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"Look up here, Schoolma'am," he commanded at last. "I hate to have my feet get so much attention. I've come back to fight it out to a finish, this time. Yuh can't stampede me again look up here. I've been plumb sick for a sight of those big eyes of yours." Miss Satterly persisted in gazing at the boots of Weary. "Well, are yuh going to?"
"Propriety is is Propriety," replied her brother, "consists in two young men surprising one small and very saucy schoolma'am and letting a lot of imprisoned boys and girls escape to the woods and enjoy an extra hour of freedom." "Not right," said Alice severely; "the next pupil will now answer."
The schoolma'am had jest been killin' herself for a year and a half with waitin' and tendin' and watchin' with that sick mother that was dead now and she was in mournin' for. She didn't say so, but I got the story out of her, and then I knowed why she looked so dreadful pale and poor.
It was the one beginning, according to Cal's version: Twinkle, Twinkle little star, What in thunder are you at? There were thirteen verses, and it was not particularly adapted to a Christmas entertainment. The schoolma'am went on explaining. "What're them?" Slim, leaning awkwardly forward and blinking up at her, interrupted stolidly. Everyone took advantage of the break and breathed deeply.
Just here a tiny, dry-weather whirlwind swept around the corner, caught ruffled, white apron and blue skirt in its gyrations and, pushing them wickedly aside, gave Weary a brief, delicious glimpse of two small, slippered feet and two distracting ankles. The schoolma'am blushed and retreated to the doorstep, but she did not sit down. She still stood straight and displeased beside him.
Weary sighed again, but clung to his general hopefulness, as was his nature. It took a great deal to rouse Weary; perhaps the schoolma'am was trying to find just how much. "Say, you'd a died laughing if you'd seen old Glory yesterday; he liked to scared Slim plumb to death. We were working in the big corral and Slim got down on one knee to fix his spur.
"I never will, now that I know it's bad," asseverated Davy between sobs. "If you ever catch me telling a whopper again you can . . ." Davy groped mentally for a suitable penance . . . "you can skin me alive, Anne." "Don't say 'whopper, Davy . . . say 'falsehood," said the schoolma'am. "Why?" queried Davy, settling comfortably down and looking up with a tearstained, investigating face.
Ordinarily he would have been delighted with the idea of walking down the road with the schoolma'am, but there was something in her look which seemed to tell him that she knew all about his trouble, and, besides, he was not in good humor. "Yes, in a minnit soon's I fix up this hole. Them shotes, I b'lieve, would go through a keyhole, if they could once get their snoots in."
And will yuh take a jaunt over Eagle Butte way with me next Sunday if I can get off?" The schoolma'am, again feeling herself mistress of the situation, proceeded with her disciplining. She smiled, raised one hand and checked off the questions upon her fingers. You never would guess how oddly her heart was behaving she looked such a self-possessed young woman.
Don't look cross, there's a darling, though you do remind me, when you open your eyes that way, of a delightful little American schoolma'am I met in Lima. She had drifted that far on her holidays, and I believe she was horrified with me." "Perhaps she thought you were really the dreadful person you made yourself out to be.
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