A Middler started at once to climb the pole, but was ordered back. Then another tried it, and was sternly reproved. The flag must hang there now, there would be no more seasons of convenient darkness in which it might be torn down. The Junior girls marched out, Ethel Davis and Gertrude Manley leading, as they led most affairs in their class.
Now it was the turn of the Middler boys to take a taste of their own medicine, and give their drill under a rival banner. They gritted their teeth angrily. The displacement of their flag disturbed them sorely. The cup was theirs already, they were sure of that, but the celebration with which they meant to mark their victory was spoiled.
Anger may be a spur in a long jump or in putting the shot, but it does not conduce to good team-work. One of the Middlers lifted his clubs too swiftly, another too slowly, and they did not begin in good form. And then there was the click of clubagainst club, an evidence of carelessness of which not even the sub-Juniors would be guilty.
A giggle spread along the line of the Juniors. The audience heard and the Middlers themselves heard, and their faces grew hot and their hands unsteady. There was a bang, a crash, and an Indian club flew in a wide curve, and sailed through the glass door which opened into the director's office. It was an unpardonable crime.
"Attention!" cried the director. "Clubs at rest, right face, march."
For the first time in the history of the school a Middle class had failed, and the Juniors had won the cup.
Sarah had slipped to the rear of the group of her classmates. She was desperately tired, and her hands burned like fire. If she could only go to bed! But no one was expected to leave until the end. It seemed to her that minutes lengthened into hours and still the entertainment dragged on.
All round her she heard excited inquiry. What Junior had crept out on the beam? Was it Edward Ellis?
"You didn't see a Junior go up this side, did you, Sarah?" asked Mabel Thorn; and Sarah answered with a truthful and weary "No."
She had sat down on the edge of a springboard, she did not hear even the loud cheering which followed the handing of the cup to the Junior president. There was a rush for the stairs, and she was carried on unresisting. Then she slipped aside and opened the door leading to the lower floor. From there a narrow passageway ran between the swimming-pool and the girls' dressing-room and thence led out of doors. The main exit was jammed with arguing, cheering students; she could not go out that way.
As she passed the door of the girls' dressing-room, she heard the same excited questions shouted back and forth. Ethel and Gertrude were laughing and talking as theystruggled out of their long cheese-cloth dresses. Suddenly one of them called to her:—
"Who are you, out there? Suppose you come in and untangle me!"
Sarah knew well enough that if they had known it was she they would not have called her. Nevertheless, she went in and asked what she could do.
"Oh," said Gertrude, "is it you, Miss Wenner? Please unpin this down the back."
"Yes, ma'am," answered Sarah.
She could scarcely open her hand; it felt as though there were not a fragment of skin left on the palm, but she struggled bravely with the stubborn pins. It seemed to her a long time until she was able to extract the first one.
"There is one out already," she said faintly.
Ethel turned to look at her and then came a little closer.
"What's the matter? Look at me, child!"The word slipped out involuntarily, and she corrected herself at once. "Miss Wenner, what is the matter? Let me see your hand." And Ethel seized it and pointed to the white dress. There was a slow-spreading, scarlet stain on it.
"No," cried Sarah. "Leave me go. It is nothing. I—I just skinned myself a little. I—"
Ethel firmly opened her fingers. Then Gertrude looked at her other hand. It too was bleeding.
Sarah tried to pull her hands away.
"Ach, it is nothing. Leave me be!"
"It looks to me—" began Ethel slowly.
"As though you had been sliding down the pole in the gym," finished Gertrude.
"I skinned my hand there once before I learned how," said Ethel. "But the gym hasn't been open for practice to-day, and this has just been done. How did you do it?"
Sarah had lost all power to struggle.
"Ach, it is nothing!"
Gertrude gasped.
"Did you climb up that pole and put our flag on the beam?"
"Answer her, please," commanded Ethel.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why?"
"Because—because—Ach, leave me go!"
The great low-ceiled locker-room was growing dim. Sarah tried to jerk away. This time it was not embarrassment but terror which gave her strength.
"You haven't any business to talk to me like this. I did it because I didn't want to see you drill under that other flag. I hate that other flag. And I hate—" Sarah took a deep breath. Her heart felt like a hard lump in her breast. There was a red flaming light before her eyes,—"I hateyou!"
Itwas a long time before either Ethel or Gertrude answered. They had not been more surprised at sight of the Junior banner above their heads. They were both accustomed to being liked, not hated.
"What makes you say that?" asked Ethel.
Her cheeks were hot. Sarah's climbing to the roof of the gymnasium was not in accord with the character which she bore in the school. Certainly that was not the way to please teachers, or to win their favor for herself.
Sarah's voice shook. She did not feel the pain in her hands. The lights had gone out, and they seemed to be alone in the locker-room.
