Emmy Lou Part 7

"Not our Emmy Lou?" said Aunt Katie.

"The precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia.

"Hammel," said Uncle Charlie, "McKoeghany," and Uncle Charlie smote his thigh.

"I SING OF HONOUR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART"

The Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties with a Subst.i.tute. The Princ.i.p.al announced it to the cla.s.s, looking at them coldly and stating the matter curtly. It was as though he considered the Third Reader Cla.s.s to blame.

Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched the door. A Subst.i.tute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's desk-mate, watched the door, too, but covertly, for Hattie did not like to acknowledge she did not know.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hattie peeped out from behind the shed."]

The Subst.i.tute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty--as pretty as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. She seemed a little uncertain as to what to do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see what she would do.

The Subst.i.tute stepped hesitatingly up on the platform. She gripped the edge of the desk, and opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them and swallowed. Then she said, "Children----"

"She's goin' to cry!" whispered Hattie, in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt it would be terrible to see her cry. It was evidently something so unpleasant to be a Subst.i.tute that Emmy Lou's heart went out to her.

But the Subst.i.tute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a moment went on: "--you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each desk the needs of the Third Reader."

She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The Subst.i.tute was young, and new to her business.

Reading over the needs of the Third Reader printed on the slips of paper, Emmy Lou found them so complicated and lengthy she realised one thing--she would have to have a new school-bag, a larger, stronger one, to accommodate them.

Now, there is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Subst.i.tute. The Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants of the rows of desks she holds dominion over.

But a Subst.i.tute tells the cla.s.s all about her duty and its duty, and about what she is planning and what she expects of them. A Subst.i.tute makes the occupants of the desks feel flattered and conscious and important.

The Subst.i.tute's name was Miss Jenny. The cla.s.s speedily adored her.

Soon her desk might have been a shrine to Pomona. It was joy to forego one's apple to swell the fruitage of adoration piled on Miss Jenny's desk. The cla.s.s could scarcely be driven to recess, since going tore them from her. They found their happiness in Miss Jenny's presence.

So, apparently, did Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was the Princ.i.p.al. He wore his black hair somewhat long and thrown off his forehead, only Mr. Bryan would have called it brow.

Mr. Bryan came often to the Third Reader room. He said it was very necessary that the Third Reader should be well grounded in the rudiments of number. He said he was astonished, he was appalled, he was chagrined.

He paused at "chagrined," and repeated it impressively, so that the guttural grimness of its second syllable sounded most unpleasant.

Appalled and astonished must be bad, but to be chagrined, as Mr. Bryan said it, must be terrible.

He was chagrined, so it proved, that a cla.s.s could show such deplorable ignorance concerning the very rudiments of number.

It was Emmy Lou who displayed it, when she was called to the blackboard by Mr. Bryan. He called a different little girl each day, with discriminating impartiality. When doing so, Mr. Bryan would often express a hope that his teachers would have no favourites.

Emmy Lou went to the board.

"If a man born in eighteen hundred and nine, lives--" began Mr. Bryan.

Then he turned to speak to Miss Jenny.

Emmy Lou took the chalk and stood on her toes to reach the board.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, rearrange his white necktie, and talk to Miss Jenny."]

"Set it down," said Mr. Bryan, turning--"the date."

Emmy Lou paused, uncertain. Had he said one thousand, eight hundred and nine, she would have known; that was the way one knew it in the Second Reader, but eighteen hundred was confusing.

Again Mr. Bryan looked around, to see the chubby little girl standing on her toes, chalk in hand, still uncertain. Mr. Bryan's voice expressed tried but laudable patience.

"Put it down--the date," said Mr. Bryan, "eighteen hundred and nine."

Emmy Lou put it down. She put it down in this way:

18 100 9

Then it was he was astonished, appalled, chagrined; then it was he found it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground it in the rudiments of number.

But he did not always go when the lesson ended. Directly following its work in the "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the cla.s.s was given over to mastering "Townsend's New System of Drawing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system."]

While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, rearrange his white necktie, and talk to her. Miss Jenny was pretty.

The cla.s.s gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have her more for its own if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended.

Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in "Book No. 1," but the cla.s.s never tried his system. There is a chance Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public school before, and Miss Jenny was only a Subst.i.tute.

So the cla.s.s drew with no supervision and with only such verbal direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions.

Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there, she seemed helpless and nervous.

Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often copied pictures out of books, and she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system.

On the first page of "Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these in the s.p.a.ce below. To do this Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced a piece of tissue-paper folded away in her "Montague's New Elementary Geography"--Emmy Lou was a saving and h.o.a.rding little soul--which she laid over the lines and traced them with her pencil.

It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully over the s.p.a.ce below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil, carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth.

Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny said it was the best page in the room.

Emmy Lou could not take her book home, for drawing-books must be kept clean and were collected and kept in the cupboard, but she told Aunt Cordelia that her page had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia could hardly believe it, saying she had never heard of a talent for drawing in any branch of the family.

Now Hattie had taken note of Emmy Lou's system in drawing, and the next day she brought tissue-paper. That day Miss Jenny praised Hattie's page. Emmy Lou's system immediately became popular. All the cla.s.s got tissue-paper. And Mr. Bryan, finding the drawing-hour one of undisturbed opportunity, stayed until the bell rang for Geography.

A little girl named Sadie wondered if tissue-paper was fair. Hattie said it was, for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own mamma know?

Sadie was rea.s.sured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant.