h a pleasant word
for all. He swung with Maggie Hamilton and Annie Fraser and Julia
Duffy; he entered keenly into the young men's athletic competitions; he
carried water for Miss Cotton and waited on the young ladies at the
tables; and finally he strolled over towards the platform where the
fathers of Glenoro were gathered. They sat on mossy logs or stumps,
with drooping shoulders, smoking their pipes in solemn content,
discussing crops and creeds, horses and heresies and enjoying life to
the full. Old Andrew Johnstone was there; but Duncan Polite was not
with him. Duncan never went anywhere except to church. The ruling
elder seemed in a rather mild frame of mind in spite of the fact that
the reins of government had been taken out of his hands. The young
pastor could not know that Duncan Polite's influence had soothed his
wrath. He sat beside the old man and chatted away genially, while
Splinterin' Andra watched him solemnly and with a certain wistfulness
in his stern face.

But John Egerton did not rest long; he was beginning to wonder why Mr.
Watson and his flock had not by this time startled them all into
admiration by their appearance. The time set for their arrival had
long passed and still the burst of music and the gleam of banners which
was to herald their approach did not come. He arose and walked towards
the road to see if they were in sight, when he saw the schoolmaster
approaching alone and with a haste which betokened disaster. His
friend hurried to meet him. "Why, what has happened?" he cried.
"Where are the children?"

But Mr. Watson was in a state of speechless wrath. The heat of the
summer sun combined with the internal burning of his indignation would
have produced apoplexy in a less cadaverous person. Some minutes
passed before he could quite explain the situation. When at length he
could tell it, it appeared that he had collected his flock at the
school in proper order and supplied them all with full instructions.
Then he delivered a flag to each boy and a maple branch to each girl,
to be waved as they entered the woods singing. Mr. Watson had an eye
for the artistic, and had at first decreed that each flag should march
beside a maple bough; but the proposition was received with such
hysterical squeals and giggles from beneath the Canadian emblems and
such dark looks of terrible rebellion from the red banners that the
schoolmaster was compelled to change the order of their going. So