Oh, to be out of school, at the end of that first day of adulthood! To be unwatched, to be free, to be little and young, if that pleased one! To walk up the hill and along the main street, and then, just as one was about to turn the corner prosaically and mount still higher—then to come face to face with a creature so elegant, so visibly "dressed," that no gambler in town could outshine him. By sheer good luck, to have been introduced to this dandy in one's capacity of teacher of the mixed primary that very morning, when he had been given permission by Mr. Garvan to make an announcement at the school concerning special privileges granted school-children at the "high-class minstrel performance" given at Lally's Opera House. To be unhampered now by the timidities of office, and ready to pick up the gage of coquetry his saucy glance threw down. And so, after the smallest second's hesitation,—the woman in one stifling both the child's and the substitute's hesitation,—to allow the gaudy stranger to walk beside one the length of C Street. And though the sidewalk was crowded, for stocks were up, and one had to wriggle one's way through the people packed tight in front of the brokers' offices, yet, in the very teeth of the townsfolk, to joy shamelessly in flirtation with this gorgeous, shining, flattering stranger—a social outlaw, as well as a bird of passage, the very disrepute of whose profession made temptation more subtly sweet!
"Split," whispered Sissy, her voice muffled with shame,—it was a week later,—"Kate walked with a minstrel! What shall we do?"
"Did she? Who told on her—Mrs. Ramrod? Well," added Split, out of the depths of experience, "it must have been that day she substituted."
OLD MOTHER GIBSON
Imprisoned in skirts, Jack Cody was awaiting his mother and relief, when there came a knock at the door, and a voice distinctly not Jane Cody's said:
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, but your town's so jolly dark, I believe I've lost my way. I'm looking for—My word, what's that!"
A parabola of light had suddenly shot out athwart the soft black night. It seemed to come from the hill to the left, and it was accompanied by the tinkle of shattered glass.