dread advent for
that day. It was just at that trying hour of Friday afternoon when only
the spelling-classes remained to be heard, and teacher and scholars both
were conscious, the one with a deep inward sense of relief, the others
with many restless demonstrations of impatience, that the week was near
its close; and that "to-morrow" would be Saturday and a holiday.

Estella the raven-haired--familiarly known as the "Modoc," a long and
ungainly creature, with arms and legs so seemingly profuse and
unmanageable, that they reminded one of the tentacles of a
cuttle-fish--Estella was "passing around the water."

She was performing this accustomed office with a grin of such supreme
delight and satisfaction as seemed actually to illuminate the back of her
head, when the door of the school-room opened, and there, without any
previous warning, appeared a grim, fierce-looking little man, whom I knew
at once to be the "Turkey Mogul."

The extreme exigency of the case inspired me with a certain calmness of
despair. Having advanced to meet this august personage, conducted him to
the desk, and placed for him the official chair, which he shortly
refused, I lifted my eyes, "prepared for any fate," to observe what might
be the condition of my turbulent flock, and lo--all the tops, and
Jews-harps, and apples, and whirligigs, and miniature buzz-saws had
disappeared, and there was an array of pallid faces bent over another
array of books--many of the latter were upside down, but the effect was
unbroken. Even Estella, moved by some sudden divine sense of the fitness
of things, had ceased her desultory wanderings about the room with the
tin dipper, and, not having had time to procure a book, was working out
imaginary problems on her fingers with the air of a Herschel, and I
became slowly conscious that there was such a stillness in that room as
had not been--no, nor anything like unto it,--since the first time I
entered there.

I think Mr. Baxter must have observed something of the look of helpless
astonishment which transfixed my features. I certainly saw the shadow of
a smile lurking in his steel-gray eyes.

"Yes," he snarled, addressing the school; "yes, if I didn't know you,
now, and if your books were not, most of 'em, bottom side up, and if I
shouldn't be compelled in two minutes to prove the contrary, I might
possibly imagine that you were studying--yes--humph!"

I said to Mr. Baxter, as cheerfully as possible, that "we were