"Ain't the real teacher comin', Mister?"
"Yes," explained Fernald, "she is coming in about half an hour. You can get your books from me until she comes."
"Oh!"
There was deep, Christian resignation in the tone, and Fernald felt the rebuke. At the main library he was superior in station to the "real teacher," but here his evident inferiority was painful. But he had no time to dwell on it, for there were at least seventeen children, both boys and girls, from ten to sixteen years old standing about him on three sides, and all holding one or two books toward him. He tried to remember Miss Grant's (the "real teacher's") final instructions.
"Five cents a week on all books which have been kept out longer than two weeks. Don't give back any cards which have 'Fine due' stamped on them. If any of them ask for new cards, give them a guarantor's slip, tell them to fill it out, get it signed by some grown person whose name is in the directory, and bring it back next week. Look out for Minnie Leboskey, she owes fifteen cents and will try to get her card back. Don't lose your temper with them—they all behave pretty well, but if any of the boys throw snowballs in at the top of the window get Mr. Flaherty, the janitor, to drive them away."
He looked into the numerous faces, wondering if the nefarious Minnie Leboskey were there. In the meanwhile he was mechanically taking in the books, stamping the cards, and handing them back. He noticed that his fingers grew very sticky in the process. Most of the children brought another book to the desk with the one they were returning. This was one they had already selected from the shelves, and they now desired to exchange it for the books they handed in. Sometimes their preconcerted schemes were confusing to the substitute librarian, as when, for instance:
Theresa Sullivan returned two books, one of which was to be re-issued immediately to Margaret Clancy, while the other was to be charged on the card of Nora Clancy, who was sick with ammonia and so couldn't come to the library that evening. But the book which Margaret returned must be loaned to Theresa—that is, one of them must be, while the other was to be given into the keeping of Mary Finnegan, who, in her turn, brought back three books (two on her own cards, and one on her mother's), and her mother wanted the book that Eustacia O'Brien had returned (there it is, right on the desk in front of you—that's Eustacia over there at the water-cooler), and please, Mary Finnegan herself wants this book that Mary Divver has just brought in on her white card, and on her blue card she wants the one she is going to get (if sundry elbow jabs in the ribs will have any effect) from Agnes Casey, and that ain't nothin' on the cover except a teeny little piece of tolu gum, and Nellie Sullivan wants to know if "Little Women" is in, and if it isn't will you please pick something out for her, Mister, 'cause she has tried four times to get "Little Women," and please give me this book that Lizzie Brady has just brought in on my white card, and this is my blue card, and my father says that this book on electric door-knobs ain't no good and he wants another.
After twenty uninterrupted minutes of this sort of thing Fernald (who had once pitched for his class nine and stood calm while the sophomores exploded bunches of cannon crackers around him and sprayed him with a garden hose) felt inclined to jump up and roar:
"For God's sake, hold your tongues!"