Half past eight, and only half an hour until school would officially be “called.”
Newton Bronson was writing in aniline ink for the hectographs, such problems as these:
“If Mr. Ezra Bronson’s seed wheat carries in each 250 grains, ten cockle grains, fifteen rye grains, twenty fox-tail seeds, three iron-weed seeds, two wild oats grains, twenty-seven wild buckwheat seeds, one wild morning-glory seed, and eighteen lamb’s quarter seeds, what percentage of the seeds sown is wheat, and what foul seed?”
“If in each 250 grains of wheat in Mr. Bronson’s bins, 30 are cracked, dead or otherwise not capable of sprouting, what per cent, of the seed sown will grow?”
“If the foul seed and dead wheat amount to one-eighth by weight of the mass, what did Mr. Bronson pay per bushel for the good wheat, if it cost him $1.10 in the bin, and what per cent, did he lose by the adulterations and the poor wheat?”
Jim ran over these rapidly. “Your mathematics is good, Newton,” said the schoolmaster, “but if you expect to pass in penmanship, you’ll have to take more pains.”
“How about the grammar?” asked Newton. “The writing is pretty bad, I’ll own up.”
“The grammar is good this morning. You’re gradually mastering the art of stating a problem in arithmetic in English—and that’s improvement.”
The hands of Jim Irwin’s dollar watch gradually approached the position indicating nine o’clock—at which time the schoolmaster rapped on his desk and the school came to order. Then, for a while, it became like other schools. A glance over the room enabled him to enter the names of the absentees, and those tardy. There was a song by the school, the recitation in concert of Little Brown Hands, some general remarks and directions by the teacher, and the primary pupils came forward for their reading exercises. A few classes began poring over their text-books, but most of the pupils had their work passed out to them in the form of hectograph copies of exercises prepared in the school itself.
As the little ones finished their recitations, they passed to the dishes of wheat, and began aiding Raymond’s squad in the counting and classifying of the various seeds. They counted to five, and they counted the fives. They laughed in a subdued way, and whispered constantly, but nobody seemed disturbed.