“To the teachers,” replied Mary Jay.
“But I don’t see any teachers,” rejoined Lucy.
Mary Jay smiled, and said, “The teachers are not very big.” By this time the room was all in a buzz. The children were all saying their lessons. The lessons were very short—only two short verses; but then all the teachers had to hear each member of her class repeat them, and so it took some time.
“I suppose they learned their lessons at home,” said Marielle.
“No,” replied Mary Jay; “they learned them here last Sunday. I teach them the verses one day, and then they recite them to my little assistant teachers the next.”
“Yes, but, Mary Jay,” said Marielle, “why don’t you let them learn their lessons at home?”
“Because,” said Mary Jay, “it would be a great deal of trouble to their mothers to attend to it; for their mothers are all very busy with their work. And if nobody attended to them, they would not have them well learned, and my assistant teachers would have to hear bad lessons recited; and that is very painful and unpleasant to teachers, and very injurious to scholars. So I teach them their lessons myself, and so they are almost all well learned.”
Marielle and Lucy now looked around the room, and they observed that it was getting very still again. A large part of the classes had finished saying their lessons. Mary Jay waited a few minutes longer, until all had finished, and then she rapped again upon her table. Then the children all returned again to their places, upon the seats around the area. Marielle observed that they were arranged regularly, the younger children at the two sides, nearest to Mary Jay, and the older ones back upon the seat that passed across at the farther end of the area.
When they were all seated, they looked attentively towards Mary Jay, in silence, as if they expected something; and then suddenly, all together at the same instant, they rose. At the next instant, they all faced half round, those on each side turning towards the ends of the seats where the little girls sat, which were towards Mary Jay. The larger girls, on the seat at the back side of the area, faced in opposite directions; one half turning out towards one side of the room, and the other towards the other. Of course the two girls which were in the middle stood back to back. Marielle and Lucy wondered how they happened to move so precisely together. The fact was, they moved in obedience to signals which Mary Jay made, but which were so slight that Marielle and Lucy did not observe them.
“Sing,” said Mary Jay; and she immediately began herself to sing a hymn, in a clear and sweet tone of voice, to a tune which all the children knew, and which was a very good tune to march by. The children joined in with her, singing loud and full. As soon as the children had taken up the tune, Mary Jay stopped singing, and let them go on alone. Presently, just as they reached the end of the first line, she gave another order, which was,—