Billy’s troubles had come to him after breakfast, when he was sent to clean his father’s brown boots, and absent-mindedly began operations with the tin containing blacking. Mr. Weston had found him gazing at the ruin in a dreamy fashion, which lent the final spark to his father’s just wrath. He lost his temper—in itself an occurrence so rare as to be amazing, and Billy departed hurriedly from the scene, tingling both in mind and body.
It was clearly an unlucky day, and the boys were in no mood for lessons, especially when they found that Jean was busy cleaning the lamps and was only too glad to leave them to write copies alone. The pens were unruly, and stuck to their moist hands; it was ever so much pleasanter to make paper darts and throw them, than laboriously to inscribe obvious truths like “All is not gold that glitters.” As if people didn’t know that! And then Jean had been “snarly,” and it was horribly easy, this morning, to be snarly in response.
The geography lesson fared little better. It was rather a dull lesson—or possibly Jean, being oppressed by unusual dignity, did not feel equal to making it bright. The boys were frankly bored, and Rex remarked, in an audible undertone, that it was just like Miss Green’s sort of lesson! Somehow, the remark stung Jean more than open rudeness. She found tears very near her eyes.
Mother came in quietly, looking at the flushed, resentful faces, but apparently noticing nothing. She brought with her, as always, a sense of restfulness. No one would have guessed that she had been sitting on the verandah, listening to the stumbling feet on the path of knowledge—waiting for the exact moment to interfere. It was near Jo’s time for taking over the schoolroom; and Jo, she knew, was polishing linoleum, having resisted any suggestion to leave it until another day: rubbing hard, with one eye on the clock, and with a red spot on otherwise white cheeks.
“Father wants a telegram sent, Jean,” she said. “And he wants the afternoon mail brought out. I think you and Jo had better ride into Barrabri, and have lunch at the Bank or at the Lawrences’; they have been asking you a long while. Then you can get the mail, and ride out when it is cooler. I’ll take over the boys.”
“Sure you want to. Mother? Jo could go by herself.” But Jean had flushed with anticipation. The prospect of a holiday was very tempting.
“Oh, I’d rather you went together. And the boys and I will quite enjoy ourselves.” She looked at them with a little smile. “You won’t give me a bad time, will you, boys?”
Both urchins flushed.
“We’ve been rather brutes this morning,” Rex said frankly. “Haven’t we, Billy?”
“Perfect swine!” agreed Billy. “I’m blessed if I know why. I say, Jean, I’m sorry!”