CHAPTER IV.

The Foggs lived on a funny little piece of land wedged in between two of the Greenfield farms. The house was a cabin of two rooms, with a stone chimney built on the outside, but the Foggs boasted that fifty-three children had been born and brought up in it. How they lived was a partial mystery to the neighborhood. They raised corn and potatoes and little else in the ground enclosed by a "worm-fence," built, it was more than suspected, of rails stolen, a few at a time, from the Greenfield fences. An acre of woodland behind the house was supposed to furnish them with fuel, and there were always pigs and chickens running wild, with a dozen or so children, in the road and fields.

They were "poor white folks" in a county where nearly everybody was respectable and well-to-do. No member of the family was ever convicted of an offence that took him into the courts. They might be suspected of stealing chickens, pigs, and wood, and even of robbing a smoke-house once in a while, but nothing was ever proved against them. Not one of them, so far as was known, had ever been in prison, and not one had ever grown rich or really respectable.

As the Grigsby children, neat and trim, lunch bags and books in hand, passed the Fogg cabin on the Monday morning the school opened, two men and four children were in and about the yard. Mrs. Fogg, the mistress of the house, stood on the porch, her married daughter, with two dirty babies holding to her skirt, leaned against a corner of the chimney; a barefoot boy was chopping sticks upon a log, a smaller boy trying to grind his knife upon a grind-stone. All stopped what they were doing to stare at the sisters and brother, and the elder matron hailed them in a coarse voice more like a man's than a woman's.

"Goin' t' school, ain't you?"

Dee nodded without halting; Bea walked straight onward, her chin level, her white sun-bonnet hiding her face. To her horror and displeasure Flea stopped, and replied politely over the tumble-down fence:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Fogg! I hope you are all well to-day."

"Tolerable, thank God!" said the old woman, changing her tone into a snuffling whine. "Ain't you too soon fo' school? The teacher 'ain' gone by yet."

"We like to be in good time," rejoined Flea, affably. "Aren't your boys going?"

"No, bless you, honey. Major Duncomb won't let them go in on the county, an' pore folks ain't got no money to pay teachers with. Ah well! Th' Almighty, He knows! The new teacher's real spry, ain' he?"

"Flea Grigsby!" called Bea, over her shoulder. "Come right along, or I'll tell ma when I go home."

Flea noticed her as little as she noticed Mrs. Fogg's remark on the new teacher's spryness. She had an idea, and was in a hurry to air it. "Major Duncombe!" she repeated. "Could he let the children in free if he liked?"

"Cert'nly, honey! He has the fus' word in all the county. Nobody dar' say his soul's his own 'less he lets 'em. 'Lord! how long? how long?'"

"I am _very_ well acquainted with Major Duncombe," rushed on Flea, with an important air. "And you may be sure, Mrs. Fogg, that I'll speak to him about your grandchildren. Good-morning!"

She was out of breath when she overtook her sister. Bea had walked fast purposely to make the others run, loyal Dee having loitered behind with Flea.

"I should think you'd be 'shamed of yourself, stoppin' to talk with poor white folks 'long the road," commented the elder sister.

Flea smiled mysteriously. "I had business with Mrs. Fogg."

"Business! Well, I never! The less you have to do with that kind, the better."

"Mrs. Fogg is not a bad woman, Bea," said Flea, seriously. "When you ask how she is, she always says, 'Pretty well, thank God,' just like Mrs. Elton in _Anna Ross_. I think she is a very pious person, and it is not her fault that she is poor. I stopped in the porch once when it was raining, and she talked a great deal about the trouble she had had, and how much she prayed, and so on. If I could, I'd be a benefactor to people like that."

"I think sometimes you 'ain't got the sense you were born with, Flea Grigsby. The idea o' you _benefacting_ anything or anybody!"

Flea's smile was yet more mysterious. In her glee over her new scheme she squeezed Dee's arm.

"You wait and see! _We_ know--don't we, Dee?"

"Yes, _sir-r-r_!" said Dee, stoutly.

The prospective benefactress was still swelling with her secret when they arrived at the school-house. The boys sat on one side of the room, the girls on the other, a narrow aisle separating them. Dee dropped into a seat near the door; the girls walked well forward and took places close to the aisle. Three minutes afterward the teacher appeared in the doorway, and Major Duncombe with him. Whispers and shuffling ceased instantly; all eyes were fixed upon the two gentlemen as they went up to the top of the room, turning there to face the school. It was all quite proper and dignified, until the Major, having motioned to Mr. Tayloe to take the chair ready for him, hung himself, as it were, across the corner of the desk, as Flea had seen him do last Saturday.

"For all the world like a pair of saddle-bags," Bea told her mother afterward.

Sitting thus, he watched the assembling of the motley crowd with kindly interest. Now and then he smiled and bowed, and it was always a girl whom he noticed in this way. Flea flushed delightedly at seeing that his smile and salutation to her were especially friendly. His eyes said that he was glad she was here and no worse for her adventure. Many recollected, in after-days, how sombre was the aspect of the new teacher by contrast with the Major's sunny face. One recalled that he had looked at her and frowned when she returned Major Duncombe's bow and smile.

