The other girls laughed but then they had never cleaned lampwicks nor had coal-oil soaked into the pores of their hands!
Zan pouted but made no move to find the lamps. Miss Miller felt sorry, for she knew how unpleasant the task could be, so she began to say, "Zan, I'll——" when she suddenly stopped.
She quickly left the room and went out on the porch to admire the soft tones of approaching grey in the night-sky.
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Zan, running after the teacher.
"Why, nothing, dear! I thought I would wait here until you had the lamps ready," returned Miss Miller, keeping a serious face with difficulty.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Zan, reminded of the distasteful work.
As the four other girls had absolutely no knowledge of lamps and their accessories, they could not be expected to offer to attend to them. Zan turned to the teacher and ventured, "I think we can use candles for to-night!"
Miss Miller looked at her charge out of the tail of her eye and bit her lips to keep from laughing.
"I'll go and hunt up some candles. Mother keeps them on the stone ledge of the cellar," sighed Zan, getting up from the step where she had momentarily sat down.
"Of course, I have no jurisdiction over you yet, as we have not formally organised a Lodge, but I know this much!" said Miss Miller, with decision in her voice; "I would not permit one of my Band to shirk a duty if it presented itself, no matter how disagreeable it appeared to be. Cleaning or filling kerosene lamps is not just cleaning and filling lamps for material use. Don't you know that, Zan?"