ed. The punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled
in correction with Seesaw Simpson was beyond human endurance.

Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon, and Minnie Smellie
chose Shall we Gather at the River? It was a baleful choice and seemed
to hold some secret and subtle association with the situation and
general progress of events; or at any rate there was apparently some
obscure reason for the energy and vim with which the scholars shouted
the choral invitation again and again:--

"Shall we gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river?"

Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca's bent head and was frightened.
The child's face was pale save for two red spots glowing on her cheeks.
Tears hung on her lashes; her breath came and went quickly, and the
hand that held her pocket handkerchief trembled like a leaf.

"You may go to your seat, Rebecca," said Miss Dearborn at the end of
the first song. "Samuel, stay where you are till the close of school.
And let me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand by the
pail only to break up this habit of incessant drinking, which is
nothing but empty-mindedness and desire to walk to and fro over the
floor. Every time Rebecca has asked for a drink to-day the whole school
has gone to the pail one after another. She is really thirsty, and I
dare say I ought to have punished you for following her example, not
her for setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice?"

"The Old Oaken Bucket, please."

"Think of something dry, Alice, and change the subject. Yes, The Star
Spangled Banner if you like, or anything else."

Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing book from her desk.
Miss Dearborn's public explanation had shifted some of the weight from
her heart, and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem.

Under cover of the general relaxation of singing, votive offerings of
respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine.
Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in
her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map
of Maine. Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the
floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca's place, while her
seat-mate, Emma Jane, had made up a little mound of paper balls and
labeled them "Bullets for you know who."

Altogether existence grew brighter, and when she was left alone with
the teacher for her grammar lesson she had nearly recovered h