Playing with Fire
The Fourth Class, including the members of both upper and lower
divisions, was by far the largest at The Priory, and, in the opinion of
Miss Lincoln, the most unruly and difficult to manage. During her many
years of teaching, she had always found that girls between fourteen and
sixteen gave more than the usual amount of trouble. They were too old to
be treated as children, and had already begun to set up standards of
their own; indeed, they thought they knew most things a little better
than their elders. They were impatient of discipline, yet their ideas
were still crude and unformed, and they had not the judgment nor
self-restraint which might be counted upon in the higher forms. It was a
phase of character which she knew would soon pass, but it required
judicious treatment, and she felt that a mistress needed to be both kind
and firm to exercise the right influence at such a crisis in the young
lives under her charge. Miss Harper, who was popular with her class,
could always tame the most rebellious spirits, and maintain perfect
order; but with Miss Rowe it was a totally different affair. She was not
generally liked, and, taking advantage of her youth and lack of
experience, many of the girls were as naughty as they dared, and defied
her authority on every occasion. Amongst the ring-leaders in what may be
called "the opposition", I regret to say Enid Walker held a foremost
place. She was a very high-spirited, headstrong girl, who resented any
restraint; she either took a violent fancy to people, or disliked them
equally heartily: anyone who could gain her affection could lead her
most easily, otherwise she was apt to prove so wayward as to cause a
teacher to despair. Unfortunately Miss Rowe had not discovered the right
way to manage Enid; for some time matters had been rather strained, and
by the summer term it was a case of undeclared war between pupil and
teacher.
"It doesn't matter what I say or do, Miss Rowe's always down on me!"
declared Enid.
"Well, you really go rather too far sometimes," said Avis. "Miss Rowe
knew perfectly well this morning that you dropped your atlas on purpose,
and that it was you who tied Cissie's hair ribbon to her desk."
"Miss Rowe can be quite nice sometimes," said Patty. "When we were on
the common yesterday, she found two new orchises, and gave them to me to
press."
"Oh, you always manage to say something for everybody!" said Enid.
"You're too good-natured, Patty. I can't bear Miss Rowe."
"But why?"
"'I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,'"
quoted Enid. "That's how I feel, exactly."
"Perhaps she feels the same about you," suggested Winnie.
"Perhaps she does, but I don't care in the least. I don't like her
voice, nor the cold way she looks at me and says, 'Now, Enid!' She's
only an assistant teacher, and I'm not going to obey her as if she were
Miss Lincoln or Miss Harper. She needn't expect it."
Certainly poor Miss Rowe found Enid a very trying pupil. Her attention
was ever wandering, and she was invariably engaged in some mischief
calculated to distract the rest of the class. She would sometimes give a
wrong answer on purpose to raise a laugh; she could never lift the lid
of her desk without letting it fall with a bang; and the contents of
her pencil-box seemed always ready to disperse themselves over the
floor. One morning the girls were having a lesson in grammar, and were
diligently repeating Latin derivations and Anglo-Saxon suffixes, when
some chance called Patty's attention to Enid. She noticed the latter
open her desk stealthily, and draw out a tiny paper box, which she
placed on her knee, and covered with her pocket handkerchief. Patty
wondered what she was doing. It was evidently something which required
great secrecy, for Enid glanced carefully round to see whether anyone
was watching her; then, as nobody except Patty appeared to be looking,
she drew away a fold of her handkerchief, cautiously opened the little
box, and out hopped a huge grasshopper, which bounded straight on to
Cissie Gardiner's blouse. Patty was so fascinated by gazing at it, and
wondering where its next leap would take it, that she started when Miss
Rowe asked her a question, and for once failed with her answer.
"Ad, ante," she began, but could get no further. Her eyes were glued to
Cissie's blouse, and Cissie, noticing she was the cause of Patty's
hesitation, looked down at her sleeve, and sprang up with a scream.
