THE CHAIRMAN MAKES A SPEECH
The wild uproar of the gymnasium entertainment did not compare
in intensity with the suppressed excitement of the day following
examinations. There were no school-exercises except a chapel-service
in the morning, which the students wished might be longer, since it
was all they had to occupy them during the long and tedious day. The
girls wandered about from room to room, the Seniors, who were to
have a vacation of a week before Commencement, packing their trunks
half-heartedly, the others doing nothing. It did not seem worth while
to begin anything until one knew whether one was to return.
The Board was closeted down in the principal's office, where they
worked from breakfast till dark. Sometimes a student, passing through
the hall when the door was opened, saw them laboring at long tables,
each with a great pile of papers before him and a pitcher of water hard
by. If the student had hoped for hot weather so that the Board might
be uncomfortable, he prayed now much more fervently that their tempers
might not be influenced by the heat.
"They say the marks go down five points whenever the thermometer goes
up one," laughed Edward Ellis.
Sarah slept until long after breakfast-time. When she woke Miss
Ellingwood was writing at her desk.
"Am I put out?" asked Sarah faintly.
"Not yet," answered Miss Ellingwood. "Here is some breakfast for you."
Once in the history of the school, the Board had finished its work
before supper, and the students who were wandering about the fields
back of the campus out of hearing of the bell had to get their reports
from Dr. Ellis himself,--a sad duty for those who had failed. Since
then no one ever wandered away in the afternoon, for fear that the
ominous bell might ring and he not be there to hear. Usually it did not
ring till eight o'clock, and sometimes it was ten. By that time hopes
had often sunk very low, and there were strange rumors flying about.
"They say that ten Seniors have failed, and half the Junior class,"
some one would announce. "They're debating about them now. Dr. Ellis
thinks that some of them can be changed."
The Secretary always shook his head gloomily when applied to.
"I never knew such a year," was his invariable response; and it never
occurred to any one to suppose that he meant a good year.
As usual there was ice-cream for supper. Gertrude Manley pretended to
wave it aside.
"At dinner I might have been able to eat a few mouthfuls," she
groaned. "But now! No, thank you!"
It was with a great sigh of relief that Sarah watched her take a second
helping. Perhaps they were not as despairing as they seemed. It would
be bad enough if she should not pass, but it would be much worse if
Ethel and Gertrude should fail.
Sarah spent the hours after supper wandering up and down the hall which
led to the chapel. She did not expect to pass; the calmer thought of
to-day had convinced her that she had been the victim of some strange
mistake in the giving out of the papers. It was altogether her own
fault. She should have told them that she was not a Junior.
In spite of her certainty, however, she was wildly excited. No one
could have been in the school for a minute and have remained calm.
Miss Ellingwood was excited, and Dr. Ellis and Eugene, who, when he
passed an anxious boy in the hall, drew his finger across his throat to
signify the operation in which the State Board was engaged.
Presently Ethel and Gertrude came down the hall.
"We were looking for you, Sarah."
"I don't believe it will ever ring," cried Sarah.
"Hark!" said Ethel.
They heard the first faint ring of the gong on the boys' side of the
building, then the bell rang sharply above their heads.
"Our fate is sealed!" cried Gertrude. "We are doomed. Come on to the
slaughter!"
She seized Ethel by one hand and Sarah by the other, and they were the
first to reach the chapel-stairs. Behind them doors were opening, and
there was the sound of hurrying steps and excited voices.
"Let us sit here on the last row," suggested Sarah.
"So that we can be more easily borne hence," laughed Gertrude.
The State Board was already seated on the platform. They were all
talking and laughing as heartily as they had the day before. The
Chairman carried a paper in his hand. He made some joke about it, and
his colleagues all laughed; then he laid it down on a long box on the
table by his side.
"The names are on that paper," whispered Ethel.
"Yours is," answered Sarah, "but mine isn't. I know that much."