"Because I meant it." Then good English flew to the winds. "You are all the time cross over me. You are too high up. I am dumb and I can't always talk right, and I come from Spring Grove post-office, but I don't doyouanything. I never did you anything. I—"
There was the spurt of a match, and Gertrude lit the gas. Then she laid her hands on Sarah's shoulders and turned her to the light. Her voice trembled also.
"Look here. You've been frank, and I shall, too. Did you ever report your room-mates for making a noise?"
"No." The answer was explosive.
"Do you tell Miss Ellingwood everything that you can find out?"
Sarah laughed hysterically. "I don't find out anything to tell her. How should I?"
"Did you never tell her about your room-mates?"
"I never say nothing from them at all to nobody. I leave them alone. But they won'tleave me alone. They made me throw water on Miss Ellingwood, they made me—" She looked about so wildly that the girls were frightened.
Gertrude put a steadying arm round her.
"You were right. We have been mean."
Sarah looked at her piteously. "Ach, I—I shouldn't have talked so. I—"
Ethel looked gravely into Gertrude's eyes.
"Yes, you should," she said to Sarah. "Now, come over to our room and I'll tie up your hands for you. You mustn't tell anybody that it was you that slid down the pole."
"No, ma'am. I wish I could go in my bed. If I don't go in my bed, I won't know my lessons for to-morrow."
"You shall go to bed."
But Miss Ellingwood's room was crowded with guests, and there was the sound of many voices in Sarah's.
"It is no place I can sleep," she cried.
The pain in her hands had come back, andmade her feel faint. It seemed to her that she should die if she could not sleep.
"Yes, there is," said Ethel and Gertrude together.
And so with peaceful heart and bandaged hands, Sarah slept in Ethel's bed, while Ethel and Gertrude whispered together across the room.
"It was in the air," said Ethel. "Everybody distrusted her."
Gertrude sat up in bed. "I think we've been hateful,hateful," she said. "Listen!"
"Some people always talk in their sleep," answered Ethel. "I guess she's tired, poor child. I'm not sleepy, are you?"
"No," said Gertrude, "I'm ashamed. Are you?"
Following the gymnasium entertainment came a few days of examinations, then a day of hurried packing, before the scattering of five hundred boys and girls to their homes for a week. Sarah was to go home; she had been thinking for a long time of the snowdropswhich would be in bloom on the south side of the house, and the daffodils which must be poking up through the earth. But now at the last moment, she did not seem to care. If they would only let her go to bed and sleep and sleep! She feared that some day she might drop over asleep where she stood, and frighten Miss Ellingwood and Ethel and Gertrude. How absurd it would be to fall asleep in the middle of the day! Mabel Thorn and Ellen Ritter often took naps after dinner, but Sarah had not slept in the daytime since she was a baby.
If she had been a little older or a little less forgiving, she might have been slower to accept the friendship of Ethel and Gertrude, offered at once in many penitent and friendly ways. But almost immediately the hardness went out of her heart and the tremor from her voice when she saw them or spoke to them. Finally she felt the same soft, happy thrill of relief that she had feltwhen Aunt 'Liza appeared with her gift of cake andschnitz.
"Nobody is cross over me, and I am not cross over anybody," she said to herself.
And in a day or two she did tumble over as she had feared. Ethel and Gertrude were waiting for her on the steps. She was going with them to the shop to order viands for a feast to be held in their room that evening. Miss Ellingwood had gone walking, and Sarah grew heated and impatient over the fastening of her sailor suit, and the tying of her red scarf.
She did not wait for the elevator, but ran downstairs, jumping over the last step of each flight, and then going more sedately out past the office door. She remembered afterwards that she had felt a little dizzy, and that she had once put out her hand to steady herself. She saw Professor Minturn coming toward her on his way to the faculty meeting in the office, and she tried to straighten up and bow to him. Instead, she pitched forward at his feet.
In one step, Professor Minturn was beside her. He expected to see her scramble up, red-faced and embarrassed.
"Oh, I hope you haven't hurt yourself!" he began to say.
But Sarah did not move.
"Miss Wenner!" he said, in a tone which brought Dr. Ellis and the Secretary and Eugene hurrying from the office. By that time, he had lifted her from the floor.
"She seems to have fainted," he said.
Dr. Ellis swept a pile of catalogues from the office-sofa.
"Lay her down there, Minturn. Eugene, get some water."
The color was coming back faintly to Sarah's cheeks when Miss Ellingwood walked in. Then it vanished once more, and she lay limp and deadly white.
"Telephone for Dr. Brownlee," commanded Dr. Ellis. "Ah, there, she's opening her eyes. Look here, Sarah!"
Sarah smiled faintly.
Illustration: SHE SEEMS TO HAVE FAINTEDSHE SEEMS TO HAVE FAINTED
Illustration: SHE SEEMS TO HAVE FAINTED
SHE SEEMS TO HAVE FAINTED
"I feel so—so—queer," she whispered. "I would like to go in my bed."
"You shall," Dr. Ellis assured her. "Eugene, do you think you can carry her upstairs?"