At the time the frown gave her no concern. Her patron had distinguished her from the common herd by special courtesy. It was a promise of the eminence that would be hers from this time onward. She was already set apart and above her schoolmates.

The Major made a little speech by way of opening the session of the school. It was like himself, informal and pleasant.

"Young ladies and boys," he said, not rising from the desk, and even switching his boot lightly with his riding-whip while he talked, "I have gone security for your good behavior to the gentleman who takes charge of you for the year to come. I know you won't disappoint him or me. I have proved my faith in him as a gentleman and a scholar by putting my two boys under his care. I have told him to be strict with them. The teacher who does his duty is bound to be strict. A school is like an army. Orders must be carried out and no questions asked, and no tales told out of school. That was the law in my school-days, and it is a good law. From the very start you must believe that your teacher is your friend, and that he is doing _his_ best. Take my word for that until you find it out for yourselves. I go his security too. I know all about him. I knew his grandfather and his father. They were true Virginia gentlemen from crown to toe. And a Virginia gentleman of the right sort is the best specimen of a man ever made. Never forget that, boys. I knew Mr. Tayloe's mother also, young ladies." In addressing them he arose to his feet, and his voice was gentler: "She was a lady such as a man takes his hat off to when he so much as thinks of her. For her sake I know that her son will treat you kindly and respectfully. For my sake I hope that you will prove yourselves, as young ladies always do, the most obedient and diligent students in the school. Upon my word"--abandoning the attempt at formal gallantry, and relapsing into his every-day manner--"when I look into these bright eyes and rosy faces, I envy Mr. Tayloe the privilege of leading you along the flowery paths of learning.

"This is all I have to say to you at present. All I ought to say, I mean, for I could talk for hours, it is so delightful to see you, and to live over for the time my own school-days in this very place. And so, good-day, and God bless every one of you!"

In passing down the aisle he laid his hand lightly upon what her father called Flea's "Shetland-pony mane," and sent a merry flash of his gray eyes into hers uplifted in enchanted surprise.

Mr. Tayloe rapped smartly upon his desk with the ruler, and flourished it at the beginning and the end of his short speech.

"Children, I am here to teach. You are here to be taught. I mean to do my duty. I shall make it my business to see that you do yours. I shall treat you, one and all, boys and girls, exactly alike. I shall have no favorites, and show no partiality to anybody. If you are lazy and disobedient and saucy, you will be punished without fear or favor. If you study well and behave well, you will not be punished.

"The school will be opened every morning by reading the Scriptures and with prayer. Open your Bibles at the first chapter of Genesis."

Every scholar had a Bible. Some had brought no other book with them. The rustling of leaves caused by the command subsided, and the teacher read distinctly, in a metallic tone, the first verse:

"'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.' What is your name?" addressing in precisely the same voice a boy who sat at the extreme left of the front row of benches.

"Thomas Carter, sir!" faltered the startled lad.

"Thomas Carter will read the second verse, the boy next to him the third, and so on, right across the room to the end of the front bench where those girls are sitting. Then the girl next to the wall on the second bench will take her turn, and so on, clear across the room back to the other wall. Go on, Thomas Carter."

Some of the scholars read badly, some tolerably well. With one exception, none of them did themselves justice. They were diffident under the gaze of the pale blue eyes, or flustered by the sound of their own voices in the deep stillness that had fallen upon the school-room. Flea Grigsby alone kept a steady head and a steady voice. She read uncommonly well for a girl of her age, and she knew it. The boy across the aisle from her had fallen over the word "firmament," and the teacher had helped him to pass it by obliging him to spell the word twice, then to re-read the verse. Flea was the first girl who was called upon to read.

In her zeal she spoke more loudly than she was conscious of doing, emphasized certain words in a marked way, and did not forget to count "one" to herself at the comma, and "one, two, three," at the colon.

"And God made the _firmament_, and divided the waters which were _under_ the firmament from the waters which were _above_ the firmament: and it was _so_."

Bea's pretty lips were parting to begin the next verse when the teacher's gesture arrested her. An unpleasant smile drew up the corners of his mouth; his eyes were fixed upon Flea's face. To the amazement of the school he proceeded to read aloud the verse she had just finished, mimicking her girlish pipe, and exaggerating into absurdity the emphasis she had meant to make effective.

Some of the boys snickered; a few girls giggled. The rest looked scared and puzzled.

"That is not reading; that is mouthing," Mr. Tayloe ended the imitation by saying. "The sooner you get rid of that sort of affectation, Felicia Grigsby, the better for yourself. It may do for your private Shakespeare studies. It will not do for the Bible and this school. You think it very fine; it is really ridiculous. Next girl, read the eighth verse!"

The blow was brutal. It cut, as he had meant it should, down to the quick of the child's sensibilities. True, her self-conceit and her mannerisms had drawn it upon her. When children are thus "taken down" by their superiors in age and position we say, "It _hurts_, but it is good for them. But for such rubs they would be prigs; but for such pricks to vanity they would grow up cads. We all had to go through the small mill. In after-years we are the wiser for it."

