And it really is. All the desks, the window-sills, the maps, even up on the platform around Mr. Bu’s elbows on his desk, I have to dust. It was only once I did that, however.
At recess I clean the ink-wells. I think it is fun to do such things. Sometimes I dust the ledges of the logs that make the walls, so that the dusting shall last as long as possible; for it is much pleasanter to go about dusting than to sit still at your desk.
Well, it was one summer day just before vacation. Such sunshine you never saw. The sea was one mass of sparkles; two or three mackerel boats lay outside the islands. Oh, to row out there now, to sit in the boat and dabble in the blue-green water, to land on Marcussen’s Island, and run up on the hill there and shout and play and enjoy yourself!
But no. I must go to school; and I didn’t know a word of my lesson which was about Olaf Kyrre. I had been certain the evening before that I should have time to study my “History of Norway” in the morning; but let me tell you, it isn’t safe to depend on time ahead that way. There wasn’t a minute. I had to dash down the hill through the dean’s garden to get to school in time, and even then I only just got there before the bell rang.
The dust lay thick everywhere. It was highly necessary for me to be on hand, that was evident. But would you believe it? Antoinette Wium had taken it upon herself to begin to put the room in order and manage things; but she soon found out her mistake.
“No, Miss,” said I. “Be so good as to sit down. It is I who shall do this. Do you suppose Mr. Bu wants so much confusion here? Be so good as to take your seat and keep quiet.”
So Antoinette had to go back to her desk. Mr. Bu said nothing but I could see plainly that he agreed with me. Of course there should be order and quiet in the class-room.
Mr. Bu is rather queer, however. When the weather is fine, he leans out of the window the whole lesson hour, asks the questions out in the air and we answer from where we sit, back in the room. We get awfully lively, you may be sure, but when there is too much noise behind him, he comes in from the window, very angry.
“You’ll get marked for this; you’ll get marked for such behavior,” he says, shaking his forefinger at us and glaring fiercely around the class-room. But we know very well that he won’t give us any marks, for Mr. Bu is after all very easy-going.
Antoinette Wium was highly offended with me because I would not allow her to attend to the class-room. While Mr. Bu was hanging out of the window, a ball of paper hit me suddenly on the head. On the inside of the paper was written: