master's cottage, just to see how things were going. I lay still and
waited. From the big school-house there came the sound of a hymn sung
all together, with Elsie leading. I could distinguish her voice quite
well. And then Mr. Mustard said a prayer. It was always the same
prayer, and had been written by some bishop or other for the purpose.
Then Elsie came out followed by all the infant class, most of them
clinging to her skirts, the rest straggling behind, and pausing to pick
up stray toddlers of three or four who had fallen on their faces. In
Breckonside they send babies like that to school to be out of the way.

At first I did not get much out of my cramped position on the willow
trunk. True, Elsie did turn and look twice toward the tall black
paling of my father's storehouse yard. But even that I could not be
too sure of, for the next moment Elsie had opened the door of the
little class-room and passed within with all her tribe scuffling after
her.

Then I could hear her begin with another hymn, very simple. Then she
set the elder to learn the mysteries of "two and two make four," while
she combined a little drill with the teaching of the alphabet to the
most youthful of her flock behind a green rep curtain. After that came
the turn of the slates, and at the first rasp Elsie, long unaccustomed
to that music at close range, put her fingers to her ears. But when
she had set the children to their task of drawing lopsided squares,
drunken triangles, and wobbly circles, she left the infant class to
drone on in the heat of the morning. She arranged the windows, pulling
them down to their utmost limit, and springing up on the sill she
cleverly tacked bits of white netting over the open spaces. Elsie knew
that there is nothing so demoralizing to the average infant class as a
visiting wasp of active habits.

The drone of the infant department was behind her. I could see a soft
perspiration bedewing the tender skins. Hair clung moist and clammy
about bent necks. One or two slumbered openly, their brows on their
slates, only to awake when Mr. Mustard came smiling in, satisfied with
everything, and particularly commending the wasp protectors. Strange
that in twenty years he had never thought of such a thing! He would
get his sister to make some immediately.

No need of that! Elsie could tear the required size from her roll in a
moment. Would he have them now? No, he would wait till the interval,
and t