The building was already lighted up and there was quite an a.s.semblage of young men and boys about the two front entrances. On the girls' porch, too, a number of the feminine members of the Temperance Club were grouped, and with them Sairy Pritchett.

Her own arrival with the schoolmaster had been an effective one and she had waited with the other girls to welcome the newcomers from Hillcrest Farm, and introduce them to her more particular friends.

But the Bray girls looked as though they were from another sphere. Not that their frocks were so fanciful in either design or material; but there was a style about them that made the finery of the other girls look both cheap and tawdry.

"So _them_ stuck-up things air goin' to live 'round here; be they?"

whispered one rosy-cheeked, buxom farmer's daughter to Sairy Pritchett--and her whisper carried far. "Well, I tell you right now I don't like their looks. See that Joe Badger; will you? He's got to help 'em down out o' Lucas's waggin'; has he? Well, I declare!"

"An' Hen Jackson, too!" cried another girl, shrilly. "They'd let airy one of us girls fall out on our heads."

"Huh!" said Sairy, airily, "if you can't keep Joe an' Hen from shinin'

around every new gal that comes to the club, I guess you ain't caught 'em very fast."

"He, he!" giggled another. "Sairy thinks she's hooked the school teacher all right, and that he won't get away from her."

"Cat!" snapped Miss Pritchett, descending the steps in her most stately manner to meet her new friends.

"Cat yourself!" returned the other. "I guess you'll show your claws, Miss, if you have a chance."

Perhaps Sairy did not hear all of this; and surely the Bray girls did not. Sairy Pritchett was rather proud of counting these city girls as her particular friends. She welcomed Lydia and Euphemia warmly.

"I hope Lucas didn't try to tip you into the brook again, Miss Bray,"

Sairy giggled to 'Phemie. "Oh, yes! Miss Lydia Bray, Mr. Badger; Mr.

Jackson, Miss Bray. And this is Miss Euphemia, Mr. Badger--_and_ Mr.

Jackson.

"Now, that'll do very well, Joe--and Hen. You go 'tend to your own girls; we can git on without you."

Sairy deliberately led the newcomers into the schoolhouse by the boys'

entrance, thus ignoring the girls who had roused her ire. She introduced Lyddy and 'Phemie right and left to such of the young fellows as were not too bashful.

Sairy suddenly arrived at the conclusion that to pilot the sisters from Hillcrest about would be "good business." The newcomers attracted the better cla.s.s of young bachelors at the club meeting and Sairy--heretofore something of a "wall flower" on such occasions--found herself the very centre of the group.

Lyddy and 'Phemie were naturally a little disturbed by the prominent position in which they were placed by Sairy's manoeuvring; but, of course, the sisters had been used to going into society, and Lyddy's experience at college and her natural sedateness of character enabled her to appear to advantage. As for the younger girl, she was so much amused by Sairy, and the others, that she quite forgot to feel confused.

Indeed, she found that just by looking at most of these young men, and smiling, she could throw them into spasms of self-consciousness. They were almost as bad as Lucas Pritchett, and Lucas was getting to be such a good friend now that 'Phemie couldn't really enjoy making him feel unhappy.

She was, indeed, particularly nice to him when young Pritchett struggled to her side after the girls were settled in adjoining seats, half-way up the aisle on the "girls' side" of the schoolroom.

These young girls and fellows had--most of them--attended the district school, or were now attending it; therefore, they were used to being divided according to the s.e.xes, and those boys who actually had not accompanied their girlfriends to the club meeting, sat by themselves on the boys' side, while the girls grouped together on the other side of the house.

There were a few young married couples present, and these matrons made their husbands sit beside them during the exercises; but for a young man and young girl to sit together was almost a formal announcement in that community that they "had intentions!"

All this was quite unsuspected by Lyddy and 'Phemie Bray, and the latter had no idea of the joy that possessed Lucas Pritchett's soul when she allowed him to take the seat beside her.

Her sister sat at her other hand, and Sairy was beyond Lyddy. No other young fellow could get within touch of the city girls, therefore, although there was doubtless many a swain who would have been glad to do so.

