That was a fearful infliction for Tot’s little stomach, strong as it was naturally, and although she didn’t have any nightmares—that she could remember, at least—she woke reluctantly in the morning, to a sense that Bridget was knocking loudly on her door, and telling her that breakfast was over, and it was very late.
At first she felt obstinate, and declared that she wouldn’t get up, but would go to sleep again; then a sudden guilty consciousness of the paper-bag full of the husks of a pint of chestnuts came to her mind; and the fear least somebody should come into the room and discover them made her turn hastily out of bed and begin to dress.
But, as the old saying goes, she got out “the wrong side of the bed” that morning, and everything was troublesome. Never had Tot experienced so much trouble with every article of clothing, with her ablutions, with her hair; and at last she nearly left the room without her bag of shells, which she had laid on a chair while making the bed, which she dared not leave unmade, although there was no time, this morning, for it to air first.
But cramming the shells into her pocket, together with her pocket-handkerchief, Tot started down-stairs, regardless of such faults in her toilet, as that her petticoat was wrong side out, her dress buttoned “up garret and down cellar,” her hair parted almost as much on the side as a boy’s, while her curls, usually so pretty, were mere stringlets.
When she reached the sitting-room, the clock pointed to quarter before nine, and as there was no time for her to eat the breakfast which had been saved for her, she threw on her sack and hat, seized her books, and started for school.
The rule of the school was that each pupil must be in his or her seat at five minutes before nine, and as Tot was one of the best scholars, and very ambitious, she was disgusted to find that all kinds of street obstructions concurred to belate her.
She came within a hair’s breadth of being run over by one desperate driver, and was only rescued by a brave policeman who pulled her from the tangle of horses and teams, but he hurt her arm severely by his grasp. Indeed, poor Tot afterward found it was black and blue.
Then she fell down in the mud and made a sorry looking spectacle of both herself and her books.
So that when she arrived at school, only to find the doors closed for the morning prayer, she was about as thoroughly cross as could well be imagined.
A reproof from her teacher, who was vexed that his best pupil should set such an example of tardiness, exasperated Tot into an ugly obstinate resolve to say nothing of the accidents by which she was belated. So she took her seat without a word, and looked for her French grammar, to study the lesson which was soon to be called for.