It was not at all wonderful that the boys stared, for none of them had ever before seen the new pupil, and Laketon was so small a town that the appearance of a strange boy was almost as unusual an event as the coming of a circus.
“Let’s give it up,” said Will Palmer, who had for five minutes been discussing with several other boys all sorts of improbabilities about the origin of the new pupil; “let’s give it up until roll-call; then we’ll learn his name, and that’ll be a little comfort.”
“I wish Mr. Morton would hurry, then,” said Benny Mallow. “I came early this morning to see if I couldn’t win back my striped alley from Ned Johnston, and this business has kept us from playing a single game. Quick, boys, quick! Mr. Morton’s getting ready to touch the bell.”
The group separated in an instant, and every member was seated before the bell struck; so were most of the other boys, and so many pairs of eyes looked inquiringly at the teacher that Mr. Morton himself had to bite his lower lip very hard to keep from laughing as he formally rang the school to order. As the roll was called, the boys answered to their names in a prompt, sharp, business-like way, quite unusual in school-rooms; and as the call proceeded, the responses became so quick as to sometimes get a little ahead of the names that the boys knew were coming.
Suddenly, as the names beginning with G were reached, and Charlie Gunter had his mouth wide open, ready to say “Here,” the teacher called, “Paul Grayson.”
“Here!” answered the new boy.
A slight sensation ran through the school; no boy did anything for which he had to be called to order, yet somehow the turning of heads, the catching of breath, and the letting go of breath that had been held in longer than usual, made a slight commotion, which reached the ears of the strange pupil, and made him look rather more ill at ease than before.
PAUL GRAYSON.
The answers to the roll became at once less spirited; indeed, Benny Mallow was staring so hard, now that he had a name to increase his interest in the stranger, that he forgot entirely to answer to his name, and was compelled to sit on the chair beside the teacher’s desk from that moment until recess.