This club, the fundamental idea of which was "temperance," had gradually developed into something much broader. While it still demanded a pledge from its members regarding abstinence from alcoholic beverages, including the bane of the countryside--hard cider--its semimonthly meetings were mainly of a literary and musical nature.

The reigning school teacher for the current term was supposed to take the lead in governing the club and pushing forward the local talent.

Mr. Somers was the name of the young man with the bald brow and the eyegla.s.ses, who was presiding over the welfare of Pounder's District School. The Bray girls thought he seemed to be an intelligent and well-mannered young man, if a trifle self-conscious.

And he evidently had an element that was difficult to handle.

Soon after the meeting was called to order it became plain that a group of boys down in the corner by the desk were much more noisy than was necessary.

The huge stove, by which the room was overheated, was down there, its smoke-pipe crossing, in a L-shaped figure, the entire room to the chimney at one side, and it did seem as though none of those boys could move without kicking their boots against this stove.

These uncouth noises interfered with the opening address of the teacher and punctuated the "roll call" by the secretary, who was a small, almost dwarf-like young man, out of whose mouth rolled the names of the members in a voice that fairly shook the cas.e.m.e.nts. Such a thunderous tone from so puny a source was in itself amazing, and convulsed 'Phemie.

"Ain't he got a great voice?" asked Lucas, in a whisper. "He sings ba.s.s in the church choir and sometimes, begum! ye can't hear nawthin' but Elbert Hooker holler."

"Is _that_ his name?" gasped 'Phemie.

"Yep. Elbert Hooker. 'Yell-bert' the boys call him. He kin sure holler like a bull!"

And at that very moment, as the bombastic Elbert was subsiding and the window panes ceased from rattling with the reverberations of his voice, one of the boys in the corner fell more heavily than before against the stove--or, it might have been Elbert Hooker's tones had shaken loose the joints of stovepipe that crossed the schoolroom; however, there was a yell from those down front, the girls scrambled out of the way, the smoke began to spurt from between the joints, and it was seen that only the wires fastened to the ceiling kept the soot-laden lengths of pipe from falling to the floor.

CHAPTER XII

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

The soot began sifting down in little clouds; but the sections of pipe had come apart so gently that no great damage was done immediately. The girls sitting under the pipe, however, were thrown into a panic, and fairly climbed over the desks and seats to get out of the way.

Besides, considerable smoke began to issue from the stove. One of the young scamps to whose mischievousness was due this incident, had thrown into the fire, just as the pipe broke loose, some woolen garment, or the like, and it now began to smoulder with a stench and an amount of smoke that frightened some of the audience.

"Don't you be skeert none," exclaimed Lucas, to 'Phemie and her sister, and jumping up from his seat himself. "'Taint nothin' but them Buckley boys and Ike Hewlett. Little scamps----"

"But we don't want to get soot all over us, Lucas!" cried his sister.

"Or be choked by smoke," coughed 'Phemie.

There was indeed a great hullabaloo for a time; but the windows were opened, the teacher rescued the burning woolen rag from the fire with the tongs and threw it out of the window, and several of the bigger fellows swooped down upon the malicious youngsters and bundled them out of the schoolhouse in a hurry--and in no gentle manner--while others, including Lucas, stripped off their coats and set to work to repair the stovepipe.

An hour was lost in repairs and airing the schoolhouse, and then everybody trooped back. Meanwhile, the Bray girls had made many acquaintances among the young folk.

Mr. Somers, the teacher, was plainly delighted to meet Lyddy--a girl who had actually spent two years at Littleburg. He was seminary-bred himself, with an idea of going back to take the divinity course after he had taught a couple of years.

But it suddenly became apparent to 'Phemie--who was observant--that Sairy looked upon this interest of the school teacher in Lyddy with "a green eye."

Mr. Somers, who allowed the boys and young men to repair the damage created by his pupils while he rested from his labors, sat by Lyddy all the time until the meeting was called to order once more.

Sairy, who had begun by bridling and looking askance at the two who talked so easily about things with which she was not conversant, soon tossed her head and began to talk with others who gathered around. And when Mr. Somers went to the desk to preside again Sairy was not sitting in the same row with the Bray girls and left them to their own devices for the rest of the evening.