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She smiled confidingly down at the schoolma'am and went off to waltz with Bert Rogers, apparently quite satisfied with what she had accomplished. Miss Satterly sat very still, scarce thinking consciously. She stared at Weary and tried to imagine him a fugitive from his native town, and in spite of herself wondered what it was he had done.
So he stood up and raised his hand, and said to the schoolma'am, "Please, ma'am, I 've got the stomach-ache; may I go home?" For a moment John was delighted to get out of school so early; but soon his guilt took all the light out of the summer sky and the pleasantness out of nature. He had to walk slowly, without a single hop or jump, as became a diseased boy.
"I guess I do," cried the schoolma'am very emphatically. "I just guess I know something about that, myself. Oh you dear, great, tall " Something happened just then to the schoolma'am's lips, so that she could not finish the sentence.
Nevertheless, three things that year's work did, well worth the doing: it relieved a vast amount of physical suffering; it transported seven thousand fugitives from congested centres back to the farm; and, best of all, it inaugurated the crusade of the New England schoolma'am.
Ford, bein' she's the eldest though she don't look it, Ma'am! she'll begin. Nobody can have more 'n two tries to a round. Then Number Two takes it. The schoolma'am next, an' mebbe I mistook in that matter of age. But that's not here nor there. Mrs. Ford, Number One; the schoolma'am, Two; the rest the females follerin' in order. Then the boys. One, two, three attention!
Someone laid proprietary hand upon his cinnamon-brown coat sleeve, and he jumped and blushed; it was only the schoolma'am, however, smiling up at him ingratiatingly in a manner wholly bewildering to a simple minded fellow like Happy Jack.
Still, he was of a hopeful nature and presently tried again. "How many times must I say I'm sorry, Schoolma'am? You don't look so pretty when you're mad; you've got dimples, remember, and yuh ought to give 'em a chance. Let's sit down on this rock while I square myself. Come on." His tone was wheedling in the extreme.
"Well, maybe he'll consent to being led to the stable; he looks as if he had a most unmerciful master!" You certainly must not ride back with him so tired." Fresh lemonade sounded tempting, after that ride. And being lectured was not at all what he had expected from the schoolma'am and who can fathom the mind of a man?
Here am I, installed once more as a country 'schoolma'am' at Valley Road, boarding at 'Wayside, the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois.
The schoolma'am's emphasis and English seemed to collapse together, but Weary did not notice that. "I'm sure grateful to be let down easy," he said softly, without looking up; his head was bent so that his hat quite concealed from the schoolma'am his face, but if she had known him longer, perhaps she would have gone carefully after that.
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