"'Now those that sealed were Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, the son of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah, Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah: these were the priests.'"
I heard a sharply intaken breath from Dee. I also noticed the shoulders of a girl a few seats ahead of me shaking ominously.
Miss Plympton proceeded: "'And the Levites: both Jeshua, the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel; And their brethren Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah, Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, Hodijah, Bani, Beninu,'——"
Other shoulders were shaking and Dee buried her face in her hands. There was an unmistakable snort from a dignified Senior. One of the tiny little girls giggled outright and suddenly without any one knowing how it started, the whole school was in a roar.
Now it is not so difficult to come down on a few offenders, but when a whole school goes to pieces what is the one in command to do? It wasn't that there was anything so very humorous in the tenth chapter of Nehemiah, but the way Miss Plympton read it; the way she rattled off those impossible names with as much ease as she would have shown in calling the roll, the way she looked in her tight new suit,—just the way the whole school felt, anyhow—a kind of tense feeling that something was going to happen, made our risibles get the better of us. Everything in the room rocked with laughter except Miss Plympton. She just made chins.
The teachers on the platform were as bad as the students. Miss Ball was completely overcome and the very dried-up instructor in mathematics had to be led off the platform in the last stages of hysterics. Margaret Sayre told me afterwards that she was very glad to do the leading as she herself was at the bursting point.
Miss Plympton looked at the giggling and roaring mass of girls and quietly went on reading in her hard even tones, her voice slightly raised, however: "'The chief of the people: Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zatthu, Bani, Bunni; Azgad, Bebai, Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, Ater'——"
The laughter of some of the girls changed to weeping and about half the school had hysterics. Miss Plympton did not understand girls at all, but she understood them well enough to know that when once hysterics gets started in a crowd of girls there is no more stopping it than a stampede of wild cattle.
I hate sacrilege, but for the life of me I can't see why any one should think that any human being could get any good or spiritual strength for the day from listening to the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. I never heard of a school breaking out into hysterics over the twenty-third Psalm or the Sermon on the Mount. Why should not a suitable thing be chosen to read to young people?
Miss Plympton was furious, but whatever she said to the pupils, she would have to say to the teachers, so she held her peace and after making some hundred or so chins she had prayers and then a mild hymn. The storm had subsided except for an occasional sniff. Some of the most hysterically inclined had been forced to leave the assembly room and these came sneaking back during the singing of the hymn. The Math teacher had to go to bed and we all with one accord blessed Sheribiah, Shebiniah, Hodijah, Bani, and Beninu.