Mercifully Sarah was not kept long in suspense. The students had
never gathered so quickly. The doors were closed, and then Dr. Ellis
announced that the Chairman would read the names of those who had
passed.
The brown-bearded Chairman rose slowly, still laughing with the man
next to him. Then he looked out solemnly over the audience and the
audience looked back solemnly at him. He lifted the paper from the
table, looked at it solemnly too, and then laid it back.
"Nobody passed, perhaps," whispered Sarah.
The Chairman had begun to speak.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said. "I am not going to hurt you." At
which there was a great laugh, and then a settling back into easier
positions. "You all look so frightened and so sure that you have
failed, that you make us feel that our judgment is at fault and that we
have made a mistake to let any of you through. There, that's better!
Once, a good many years ago, when I was a little boy--" He stopped and
looked at them comically over his glasses--"Which would you rather have
first, the story about the time when I was a little boy, or the names?
All in favor of the names say '_Ay_.'"
The response left no room for doubt upon that question.
"Well, then. We'll take the sub-Juniors first. Those who have passed
are--" The falling of the proverbial pin would have made a loud noise
in the silence which ensued. Sarah felt a frightened thrill run up and
down her back. Suppose she _should_ pass! How glorious it would be!
Then William and Laura would feel that their faith in her had been
warranted, that their sacrifice was not in vain. It would encourage the
twins to study, it would astonish the neighbors. Sarah leaned forward,
one hand tight in Ethel's, one in Gertrude's. Suppose she should pass!
It seemed to her hours before she leaned limply back. Her name was not
on the list. She had been mad to expect it. Mabel Thorn's was there and
Ellen Ritter's; she had thought they were stupid and lazy, yet they had
passed. The girl who had packed her ink-bottle in her trunk had passed.
Even she could answer State Board questions. Any of these would have
had sense enough to object if they had been given Junior papers instead
of some of their own.
She felt her companions' hands tighten sympathetically on her own, and
she struggled bravely to keep back the tears. She would not cry. Not
even if they expelled her would she cry.
The cheerful voice went on reading. Ethel and Gertrude had passed;
they let go of Sarah's hands for an instant to clasp each other's, and
smiled at each other above her head, while she looked at them sadly.
They were Middlers now, and in another year they would be Seniors with
all the Senior privileges. They would study Psychology and Methods of
Teaching, and they would begin to teach in the Model School and lead
the gymnasium classes, and soon they would be gone. Even if Sarah were
allowed to come back to redeem herself, they would be too far ahead to
think of her. She would have to make friends anew, and--
The list of Juniors was finished and the speaker folded his paper.
"The Middlers have all passed," he said, smiling, and a wild cheer
responded. The excitement was no longer to be kept under control.
"As for the Seniors--" The Chairman paused. The cheer died down into
silence. It was time once more to drop the proverbial pin.
"They have all passed too."
Then Bedlam suddenly broke loose. Boys and girls were on their feet,
there was cheer after cheer, and Dr. Ellis sat smiling and making no
effort to subdue them. Perhaps it would have been a relief to him to
join. His pupils had never done so well.
After a long time the Chairman held up his hand.
"I have still more to say," he declared. "And after I am through with
the announcements you will still have to listen to my story about the
time when I was a little boy. But first I have a story to tell about a
little girl.
"When we are boys and girls, we are taught to think that our teachers
are infallible, that they can never make mistakes, and it is good
for us to think so. It is equally good for us to find out later that
teachers and grown-up people have made mistakes. It makes us feel
easier about our own.
"There is a young lady in this school who has found this out. She
came here to learn something about books, after a hard experience had
taught her many more valuable lessons, and this is the way the teachers
treated her. Instead of giving her as little to do as possible, and
watching to see that she played, and taking her books away from her by
force if necessary, they began to give her extra work to do. It wasn't
altogether their fault, because they were not accustomed to having to
restrain pupils. Overstudy is a little like smallpox. Many doctors
wouldn't recognize smallpox because they have never seen a case. It was
the same way with these teachers who let this girl work too hard.
