"My dears, please don't make such a silly fuss about nothing," interrupted Miss Thompson, rising with considerable dignity from her seat. The children watched her with the most intense interest; but when, instead of crushing the intruding wasp, she merely tried to brush it out of the open window with her handkerchief, they broke out into shouts of disapproval. If the poor lady had let loose some peculiarly savage wild beast on society she could not have been more severely condemned by public opinion. And the worst of it was, that the wasp would not go! She clung to the handkerchief, and when it was shaken at the open window suddenly transferred herself to the sleeve of her deliverer's dress.
Even Miss Thompson's calmness gave way under this trial. She started back with a slight scream. The children were at her side in a moment, beating and slapping at her arm, until they had inflicted almost as much injury as a sting.
"It's fallen on the floor!" shrieked Madge. "No! it's up again! It's back on the window! Where's the squasher?"
There was one well-established way of killing wasps in the schoolroom at Beechgrove. This was with the heavy brass top of an old-fashioned ink-bottle. Its size and shape were all that could be desired, and it was familiarly alluded to as "the squasher". Even Miss Thompson when in a hurry sometimes forgot to describe it as the top of an ink-bottle, though she usually corrected herself afterwards.
At the present moment both Betty and John rushed to the table, and began to fight vigorously for the possession of the much-coveted instrument of destruction.
"Bring it quickly!" screamed Madge, who did not dare leave the window for fear of losing sight of her prey. "Bring it here, I say! You aren't going to squash it, you little sillies! I'm the eldest, so it's my place!"
"You unfair thing! You squashed the last, so it's my turn!" shouted John. And while he turned to hurl defiance at his elder sister, Betty seized the opportunity to twitch the object of strife out of his hand and run off with it.
Something perilously like a free-fight was in progress, when Miss Thompson recovered her self-possession and sternly ordered the children to return to their seats.
"And the wasp?" they cried. "It will get away, and make nests, and we shall be stung, and have no fruit, and—"
"I will kill it myself," interrupted Miss Thompson, who now saw that this was the only way to restore quiet.