The long, lank, overgrown son of the burly blacksmith flushed to the roots of his hair, but he managed to uncurl his ungainly length from the much-carved desk that was too small for him, and say stutteringly: “Yes’m, Miss Bayley. Seems like ’tis to me. I should say ’twas fair enough.”
“Do any of you, except Jessica Archer, object to being regraded according to your ability to read?” There was no dissenting voice, and so the first book was handed to Dixie Martin, who, with an amused smile, read the tiny story that told the adventures of a pussy-cat. When the book had been passed from pupil to pupil, it was found that even those simple words had been too difficult for the two little children of Mr. Archer’s Mexican overseer, and so Franciscito and Mercedes were classed as “first readers.”
The six-year-old twins of the trapper, Sage Brush Mullet, poor, forlorn little Maggie and Millie, stopped at the second.
Jessica Archer did well enough in the third, but could not read many of the words in the new fourth, and was so graded. With her was Carol Martin, but to the very evident indignation of the little daughter of Mr. Sethibald Archer, Dixie, Ken, and Ira Jenkins were placed above her.
Each was asked to read one of the last three stories in the fifth book. Ken and Dixie hesitated not at all, but Ira did stumble over the longer words, and the first story in the sixth proved quite beyond him, and so he was placed there.
Ken, although two years older than his sister, had a more mathematical mind, and found the seventh reader rather difficult, but Dixie reached the last, and was declared by the teacher to be in the eighth grade.
Miss Bayley purposely avoided looking in the direction of the irate little girl in the much-be-ruffled dress as she said: “You are now each placed in the grade where you should be, and I am sure that we shall in the future make real progress.” Then, glancing at the clock, she smilingly added: “Ten already, and time for recess. Dixie, you may collect the new books please, and Ken, will you lead the line to the playground?”
But Jessica Archer did not wait to go out with the others. Catching her hat from its hook on the wall, she darted out, and when, fifteen minutes later, Miss Bayley rang the bell, recalling the pupils to their lessons, she was not at all surprised to find that the rebellious little “sheep-princess” was not among them.
Miss Bayley was not long kept in doubt as to what the absence of Jessica Archer meant. Having decided to carry her new method of grading through all the subjects,—reading, writing, and arithmetic,—the teacher had sent Ira Jenkins and Ken to the board to work out rather advanced sums, when the sound of hurrying wheels was heard without, and a moment later the short, stocky Mr. Sethibald Archer burst into the room, his face flushed, his small gimlet-like eyes blinking very fast.
“Say, Miss Bayley,” he blurted out, waiving the formality of a greeting, “what’s this here my gal’s been tellin’ me ’bout you upsettin’ methods which I started and makin’ out she’s a numskull alongside of those—those no-account Martins? I’ll not have it, I tell you,” he blustered. “I’m governin’ board of this here school, and things have got to be done as I say, or you can pack and leave this here locality on to-morrow mornin’s stage. D’ye hear?”