Tiger Lily, and Other Stories

Transcriber's Notes: Blank pages have been eliminated. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few typographical errors have been corrected. The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.
JULIA SCHAYER
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1883
Copyright, 1883, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
Trow's Printing and Bookbinding Company 201-213 East Twelfth Street NEW YORK

The shrill treble of a girl's voice, raised to its highest pitch in anger and remonstrance, broke in upon the scholarly meditations of the teacher of the Ridgemont grammar school. He raised his head from his book to listen. It came again, mingled with boyish cries and jeers, and the sound of blows and scuffling. The teacher, a small, fagged-looking man of middle age, rose hastily, and went out of the school-house.
Both grammar and high school had just been dismissed, and the bare-trodden play-ground was filled with the departing scholars. In the centre of the ground a group of boys had collected, and from this group the discordant sounds still proceeded.
What is the meaning of this disturbance? the master asked, coming near.
At the sound of his voice the group fell apart, disclosing, as a central point, the figure of a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She was thin and straight, and her face, now ablaze with anger and excitement, was a singular one, full of contradic tions, yet not inharmonious as a whole. It was fair, but not as blondes are fair, and its creamy surface was flecked upon the cheeks with dark, velvety freckles. Her features were symmetrical, yet a trifle heavy, particularly the lips, and certain dusky tints were noticeable about the large gray eyes and delicate temples, as well as a peculiar crisp ripple in the mass of vivid red hair which fell from under her torn straw hat.
Clinging to her scant skirts was a small hunch-backed boy, crying dismally, and making the most of his tears by rubbing them into his sickly face with a pair of grimy fists.