g Dear Teacher home.
She stopped.

Aunt Cordelia came out, and Aunt Katie. Uncle Charlie, just going,
stopped to hear.

"Spelling match!" said Aunt Louise.

"Not our Emmy Lou?" said Aunt Katie.

"The precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia.

"Hammel," said Uncle Charlie, "McKoeghany," and Uncle Charlie smote his
thigh.

"I SING OF HONOUR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART"

The Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties
with a Substitute. The Principal announced it to the class, looking at
them coldly and stating the matter curtly. It was as though he
considered the Third Reader Class to blame.

Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched
the door. A Substitute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's
desk-mate, watched the door, too, but covertly, for Hattie did not like
to acknowledge she did not know.

[Illustration: "Hattie peeped out from behind the shed."]

The Substitute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty--as pretty
as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. She seemed a little uncertain as to what to
do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see
what she would do.

The Substitute stepped hesitatingly up on the platform. She gripped the
edge of the desk, and opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them
and swallowed. Then she said, "Children----"

"She's goin' to cry!" whispered Hattie, in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt
it would be terrible to see her cry. It was evidently something so
unpleasant to be a Substitute that Emmy Lou's heart went out to her.

But the Substitute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a
moment went on: "--you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each
desk the needs of the Third Reader."

She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The
Substitute was young, and new to her business.

Reading over the needs of the Third Reader printed on the slips of
paper, Emmy Lou found them so complicated and lengthy she realised one
thing--she would have to have a new school-bag, a larger, stronger
one, to accommodate them.

Now, there is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Substitute. The
Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher
stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants
of the rows of desks she holds dominion over.

But a Substitute tells the class all about her duty and its duty, and
about what she is planni