head down on the desk and went into another
snicker.

"Come here!"

Charity was sober enough now. Miss Tucker got a little switch out of
her desk and threatened little Charity with "a good sound whipping" if
she didn't tell what she was laughing at.

"At the picture," whimpered the child.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," said the mistress, holding the
slate up before her.

Whereupon the school again showed signs of a sensation.

"What are you laughing at?" and Miss Tucker instinctively felt of her
back hair.

"It's on the other side of the slate," burst out Charity's brother, who
was determined to deliver his sister out of the den of lions.

Miss Tucker turned the slate over, and there was Henrietta's
masterpiece. It was a stunning caricature of the schoolmistress in the
act of yawning. Of course, when that high and mighty authority had, in
her indignation held up the slate so as to get a good view of the
picture of Periwinkle, she was unconsciously exhibiting to the school
the character study on the reverse of the slate. And now, as she looked
with unutterable wrath and consternation at the dreadful drawing, the
scholars were full of suppressed emotion--half of it terror, and the
other half a served-her-right feeling.

"The school is dismissed. Henriettar Newton will stay," said the
schoolmistress. The children arose, glad to escape, while Henrietta
felt that her friends were all deserting her, and she was left alone
with a wild beast.

"Chaw her all up," said one of the boys to another. "I wouldn't be in
there with her for a good deal."

Rob Riley left the room the last of all, and he lingered under the
window. But what could he do? After a while he hurried away to
Henrietta's father, on the adjoining farm, and made a statement of the
case to him.

"I sha'n't interfere," said the old man sternly. "That girl's give me
trouble enough, I'm sure. Spends her time makin' fool pictures on a
slate. I hope the schoolmistress'll cure her."

Rob did not know what to say to this. He went back across the field to
the schoolhouse door and sat down and listened. He could hear an angry
collocation. He thought best not to interfere unless the matter came to
blows.

The old man Newton entered his house soon after Rob Riley left him, and
repeated to his wife what Rob had said from his own standpoint. The
little grandchild, Periwinkle, sat on the floor with that funny-serious
air that belonged to her chubby face.