Oh, such fun as we had in school that time when Mr. Gorrisen was our teacher! It was a regular comedy. He was a tiny little man. Antoinette and I were taller than he, so you can judge for yourself. And I never in my life saw any one with such round eyes as he had.
You should just have seen those eyes when we were having a little fun at our desks. With a hard, fixed stare, not letting his gaze wander for an instant, his eyes bored themselves right into the culprit.
Down from the platform he came, with slow, measured step across the floor,—his eyes not moving for a second,—came nearer and nearer and nearer; ugh! then his finger tips grabbed the very tip-end of your ear and there they held tight like a vise. No one can have the faintest idea how painful it was. And all without one word; not a syllable came over Mr. Gorrisen's lips.
I wonder, I really do, that there is anything left of the tips of my ears since then, considering the many times Mr. Gorrisen took hold of them!
And he was mighty quick about giving us poor marks! If I didn't know every single thing in the lesson by heart, so that I could rattle it off, I got a "4" immediately.
It was at that time, however, that I hit upon the plan of cutting out the bad marks from my report book, for a "4" or "5" looks perfectly disgusting in a report. But an innocent little square hole,—that's no harm, as it were.
"But, Inger Johanne," said Father, "what is that?"
"Oh, well, Father, there was a bad mark there," I answered. "And I didn't dare come home with such a mark, so I just cut it out."
The first time I did it, Father wasn't so very angry; but when I did it again and again, he was furious. So I had to give it up. Then when I really came to think about it, I saw it was wrong, so I would not do it any more, anyway.
Once we had Mr. Gorrisen on Examination Day. Mrs. White, with her light kid gloves on, sat in a chair on the platform and listened, holding Karen's dirty German reading-book by the tip edge. She looked continually at the book but she didn't understand a word,—I'll wager anything you like she didn't,—for she never turned over the page when she should have. I saw that plainly. On a seat near the door sat Madam Tellefsen, who had come to listen to Mina; she did not put on any airs, though. She never once pretended to understand German, but laid the book down beside her on the seat and sat there sweltering in her French shawl and looking rather helpless.