But his eyes wandered, first with a look all about, then abstractedly to the window. But the abstraction vanished, and a look of intense eagerness made his eyes bright, as they bent in absorbed interest upon one spot, where his disreputable dog, who had followed him to school, à la Mary's sheep, was harassing the life out of a fat and grunting pig, which he had, in his own proper person, surrounded: for, heading off the pig in whatever direction she turned, he seemingly converted himself into twenty disreputable dogs. Having bewildered the pig with a few lightning rushes round it, with a sharp nip at its tail, ears, or nose, as he could best get in a flying bite, he planted himself like a lion in the way, and yelped red-mouthed derision and insult at the impotent foe, who was too fat to follow, either mentally or bodily, the gyrations of its agile tormentor.
"Tommy!" said Suse. (Tommy paid no heed.) "Tommy!" repeated she, more imperatively. (No sign from Tommy.) "Tommy Slick!!" accentuating her voice by a sharp rap of her pointer on a desk. Just then the owner of the pig came along, kicked Nip, and Tommy came back to sublunary affairs.
"All right, Suse," he said obligingly, "I'm yer man."
At that Suse felt the foundations of her throne tottering.
In the afternoon, mindful of the temptations of the window, she had Tommy's class up before the blackboard, where, printing the alphabet a letter at a time, she made the class name them. Tommy kept his attention pretty closely fixed until N was reached; then he became absent-minded. He was meditating his revenge upon the pig's owner for kicking Nip. The only step he had decided upon was to try conclusions, immediately after school, with the man's son. The latter was two years older than Tommy, and a good half-head taller, but Tommy never considered such paltry details when an affront to Nip was to be wiped out.
Tommy's mind was engrossed with further plans when Suse, after elaborately executing a capital S upon the blackboard, addressed him, not without some trepidation.
"Tommy, that's S." (No response.)
"Tommy," she said with angry dignity, "you must look at the blackboard. That letter is S."
"Oh, is it?" said Tommy, in a pleasantly interested tone, "I always did wonder what the little crooked devil was." For the remainder of Tommy's first day at school Suse felt that her glory was a delusion and a snare.
Judith carefully concealed from Mrs. Morris her enjoyment of Tommy's pranks, the former having no patience with "them two imps," as she designated Tommy and Nip. For, once, Mrs. Morris had been expecting company, and the better to entertain them, had baked a batch of pumpkin pies, it being the season when such delicacies were in order. She set them out on a bench in the front porch to cool, taking the precaution to make sure that the collie and the cat were safe in the kitchen.