Hope shook her head. “I don’t believe so. What—what did she do?”
Jeff looked at Gil and Gil looked at Jim and Jim shook his head. It was Poke who came to the rescue.
“Mrs. Hanks,” he observed thoughtfully, “was a very estimable lady. Besides being the mother of the Martyr President she—er—she invented the idea of winding yarn in hanks. Hence the name.”
The others viewed him suspiciously, but were afraid to question his statement for fear of confessing their ignorance. Jeff said “Hm” noncommittingly and Jim became very busy over the lock he was trying to repair. Hope accepted the information at face value and thanked Poke very nicely. Poke, I think, was on the verge of a confession when Mr. Hanks himself came into sight beyond the fence. He had an armful of books as usual and his head seemed to have acquired to-day an added droop. As he turned in through the gate his face looked pretty tired and discouraged. Jim and Poke arose from their places on the steps to let him by and it was only then that he saw the group. He lifted his funny old straw hat rather sketchily and murmured, “Good evening.” The others responded politely, but Hope, with a sudden rush of sympathy for the instructor, said: “Won’t you sit down here and rest, Mr. Hanks? You look very tired, and supper won’t be ready for a long time.”
Mr. Hanks looked surprised and embarrassed, hesitated, dropped a book—which Gil rescued—and finally stammered: “Er—thanks, but I have much work to do. It—it has been a very nice day, hasn’t it?”
They all agreed enthusiastically that it had, after which Mr. Hanks hemmed and coughed once or twice, bowed jerkily and went on in. They could hear him walking weariedly up the stairs to his room.
“He looks perfectly floppy!” exclaimed Hope, indignantly. “It is too mean for anything to treat him so!”
“What’s floppy?” asked Gil, a little ashamed of his own small share in the instructor’s unhappiness and willing to switch the conversation.
“Why—why, floppy, of course; tired and—and miserable and unhappy!”