Professor Minturn held out his arms. He was frowning; he felt suddenly a great anxiety and uneasiness. But he was sure that he had asked the child whether she was well; he could not have been so careless as to give her extra work without ascertaining that. She had always looked strong. He could not believe that this pale child could be that same rosy-cheeked little girl who had worked with such spirit.
"Let me take her upstairs," he said nervously.
By the time he returned, Dr. Brownlee was coming in at the front door.
"You'll come down and tell us at once how she is and what is the matter, doctor?" he said. "She's a favorite pupil of mine."
Then he went in and took his seat by thewindow in the faculty room, among his colleagues who were waiting for him, and the meeting was called to order.
Dr. Brownlee tapped at the door before the business was fairly begun.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought I could get back before your meeting was in session."
"Come in," invited Dr. Ellis. "How is your patient? What is the trouble?"
Dr. Brownlee's answer was prompt and to the point.
"Overstudy."
"Impossible!" answered Dr. Ellis just as promptly. "She is a sub-Junior, and the sub-Junior branches are not hard, and she is a bright girl and was well prepared."
Dr. Brownlee did not like to be contradicted.
"She's been talking incoherently about extra history and extra geography and extra something else. I don't remember what the other is. She doesn't look like a girl whoshould have any extras of any kind. At least not now. I don't know what she looked like when she came here."
"She looked like a strong, healthy country girl. She was slender, but she looked well. She has had regular exercise in the gymnasium, and she hasn't had any extra work to do, I am positive."
Professor Minturn rose suddenly.
"I have always had a theory that the sub-Junior and the Junior History could be advantageously combined. I thought Miss Wenner was a good subject upon whom to try it. I see now that I was wrong." And he sat down and stared out the window.
The teacher of Geography got more slowly to his feet.
"I meant to report to you, Dr. Ellis, but I forgot it, that Miss Wenner had been taking the Junior Geography. She was considerably ahead of the sub-Junior class, and so I allowed her to begin the Physical Geography, and perhaps she has been going a—alittle faster than the—the rest of the class. She was so enthusiastic, it was a pleasure to teach her. I—I have never had a pupil like her."
Dr. Ellis smiled queerly.
"Are there any more confessions to be made?"
Young Mr. Sattarlee rose from his place at the back of the room. He did not look at Dr. Ellis, or at any of his colleagues, but stared straight over their heads. There was no one in the room who did not know of his devotion to Miss Ellingwood, and Sarah's constant association with her.
"She has been reading a little Latin at sight for me," he said. "She did it very well."
"She seems to have done very well for all of you," said Dr. Ellis grimly. "I wish that I could feel that we had done as well by her."
Dr. Brownlee stood motionless at the door. He was polite enough not to say, "I toldyou so," though restraining himself must have cost considerable effort.
"Put her to bed at once over in the Infirmary where it's quiet," he commanded. "I'll see the nurse. And keep her there for two weeks. Then, if she goes slowly for the rest of the year, doing only her own regular work, and that as easily as possible, she'll get through without any injury to herself. Don't let her go home for the vacation. She isn't fit for the journey or the excitement of seeing people. I'll be down to-morrow morning again. Good-by."
At first Sarah lay very still and stared at the infirmary ceiling. She did not remember being carried thither, and it seemed to her that she spent days in trying to realize where she was. She remembered afterwards that she was constantly disturbed by a person in a white dress who insisted that she must eat and drink when she did not wish to eat and drink.
"It is very good," the person in whitewould say coaxingly, and Sarah would rejoin politely but a little wearily,—
"Is it so? Then won't you please eat it? I don't want to eat."
But all her protestations made no difference; the hot broth or cold milk was poured down her throat.
Once a tall man spent several hours by her bed, and fed her and held her hand and was very strong and comforting. After he had gone she said to the nurse, as though she had made a great discovery, "Why, that was William!" and the nurse laughed and said, "Yes."
Slowly she began to distinguish other faces, those of three repentant professors, who brought her flowers and sent her fruit and squab, and Miss Ellingwood, equally repentant and even more attentive, who made Sarah proud by whispering to her that she was going to marry Mr. Sattarlee, and that no one but Sarah was to know it until school was over.
Presently Ethel and Gertrude came, one at a time, and one day, after she was sitting up, Edward Ellis, with his mother and an armful of flowers.
"I never knew that being sick was like this!" she said to her nurse.
"It isn't for everybody," answered the nurse, smiling.
At the end of two weeks she was allowed to get up, and even to study a little. Every one was anxious to help her. Eugene sprang to take her up in the elevator, even though it was not elevator hours, and Mabel and Ellen said awkwardly that if she would come back and sleep in her own room they would be very quiet. Fortunately, they made the offer before Miss Ellingwood, who said at once that she could not spare Sarah. It was amazing how the sentiment of the school had changed during her illness.
Dr. Ellis stopped her and spoke to her whenever he met her in the hall, and one day he asked her to come into his office.
