"Bless my heart!" said the professor, descending to the lowest step and catching her by the hand.
"Oh, professor!" she cried again.
"Yes? Yes?" he said inquiringly. The train was starting and there was no time to be lost. She ran beside it for a few steps.
"I did that!" The little girl pointed at the pasteboard under his arm. She fell back. The cars were moving rapidly now, and she was too tired to pursue them.
"You!" gasped the professor, clapping one hand to the drawings; "you!"
"Well—well—not me, but a boy," she added chokingly.
The professor put his hands to his head, and the squares, escaping his arm, were blown from the steps and fluttered upon the graveled embankment. The little girl saw them fall and ran forward to secure them. He did not see her. He was sitting on the top step of the fast-receding train, his face covered as if to shut out a fearful sight, his coat-sleeves pressing his ears as if to deaden a shout of ridicule.
The little girl looked after him, holding the pasteboards in her hands. "I'm sorry," she said out loud, "that nobody made these a long time ago. But they couldn't, 'cause they're my 'nitials."
Then she walked back toward the grand stand, where the band, with small boys encircling it, was rendering the final number of the program,—a resounding "America."