Miss Fanny interrupted Sally’s mamma to say there was the bench, if she cared to sit down. At recess Miss Fanny would be at leisure.
Mr. Bryan threw open the door. Mary Agatha grew pink as Mr. Bryan waved in a slender lady with trailing silken skirts and reproachful eyes. It was Mary Agatha’s mamma. She said that even with the note, threatening Mary Agatha with failure, she could not have believed it true; that Miss Fanny disliked Mary Agatha because of the seat to herself; that Miss Fanny had classed Mary Agatha with Turks and Infidels—but since Mr. Bryan had just admitted downstairs that he had had to caution Miss Fanny about this matter of religion——
Miss Fanny looked at Mr. Bryan. Then she rang the bell. It was not yet recess-time; but since Miss Fanny rang the bell, the Fifth Reader Class filed out wonderingly. Miss Fanny, looking at Mr. Bryan, had a queer smile in her eyes. Yet it was not as though Miss Fanny’s smile was laughter.
But, after all, Sadie and Mary Agatha and Sally and Rebecca did try at Examination. Miss Fanny, it seemed, insisted they should. A teacher from the Grammar School came and examined the class.
Later, one went back to find out. There was red ink written across the reports of Sadie and Sally and Mary Agatha and Rebecca. It said “Failure.”
Emmy Lou breathed. There was no red ink on her report. Emmy Lou had passed for the Grammar School.
Down-stairs Mary Agatha said her papa would see to it because she had failed. Her papa furnished pokers and shovels for the schools, and her papa would call on the Board.
Mary Agatha’s Papa did see to it, and the papas of Sadie and Sally and Rebecca supported him. They called it religious persecution; and they wanted Miss Fanny removed.
Emmy Lou heard about it at home. It was vacation.
Uncle Charlie owned a newspaper. It was for Miss Fanny. And Miss Fanny’s grandpapa, talking at the gate with Uncle Charlie, struck the pavement hard with his cane; he’d see about it, too, said her grandpapa. Emmy Lou heard him.