"Sarah," he said, "I had a talk with your brother about you, and what he told me made me very proud to have you here, and more sorry than ever that between us we should have let you get sick. Now every Monday morning I want you to come in and report to me how you feel. No, we'd better make it Friday evening. One is most apt to be tired on Friday evening. And Sarah,"—he smiled at the sudden flush of frightened color,—"you won't climb any more gymnasium beams, will you?"
Sarah clasped her hands.
"Ach, no! I—I was up before I thought. That is the trouble with me. I do things before I think always. I—I promise."
She went out of the office with her old swift step. She felt almost entirely well physically. Mentally, she seemed a stranger to herself. Her illness, her watching Miss Ellingwood's happiness, her association with the older girls, made her feel grown up. Shewas homesick for the twins and Albert and the farm and her old, childish self.
The solicitude of the professors was amusing to see.
"You have been over the year's work," Professor Minturn reminded her. "Now you will have to do only a little reviewing, just a little each day, Sarah." It was strange how to faculty and girls alike she had become Sarah instead of Miss Wenner. "You needn't come to class regularly. You can spend that time in study, and I will give you a shorter recitation by yourself."
"Ach, no, I thank you!" cried Sarah. It was only under special stress of surprise or gratitude that she saidachnow. "I will come to class, thank you."
The Geography teacher said that he would go over all the Political Geography with her, and Mr. Sattarlee did not say a word to Miss Ellingwood in the evenings until he had heard Sarah's Latin lesson for the next day. It must have been a good deal of a sacrifice,for they had many things to say to each other.
And day by day the spring passed. The maples on the campus budded and burst into full leaf, the oaks and hickories followed more slowly. The air was full of the song of birds and the scent of flowers, and slowly the ruddy color came back to Sarah's cheeks to stay.
But she was strangely nervous. Each hour that brought home and summer nearer brought also the dreaded ordeal of State Board examinations a little closer. One might study faithfully through the year, and pass the faculty examinations brilliantly, and one's efforts count for nothing unless the state also put its seal upon the results. And Sarah became each day more certain that she should not pass.
"It's exactly like a funeral," wailed Ethel Davis. "They come on Wednesday night, seven of them, county superintendents and Normal School principals, and the nextmorning they begin to examine us, and in the afternoon they examine us again, and then they give us ice-cream for supper when nobody has any appetite for ice-cream, and in the evening sometimes there are left-over examinations, and then we spend the whole night worrying for fear we haven't passed, and they spend the whole of the next day correcting papers,—I'm always glad when it's sweltering hot!—and then they insult us by giving us more ice-cream for supper, and then we go into the chapel to hear whether we have passed."
"I won't pass," said Sarah in despair. "I can't pass."
Ethel laughed.
"Nonsense! Of course you'll pass, child. Why, you have only Spelling and Political Geography and Arithmetic and Physiology to pass. And you always know your Spelling, and you're ahead in Geography. You are a little gosling. Now suppose you had six branches, Latin and History and PhysicalGeography and Grammar and Drawing and Civil Government. What would you do then, young lady?"
"I should die," said Sarah solemnly.
"But you'll have them next year."
"No," answered Sarah. "I do not believe I will be here next year. The twins must soon have their chance. I cannot take two years to one class. And if they did let me come back, I would be taking Arithmetic and Spelling and Geography and Physiology over again, and you and Gertrude would be two classes ahead of me. That is the way it would be."
Ethel looked at her sharply.
"You come out for a walk," she said cheerfully; and she took Sarah's books almost by force. She and Gertrude had had a talk with Dr. Ellis, and no dragons could have insisted more firmly than they upon the carrying out of both the letter and the spirit of Dr. Brownlee's directions.
Therewas a tradition that the day of the State Board examinations was always fair. This year it was not to be belied. Sarah, who had been awake since before daylight, watched the sun rise, clear and bright, as she dressed. Miss Ellingwood slept peacefully in her room next door, and the morning sweeping and dusting in the halls had not yet begun when Sarah sat down on the window-seat with a pile of books before her. There were a dozen things at which she wished to take a final look. Even her confidence in the Wenner ability to spell had vanished under the strain of the last months, and she meant to glance rapidly through at least half the book. The thought of Arithmetic plunged her into despair; there was no use in trying to review that. But shecould take a final look at the Geography and the Physiology.
Then, strange to say, she did nothing but sit still and look out over the dewy campus until it was time to go to breakfast.
"How do you feel?" asked Miss Ellingwood.
"Scared," answered Sarah, trying to smile.
The members of the Board breakfasted at the Secretary's table, which was next to Miss Ellingwood's. Sarah, who could not keep her eyes away from them, felt that there was a terrible menace in the way they laughed and joked with one another. Only exceedingly hard-hearted persons could laugh that way just before they assisted in such an inquisition as their examinations were said to be. There was one tall, brown-bearded man at the head of the table, who looked about smilingly at the whole dining-room; he doubtless imposed the most difficult questions of all He made Sarah tremble.