"Take it off! Somebody take it off!" she entreated. At this point the
grasshopper promptly hopped away, no one could see where. Each girl
naturally thought it might be on herself, and, jumping up, shook her
skirts frantically. The class was instantly in the greatest disorder.
Ella Johnson and May Firth stood on their seats, loudly protesting their
horror of all creeping or crawling insects.
"Don't let it come on me! Oh, don't!" wailed Kitty Harrison.
"It's there!" exclaimed Maud Greening.
"Where?"
"It's hopped on to Doris."
"Oh! It will go down my neck!" shrieked Doris.
"No, it's hopped off again."
"It's on Maggie Woodhall's desk."
"Catch it, Maggie!"
"I daren't! I daren't!"
"Squash it with your ruler."
"I couldn't! I hate squashing things!"
"It's gone again."
"It will be on me next!"
"There it is on Maggie's desk again."
"Girls! Girls! Calm yourselves and keep still!" cried Miss Rowe's
measured voice. "Maggie, sit down at once!"
The teacher strode across the room, and, catching the grasshopper in her
hand, put it safely out of the window, then turned again to her agitated
class.
"Order!" she said sternly; and after waiting a few moments until her
pupils had regained their self-control, she continued: "Who let loose
that grasshopper?"
"I did, Miss Rowe," replied Enid, promptly.
"Then you will leave the room at once, Enid. You will take a bad mark
for conduct, and you will learn two pages of Greek chronology, and
repeat them to me to-morrow morning before nine o'clock. Go
immediately!"
Enid obeyed with as much noise as she could; she was in a naughty frame
of mind, and enjoyed banging the door after her. She did not greatly
care about either the bad mark for conduct or the Greek chronology,
though she had an uncomfortable qualm when it occurred to her that the
episode might possibly come to Miss Lincoln's ears. For this once,
however, she was safe. Miss Rowe was anxious to manage her troublesome
class without constant reference to the headmistress, and thought it
better not to report the affair. She determined, nevertheless, that
Enid, being the centre of so much mischief, should move from her desk,
and, instead of sitting in the second row from the back, should be in
front, directly under her teacher's eye. She mentioned her wish to Miss
Harper, who ordered Enid to change places with Beatrice Wynne, and to
transfer her books to her new desk before the next morning. Enid was
furious.
"I won't go!" she declared to her companions. "Not unless Miss Rowe
drags me there."
"You'll have to!" said Avis.
"I don't know about that. No one can force me to do a thing I don't
want, not even Miss Lincoln."
"Miss Lincoln would expel you if you didn't do what you were told."
"I shouldn't care!"
"Oh, Enid, don't be silly! It can't make such a difference where you
sit. I'll help you to move all your books, and put your new desk tidy,"
said Patty, hoping to pour oil on the troubled waters, and adding:
"You'll have one advantage. You'll be close to Miss Harper in the botany
class, and she'll hand you the specimens first. I wish I might change
instead of you. I always envied Beatrice when she was pulling off
petals, and we were craning our necks to try and look."
"It's easy enough to see the bright side for somebody else," grumbled
Enid.
"Let us have our removal now," continued Patty, wisely taking no notice.
"Beatrice is quite ready; aren't you, Beatrice? We'll lay all the things
on the seat, and dust the desk inside before we put them in."
"I wouldn't do it for anybody but you," said Enid, allowing herself to
be persuaded.
Beatrice soon emptied her desk, and it did not take very long to arrange
the books in their new quarters. The alteration was effected almost
before Enid realized it, and the storm which Patty had dreaded for her
friend's sake was avoided. Nevertheless, Patty was not easy about Enid.
"She'll be getting into serious trouble some day," she thought. "I wish
she would behave better in Miss Rowe's classes. Things can't always go
on like this, and if Miss Rowe were to tell her to report herself in the
library, I don't believe even Enid would like to face Miss Lincoln and
find her really angry. I know I shouldn't."
It seemed no use for Patty to try remonstrances. Enid only laughed, and
would not listen to her.
