“Very well, but first we will have an hour of reading and recitation. Now, Jimmy-Boy, will you begin by speaking one of your seven pieces?”
The curly-headed little fellow who sat at the big double desk with Dixie, dangling feet that were too short to reach the floor, slipped down and went very willingly up to the platform, where he made his little bow and began to recite, but instead of speaking one of his seven pieces, he kept right on saying them all, for they were but Mother Goose rhymes, and none of them long.
He was so irresistibly cunning that every one clapped, even Mercedes and Franciscito. Miss Bayley, noting their dark, beaming faces, choosing words that she had taught them, asked if they could not do something.
To her surprise, the little black-eyed girl arose and replied in her soft, musical voice, “Si, senorita.” Then, taking her brother by the hand, she led him to the rostrum, and together they sang a Spanish serenade, and so beautifully that Miss Bayley and Dixie were indeed delighted.
Then the solemn-faced grandfather’s clock, which perhaps was still shocked at such unusual levity on a workaday Monday in the schoolroom over which it presided, very slowly announced that the hour was three.
“Good!” Miss Bayley cried, seeming very like a girl herself in the mood of the day. “Now we’ll have that extra-birthday party.”
Out of the little log schoolhouse they trooped, half an hour early, that none might be later than usual reaching their homes. Over to “dear teacher’s” they went, and were served with very large slices of that wonderful mountain chocolate cake, with more chocolate to drink. Then, with a loving pat for each little one, Miss Bayley dismissed them, holding fast all the time to the hand of the pupil she loved the best. When the others had gone on ahead, Josephine Bayley stooped, and kissing Dixie on the forehead, she said softly, “Come over early next Saturday afternoon, dear, and we will finish the blue-silk dress.”
When she was alone the girl-teacher wondered if her joyous mood was altogether because of the departure of the troublesome pupil. Was it not rather a premonition of some new and wonderful interest that was to come into her life? If troubles cast their shadows ahead, even more does joy illumine the way it treads.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ON THE TRAIL OF A “BANDIT”
Up through the old trail the boy had broken his way, and into the newer, more open path he leaped, his feet winged with eagerness, and it was a very breathless lad who at last reached the trail’s end and found the cold gray ashes that had been a camp-fire.