If only the day were over and she knewfinally and certainly that she had not passed! They would be glad to see her at home, whether she succeeded or failed; and she could hide her stupid head at the farm, and the twins could have her chance. She tried not to think of how wretched she would be if she could never come back. She would never see Ethel and Gertrude again, she would never be able to think of the school with pleasure. She remembered often that Laura had said that coming back to school was like coming back home. And Laura did not have as many ties as Sarah had and would have. Both William and Laura had graduated there, and eventually the twins and Albert would come too. Was she to disgrace them all?
Suddenly her sad meditations were interrupted by Miss Ellingwood.
"You must eat, Sarah. Finish your coffee at least. See, they don't look so awesome, do they?"
The brown-bearded Chairman heard, andturned to Miss Ellingwood and laughed, and then went on to speak in a round, friendly voice. He had a strangely familiar accent. He spoke a little as Sarah's father had spoken, and as Henry Ebert and Uncle Daniel and the other Pennsylvania Germans spoke. Sarah thought that he might have come from Spring Grove itself, and was not far wrong, for he had learned his Pennsylvania-German accent in another little town when he was a boy, and would never lose it. He had evidently, also, the Pennsylvania-German fondness for a joke.
"Is she afraid we'll eat her up, Miss Ellingwood?" he asked; at which a good deal of Sarah's fright evaporated.
The chapel exercises were more solemn than usual. It was a little like a service before going into battle. At the door, Sarah found Dr. Brownlee waiting to talk to her. He felt her pulse, and laughed at her frightened "Did you ever have to take such examinations?" and told her that if she didn'tpass, he'd give her still more bitter medicine. Sarah almost skipped as she ran along the board-walk to the recitation building.
The seats, which were assigned in the largest class-rooms, were not given according to classes. Sarah was in the back of the great Drawing-room, a Junior boy beside her, a Senior in front of her. Clutched in her hot hand was her fountain-pen, a blotter, three newly sharpened pencils, and two erasers. If Sarah failed, it was not to be for lack of tools. Even Edward Ellis, who sat next her, was subdued, and gave her only a faint smile as she arranged them on her desk.
In the front of the great room, Dr. Ellis talked to the Board of Examiners. This was the main examination room; from here all the papers were given out, and thither they were brought when collected. Sarah watched the men absently, half of her mind trying to bound China, when suddenly they all turned and looked in her direction, and the man with the brown beard smiled. Sarah was terror-stricken.Was the principal telling them that she would not pass? Perhaps he would come to her and say that it was hardly worth while for her to try. Sarah did not blame her teachers for her breaking down; in her opinion it was her own natural "dumbness."
But the examiner who distributed the papers had already left one on her desk, and she seized it, and gazed at the printed questions. At first they looked entirely unfamiliar. The two battles of Saratoga? Was it part of Geography or Physiology? It was certainly neither Spelling nor Arithmetic. She frowned and the questions seemed to vanish, and a blank page to stare her in the face.
Then, suddenly, she remembered. The battles of Saratoga took place on September 19 and October 7, 1777. But it was a History question, and in History one was not examined until the end of one's Junior year. History was one of Ethel's and Gertrude's subjects. But Sarah was not there to reason, but to obey. She remembered her extra lessons,took courage, and read another question: "Mention four causes of the Civil War." That was easy! And there were only five questions in all.
Presently, when she had answered three, she ventured to lift her head. Another paper had been laid on her desk. A new examiner had just passed, his head turned toward the other side of the room, as he answered a question from one of the Seniors. This was a double paper: there were four questions in each of two branches, Arithmetic and Physiology. To Sarah's great joy, these seemed even less difficult. She finished the first paper and attacked the second. Before she had quite finished, the first examiner came to collect, and with a long sigh she passed in all the papers. She saw Mabel Thorn and Ellen Ritter get up and go out, and with them other sub-Juniors, but she did not stir. She would wait until she was told to go. If perseverance would help her through, that should not be lacking.
The distributor of papers looked at her a little sharply as he went by.
"Physical Geography?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," answered Sarah indistinctly. She was beginning to be confused. She could not remember whether she was to be examined in Physical Geography or not, but at least she would try. There were questions in Latin on the same paper, and a half page of translation. The translation was easy. She remembered having read the little story with Mr. Sattarlee. But she could not understand why they should give her a Latin paper. When one was given extra studies by mistake, did one have to take examinations in them?
She was afraid to ask questions. Mabel Thorn had asked whether she must answer all the questions in order to pass, and the examiner had not answered her very pleasantly. Evidently they did not like to be questioned. Sarah was too excited to distinguish between necessary and unnecessaryquestions. Bewildered, she set to work once more.
