not lie quiet; in the coolest corners of
the kennel they drooled and panted. Nor were the creatures of the air
immune; for directly above the girls a bird listlessly hopped from
branch to branch, its wings drooping, and its beak apart. Jane
sympathetically raised her eyes to it and began to fan herself with the
cover of a book--although it was not unbearably warm in the grove, and
the bird might have come from a long flight.

A child appeared in the doorway, hesitated and came out to her. Excusing
this approach was the desire for help with a certain sum, but the true
reason later became manifest when the little one, with dancing eyes,
whispered something to the teacher's inclined ear.

"That is nice," Jane smiled.

Happily, with the noiselessness of unshod creatures, she ran and skipped
back to the school room.

"Julia says that she's been promised a pair of shoes for commencement,"
Jane glanced over at Nancy. "I fear it's a case of sweeter anticipation
than realization."

"She'll suffer moh agonies than shoes that night," Nancy laughed.
"Hasn't she a piece to recite?"

Jane was about to answer when another youngster standing in the doorway
held her attention. He, too, came timidly forth for assistance; but, as
with Julia, his true reason was to impart in the same excited way a
confidence. When this had been accomplished with much mysterious
whispering, and he had again gone indoors, Jane looked at Nancy with a
broader smile.

"More agony," she said. "Jimmy is promised boots, mind you! This is a
gratifying proof that rural schools improve the understanding--but what
on earth they will do without toes to wiggle is beyond me!"

The girls were still laughing over the thought of Jimmy's direful future
when a third child appeared. It was a word in her reader now that
furnished the conventional stumbling block on which to mount to her
teacher's confidence.

"What?" that young woman exclaimed. "More shoes? Mercy! But it's very
nice! And now run back and finish the page before I ring the bell."

This time, turning to Nancy, Jane sighed: "More shoes! All of this
suffering humanity will surely not survive that night. Really, Nan, I
think it's the most extraordinary thing I ever encountered the way these
children's parents are shoeing them for commencement! Mark my words,
before the exercises are half over we'll be hearing shoes drop all over
the room. They simply won't keep them on! It'll be awful." She was about
to