y, Miss Jenny emerged. They were going to
meet Miss Jenny!

They knew she turned into their street at the corner. So they turned. At
the next corner they saw Miss Jenny coming. But along the intersecting
street, one walking southward, one northward, toward the corner where
Hattie, Emmy Lou, and Miss Jenny were about to meet, came two
others--Mr. Bryan and the Drug-Store Man!

Something made Emmy Lou and Hattie feel queer and guilty. Something made
them turn and run. They ran fast. They ran faster. Emmy Lou's heavy
school-bag thumped against her little calves. Her apple flew out. Emmy
Lou never stopped.

Hattie told her afterward that it was the Drug-Store Man who brought
Miss Jenny to school. Hattie peeped out from behind the shed where the
water-buckets sat. She said he brought Miss Jenny to the gate and opened
it for her. He had never come farther than the corner before. That day
Mr. Bryan did not come to ground them in the rudiments of number, nor
did he come the next day; nor ever, any more. Yet the Third Reader Class
was undoubtedly poor in arithmetic. Miss Jenny found that out. Mr.
Bryan's instruction seemed not to have helped them at all. Miss Jenny
said that as they were so well up in drawing, they would lay those books
aside, and give that time to arithmetic. And she also reminded them to
be conscientious in all their work. They were, and the Roll Call bore
witness to their rigourous self-depreciation.

Mr. Bryan never came for number again, but he came, one day, because of
Roll Call. Once a week Roll Call was sent to the office. It was called
their Class Average. The day of Class Average Mr. Bryan walked in. He
rapped smartly on the red and blue lined paper in his hand. Miss Jenny's
Class Average, so the class learned, was low, and she must see to it
that her class made a better showing. She was a substitute, Mr. Bryan
recognised that, and made allowance accordingly, "but"--then he went.

[Illustration: "The Third Reader class gathered in knots."]

Miss Jenny looked frightened. The class feared she was going to cry.
They determined to be better and more conscientious for her sake,
feeling that they would die for Miss Jenny. But the Class Average was
low again. How could it be otherwise with forty over-strained little
consciences determining their own deserts?

One day Miss Jenny was sent for. When one was sent for, one went to the
office. Little boys went there to be whipped. Sadie went there once; her