Arizona -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Religious fiction; Teachers -- Fiction
"Some class!" he said, standing back and regarding his handiwork with
pride. "Say, I like the sound the chalk makes on it, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," said Margaret, heartily, "so smooth and business-like,
isn't it? You'll enjoy doing examples in algebra on it, won't you?"
"Good night! Algebra! Me? No chance. I can't never get through the
arithmetic. The last teacher said if he'd come back twenty years from
now he'd still find me working compound interest."
"Well, we'll prove to that man that he wasn't much of a judge of boys,"
said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle
showing in her eyes. "If you're not in algebra before two months are
over I'll miss my guess. We'll get at it right away and show him."
Bud watched her, charmed. He was beginning to believe that almost
anything she tried would come true.
"Now, Bud, suppose we get to work. I'd like to get acquainted with my
class a little before Monday. Isn't it Monday school opens? I thought
so. Well, suppose you give me the names of the scholars and I'll write
them down, and that will help me to remember them. Where will you begin?
Here, suppose you sit down in the front seat and tell me who sits there
and a little bit about him, and I'll write the name down; and then you
move to the next seat and tell me about the next one, and so on. Will
you?"
"Sure!" said Bud, entering into the new game. "But it ain't a 'he' sits
there. It's Susie Johnson. She's Bill Johnson's smallest girl. She has
to sit front 'cause she giggles so much. She has yellow curls and she
ducks her head down and snickers right out this way when anything funny
happens in school." And Bud proceeded to duck and wriggle in perfect
imitation of the small Susie.
Margaret saw the boy's power of imitation was remarkable, and laughed
heartily at his burlesque. Then she turned and wrote "Susie Johnson" on
the board in beautiful script.
Bud watched with admiration, saying softly under his breath; "Gee!
that's great, that blackboard, ain't it?"
Amelia Schwartz came next. She was long and lank, with the buttons off
the back of her dress, and hands and feet too large for her garments.
Margaret could not help but see her in the clever pantomime the boy
carried on. Next was Rosa Rogers, daughter of a wealthy cattleman, the
pink-cheeked, blue-eyed beauty of the school, with all the boys at her
feet and a perfect knowledge of her power over them. Bud didn't, of
course, state it that way, but Margaret gathered as much from his
simpering smile and the coy way he looked out of the corner of his eyes
as he described her.
Down the long list of scholars he went, row after row, and when he came
to the seats where the boys sat his tone changed. She could tell by the
shading of his voice which boys were the ones to look out for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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