don't let your mouth hang open," and
as a rule we kept ours shut; but you should have seen Leon's when he
saw Sabethany wouldn't chip off, and no doubt mine was as bad.

"When Gabriel blows his trumpet, and the dead arise and come forth,
what on earth will they do with Sabethany?" I gasped. "Why, she
couldn't fly to Heaven with wings a mile wide, and what use could they
make of her if she got there?"

"I can't see a thing she'd be good for except a hitching post," said
Leon, "and I guess they don't let horses in. Let's go home."

He acted sick and I felt that way; so we went, but the last glimpse of
Sabethany remained with me.

As my head went down that day, I saw that Miss Amelia looked exactly
like her. You would have needed a pick-ax or a crowbar to flake off
even a tiny speck of her. When I had waited for my head to be cracked,
until I had time to remember that a Crusader didn't dodge and hide, I
looked up, and there she stood with the ruler lifted; but now she had
turned just the shade of the wattles on our fightingest turkey gobbler.

"Won't you please forgive me?"

I never knew I had said it until I heard it, and then the only way to
be sure was because no one else would have been likely to speak at that
time.

Miss Amelia's arm dropped and she glared at me. I wondered whether I
ever would understand grown people; I doubted if they understood
themselves, for after turning to stone in a second--father said it had
taken Sabethany seven years--and changing to gobbler red, Miss Amelia
suddenly began to laugh. To laugh, of all things! And then, of
course, every one else just yelled. I was so mortified I dropped my
head again and began to cry as I never would if she'd hit me.

"Don't feel badly!" said Miss Amelia. "Certainly, I'll forgive you. I
see you had no intention of giving offense, so none is taken. Get out
your book and study hard on another lesson."

That was surprising. I supposed I'd have to do the same one over, but
I might take a new one. I was either getting along fast, or Miss
Amelia had her fill of birds. I wiped my eyes as straight in front of
me as I could slip up my handkerchief, and began studying the first
lesson in my reader: "Pretty bee, pray tell me why, thus from flower
to flower you fly, culling sweets the livelong day, never leaving off
to play?" That was a poetry piece, and it was quite cheery, although
it was all strung together like prose, but you couldn't fool m