper. Emmy Lou
and the Drug-Store Man were great friends.
"What's it got to do with rudiments of number?" asked the Drug-Store
Man.
"It's for drawing," said Emmy Lou. "It's Quarterly Examination."
The Drug-Store Man was interested. He did not quite understand the
system. Emmy Lou explained. Her chin did not reach the counter, but she
looked up and he leaned over. The Drug-Store Man grew serious. He was
afraid this might get Miss Jenny into trouble. He explained to Emmy Lou
that it would be cheating to use tissue-paper in Examination, and told
her she must draw right off the copy, according to the directions set
down in the book. He suggested that she go and tell the others of the
class. For that matter, if they came right over, he would take back the
tissue-paper and substitute licorice sticks.
Emmy Lou hurried over to tell them. Examinations, she explained, were
different, and to use tissue-paper would be cheating. And what would
Miss Jenny say? Little girls hurried across the street, and the jar of
licorice was exhausted.
Miss Jenny saw them seated. She told them she could trust them. No one
in her class would cheat. Then a strange teacher from the class above
came in to examine them. It was the rule. And Miss Jenny was sent away
to examine a Primary School in another district.
But at the door she turned. Every eye was following her. They loved Miss
Jenny. Her cheeks were glowing, and the draught, as Miss Jenny stood in
the open doorway, blew her hair about her face. She smiled back at them.
She turned to go. But again she turned--Miss Jenny--yes, Miss Jenny was
throwing a kiss to the Third Reader Class.
The door closed. It was Examination. The page they were to draw had for
copy a cup and saucer. No, worse, a cup in a saucer. And by it was a
coffee-pot. And next to that was a pepper-box. And these were to be
drawn for Quarterly Examination--without tissue-paper.
When Emmy Lou had finished she felt discouraged. In the result one might
be pardoned for some uncertainty as to which was coffee-pot and which
pepper-box. The cup and saucer seemed strangely like a circle in a hole.
There was a yawning break in the paper from much erasure where the
handle of the coffee-pot should have been. There were thumb marks and
smears where nothing should have been. Emmy Lou looked at Hattie. Hattie
looked worn out. She had her book upside down, putting the holes in the
lid of the pepper-box. Sadie was crying. Tears were dropping right down
on the page of her book.
The bell rang. Examination in drawing was over. The books were
collected. Just as the teacher was dismissing them for recess she opened
a book. She opened another. She turned to the front pages. She passed a
finger over the reverse side of a page. She was a teacher of long years
of experience. She told the class to sit down. She asked a little girl
named Mamie Sessum to please rise. It was Mamie's book she held. Mamie
rose.
The teacher's tones were polite. It made one tremble, they were so
polite. "May I ask," said the teacher, "to have explained the system by
which the supposedly freehand drawing in this book has been done?"
"It wasn't any system," Mamie hastened to explain, anxious to disclaim a
connection evidently so undesirable; "it was tissue-paper."
"And this confessed openly to my face?" said the teacher. She was, even
after many years at the business of exposing the natural depravity of
the youthful mind, appalled at the brazenness of Mamie.
Mamie looked uncertain. Whatever she had done, it was well to have
company. "We all used tissue-paper," said Mamie.
It proved even so. The teacher, that this thing might be fully exposed,
called the roll. Each little girl responded in alphabetical sequence.
The teacher's condition of shocked virtue rendered her coldly laconic.
"Tissue-paper?" she asked each little girl in turn.
"Tissue-paper" was the burden, if not the form, of every alarmed little
girl's reply.
"Cipher," said the teacher briefly as each made confession, and called
the next.
O--Outer darkness!
The teacher at the last closed her book with a snap. "Cipher and worse,"
she told them. "You are cheats, and to cheat is to lie. And further, the
class has failed in drawing."
A bell rang. Recess was over.
The teacher, regarding them coldly, picked up the chalk, and turned to
write on the board, "If a man----"
Examination in "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic"
had begun.
The Third Reader Class, stunned, picked up its pencils. Miss Jenny had
feared for them in arithmetic. They had feared for themselves. They were
cheats and liars and they had failed. And the knowledge did not make
them feel confident. They were cheats, and a suspicious and cold
surveillance on the part of the teacher kept them reminded that she
looked upon them as cheats and watched them accordingly. Misery and
despair were their portion. And further, failure. In their state of mind
it was inevitable for them to get lost in the maze of conditions
surrounding "If a man----"
They did better next day in geography and reading. They passed on Friday
in spelling and penmanship.
But the terrible fact remained--the teacher had declared them cheats and
liars. If they could only see Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny would understand.
Miss Jenny would make it all right after she returned.
When the Third Reader Class assembled on Monday, a tall lady occupied
the platform. She was a Real Teacher. But at the door stood a memory of
Miss Jenny, the hair blown about her face, kissing her hand.
The Third Reader Class never saw Miss Jenny again.