"Patty, you're a dear!" she declared. "I love you the best of any girl I
know, but even you can't persuade me to like Miss Rowe. It's no use.
We're flint and steel, or frost and fire; or oil and water, or anything
else you can name that oughtn't to go together, and won't mix. The very
tone of her voice annoys me."
"Why should it?"
"It's so prim. The way she pokes out her chin and says 'Enid!' is most
disagreeable. It always makes me want to be naughty. Yes, it does;
don't shake your head. I've told you a hundred times I'm not good like
you, and I simply can't be. I'm like a bottle of soda-water with the
cork popped, and I have to fizz over sometimes."
It was unfortunate that Enid should have taken such a dislike to her
teacher, for she kept up a state of ill-feeling among the girls which
otherwise would probably have died away. Absurd trifles were magnified
and made much of, and ridiculous grievances were nursed and cherished.
One day Miss Rowe set the upper division a grammar exercise consisting
of two questions. The first was long and very difficult; it was on the
origin of the English language, and required a certain knowledge of
various Anglo-Saxon roots, a list of words derived from ancient British,
and some account of the Norman-French period. The second and shorter
question was simply a sentence to be parsed. No one in the class had a
good memory for derivations. Fourteen out of the fifteen members spent
the half-hour racking their brains and biting the ends of their pens in
vain endeavours to complete their answers to Question 1, so that when it
was time to hand in their exercise books, they had written very little,
and that little was mostly wrong. The exercises were corrected and
returned the next day, and each girl, with the solitary exception of
Ella Johnson, found she had received a bad mark.
"It's too disgusting!" said Beatrice Wynne. "I don't believe even Miss
Rowe herself could have answered that question without looking at the
book."
"How did you manage it, Ella? You're the only one who's scraped
through," asked Avis.
"I didn't attempt it," said Ella. "I did the parsing instead."
"You mean to say you didn't do Question 1 at all?" exclaimed Kitty
Harrison.
"No, not I."
"How abominably unfair!" cried Enid. "I thought everybody had to begin
with the first question. All the rest of us took so long over it, that
we hadn't time for the parsing, and yet we got bad marks, and you, who
hadn't even tried, got a good mark. It's just like Miss Rowe's
meanness."
"It's really too bad," said Winnie. "Someone ought to go to Miss Rowe
and ask her about it."
"Yes, so they ought."
"Who will, then?"
Nobody volunteered for the disagreeable task, and Avis suggested that
Winnie herself might be suitable.
"I daren't, after the snubbing I got yesterday," said Winnie. "She
wouldn't listen to me."
"I think it would be best if we were to draw lots," said Enid.
"No, don't draw lots, it seems like gambling," said Avis. "Suppose we
count as we do for games? Stand in a circle, and I'll begin. Are you
ready?"
"The first one who gets 'out' will have to go and tell Miss Rowe what we
think, then," agreed Enid.
"'One, two, three, four, Jenny at the cottage door," began Avis.
"'Eating cherries off a plate, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three,
out goes _she_.' Why, it's you, Winnie, after all."
"I wish it wasn't," groaned Winnie. "However, I suppose I shall have to
go. Miss Rowe's in the studio, so I'll ask her now and get it over."
"Tell her we don't think it's fair," said Enid.
"And that Ella ought to have a bad mark too," said Kitty Harrison.
"Oh, you mean thing! It's not my fault," protested the indignant Ella.
"You can say we might all have done the parsing if we'd begun it first,"
said Beatrice.
"And don't forget to say there wouldn't have been time to answer two
such long questions," said Maggie Woodhall.
"I'll do the best I can, but don't expect too much," replied Winnie.
"Stay here, all of you, till I come back."
Winnie returned in about five minutes with a doleful face. "It's no
use," she assured the girls, "I can't make Miss Rowe understand the
point at all. She would only say: 'You wrote a very ill-prepared
exercise, which did not deserve a good mark, and if you think I am going
to excuse bad work you are quite mistaken'."
