“Ain’t he got a great voice?” asked Lucas, in a whisper. “He sings bass in the church choir and sometimes, begum! ye can’t hear nawthin’ but Elbert Hooker holler.”
“Is that his name?” gasped ’Phemie.
“Yep. Elbert Hooker. ‘Yell-bert’ the boys call him. He kin sure holler like a bull!”
And at that very moment, as the bombastic Elbert was subsiding and the window panes ceased from rattling with the reverberations of his voice, one of the boys in the corner fell more heavily than before against the stove–or, it might have been Elbert Hooker’s tones had shaken loose the joints of stovepipe that crossed the schoolroom; however, there was a yell from those down front, the girls scrambled out of the way, the smoke began to spurt from between the joints, and it was seen that only the wires fastened to the ceiling kept the soot-laden lengths of pipe from falling to the floor.
CHAPTER XII
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
The soot began sifting down in little clouds; but the sections of pipe had come apart so gently that no great damage was done immediately. The girls sitting under the pipe, however, were thrown into a panic, and fairly climbed over the desks and seats to get out of the way.
Besides, considerable smoke began to issue from the stove. One of the young scamps to whose mischievousness was due this incident, had thrown into the fire, just as the pipe broke loose, some woolen garment, or the like, and it now began to smoulder with a stench and an amount of smoke that frightened some of the audience.
“Don’t you be skeert none,” exclaimed Lucas, to ’Phemie and her sister, and jumping up from his seat himself. “’Taint nothin’ but them Buckley boys and Ike Hewlett. Little scamps—”
“But we don’t want to get soot all over us, Lucas!” cried his sister.