"Good-by, papa," said Kyzie, and locked the door after him. "I wish I'd asked him to stay till I called them in and took their names. Papa is so dignified that it would have been a great help. My, I feel as if I weren't more than six years old!"

She walked the floor, watch in hand. "Fifty seconds of nine."

She went to the bell-rope and pulled with both hands. It was quite needless to use so much force. The bell was directly over her head; and instead of the "mellow lin-lan-lone" she expected, it made a din so tremendous that it almost seemed as if the roof were about to fall upon her. At the same time there was a scrambling and pounding at the door.

The children were trying to get in.

"Oh, miserable me, I've locked them out!" thought the little teacher in dismay.

She hastened to the door and opened it, and they rushed in with a shout.

This was an odd beginning; but Kyzie said not a word. She remembered that she was now Miss Dunlee, so she threw back her shoulders and looked her straightest and tallest, and as much as possible like Miss Prince, her favorite teacher. She had intended all along to imitate Miss Prince--whenever she could think of it.

Only fourteen years old! Well, what of that? Grandma Parlin had been only fourteen when she taught _her_ first school. Keep a brave heart, Katharine Dunlee!

Joe Rolfe walked in as stiffly as a wooden soldier. Behind him came a few boys and girls, some of them with their fingers in their mouths.

There were twelve in all. The last ones to enter were Nate and Jimmy, followed by Aunt Lucy and her niece arm in arm.

"I wonder if Nate is laughing at me for locking the door?" thought Kyzie, not daring to look at him, as she waved her hands and said in a loud voice to be heard above the noise:--

"All please be seated."

Being seated was a work of time; and what a din it made! The children wandered about, trying one bench after another to see which they liked best.

"You would think they were getting settled for life," whispered Nate to Jimmy.

The "little two" chose a place near the west window and began at once to write on their slates.

"I'm scared of Miss Dunlee," wrote Aunt Lucy.

"Stop making me laugh," replied the niece.

When at last everybody was "settled for life," Kyzie did not know what to do next. "What would Miss Prince do? Why she would read in the Bible.

I forgot that."

The new teacher took her stand on the platform behind the desk, opened her Bible, and read aloud the twenty-third Psalm. Her voice shook, partly from fright, partly from trying so hard not to laugh. But she did not even smile--far from it. Nate and Jimmy who were watching her could have told you that. If she had been at a funeral she could hardly have looked more solemn.

Jimmy touched Nate's foot under the bench; Nate gave Jimmy a shove; Bab gazed hard at Lucy's flaxen cue; Lucy gazed straight at her thumb.

After the reading "Miss Dunlee" walked about with her blank-book in one hand and her pen in the other to take down the children's names.

"I'm Joseph Rolfe; don't you remember me?" said the boy with red hair.

"And this boy next seat is Chicken Little."

"No, I ain't either, I'm Henry Small," corrected the little fellow, ready to cry.

Kyzie shook her finger at both the boys and resolved that "Joe should stop calling names, and Henry should stop being such a cry-baby."

Annie Farrell was a dear little girl in a blue and white gingham gown, and the new teacher loved her at once. Dorothy Pratt was little more than a baby, and when spoken to she put her ap.r.o.n to her eyes and wanted to go home.

"She can't go home," said her older sister Janey, "mamma's cookin' for company!"

Kyzie patted the baby's tangled hair and sent Janey to get her some water.

"I'll go," spoke up Jack Whiting, aged seven. "Janey isn't big enough.

Besides the pail leaks."

"I'm so glad Edith isn't here," thought Kyzie, "or we should both get to giggling. There, it's time now to call them out to read. Let me see, where is the best crack in the floor for them to stand on? Why didn't I bring a quarter of a dollar with a hole in it for a medal? Oh, the medal will be for the spelling-cla.s.s; that was what Grandma Parlin said."

It seemed a "ling-long" forenoon, and the little teacher rejoiced when eleven o'clock came. The family at home looked at her curiously, and Uncle James asked outright, "Tell us, Grandmother Graymouse, how do the scholars behave?"

"Well, I suppose they behaved as well as they knew how; but oh, it makes me so hungry!"

She could not say whether she liked teaching or not.

"Wait till Friday night, Uncle James, and then I'll tell you."

"Well said, Grandmother Graymouse! You couldn't have made a wiser remark. We'll ask no further questions till Friday night."

But when Friday night came they were all thinking of something else, something quite out of the common; and "Grandmother Graymouse" and her school were forgotten.

VII

THE ZEBRA KITTEN

It began with Zee. By this time her young mistress had become very much attached to her; and so indeed had all the "Dunlee party." Even Mrs.

Dunlee petted the kitten and said she was the most graceful creature she had ever seen, except, perhaps, the dancing horse, Thistleblow. Eddo loved her because "she hadn't any pins in her feet" and did not resent his rough handling. The "little two" loved her because she allowed them to play all sorts of games with her. They could make believe she was very ill and tuck her up in bed, and she would swallow meekly such medicine as alum with salt and water without even a mew.

"She is so amiable," said Edith. "And then that wonderful tail of hers, mamma! 'Twould bring, I don't know how much money, at a cat fair. It's a regular _prize_ tail, you see!"

An animal like this merited extra care. She was not to be put off like an everyday cat with saucers of milk and sc.r.a.ps of meat; she must have the choicest bits from the table.

"Mrs. McQuilken says the best-fed cats make the best mousers," said Edith.

"Is that so, Miss Edith? Then the mice here at Castle Cliff haven't long to live!" laughed good-natured Mr. Templeton, as he handed Zee's little mistress a pitcher of excellent cream.

Edith was very grateful to Mrs. McQuilken for this remarkable kitten.

She had taken much pains with her pencil drawing of a cherub in the clouds, intending it as a present for the eccentric old lady.

"Do you suppose she'll like it, mamma? You know she's so odd that one never can tell."

Mrs. Dunlee was sure the picture would be appreciated. The cherub's sweet face looked like Eddo's, and the clouds lay about him very softly, leaving bare his pretty dimpled feet, and hands, and arms, and neck. On Friday afternoon Edith took the picture in her hand and knocked with a beating heart at the door of Number Five.

"Mrs. Me--McQuilken," said she, in a timid voice, on entering the room, "you're so fond of pictures that I thought I'd bring you one I drew myself. I'm afraid it's not so very, very good; but I hope you'll like it just a little."

[Ill.u.s.tration]