The day was as hot as a June day can be. Not a breath of air stirred the shades at the windows, which did not seem to keep out a bit of the hot sunshine. The examiners had large palm-leaf fans, which they waved tantalizingly back and forth. Occasionally a student stopped writing long enough to fan himself with his examination-paper or to mop his brow. Not so Sarah. Her hand seemed to stick to the paper, the perspiration ran down her cheeks, but she did not stop.
Once "Bobs" Ellis furnished a slight diversion. He wandered in in search of Edward, and having found him walked lazily to the front of the room, and sat down, panting, to stare at the examiners. For a few minutes he contemplated them gravely, then he opened his mouth in a tremendous yawn and stalked out. Every one but Sarah laughed and felt better.
At noon Miss Ellingwood tried to coax Sarah to eat.
"Were they hard, Sarah?"
"I—I guess so."
"You must lie down for a while after dinner," said Miss Ellingwood solicitously. "And you mustn't say a word or think about examinations."
"Yes, ma'am," answered Sarah obediently. She had meant to ask Miss Ellingwood to help her to fathom the mystery of the morning's examinations, but if Miss Ellingwood did not wish to talk about examinations, she would not insist. But she did not lie down. She hunted up her spelling-book and glanced once more at "phthisis" and "relieve" and "receive," and all the words which bothered her.
It was the middle of the afternoon before she realized that she had written the answers to seven sets of questions.
Several of the grammar questions had baffled her completely, and when an examiner had laid on her desk a sheet of drawing-paper, and had intimated that she was to draw thefern which was placed near her on a table, she had lifted her hand to protest. But no one seemed to see her hand, and she lowered it again and set desperately to work.
Edward Ellis, next to her, was also drawing the fern, and he looked at her wonderingly. Then he remembered that she had been taking some Junior courses. It was that which had made her ill. Perhaps they were going to let her try the Junior examinations. And at any rate the Board knew what it was about. Edward stood in great awe of that august body, and did not dare to offer any objections to its proceedings.
Sarah was told also to draw the steps leading to the platform, and she proceeded to obey. She had had only elementary drawing. She saw with alarm that the boys near her were working with careful measurements and ruling. She knew nothing about ruling, or about holding up one's pencil and squinting past it, or the rules of perspective by which they worked so carefully. She onlydrew the steps as she had drawn things for the twins, as they looked to her.
"Political Geography and Arithmetic and Physiology and Spelling I was to be examined in," she said to herself. "I have been examined in Arithmetic and Physiology and History and Latin and Physical Geography and Grammar and Drawing, but not yet in Spelling or Political Geography. Most of these things do not come till next year.Ach, I do not know what it means!"
The examiner had collected the papers once more, and laid a new one on her desk. Sarah glanced at it, then finally she raised her voice in protest.
"I don't take Civil Government," she said. "I never took it. I don't know anything about it. If I knew anything about it, I—"
"What class are you?" asked the examiner shortly.
"The sub-Junior."
"Then you don't belong here." He spokeimpatiently. He remembered that the papers which she had handed in in the morning were the most voluminous in the class. Lengthy papers do not please gentlemen who have hundreds to examine. "You belong over in the other room, where the sub-Juniors are being examined in Spelling. You'll have to hurry. People that are late are sometimes refused admission."
Sarah gathered pencils and erasers and fountain-pen, and flew across the hall. The examiner there received her even less cheerfully.
"You are very late," he said sharply. "Spell 'picnicking.'"
He was somewhat mollified by her prompt answer. Ten sub-Juniors had misspelled the word.
Sarah breathed a long sigh and found a seat. Her mind was suddenly clear; she felt that she could not fail even if he gave her all the hard words in the book. Here her foot was on its native heath. William wouldbe able to forgive her for knowing nothing about Latin, but no Wenner would ever be able to forgive her for being a poor speller.
Long after the examiner had marked them, he continued to amuse himself by giving them all the "catchy," treacherous words he could think of. He coupled words on purpose to snare them, "four" and "forty," "precede" and "proceed," "defendant" and "precedent." He gave them all the short, trying words, like "fiery," which half the class spelled "f-i-r-e-y," and all the long words, which one does not expect to meet with outside the spelling-book, like "eleemosynary" and "monocotyledon" and "asseveration." When he finished, both he and the students were out of breath. Of all the class only Sarah had not missed a word.
"Are you the young lady who missed time by being sick?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Umph!" said the examiner non-committally.
Ethel and Gertrude waited for Sarah outside the door, and walked across the campus with her. As in a dream she heard them discussing their questions.
"The two battles of Saratoga were on September 19 and October 7, 1777," said Gertrude. "Gates was in command of the Americans and Burgoyne of the British."
"Yes," answered Ethel. "And the Treaty of Ghent was the one which ended the War of 1812, wasn't it?"
"Were thoseyourquestions?" asked Sarah wearily.
"Yes, what were yours like?"
"Ach, I don't know. 'I want,'"—she laughingly quoted a jingle which Miss Ellingwood often repeated,—
"'I want to have my supper,And I want to go to bed,'
and then I want to sleep and sleep and sleep, and then I will not know for a long time that I am put out of the Normal School."
