CHAPTER IV
THE DEAD SNAKE
A little girl in a checked gingham dress was at the end of the line of children who marched out from the room across the hall, and, obedient to a look from Miss Mason, Meg followed her. Down the corridor, up three steps and into a round, light room they marched, the piano tinkling steadily. Meg saw now that it was on the platform, and, goodness! the player was a small girl who didn’t look much older than Meg herself.
“Do you take music lessons?” whispered a girl next to Meg, as they turned down a row of seats facing the platform and other children rapidly filled up the rows back of them. “You do? Well, when you get in the third grade you’ll have to play for ’em to march. Miss Wright makes all the third and fourth graders who can play anything learn an assembly march.”
Meg was glad that she was only in the first grade, and yet she thought that it must be exciting 36 to sit at a piano away up on a high platform and play for the whole school. She wondered if, by practicing faithfully, she could learn an assembly march by the time she reached the third grade.
The girl at the piano played a crashing chord, and the children dropped into their seats with a concerted fervor that shook the walls. Miss Wright, the gray-haired vice-principal Meg had seen in her room talking to Miss Mason, opened the large Bible that lay on the desk, and, facing the children, read a few verses. Then the little piano girl played for the hymn they sang, finding the books in racks on the backs of the seats. Next Miss Wright made them a little speech, in which she said she hoped they were all rested from the long vacation and would work hard so that every one might be promoted at the end of the term.
“She always says that,” whispered the girl next to Meg.
“How do you know?” asked Meg, whispering, too.
“Why, I’ve been to school for most three 37 years,” said the other girl proudly. “You first grade? Do you have Miss Mason or Miss Watts? Miss Mason! Oh, gee, she’s as cross as anything. I had her my first year.”
Meg opened her mouth to say that she liked Miss Mason, but the bell rang again and the children rose and turned toward the aisles. The small girl at the piano rattled another lively march, and in orderly lines the children marched back to their classrooms. Assembly was over for that morning.