vogue for the chastisement of the members of the First Reader. But
"stay after school" she did understand, and her heart sank, and her
little breast heaved.

It was then past the noon recess. In those days, in this particular
city, school closed at half-past one. At last the bell for dismissal had
rung. The Large Lady, arms folded across her bombazine bosom, had faced
the class, and with awesome solemnity had already enunciated,
"Attention," and sixty little people had sat up straight, when the door
opened, and a teacher from the floor above came in.

At her whispered confidence, the Large Lady left the room hastily, while
the strange teacher with a hurried "one--two--three, march out quietly,
children," turned, and followed her. And Emmy Lou, left sitting at her
desk, saw through gathering tears the line of First-Readers wind around
the room and file out the door, the sound of their departing footsteps
along the bare corridors and down the echoing stairway coming back like
a knell to her sinking heart. Then class after class from above marched
past the door and on its clattering way, while voices from outside,
shrill with the joy of the release, came up through the open windows in
talk, in laughter, together with the patter of feet on the bricks. Then
as these familiar sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away, some belated
footsteps went echoing through the building, a door slammed
somewhere--then--silence.

Emmy Lou waited. She wondered how long it would be. There was watermelon
at home for dinner; she had seen it borne in, a great, striped promise
of ripe and juicy lusciousness, on the marketman's shoulder before she
came to school. And here a tear, long gathering, splashed down the pink
cheek.

Still that awesome personage presiding over the fortunes of the
First-Readers failed to return. Perhaps this was "the examination
into--into--" Emmy Lou could not remember what--to be left in this big,
bare room with the flies droning and humming in lazy circles up near the
ceiling. The forsaken desks, with a forgotten book or slate left here
and there upon them, the pegs around the wall empty of hats and bonnets,
the unoccupied chair upon the platform--Emmy Lou gazed at these with a
sinking sensation of desolation, while tear followed tear down her
chubby face. And listening to the flies and the silence, Emmy Lou began
to long for even the Bombazine Presence, and dropping her quivering
countenance upon her arms folded