If the whistling ploughman and his team had burst into the school-room it would have been no greater marvel, brought no more alarm to the breasts of the little teachers. They looked at her as if she had been a witch. The other pupils stared, with open mouths.
“What's that you say, my dear?” said Miss Amelia. “Did you learn that in America?”
“No,” said Bud, “I just found it out from Uncle Dan.”
“Silence!” cried Miss Jean, for now the class was tittering again. She went with her sister behind the black-board, and nervously they communed. Bud smiled benignly on her fellows.
Just as disconcerting was her performance in geography. Had they tested her in her knowledge of the United States she might have come out triumphantly commonplace; but unfortunately they chose to ask her of Scotland, and there her latest teacher had been Kate.
“What are the chief towns in Scotland?” asked Miss Jean.
“Oban, and Glasgow, and Toraoway,” replied Bud, with a touch of Highland accent; and, tired of sitting so long in one place, calmly rose and removed herself to a seat beside the Fauntleroy boy, who was greatly put about at such a preference.
“You mustn't move about like that, Lennox,” explained Miss Amelia, taking her back. “It's not allowed.”
“But I was all pins and needles,” said Bud, frankly, “and I wanted to speak to Percy.”
“My dear child, his name's not Percy, and there's no speaking in school,” exclaimed the distressed Miss Amelia.