ddy--and
they were many and various. They gathered in its shade in the summer and
sought its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always content
with an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of their
importance, and of a familiar and impudent breed. Sometimes a matronly
nanny would climb the steps, and march soberly up the aisle in the midst
of one of Brother Tregaskis's lengthy prayers; or a haughty billy,
imposing as the he-goat of the Scriptures, would take his stand within
the door and bay a deep, guttural response to Brother Spence; or two or
three kids would come tumbling over the forms and jumping and bucking in
the open space by the wheezy and venerable organ, spirits of thoughtless
frivolity in the sacred place.

It was Sunday morning and the school was in. The classes were arranged in
their accustomed order, the girls on the right, the boys on the left,
against the walls; down the middle of the chapel the forms were empty;
nearest to the platform on either hand of Brother Ephraim Shine, the
superintendent, were the Sixth Class little boys and girls, the latter
painfully starched and still, with hair tortured by many devices into
damp links or wispy spirals that passed by courtesy for curls. Very
silent and submissive were little girls of Class VI., impressed by the
long, lank superintendent in his Sunday black, and believing in many
wonders secreted above the dusty rafters or in the wide yellow cupboards.
The first classes were nearest the door. The young ladies, if we make
reasonable allowance for an occasional natural preoccupation induced by
their consciousness of the proximity of the young men, were devoted
students of the gospel a interpreted by Brother Tresize, and sufficiently
saintly always, presuming that no disturbing element such as a new hat or
an unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. The
young men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdry
imitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence;
and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man of
the band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, a
class of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who made
the good man's life a misery to him, and were at war with all authority.
Peterson, Jacker Mack, Dolf Belman, Fred Cann, Phil Doon, and Dick
Haddon, and a few kindred spirits composed this class; and it was sheer
lust