vely of you!" she chirped.

Chirp makes you think of a bird; and in speech and manner Miss Amelia
Pollard was the most birdlike of any human being I ever have seen. She
hopped from the step to the walk, turned to us, her head on one side,
playfulness in the air around her, and shook her finger at us.

"Be extremely particular that you leave things immaculate at the
consummation of your labour," she said. "'Remember that cleanliness is
next to Godliness!'"

"Two terms of that!" gasped Leon, sinking on the stove hearth. "Behold
Job mourning as close the ashes as he can."

Billy Wilson had the top lid off, so he reached down and got a big
handful of ashes and sifted them over Leon. But it's no fun to do
anything like that to him; he only sank in a more dejected heap, and
moaned: "Send for Bildad and Zophar to comfort me, and more ashes,
please."

"Why does the little feathered dear touch earth at all? Why doesn't
she fly?" demanded Silas Shaw.

"I'm going to get a hundred wads ready for Monday," said Jimmy Hood.
"We can shoot them when we please."

"Bet ten cents you can't hit her," said Billy Wilson. "There ain't
enough of her for a decent mark."

"Let's quit and go home," proposed Leon. "This will look worse than it
does now by Monday night."

Then every one began talking at once. Suddenly May seized the poker
and began pounding on the top of the stove for order.

"We must clean this up," she said. "We might as well finish. Maybe
you'll shoot wads and do what you please, and maybe you won't. Her
eyes went around like a cat that smells mice. If she can spell the
language she uses, she is the best we've ever had."

That made us blink, and I never forgot it. Many times afterward while
listening to people talk, I wondered if they could spell the words they
used.

"Well, come on, then!" said Leon. He seized the broom and handed it to
Billy Wilson, quoting as he did so, "Work, work, my boy, be not
afraid"; and he told Silas Shaw as he gave him the mop, to "Look labour
boldly in the face!" but he never did a thing himself, except to keep
every one laughing.

So we cleaned up as well as we could, and Leon strutted like Bobby,
because he locked the door and carried the key. When we reached home I
was sorry I hadn't gone with father, so I could have seen mother,
Sally, Candace, and Laddie when first they met the new teacher. The
shock showed yet! Miss Amelia had taken off her smothery woollen dre