“We’ll be all right,” said Orville, feeling bound, as their commanding General, to try to uphold the army’s morale, “if we stick together. They can’t fire us all.”
He mounted a box lying in the alley and outlined what they should do. The teacher would doubtless single out only two or three of them that had been recognized by the janitor and ask them to stay after school. But if the teacher asked one of them to stand up, they must all stand up; or, if she asked one to stay after school, all must stay, and show their solidarity. “All for one, and one for all,” he quoted.
When they were back in school at the next session, the teacher said nothing to indicate that retribution was in the making; but when the class was dismissed at the end of the afternoon, she asked Orville to “remain.” True to their pact, all the rest of the army stayed in their seats—or, rather, all except one under-sized lad. A few minutes later, the teacher asked Orville to come to her desk. As he stepped forward, all the others started to do likewise. “The rest of you sit down,” commanded the teacher, and then added: “I don’t know why you’re here at all.” Her tone was such that all meekly sat down.
When Orville reached her desk, she said: “You were speaking of a song you could bring for the exercises next Friday”—and went on to talk, pleasantly enough, of Orville’s part in a forthcoming school entertainment.
She didn’t even seem to know about the daring behavior of the army in the school yard. Probably the janitor, embarrassed over his failure to capture the culprits, had not reported them.
While in Cedar Rapids, Orville showed enterprise in another direction. He had enough intellectual curiosity to study lessons that the teacher had not yet assigned. When a little more than eight years old he told his father that he was tired of the Second Reader they were still studying at school and wished he had a Third Reader.
One morning, not long after that, at the middle of the school year, the principal came to the room Orville was in and announced that any pupils who showed enough proficiency in reading might be promoted at once, without waiting until the end of the year, and begin the Third Reader. The more promising members of the class, selected by the teacher, then stood toeing a chalk mark, up front, as was commonly done, and took turns at reading. In his alarm lest he might not do himself full justice, Orville, someone told him later, held his book upside down. That did not prevent him from reading accurately, as he knew the book by heart, and he was promoted.
“I’m now in the Third Reader class,” he proudly announced when he reached home that noon.
“Well, that’s a strange thing,” said his father. “Just this morning I bought the Third Reader you asked for. But,” he added, “you won’t be able to use it today, because you’re going to miss school this afternoon. I have arranged for you and Wilbur to go to the photographer’s and have your pictures taken.”
Orville’s picture thus commemorated what had seemed to him an important event in his life.