Forest Glen School stood near the road; so near, indeed, that the porch actually encroached upon the Queen's Highway. But there was plenty of room behind the building. For beyond a lumpy yard, innocent of a blade of grass, stretched miles of Wully Johnstone's swamp, which had been appropriated by the pupils as a playground. This seemed only just, for remains of the forest still held possession of much of the school-grounds proper. Nobody objected to the stumps, however, because they were useful as bases in the ball games, and young Forest Glen had once raised a storm of protest when a visiting lady from town had suggested to Mr. Coulson that he have them removed on Arbor Day. There was a battered old woodshed at the back, its walls covered with carvings, its roof sagging wearily from the weight of many generations of sliders who had shot down its snowy surface to the top of the hill behind. Near it stood a crippled old pump that had brought up water for these same generations of sliders, and was still bringing it up, which perhaps explained its disheartened appearance.
The Dale contingent always arrived early at school, and on this first day they had still more than half an hour at their disposal. The boys rushed into a game of ball, but the girls gathered in groups about the gate to watch for the new teacher. For this one was new in every sense of the word—a lady in fact, and Forest Glen had always heretofore had a man; and the older girls were filled with pleasurable excitement.
Miss Hillary was to board at Martha Ellen Robertson's place, the big, white house not a quarter of a mile down the road. All eyes were fastened upon the red gate to see her emerge, and many were the speculations as to whether she would be tall or short, old or young, plain or pretty, and above all what she should wear.
She appeared at last, and the chief questions were at once settled. She was tall, she was young, she was pretty, and she wore a most beautiful dark-blue dress with a trim white collar and cuffs. She had pretty dark hair, just waving back from her little ears, and shaded by a dainty blue hat, trimmed with a wreath of white daisies. The girls gravitated towards the center of the road, Elizabeth and Rosie at the head of the group. Elizabeth fell in love at first sight. She had vowed with sobs last June that she would never, never love a teacher again, and here she was ready to declare that this one was the most wonderful and beautiful creature she had ever seen.
As the new teacher approached, she smiled in a stately fashion and said, "Good-morning." As she entered the school, the boys drifted farther away from the building and the girls drifted nearer. Some of them even ventured into the room, to see her hang up her hat and take off her gloves. Elizabeth was foremost among the latter. She longed to go up to her and offer her assistance in the many new difficulties which she saw the teacher might meet. She would have liked to show Miss Hillary from the first that she was really quite grown-up and genteel. She would help her with the names in the school register, show her where the chalk was kept, and how the backs came off two of the blackboard brushes, but could be kept on if you just held them right, and how the bottom board of the blackboard might fall if you weren't careful; and ever so much more valuable information. Miss Hillary would have profited much more even than Elizabeth thought, if she had accepted that young lady at her most grown-up estimate; and Elizabeth would have profited even more. But, unfortunately for poor Elizabeth, Miss Hillary was not one who easily understood.
The new teacher rang the bell and the school assembled, the big boys straggling in last and flopping into their seats with a bored and embarrassed air. The room was very quiet, the unaccustomed surroundings impressing everyone into unaccustomed silence. For the place had been all scrubbed and white-washed, and there were wonderful new desks and seats that folded up all of their own accord when you stood up, as if they worked by magic. There was a strange smell of varnish, too, that added much to the feeling of newness.
As soon as prayers were over, the new teacher arose and delivered her opening speech. Her manner was still distant and stately. She wished to speak to them particularly, she said, on deportment, for she had discovered that the children of rural communities were sadly deficient in manners. Elizabeth quite lost the purport of the little address in her admiration of the beautiful, long, high-sounding words with which it was garnished. Elizabeth loved long words. She wished she could remember just one or two of the biggest, and she would use them when Mrs. Jarvis came. Suddenly a fine plan was born in her fertile brain. All unmindful that Miss Hillary had given strict commands to everyone to sit straight with folded arms, she snatched her slate and pencil. She would write down the finest and most high-sounding of those words, and how pleased and surprised Aunt Margaret would be when she used them. She would look them up in the dictionary just as soon as she could get a breathing-spell. There were "ideals" and "aspirations" and "deportment" many times, and "disciplined"—which last Elizabeth spelled without a "c." There were "principles" and "insubordination," and "contumacious," over the spelling of which Elizabeth had such a very bad time, and "esprit de corps," which, fortunately, she gave up altogether, and ever so many more, which flew over her head like birds of paradise, brilliant and alluring, but not to be caught. Some, Elizabeth could remember having heard her father use, and, proudly recognizing them as old friends, let them pass.
She was utterly absorbed in her task, her pencil flying over her slate, squeaking madly, when right in the midst of "irresponsible" with one "r" and several other letters wanting, she paused. It was a poke from Rosie that disturbed her. Elizabeth was accustomed to being poked by Rosie, for her seat-mate always attracted one's attention this way; but her pokes were always eloquent and this one betokened alarm and urgency. For a moment or more Elizabeth had been vaguely conscious that there was a lull in Miss Hillary's talk and a strange silence over the room, but she had merely taken the opportunity to stick syllables on the ends of certain words which haste had compelled her to curtail. She was in the act of fixing up "contumacious," and making it a little more un-English if possible, when the poke awoke her to her surroundings.
She looked up. All eyes were upon her—disapproving and ashamed Gordon eyes, others amused or only interested, and, worst of all, the new teacher's, stern and annoyed. Elizabeth's pencil dropped from her paralyzed fingers. It broke in three pieces—the beautiful, long, new pencil with the gold paper covering, which Mr. Coulson had given her at parting; and Miss Hillary said, oh, so coldly, and sternly:
"There is one little girl in the class who has been paying no attention whatever to anything I have been saying. That little girl will please come forward and take the front seat."