shock head appeared at the window. He threw the sash open and
dropped out a wooden box. "There!" he said, triumphantly, "you c'n climb
up on that, cantcha? Here, I'll holdya steady. Take holta my hand."

And so it was through the front window that the new teacher of the Ridge
School first appeared on her future scene of action and surveyed her
little kingdom.

Bud threw open the shutters, letting the view of the plains and the
sunshine into the big, dusty room, and showed her the new blackboard
with great pride.

"There's a whole box o' chalk up on the desk, too; 'ain't never been
opened yet. Dad said that was your property. Want I should open it?"

"Why, yes, you might, and then we'll try the blackboard, won't we?"

Bud went to work gravely opening the chalk-box as if it were a small
treasure-chest, and finally produced a long, smooth stick of chalk and
handed it to her with shining eyes.

"You try it first, Bud," said the teacher, seeing his eagerness; and the
boy went forward awesomely, as if it were a sacred precinct and he
unworthy to intrude.

Shyly, awkwardly, with infinite painstaking, he wrote in a cramped hand,
"William Budlong Tanner," and then, growing bolder, "Ashland, Arizona,"
with a big flourish underneath.

"Some class!" he said, standing back and regarding his handiwork with
pride. "Say, I like the sound the chalk makes on it, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," said Margaret, heartily, "so smooth and business-like,
isn't it? You'll enjoy doing examples in algebra on it, won't you?"

"Good night! Algebra! Me? No chance. I can't never get through the
arithmetic. The last teacher said if he'd come back twenty years from
now he'd still find me working compound interest."

"Well, we'll prove to that man that he wasn't much of a judge of boys,"
said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle
showing in her eyes. "If you're not in algebra before two months are
over I'll miss my guess. We'll get at it right away and show him."

Bud watched her, charmed. He was beginning to believe that almost
anything she tried would come true.

"Now, Bud, suppose we get to work. I'd like to get acquainted with my
class a little before Monday. Isn't it Monday school opens? I thought
so. Well, suppose you give me the names of the scholars and I'll write
them down, and that will help me to remember them. Where will you begin?
Here, suppose you sit down in the front seat and tell me who sits there
a