"It's just what I expected," declared Enid. "Miss Rowe carries
everything with such a high hand, she won't take the trouble to listen
properly when one tries to explain."
"It's a shame!" said all the girls, indignantly.
"I wish we could find some way of paying her out," said Enid.
"What could we do?"
"Let me think. I know! Suppose we none of us say 'Good morning' to her
when she comes into the schoolroom to-morrow to take the register."
"Oh, yes! That would be splendid, and then she would see our opinion of
her."
"Every girl must vow she won't say it, even you, Patty!"
"I think you're very silly," said Patty, "but I shan't be there myself.
I always have my music lesson at nine o'clock on Friday mornings."
"So much the better," said Enid. "You were the only one I thought might
spoil it. Will everybody else promise?"
All gave the required assent. The girls were anxious to air their
grievance, and this seemed the most feasible way of showing their
teacher their displeasure. At five minutes to nine on the following
morning, they were seated in their places waiting for the second bell to
ring. Miss Rowe entered punctually, and turning to the class as usual
said: "Good morning".
There was no reply. She waited a moment in much astonishment.
"Good morning, girls," she said again.
Still there was dead silence in the room.
"I will give you one more chance. I cannot believe that you can be so
deliberately and intentionally discourteous. Good morning, girls."
What would have happened at this juncture, whether the girls would have
still persisted in defying their teacher, and so have obliged her to
report their conduct to Miss Lincoln, or whether they would have given
way with an ill grace, it is impossible to say. Fortunately for all
concerned, Miss Harper was rather earlier than usual that day, and
arriving in the schoolroom exactly at the critical moment, she saved the
situation. Her greeting was answered by a chorus of "Good morning",
which might be intended for both mistresses. Miss Rowe had the good
sense to take no further notice, and to proceed at once to mark the
register; and as she did not refer to the subject afterwards, the girls
felt doubtful whether their little mutiny had been quite so effective as
they had meant it to be.
"I wish Miss Rowe wasn't so horribly particular," said Avis, tidying her
possessions ruefully a few days afterwards. "She says she's going to
look at all our desks this afternoon, and give forfeits for any that are
in a muddle. I haven't rummaged to the back of mine for ever so long. I
scarcely know what's in it. Why, what's this? It's actually a box of
fusees. I remember now, I brought them from home. I'd quite forgotten I
had them."
"Oh, do give them to me!" cried Enid. "They make such a lovely hissing
noise, I like to hear them go off."
"You'd better not strike them in class, then," replied Avis.
"Do you dare me to?"
"Why, even you wouldn't do such a risky thing!"
"Oh! What would Miss Rowe say if you did it in the very middle of
Euclid?" said Cissie Gardiner, with round eyes of delighted horror.
"Then I will, just to show you I dare. I'm not afraid of Miss Rowe!"
declared Enid, appropriating the box and putting it in her pocket.
The girls laughed, not believing for a moment that she really intended
to carry out her threat. The bell rang, Miss Rowe entered, and lessons
began before they had time to say anything more about it. Euclid was not
a favourite subject with the Upper Fourth. It was considered dry, and
the half-hour devoted to it was regarded as more or less of a penance.
In the very middle of the fifth proposition, when Miss Rowe had changed
the letters on the blackboard, and was endeavouring to make Vera
Clifford grasp the principle of the reasoning, instead of merely
repeating the problem by rote, Enid's head was bent low over her desk,
and her fingers appeared to be busy with something.
"Y G K = D F O," droned Vera in a melancholy voice.
Suddenly there was a striking sound, and a loud, long hiss.
"Oh! oh! oh!" came in a subdued chorus from all sides.
"Enid, what are you doing?" cried Miss Rowe, sharply.
