on, children! Close copy books and pass them to the right.
Monitors, collect."

Tired Miss Phelps laid down her crayon, with one sweep of her arm erased
the letter exercises she had so laboriously traced on the blackboard for
her fifty pupils to copy, wiped the clinging chalk from her dry, chapped
hands, and sank wearily into her chair beside the littered desk, as she
issued her commands in sharp, almost impatient tones. Her head ached
fiercely, her brain seemed on fire, the subdued scratching of scores of
pens in unskilled fingers set her nerves on edge, and she was ready to
collapse with the strain of the day. Yet another hour remained before
the afternoon session would draw to a close. How was she ever to hear
the stupid geography recitation, or listen to the halting, singsong
voices stumble through pages of a Reader too old for their
understanding?

Again she glanced at the clock. A full hour of torture, and she was
simply longing for bed! A sudden determination seized her. She would
read to her scholars instead of listening to the lessons they had
prepared to recite! So, selecting a book from the row on her desk, she
waited until the blotted, inky copy books had been gleefully whisked
shut by their owners, passed across the aisle and gathered in neat piles
by the monitors, who creaked solemnly up to the corner table and laid
them beside the day's written exercises for the teacher's inspection
later. Then they clattered back to their seats and waited with expectant
eyes fixed upon Miss Phelps for the next command.

"Take rest position!"

There was a brisk scraping of feet, a rustling of dresses, and fifty
active bodies sat stiffly erect with hands clasped on the desk-tops in
front of them. No,--not fifty. One child, a brown-eyed girl with short,
riotous curls tumbling about her round, animated face, sat heedless of
her surroundings, staring out of the window near her into the bright
Spring sunshine, and from her rapt expression it was evident that her
thoughts were far away from school and lessons.

Miss Phelps waited an instant, but the child was lost in her dreams and
did not feel the unusual silence of the room. Following the gaze of the
intent brown eyes, the teacher glanced out of the window and saw a flock
of pigeons disporting themselves on the barn roof across the road; and
as they fluttered and strutted, scolded and cooed, the little watcher at
her desk unconsciously imitated their movements, thrusting