ly to play, but rather to gather into
little groups and discuss the merits of the new teacher. The general
verdict was, "She's all right."

"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Phoebe as they stood in the brown
grasses near the school porch.

"Ach, don't ask me that so often!"

"But honest now, Phoebe, don't you like her?"

"I don't know."

"When will you know?"

"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.

"Ach, sometimes, Phoebe, you make me mad! You act dumb just like the
other girls sometimes."

"Then keep away from me if you don't like me," she retorted.

"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from her.

The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's humor. She entered
the schoolroom with a sulky look on her face, her blue eyes dark and
stormy. Accordingly, when Mary Warner shook her enviable curls and
leaned forward to whisper ecstatically, "Phoebe, don't you just love the
new teacher?" Phoebe replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like her
at all!"

For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised "Oh!" came from her
lips and she raised her hand and waved it frantically to attract the
teacher's attention.

"What is it, Mary?"

"Why, Miss Lee, Phoebe Metz says she don't like you at all!"

"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept into the face of the
teacher.

"No--but----"

"Then that will do, Mary."

But Phoebe Metz did not dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her
seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.

"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"

"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few seats behind the girls,
but Phares called out a soft, "Phoebe, stop that."

It all occurred in a moment--the yank, the outcry of Mary, the whispers
of the two boys and the subsequent pause in the matter of teaching and
the centering of every child's attention upon the exciting incident and
wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers of the peace.

"Phoebe," the teacher's voice was controlled and forceful, "you may fold
your hands. You do not seem to know what to do with them."

Phoebe folded her hands and bowed her head in shame. She hadn't meant to
create a disturbance. What would her father say when he knew she was
scolded the first day of school!

The teacher's voice went on, "Mary Warner, you may come to me at noon. I
want to tell you a few things about tale-bearing. Phoebe may remain
after the others leave this