To Azalea’s surprise he looked up with eagerness in the eyes that a moment before had been so lackluster.
“Oh, I wonder if it could be arranged,” he said. “I should like that. I can’t tell why, but I should like it more than anything. Miss Azalea, will you see if it can be done? I’m terribly tired. I—I should like beyond words to go there.”
A sharp little grip of jealousy that he should prefer Rowantree Hall to the Oriole’s Nest had Azalea by the throat and kept her from answering. But she was ashamed of that pang even while she suffered from it, and nodding reassuringly, she went into the kitchen to attend to the neglected duties there.
CHAPTER XII
THE BLAB BOY
Meantime, Mr. Rowantree (who loved teaching) was having his experiences. He had been in the habit of instructing his own children, who, from early infancy had been taught to listen and to learn. Indeed, there was nothing they would rather do. They knew almost all of the great stories for children that have been written by the different peoples of the world, and they were so used to having their father speak partly in English, partly in Latin and partly in French, that they did not mind that at all. Very likely he may have ventured to throw in a little German or Italian now and then—he certainly could have done so if he wished. Then, too, he had taught them their notes in the music book; and he had made figures seem like a game to them. Really, he had done little else since they were born but train them and teach them, and their minds answered to his as the strings of a harp respond to a piano.
Imagine then, his feelings, when he was left alone to deal with the twenty-one pupils—including Mrs. McIntosh—of the Ravenel school. He tried his best to realize how little they knew, but he really could not do it. He had begun with Skully Simms because Azalea had particularly begged him to look after the boy, owing to the peculiar circumstances under which he had come to school, and he set him a little reading lesson to con. Then he turned to Mrs. McIntosh, whose eagerness to learn, grown woman as she was, seemed to him very touching. But he was interrupted by Skully, who in a high-pitched voice and a wild singsong something like that used by the traveling preachers at a camp meeting, was going on:
“T-h-e, the, c-a-t, cat, s-a-w, saw, a r-a-t, rat—”
“What do you mean by that noise, sir?” thundered Mr. Rowantree. “Can’t you study to yourself?”
Skully looked terribly embarrassed and buried his scarlet face down behind his book. Mr. Rowantree regarded him something as a king looks at a cat—a stray, wayside cat—and resumed his instruction, only to hear a moment later the wild, high notes of Skully breaking out again.
He turned on the little boy in his most majestic manner.