His mother, being a woman of perception, realized early that something was wrong. Even before breakfast she found Philip trying to put his sister into the bolster case, checking her vivid denunciations by a judicious application of the pillow. After breakfast it was impossible to get him ready in time, as his rubbers had been hidden by a revengeful sister, and the bus was kept waiting fully five minutes, to the irritation of the driver, who made up the lost interval by a rapid pace. This jolted the children about, and frightened the youngest ones, so that they arrived at the kindergarten bumped and breathless, and only too disposed to take offense at the first opportunity. This opportunity Philip supplied. As they swarmed out of the bus he irritated Joseph Zukoffsky by a flat contradiction of his pleased statement that he was to lead the line into the house.
“Oh, no, you ain’t!” said Philip.
Joseph stared and reiterated his assertion Philip again denied it. He did nothing to prevent Joseph from assuming the head of the line, but his tone was most exasperating, and Joseph sat down on the lowest step of the bus and burst into angry tears—he was not a person of strong character.
Some of the more sympathetic children joined their tears to his, and the others disputed violently if vaguely; they lacked a clear idea of the difficulty, but that fact did not prevent eager partisanship. Two perplexed teachers quieted the outbreak and marshaled a wavering line, one innocently upholding Philip to the disgusted group, “because he walks along so quietly,” the other supporting Joseph, whose shoulders heaved convulsively as he burst out into irregular and startling sobs. It was felt that the day had begun inauspiciously.
They sat down on the hall floor and began to pull off their rubbers and mufflers. As Philip’s eye fell to the level of his feet a disagreeable association stirred his thoughts, and in a moment it had taken definite form: his rubbers had been stolen and hidden! His under lip crept slowly out; a distinctly dangerous expression grew in his eyes; he looked balefully about him. Marantha Judd pirouetted across his field of vision, vainglorious in a new plaid apron with impracticable pockets. Her pigtails bobbed behind her. She had just placed her diminutive rubbers neatly parallel, and was attaching the one to the other with a tight little clothes-pin provided for the purpose.
“Tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk.”
Casually, and as if unconscious that Marantha was curiosity incarnate, Philip took his own clothes-pin and adjusted it to his nose. It gave him an odd and, to Marantha, a distinguished appearance, and she inquired of him if the sensations he experienced were pleasurable. His answer expressed unconditional affirmation, and unclasping her clothes-pin Marantha snapped it vigorously over her own tip-tilted little feature. A sharp and uncompromising tweak was the result, and Marantha, shrieking, tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk that sent little Richard Willetts reeling against his neighbor. Out of the confusion—Richard was a timorous creature, and fully convinced that the entire kindergarten meditated continual assault upon his small person—rose the chiding voice of Marantha:
“You are a bad, bad boy, Philup, you are!”
To her tangled accusations the bewildered teacher paid scant heed.