"That, one would think, was enough hardship for one year. But worse
things were to happen to her.
"Yesterday--and this story is a terrible confession for a State Board
official to make--yesterday the State Board gave her the wrong papers.
The principal told us about her,--I suppose he meant us to mark her as
easily as we could. But the examiner who distributed the sub-Junior
papers thought that the principal had said she was a sub-Junior, and
the examiner who distributed the Junior papers thought she was a
Junior, and so both gave her papers, and she--"
Gertrude Manley felt suddenly a head against her shoulder.
"Why, Sarah!" she whispered, and saw only a bit of scarlet cheek.
"And she," the Chairman went on, "being accustomed to having extra
work, said nothing and sawed wood, with this result." He unfolded again
the paper in his hand.
"She passed the Arithmetic, Physiology, and Spelling which she was
expected to pass, with good marks. She did not take the sub-Junior
Political Geography, but she passed the Junior Physical Geography and
the Junior Latin and the Junior History with good marks. In these
branches I believe she did the extra work during the winter. In the
Junior Grammar, which includes the sub-Junior Grammar, she just made
passing mark. We tried to persuade ourselves that she hadn't really
passed, but she was too much for us. Even when a fern and some steps
were thrust before her to be drawn, she did not falter but drew them.
The Civil Government paper she did not attempt, which surprised us
greatly. It was very inconsiderate of the teacher of Civil Government
not to give her extra lessons too. I think Dr. Ellis should speak to
him about it. And now, what shall we do with this girl?"
Not one of the gasping students offered a suggestion.
"Well, there are several possibilities," went on the Chairman. "We
can say that inasmuch as she hasn't passed her sub-Junior Geography,
she hasn't passed at all and will have to take the year over. But that
doesn't seem fair. Or we can say that she is a Junior in spite of the
Geography. The only objection to that is that she will grow very lazy
next year with nothing new to study but Civil Government. Not all of
us approve of that. Then there is one other plan. We can make her a
Middler, with the provision that she makes up the Civil Government some
time within the next two years. It is unprecedented, but it can be
done. What does the school think of this plan?"
The pupils looked about in complete mystification. Was it all true,
or was it only a story? Then a few of them began to guess whom the
Chairman meant. One of them was Edward Ellis.
"I think she should be made a Middler," he said.
[Illustration: HE KEPT HER BESIDE HIM]
"Very well, so be it." The Chairman opened the box at his side.
"I wish that State Boards did not change, so that we might all come
back here next year and make it easy for this young lady; but since we
can't, we wish to apologize to her, and to give her a little present to
remember us by." He lifted a great handful of roses from the box. "And
now, good-by, and good luck." And he stood still with the bouquet in
his hands, forgetting apparently the promised story of his boyhood.
"Well," he said, with a smile, his voice more Pennsylvania-German than
ever, "where is this Sarah Wenner, about whom I have been talking?"
Ethel Davis's voice shook.
"Go and get your flowers, youngster."
"I can't."
"You must. Run along."
She rose to let Sarah pass, and then some one near by stood up to see,
and in a moment the school was on its feet and some one was singing.
It was the old tune which for many years had closed the session of the
State Board, the long-metre doxology. They finished the first line
as the Chairman put the flowers into Sarah's arms. Then, seeing what
a little girl she was, he laid his hand on her shoulder and kept her
beside him, while he startled her with his great bass.
And Sarah gave up trying to puzzle out how what the Chairman said
could be true. She saw Ethel smiling at her and Gertrude waving her
hand, and Professor Minturn and Miss Ellingwood and Mr. Sattarlee
laughing together at the back of the room, and she grew a little less
frightened and clasped her flowers a little more tightly in her arms.
The troubles of the past year seemed to dwindle, the joys to grow,
until it was all joy and happiness, and she lifted up her voice and
sang out with all her heart.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's When Sarah Went to School, by Elsie Singmaster