For answer naughty Enid held up the hissing fusee in a kind of daring
triumph, but as she raised her head her long curly hair, which was
floating loose, brushed against the burning spark, and in an instant
blazed up, setting fire also to the sleeve of her thin lawn blouse. With
a wild shriek she dropped the fusee, and, springing from her seat,
would have tried in her terror to rush from the room had she not been
prevented by Miss Rowe, who, with admirable presence of mind, seized the
duster from the blackboard, and with only that and her bare hands
succeeded in stifling the flames. The whole class was in a panic. Jean
Bannerman ran at once for Miss Hall, the teacher in the next room, and
in a very short space of time Miss Lincoln herself arrived on the scene.
Finding that Enid and Miss Rowe were the only two hurt, she carried them
off at once to apply first aid until a doctor could be summoned, leaving
Miss Hall to try and calm the agitated girls. Cissie Gardiner was
sobbing hysterically, and all were offering versions of the accident in
such a state of excitement, that it was difficult to understand their
accounts.
"Enid Walker lighted a fusee?" repeated Miss Hall, almost incredulously.
"Then she alone is responsible for this unhappy occurrence. I can only
trust that neither she nor Miss Rowe is seriously injured. Girls, go
back to your desks. I must return now to my own class, but I will send a
prefect to you as soon as possible. I trust to your good feeling to work
in silence at your preparation for to-morrow."
Miss Rowe and Enid were taken to the sanatorium, which was always kept
in readiness to receive urgent cases. Both were suffering greatly from
the shock: Miss Rowe's hands were badly scorched, and Enid had a severe
burn on her arm and also on her neck. The doctor, having completed his
dressings, ordered them both to be kept very quiet, and not to receive
visitors until he gave his permission. It was several days, therefore,
before Enid was allowed to see any of her school-fellows, and when the
nurse at last declared that she might have a friend to spend half an
hour with her, she fixed her choice at once upon Patty. The latter had
been two or three times a day to the sanatorium to enquire how the
invalids were progressing, so it was with great eagerness that she now
knocked at the door. She was admitted by the nurse, and after a warning
not to excite her companion, was shown to Enid's room. Enid was lying on
the sofa, her arm swathed in bandages; some of her pretty hair had been
cut away, and her face looked white, with dark circles round her eyes,
as if she had not slept. Patty, after a rapturous greeting, sat down on
a chair by her side, and began to tell her the school news.
"Everybody sent all kinds of messages," she said. "It seems so funny in
class without either you or Miss Rowe. Have you seen Miss Rowe? Are her
hands very bad?"
"They're both bandaged up," replied Enid. "She won't be able to use them
for some time. Wasn't it brave of her to rush at me with the duster? Do
you know, she's been so nice. We had a long talk last night, and she
told me ever so many things. She meant to go to Girton when she left
school, but her father lost all his money, and she had to begin to teach
at once, so that she could help a younger brother. She's paying for his
education herself, and he's doing splendidly at his school, and she's so
proud of him, and hopes he may win a scholarship. If I'd only known all
this, I wouldn't have made it so hard for her. I'm as sorry for that now
as I am about her hands being burnt."
"I always thought Miss Rowe was nicer than you imagined. I'm so glad
you've found it out," said Patty.
"I expect she's one of those people who improve on acquaintance,"
continued Enid. "I couldn't bear her at one time, and now I believe I'm
going to like her immensely. You can't think how jolly she can make
herself. I'll never be naughty in her class again, or let anybody else
be, if I can help it. On my honour I won't!"
Enid was as good as her word. When she and Miss Rowe were well enough to
again take their places in school, the young teacher found, to her
surprise, that all her trouble with the Upper Fourth was at an end. The
girls regarded her in the light of a heroine, and her new popularity
gave her an influence over them which her efforts at strict discipline
had not been able to gain.
"She seems quite different," said Winnie, voicing the feelings of the
class. "She's far pleasanter than she used to be, and now she doesn't
order us about so much, we don't seem to want to do so many things we
oughtn't. She's really very pretty, you know; her nose is just perfect,
and her hair is so thick and fair. Of course she can't compare with Miss
Harper, but still I like her ever so much better than I did before, and
I vote we give her a tremendous clapping on Speech Day."