Had Felicia Grigsby dropped from the bench in a dead swoon it would have been a merciful relief from what she endured, as, with eyes bent upon the page she could not see for the hot haze that swam between her and it, she sat perfectly still and let teacher and pupils think what they might of her.

At last she was dully awake to the fact that the boys on the front bench were upon their second round. Her turn would be upon her again before she could stop breathing fast or swallow the burning ball in her throat. She could not speak! She would not try. Nearer and nearer came the husky, reedy voices of the big boys. There were five on the front bench. The smallest of the five sat next to the aisle. His name was Senalius Snead. They called him "Snail" for short. He had a high, squeaking voice, like a pig's squeal. She had not turned a leaf. She could not have read a line if she had, but her ears, grown all at once acute, lost not one of the stammered words. Senalius Snead read horribly. She had pitied him when he read awhile ago. She could wish now that he would go on forever.

"And-the-evening-and-the-morning-were-the--"

"Spell it!" ordered the teacher, as the boy brought up short.

Without looking at him, Flea knew that he used a stubby forefinger with a dirty nail as a "pointer."

"S-i-x-t-h!" he squeaked. "_Sixtieth_ day!"

"It would have been the sixtieth if you had had a hand in the job," said the master, smiling his unpleasant smile. "As it is, 's-i-x-t-h,' spells 'sixth.' Let us pray! The scholars will kneel."

The chapter was ended then! Flea grew sick all over. Her head felt queer, and the sweat started out in icy drops upon her forehead and upper lip. She never knew how she got upon her knees, but she was there, her face in her hands, her elbows upon the bench. Mr. Tayloe stood up and read a short prayer from a book. It asked, among other things, that "our hands may be kept from picking and stealing." There was nothing about breaking the hearts and casting down the dreams of others, or trampling under foot the small, sweet courtesies that make working-day lives tolerable. If there had been, Mr. James Tayloe would have read it all in the one tone--a tone as void of feeling and sympathy as the "rat-a-tat-tat" of a spoon upon a dish-pan.

The morning was given up to examination and arrangement of the scholars into classes. There was good stuff in Felicia, for by the time she was called forward, with six other girls about the same age and size with herself, to show what she knew, she had plucked up spirit to answer clearly every question put to her. Except that her eyes were dull, and the lip-lines sagged somewhat, she looked like her usual self. The questions that fell to her were many, and the questioner pressed them closely, taking nothing for granted. He even laid traps for her by varying the forms of the queries.

"You said that General Washington fought the battle of the Cowpens, I believe?" he said once.

"No, sir; _Colonel_ Washington."

And again, "You don't pretend to tell me that Cornwallis did not give his sword to Washington's representative after the battle of Trenton?"

"No, sir. That was at Yorktown."

By-and-by--"The sun is nearer to the earth than the moon is, or it would not be so much hotter. That is so--isn't it?"

Flea's dull eyes did not light up, but a slight smile contracted her mouth. "The sun is 95,000,000 miles from the earth. The moon is 240,000 miles."

It was small game for a grown man, but the exchange of question and reply became presently a sort of wordy duel. The girl was on her mettle--Scotch mettle--and showed no sign of confusion when sure of her ground. Hers was an excellent mind, retentive as well as quick. What she had learned she kept, and understood how to use it.

Her father would have been proud of his lassie's proficiency in geography, grammar, and history, of her reading, her spelling, and her writing, had he been there. His heart would have been sore for her when the inquisitor at length probed her weak spot. She disliked arithmetic, and was hardly further advanced in it than the little girls beside her, who had heard with hanging jaws and round eyes what was to them a miraculous show of learning.

Mr. James Tayloe's faint blue eyes shone and twinkled at the first blunder. At the fifth he laughed out the short harsh snarl his pupils were to learn to dread.

"Aha!" He actually snapped his fingers with glee. "You _don't_ know everything then, if you _are_ to be a 'comfort and a pride' to your teacher--his one 'industrious and intelligent pupil!' When I meet with a boy--and especially with a girl--who thinks she can tell me more than I ever thought of learning, I like to take her down a peg or two!"

He need not have said it. The whole school looking on, partly in alarm, partly, I am sorry to say, in amusement that was the livelier for a dash of envy, understood already that for some reason he would enjoy lowering the girl in her own eyes and in the sight of others.

He was a man of strong prejudices and overbearing temper. He had been brought up as a rich man's son, and his father had died poor just as his son had left the university. In order to get the means for studying law, he must teach school for a couple of years, and Major Duncombe, who knew his story, offered him the neighborhood school, doubling the salary out of his own pocket without letting this be known to the young teacher.

He had taken a positive dislike to our poor Flea on Saturday, upon what seemed to him good grounds. Her forced composure under the severe examination to which he had subjected her was, in his opinion, sheer effrontery. She thought too much of herself, and should be taught her proper place. If she had trembled and cried, as several of the other girls had, he would have let her off more easily. She was as vain as a peacock and as stubborn as a mule, in his opinion. Such behavior was rank rebellion, and he meant to put it down with a strong hand.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

RICK DALE.

BY KIRK MUNROE.