CHAPTER FIVE

"H'sh!" Phebe said peremptorily.

Isabel giggled again, a little ostentatiously, and covered her mouth with the palm of her hand.

"H'sh!" Phebe whispered. "She'll hear you, Isabel St. John. Wait till she is hearing the first geography, and then we'll do it."

It was at that hour of the afternoon when even the most industrious of grammar-school pupils feels his zeal for learning grow less with every tick of the clock. Isabel and Phebe, however, were never remarkable for their zeal. In fact, their teachers had never been able to decide whether they were more bright or more lazy. Both characteristics were so well developed that the hours they spent in the schoolroom were chiefly devoted to exploits of a most unscholastic nature.

The schoolroom of Number Nine, Union School, was much like all other schoolrooms, save in two essential particulars. The building was old and was heated with stoves, which necessitated the use of two huge zinc screens to keep the direct heat from the pupils near by; and the room boasted, aside from the usual ranks of desks, one extra double desk placed with its back against the window at the side of the room, and in close proximity to the stoves and the sheltering screens. Two months before, when promotion of cla.s.ses had brought Phebe and Isabel to the room, their quick eyes had taken in the inherent advantages of this position.

"Please, Miss Hulburt, may we sit here?" Phebe had asked.

"What makes you choose that place?" Miss Hulburt had inquired.

"Because the light is so good," Isabel had replied ingenuously.

And Phebe had added,--

"And then, you know, we shall be away from the others, so we sha'n't be able to whisper. Truly, Miss Hulburt, we've turned over a new leaf."

Phebe neglected to state in which direction the leaf had been turned.

Miss Hulburt had eyed her distrustfully; then she had granted the favor.

Three days later, she had regretted her concession.

The seat was so near the front corner of the room that the schoolmistress was obliged to turn her head to see the children. She was a bloodless, thin-necked, lackadaisical young person, in little-eyed spectacles, who, in her youth, had been compared to a drooping lily.

From that time onward, she had given all her thought to the cultivation of slow, graceful, lily-like motions, until it had become second nature for her to ogle and smirk and roll her head gently this way and that. It had not only rendered her intolerable to the unprejudiced observer, but it had made her physically incapable of turning about quickly enough to catch the culprits in the corner. Every disturbance in the room, and they were not few nor slight, appeared to come from the one source; yet by the time Miss Hulburt could focus her little spectacles upon them, Phebe and Isabel were swaying to and fro and whispering their lessons to themselves with an intentness which was almost religious.

It was one of the warm, bright days of late October, and the children had insisted on opening the window behind them, not so much for the sake of the clear, soft air as for the furtherance of their nefarious schemes. In the lap of each child lay a tiny china doll, a long string, and a box of what, at first sight, appeared to be parti-colored rags. A closer inspection, however, showed that the rags were all round and pierced with three holes, one in the middle, the others slightly to one side.

When the first geography lesson was called, the girls propped their open books before them, and abandoned themselves to the task in hand.

Selecting a circle of cloth from the box, each one of them proceeded to clothe her doll by the simple process of thrusting the head and arms through the holes and tying a string about the waist. Isabel's doll was a negro and was decked in scarlet. Phebe's was of Caucasian extraction, and preferred blue. The dolls were robed and the long strings were made fast to their necks. Stealthily and slowly the girls poked them through the crack of the open window and let them down, swinging them back and forth until they heard them click against the window of the room below.

Then they jerked the strings sharply upward, and Isabel giggled again.

Phebe coughed to smother the sound, and then gave her friend a warning pinch.

Miss Hulburt was turning in their direction. Instantly Phebe raised her hand, shaking it slightly and clearing her throat to attract attention.

"Well? What is it, Phebe?"

"Please, how do you p.r.o.nounce p-h-t-h-i-s-i-c?"

"Phthisic. Where do you find anything about it, Phebe?" Miss Hulburt felt that she was developing in craftiness.

"In my--geography."

Miss Hulburt's smile showed that she believed she had caught the young sinner napping.

"But my book doesn't have any such word."

Isabel raised her hand in support of her friend.

"If you please, Miss Hulburt, we're reading in the back part, about the South Sea Islands. It says it's very common there."

"Phebe," Isabel whispered, a little later; "what is it?"

"What's what?"

"P-h-t-h-You know."

"I d' know, something to eat, I guess. We had it in spelling, last term, and I happened to think of it. Oh, Isabel!" For the door opened, and the teacher of the room below came into the room.

An hour later, Hubert and Theodora sat on the edge of the piazza, discussing a coming entertainment to be given by the pupils of the high school. The piazza came to the side of the driveway, and now they curled up their toes to allow the doctor to pa.s.s them, driving his new and favorite horse, Vigil.

"What a beauty she is!" Hubert said, as the carriage pa.s.sed them.

"Isn't she? I'm dying to ride her."

"Better not," Hubert cautioned her. "She wouldn't stand the things old Prince does, and you wouldn't have any show at all, if you tried to manage her."

"I don't believe it," Theodora returned. "Papa said I was a good horsewoman, and I mean to try Vigil, some day. 'Tisn't strength that counts with a horse, anyway; it's gumption."

"What'll you take for the word?" Hubert asked lazily. He was lounging in the sun with his hands in his pockets and his back against a pillar, and he felt too comfortable to be inclined for a discussion.

"The word's all right." Theodora tossed her book into a chair behind her. "It means exactly what I want. It isn't common sense, nor knowledge, nor reasonableness; it's just gumption and nothing else.

It's what Miss Hulburt hasn't," she added, as she glanced up the street.

"Here she comes, Hu. How we used to hate her, when we were in her room!

Why, she's stopped papa, and he's coming back with her. Babe must be in some fresh sc.r.a.pe."

Hubert rose hastily.

"That settles it. If she's coming here, I'm off."

"Where going?"

"I don't know. Over to the Farringtons', maybe, or else to the library."

"Teddy," the doctor called; "I wish you'd come and see to Vigil. I haven't any halter, and I sha'n't be long. Miss Hulburt wants to see me about Phebe. Just let the reins lie loose on her back, and she'll be all right."

"On Miss Hulburt's back?" Theodora questioned, with a giggle.

The doctor laughed, as he stepped out of the low, open buggy, handed the lines to his daughter, and turned to speak to the teacher who stood simpering at his side.

Within ten minutes, Theodora was heartily tired of her position as amateur groom. Miss Hulburt, always garrulously confidential, was pouring into the doctor's impatient ears all her theory of Phebe's temper and training. She was absorbed in her subject, but to the others the time crept heavily by. Allyn came around the corner of the house, and Theodora hailed him.

"Come, Allyn; want to come and play go to ride with sister?"