Thewild uproar of the gymnasium entertainment did not compare in intensity with the suppressed excitement of the day following examinations. There were no school-exercises except a chapel-service in the morning, which the students wished might be longer, since it was all they had to occupy them during the long and tedious day. The girls wandered about from room to room, the Seniors, who were to have a vacation of a week before Commencement, packing their trunks half-heartedly, the others doing nothing. It did not seem worth while to begin anything until one knew whether one was to return.
The Board was closeted down in the principal's office, where they worked from breakfast till dark. Sometimes a student, passingthrough the hall when the door was opened, saw them laboring at long tables, each with a great pile of papers before him and a pitcher of water hard by. If the student had hoped for hot weather so that the Board might be uncomfortable, he prayed now much more fervently that their tempers might not be influenced by the heat.
"They say the marks go down five points whenever the thermometer goes up one," laughed Edward Ellis.
Sarah slept until long after breakfast-time. When she woke Miss Ellingwood was writing at her desk.
"Am I put out?" asked Sarah faintly.
"Not yet," answered Miss Ellingwood. "Here is some breakfast for you."
Once in the history of the school, the Board had finished its work before supper, and the students who were wandering about the fields back of the campus out of hearing of the bell had to get their reports from Dr. Ellis himself,—a sad duty for those whohad failed. Since then no one ever wandered away in the afternoon, for fear that the ominous bell might ring and he not be there to hear. Usually it did not ring till eight o'clock, and sometimes it was ten. By that time hopes had often sunk very low, and there were strange rumors flying about.
"They say that ten Seniors have failed, and half the Junior class," some one would announce. "They're debating about them now. Dr. Ellis thinks that some of them can be changed."
The Secretary always shook his head gloomily when applied to.
"I never knew such a year," was his invariable response; and it never occurred to any one to suppose that he meant a good year.
As usual there was ice-cream for supper. Gertrude Manley pretended to wave it aside.
"At dinner I might have been able to eat a few mouthfuls," she groaned. "But now! No, thank you!"
It was with a great sigh of relief that Sarah watched her take a second helping. Perhaps they were not as despairing as they seemed. It would be bad enough if she should not pass, but it would be much worse if Ethel and Gertrude should fail.
Sarah spent the hours after supper wandering up and down the hall which led to the chapel. She did not expect to pass; the calmer thought of to-day had convinced her that she had been the victim of some strange mistake in the giving out of the papers. It was altogether her own fault. She should have told them that she was not a Junior.
In spite of her certainty, however, she was wildly excited. No one could have been in the school for a minute and have remained calm. Miss Ellingwood was excited, and Dr. Ellis and Eugene, who, when he passed an anxious boy in the hall, drew his finger across his throat to signify the operation in which the State Board was engaged.
Presently Ethel and Gertrude came down the hall.
"We were looking for you, Sarah."
"I don't believe it will ever ring," cried Sarah.
"Hark!" said Ethel.
They heard the first faint ring of the gong on the boys' side of the building, then the bell rang sharply above their heads.
"Our fate is sealed!" cried Gertrude. "We are doomed. Come on to the slaughter!"
She seized Ethel by one hand and Sarah by the other, and they were the first to reach the chapel-stairs. Behind them doors were opening, and there was the sound of hurrying steps and excited voices.
"Let us sit here on the last row," suggested Sarah.
"So that we can be more easily borne hence," laughed Gertrude.
The State Board was already seated on the platform. They were all talking andlaughing as heartily as they had the day before. The Chairman carried a paper in his hand. He made some joke about it, and his colleagues all laughed; then he laid it down on a long box on the table by his side.
"The names are on that paper," whispered Ethel.
"Yours is," answered Sarah, "but mine isn't. I know that much."
Mercifully Sarah was not kept long in suspense. The students had never gathered so quickly. The doors were closed, and then Dr. Ellis announced that the Chairman would read the names of those who had passed.
The brown-bearded Chairman rose slowly, still laughing with the man next to him. Then he looked out solemnly over the audience and the audience looked back solemnly at him. He lifted the paper from the table, looked at it solemnly too, and then laid it back.
"Nobody passed, perhaps," whispered Sarah.
The Chairman had begun to speak.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said. "I am not going to hurt you." At which there was a great laugh, and then a settling back into easier positions. "You all look so frightened and so sure that you have failed, that you make us feel that our judgment is at fault and that we have made a mistake to let any of you through. There, that's better! Once, a good many years ago, when I was a little boy—" He stopped and looked at them comically over his glasses—"Which would you rather have first, the story about the time when I was a little boy, or the names? All in favor of the names say 'Ay.'"
The response left no room for doubt upon that question.
