“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” the baby class repeated.
After having satisfied herself by dividing the lichis unequally among the babies, that they might understand the difference between a singular and a plural number, Miss Mason began a catechism on the features of the face. Nose, eyes, lips, and cheeks were properly named, but the class was mute when it came to the forehead.
“What is this?” Miss Mason repeated, posing her finger on the fore part of her head.
“Me say, me say,” piped a shrill voice, and the new pupil stepped to the front, and touching the forehead of the nearest child with the tips of her fingers, christened it “one,” named the next in like fashion “two,” a third “three,” then solemnly pronounced the fourth a “four head.”
Thus Ku Yum made her début in school, and thus began the trials and tribulations of her teacher.
Ku Yum was bright and learned easily, but she seemed to be possessed with the very spirit of mischief; to obey orders was to her an impossibility, and though she entered the school a voluntary pupil, one day at least out of every week found her a truant.
“Where is Ku Yum?” Miss Mason would ask on some particularly alluring morning, and a little girl with the air of one testifying to having seen a murder committed, would reply: “She is running around with the boys.” Then the rest of the class would settle themselves back in their seats like a jury that has found a prisoner guilty of some heinous offense, and, judging by the expression on their faces, were repeating a silent prayer somewhat in the strain of “O Lord, I thank thee that I am not as Ku Yum is!” For the other pupils were demure little maidens who, after once being gathered into the fold, were very willing to remain.
But if ever the teacher broke her heart over any one it was over Ku Yum. When she first came, she took an almost unchildlike interest in the rules and regulations, even at times asking to have them repeated to her; but her study of such rules seemed only for the purpose of finding a means to break them, and that means she never failed to discover and put into effect.
After a disappearance of a day or so she would reappear, bearing a gorgeous bunch of flowers. These she would deposit on Miss Mason’s desk with a little bow; and though one would have thought that the sweetness of the gift and the apparent sweetness of the giver needed but a gracious acknowledgment, something like the following conversation would ensue:
“Teacher, I plucked these flowers for you from the Garden of Heaven.” (They were stolen from some park.)