The morning was warm and without a breath of air. A two weeks' drought, unusual at this season, had parched the country, bringing the wheat prematurely to head and causing anxiety about the hemp. But since tobacco, the most important crop, would not be set out till June, this agricultural unrest permeated little farther than impolite remarks about the weather. True, some of the springs were going dry, and all low verdure beside the pike was bedraggled and bowed beneath a coat of white dust. Out across the meadows of tired grass, and above the yellow fields prepared and waiting in sultry patience for their Lady Nicotiana,—everywhere along the level stretches that eye could sweep—were tormenting, dancing heat waves. Sleepy-eyed cattle spent their inert hours standing in the pasture pools with the water about their knees, or mingling with groups of sweaty brood mares clustered in the shady places. Dogs could not lie quiet; in the coolest corners of the kennel they drooled and panted. Nor were the creatures of the air immune; for directly above the girls a bird listlessly hopped from branch to branch, its wings drooping, and its beak apart. Jane sympathetically raised her eyes to it and began to fan herself with the cover of a book—although it was not unbearably warm in the grove, and the bird might have come from a long flight.
A child appeared in the doorway, hesitated and came out to her. Excusing this approach was the desire for help with a certain sum, but the true reason later became manifest when the little one, with dancing eyes, whispered something to the teacher's inclined ear.
"That is nice," Jane smiled.
Happily, with the noiselessness of unshod creatures, she ran and skipped back to the school room.
"Julia says that she's been promised a pair of shoes for commencement," Jane glanced over at Nancy. "I fear it's a case of sweeter anticipation than realization."
"She'll suffer moh agonies than shoes that night," Nancy laughed. "Hasn't she a piece to recite?"
Jane was about to answer when another youngster standing in the doorway held her attention. He, too, came timidly forth for assistance; but, as with Julia, his true reason was to impart in the same excited way a confidence. When this had been accomplished with much mysterious whispering, and he had again gone indoors, Jane looked at Nancy with a broader smile.
"More agony," she said. "Jimmy is promised boots, mind you! This is a gratifying proof that rural schools improve the understanding—but what on earth they will do without toes to wiggle is beyond me!"
The girls were still laughing over the thought of Jimmy's direful future when a third child appeared. It was a word in her reader now that furnished the conventional stumbling block on which to mount to her teacher's confidence.
"What?" that young woman exclaimed. "More shoes? Mercy! But it's very nice! And now run back and finish the page before I ring the bell."