"Well, then. We'll take the sub-Juniors first. Those who have passed are—" The falling of the proverbial pin would have made a loud noise in the silence which ensued. Sarah felt a frightened thrill run up and down her back. Suppose sheshouldpass! How gloriousit would be! Then William and Laura would feel that their faith in her had been warranted, that their sacrifice was not in vain. It would encourage the twins to study, it would astonish the neighbors. Sarah leaned forward, one hand tight in Ethel's, one in Gertrude's. Suppose she should pass!
It seemed to her hours before she leaned limply back. Her name was not on the list. She had been mad to expect it. Mabel Thorn's was there and Ellen Ritter's; she had thought they were stupid and lazy, yet they had passed. The girl who had packed her ink-bottle in her trunk had passed. Even she could answer State Board questions. Any of these would have had sense enough to object if they had been given Junior papers instead of some of their own.
She felt her companions' hands tighten sympathetically on her own, and she struggled bravely to keep back the tears. She would not cry. Not even if they expelled her would she cry.
The cheerful voice went on reading. Ethel and Gertrude had passed; they let go of Sarah's hands for an instant to clasp each other's, and smiled at each other above her head, while she looked at them sadly. They were Middlers now, and in another year they would be Seniors with all the Senior privileges. They would study Psychology and Methods of Teaching, and they would begin to teach in the Model School and lead the gymnasium classes, and soon they would be gone. Even if Sarah were allowed to come back to redeem herself, they would be too far ahead to think of her. She would have to make friends anew, and—
The list of Juniors was finished and the speaker folded his paper.
"The Middlers have all passed," he said, smiling, and a wild cheer responded. The excitement was no longer to be kept under control.
"As for the Seniors—" The Chairman paused. The cheer died down into silence.It was time once more to drop the proverbial pin.
"They have all passed too."
Then Bedlam suddenly broke loose. Boys and girls were on their feet, there was cheer after cheer, and Dr. Ellis sat smiling and making no effort to subdue them. Perhaps it would have been a relief to him to join. His pupils had never done so well.
After a long time the Chairman held up his hand.
"I have still more to say," he declared. "And after I am through with the announcements you will still have to listen to my story about the time when I was a little boy. But first I have a story to tell about a little girl.
"When we are boys and girls, we are taught to think that our teachers are infallible, that they can never make mistakes, and it is good for us to think so. It is equally good for us to find out later that teachers and grown-up people have made mistakes. It makes us feel easier about our own.
"There is a young lady in this school who has found this out. She came here to learn something about books, after a hard experience had taught her many more valuable lessons, and this is the way the teachers treated her. Instead of giving her as little to do as possible, and watching to see that she played, and taking her books away from her by force if necessary, they began to give her extra work to do. It wasn't altogether their fault, because they were not accustomed to having to restrain pupils. Overstudy is a little like smallpox. Many doctors wouldn't recognize smallpox because they have never seen a case. It was the same way with these teachers who let this girl work too hard.
"That, one would think, was enough hardship for one year. But worse things were to happen to her.
"Yesterday—and this story is a terrible confession for a State Board official to make—yesterday the State Board gave her the wrong papers. The principal told us abouther,—I suppose he meant us to mark her as easily as we could. But the examiner who distributed the sub-Junior papers thought that the principal had said she was a sub-Junior, and the examiner who distributed the Junior papers thought she was a Junior, and so both gave her papers, and she—"
Gertrude Manley felt suddenly a head against her shoulder.
"Why, Sarah!" she whispered, and saw only a bit of scarlet cheek.
"And she," the Chairman went on, "being accustomed to having extra work, said nothing and sawed wood, with this result." He unfolded again the paper in his hand.
"She passed the Arithmetic, Physiology, and Spelling which she was expected to pass, with good marks. She did not take the sub-Junior Political Geography, but she passed the Junior Physical Geography and the Junior Latin and the Junior History with good marks. In these branches I believe she did the extra work during the winter. In theJunior Grammar, which includes the sub-Junior Grammar, she just made passing mark. We tried to persuade ourselves that she hadn't really passed, but she was too much for us. Even when a fern and some steps were thrust before her to be drawn, she did not falter but drew them. The Civil Government paper she did not attempt, which surprised us greatly. It was very inconsiderate of the teacher of Civil Government not to give her extra lessons too. I think Dr. Ellis should speak to him about it. And now, what shall we do with this girl?"
Not one of the gasping students offered a suggestion.
"Well, there are several possibilities," went on the Chairman. "We can say that inasmuch as she hasn't passed her sub-Junior Geography, she hasn't passed at all and will have to take the year over. But that doesn't seem fair. Or we can say that she is a Junior in spite of the Geography. The only objection to that is that she will grow very lazynext year with nothing new to study but Civil Government. Not all of us approve of that. Then there is one other plan. We can make her a Middler, with the provision that she makes up the Civil Government some time within the next two years. It is unprecedented, but it can be done. What does the school think of this plan?"
The pupils looked about in complete mystification. Was it all true, or was it only a story? Then a few of them began to guess whom the Chairman meant. One of them was Edward Ellis.
"I think she should be made a Middler," he said.