"I've got some up garret that I used twenty years ago. Too long for her, but Tim can cut them off. They are just the thing. Lucky I kept them," Mrs. Biggs said, while Eloise listened with a feeling like death in her heart, and dreamed that night of hobbling to school on Mrs. Biggs's crutches, while Jack Harcourt helped and encouraged her, and Howard Crompton stood at a distance laughing at her. CHAPTER VII RUBY ANN PATRICK She had taught the school in District No. 5 summer and winter for five years. She had been a teacher for fifteen years, her first experience dating back to the days when the Colonel was school inspector, and his formula in full swing. She had met all his requirements promptly, knew all about the geese and the grindstone, and the wind, and Mr. Wright, and had a certificate in the Colonel's handwriting, declaring her to be rooted and grounded in the fundamentals, and qualified to teach a district school anywhere. As Mr. Bills had said to Eloise, she was five feet nine inches high and large in proportion, with so much strength and vital force and determination, that the most unruly boy in District No. 5 would hesitate before openly defying her authority. She had conquered Tom Walker, the bully of the school, and after the day when he was made to feel the force there was in her large hand, he had done nothing worse than make faces behind her back and draw caricatures of her on his slate. As a rule, Ruby Ann was popular with the majority of the people, and there had been some opposition to a change. It was hardly fair, they said to the Colonel, who took so much interest in the school, and who was sure to feel angry and hurt if deprived of the privilege of catechising the teachers in the office he had erected for that purpose on his grounds. He had not only built the school-house, but had kept it in repair, and had added a classroom for the older scholars because somebody said it was needed, and had not objected when it was only used for wraps and dinner pails, and balls and clubs in the summer, and in the winter for coal and wood and sleds and skates and other things pertaining to a school of wide-awake girls and boys.