mmed the door.

I sat there in Nance Edgar's winking firelight looking at my fingers
one by one, and not sure of the count.

If any one will please tell me what a girl will say or do in any given
circumstances--well, I'll be obliged to him, that's all. I don't
believe any fellow was ever so abused and browbeat in one day by girls
before. And all for nothing. That is the funny part of it. For what
had I done? Answer me that, if you please. Nothing--just nothing!

CHAPTER XVI

MR. MUSTARD'S FIRST ASSISTANT

Yes, I was surprised. But there were several other and greater
surprises waiting me. I got one the very next day.

I met Dan McConchie on his way home from school, at the dinner hour.
He was kicking his bag before him in the way that was popular at our
school, where all self-respecting boys brought their books in a strap.
Girls had green baize bags and always swung them like pendulums as they
talked. But boys, if they had to have bags, used them as footballs.
This was what Dan was doing now.

He said, "Halloo, Joe Yarrow, your girl's gone and been made a teacher.
You had better come back. Old Mustard is as sweet to her as sugar
candy. She is teaching the babies in the little classroom--'A b--ab!
B a--baa!'"

He imitated the singsong of the lowest forms.

Now I put no faith in Dan or any other McConchie. But I clumped him
hard and sound for presuming to talk about Elsie at all or call her "my
girl."

Then I met little Kit Seymour, a girl from the south, who had reddish
hair, all crimpy, and spoke soft, soft English as if she were breathing
what she said at you. She lisped a little, too, was good-looking
(though I did not care for that), and did not tell lies--had not been
long enough in Breckonside to learn, I expect.

At any rate she told me in other words what I had just clouted Dan for.
Early the morning before, the school had been astonished to find Mr.
Mustard giving Elsie a lesson--when they came to spend a half hour in
the playground at marbles and steal-the-bonnets. Their wonder grew
greater when, as the bell rang, Elsie was found installed in the little
schoolroom, which hitherto had been used chiefly for punishments and
doing copybook writing. She was given the infant classes, and had been
there all day, so I was told, with Mr. Mustard popping in and out
giving her instructions, and smiling like a fusty old hawk that has
caught a goldfinch which he fears some one will take aw