ard confidentially to-night, there's a fortune to be made
off the teeth of the Happy Family alone."

Every drop of blood in Happy's body seemed to stand then in his face.
"I--I'll pull the curtain for yuh," he volunteered, meekly.

"You're the seventh applicant for that place." The schoolma'am was
crushingly calm. "Every fellow I've spoken to has evinced a morbid
craving for curtain-pulling."

Happy Jack crumpled under her sarcasm and perspired, and tried to think
of something, with his brain quite paralyzed and useless.

The schoolma'am continued inexorably; plainly, _her_ brain was not
paralyzed. "I've promised the neighborhood that I would give a
Christmas tree and entertainment--and when a school-teacher promises
anything to a neighborhood, nothing short of death or smallpox will be
accepted as an excuse for failing to keep the promise; and I've seven
tongue-tied kids to work with!" (The schoolma'am was only
spasmodically given to irreproachable English.) "Of course, I relied
upon my friends to help me out. But when I come to calling the roll,
I--I don't seem to _have_ any friends." The schoolma'am was twirling
the Montana sapphire ring which Weary had given her last spring, and
her voice was trembly and made Happy Jack feel vaguely that he was a
low-down cur and ought to be killed.

He swallowed twice. "Aw, yuh don't want to go and feel bad about it; I
never meant--I'll do anything yuh ask me to."

"Thank you. I knew I could count upon you, Jack."

The schoolma'am recovered her spirits with a promptness that was
suspicious; patted his arm and called him an awfully good fellow, which
reduced Happy Jack to a state just this side imbecility. Also, she
drew a little memorandum book from somewhere, and wrote Happy Jack's
name in clear, convincing characters that made him shiver. He saw
other names above his own on the page; quite a lot of them; seven in
fact. Miss Satterly, evidently, was not quite as destitute of friends
as her voice, awhile back, would lead one to believe. Happy Jack
wondered.

"I haven't quite decided what we will have," she remarked briskly.
"When I do, we'll all meet some evening in the school-house and talk it
over. There's lots of fun getting up an entertainment; you'll like it,
once you get started."

Happy did not agree with her, but he did not tell her so; he managed to
contort his face into something resembling a grin, and retreated to the
hotel, where he swallowed tw