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There was hardly space to pass between the stove and the table in the kitchen, and several splint-bottomed chairs had to be brought from the front room; but at last all were seated, and, after Mr. Sapp said grace, conversation began in a loud and cheerful tone.
The school-house door was locked when she got there, but a few timid country-children were sitting on the door-steps or on the fence, with their school-books and dinner-buckets. Mr. Sapp came over and unlocked the door; then, as it was half-past eight, Elvira rang the little bell which she found on the teacher's desk, and school began.
There she found the rest of the family, the mother, a grown daughter, and two half-grown sons: they seemed friendly, but a little shy, and stood in the background while she transacted her business. "Yes," Mr. Sapp said, in answer to her question, "they wanted a three-months' school, but had no teacher engaged. Had she ever taught before?"
He promised that he would, and a week later called her in as she was passing, and said, "There was a man here yesterday from Buck Creek district who said they wanted a teacher in their school this summer. You might try there. His name is Sapp, and he lives right by the school-house.
Sapp remarked that the boys must stick the peas right off, went on to the milk-house, a log shanty beyond the well, and finally came back to the sitting-room, where, as there was yet an hour of daylight, Mrs. Sapp sat down to the quilting-frame. Elvira borrowed a thimble and assisted her, having only to ply her needle and listen.
That dustbin was the outward and visible sign of the decadence of Sapp. In the last house down the Court, the one that was so handy to the dustbin, lived a very small boy and a still smaller sister. There were other members of the household to wit, their Uncle Moses and their Aunt M'riar, who were not husband and wife, but respectively brother and sister of Dave's father and mother.
Divining with the peculiar instinct of the guild the character of the fish now nibbling at the naked hook, the cheat resolved to risk a little bait, and accordingly sent by return mail a genuine one- dollar note, with a written invitation both for a reply and a personal conference. Never before did the Rev. Zachariah Sapp subject a piece of paper to such scrutiny.
But the miscreant in possession twenty years ago, instigated by a jerry-builder, had added a storey and removed the tiled roofs whose garrets were every bit as good as the jerry-built rooms that took their place. Sapp himself may have done it one knows nothing of his principles and at the same time in a burst of overweening vanity called his cottages his Court.
It was time to go to bed, and, without saying good-night, the different members retired to their allotted quarters, Mr. and Mrs. Sapp to the bed by the fireplace, Jack and Charley to one bed in the back part of the room, and Mary and the school-ma'am to the other. Thus, with few variations, the days passed until the first week of school had gone.
Particularly demonstrative were the ebullitions of two or three brothers who saw a chance of exchanging sundry unsalable possessions for slices in the inheritance. Mr. Sapp reached New York City in the evening, and the momentous interview was to take place at an early hour the next day. Sleep came in brief and fitful snatches.
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