he went so far that the school was interrupted,
she walked toward him and gave him some task, or stayed beside his desk
while she was hearing a class. But though in a measure it kept him in
subjection, her power over the others, she found, was being woefully
lessened, and her discipline destroyed. At dismissal she took up her hat
and pail with a weariness that was not physical, but of the spirit, and
rode home, bowed and silent.

But, unknown to her, the Polish boy defeated his own evil ends that same
evening, and solved to her satisfaction, and to that of the committee
and the scholars, the question of her rule.

He was sent to the Swede's to inquire after a turkey that his mother
thought had strayed up the river and nested near the reservation road;
and, in asking after the hen, he departed from his errand long enough to
boast to the Swede boy of his fun at the school-house. The latter
listened to him eagerly, though quietly, grinned slyly once or twice
during the story, and at the close of it remarked, with his finger on
his nose, that he thought he had better go back to school again himself.

The following morning, when she entered, to her surprise, the little
girl found him seated in the back of the room, his lunch in a newspaper
beside him, his books in a strap at his feet. "Ay kome tow lairn again,"
he said, and then waited until she assigned him a desk.

He was so interested in the little girl that, for the first hour after
school was called, he forgot to watch the young Pole. Everywhere she
moved, he kept his eyes upon her. If she caught his glance, she saw in
it only pride and encouragement and was content.

But the young Pole, seeing that the Swede boy did not look at him,
became piqued at last and set about gaining not only the attention of
the new pupil, but of the entire school. He rummaged his pockets for a
bean-shooter, and, finding one, proceeded to let the dry beans fly,
snapping them loudly against the benches.

The anger, resentment, and mortification on the little girl's face at
his audacity made the Swede boy squirm in his seat. But he said nothing,
seemed not to watch the bean-shooting, and bided his time.

At last, interrupted in her teaching and goaded to the point of rebuke,
the little girl dismissed a class and, rising in her chair, called the
school to attention. "I am sorry to have to speak to any one before the
rest," she said, her face white, her voice almost gone with excitement;
"