By This Time
Death-Like Silence Reigned In The Usually Very Noisy Schoolroom.
Only The Shrieking Sound Of A Pencil Toiling Slowly Up The Steep
Incline Of A Slate Like An Ungreased Wagon Up The Alleghanies
Broke The Silence.
Strange it was that this sound, so noticeable
at other times, no one heard.
Like a piece of grand opera music
this formed a sort of a musical prelude before the villain
appeared. But mark you the villain was not in front of the desk
but back of it, revolving like a pin wheel in an autumn gale.
Suddenly there was a wild waving of hands.
"John, what is it," roared a loud voice. "I can't get the fifth
example on page thirty-six." Now John had never worked so many
as that before and the rest of the class looked amazed. Lily,
remembering yesterday's lecture on cleanliness, washed her slate
three times with her hand and mopped it up with the sleeve of
her dress and yet it was far from clean.
Looking at Johnny now, it would not have taken a physician to
tell that something was seriously wrong with him. He was sick,
without doubt, and yesterday it was a double ailment he had. Any
diagnosis would have revealed spring fever incipient and trout
fever acute. Willie was perhaps thinking of the old saw mills
where cascades fall and the phoebe-bird sings and the high
banks, which the stream had worn deeply because it had some
obstacle to get around.
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