Every scholar had a Bible. Some had brought no other book with them. The rustling of leaves caused by the command subsided, and the teacher read distinctly, in a metallic tone, the first verse:
"'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.' What is your name?" addressing in precisely the same voice a boy who sat at the extreme left of the front row of benches.
"Thomas Carter, sir!" faltered the startled lad.
"Thomas Carter will read the second verse, the boy next to him the third, and so on, right across the room to the end of the front bench where those girls are sitting. Then the girl next to the wall on the second bench will take her turn, and so on, clear across the room back to the other wall. Go on, Thomas Carter."
Some of the scholars read badly, some tolerably well. With one exception, none of them did themselves justice. They were diffident under the gaze of the pale blue eyes, or flustered by the sound of their own voices in the deep stillness that had fallen upon the school-room. Flea Grigsby alone kept a steady head and a steady voice. She read uncommonly well for a girl of her age, and she knew it. The boy across the aisle from her had fallen over the word "firmament," and the teacher had helped him to pass it by obliging him to spell the word twice, then to re-read the verse. Flea was the first girl who was called upon to read.
In her zeal she spoke more loudly than she was conscious of doing, emphasized certain words in a marked way, and did not forget to count "one" to herself at the comma, and "one, two, three," at the colon.
"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so."
Bea's pretty lips were parting to begin the next verse when the teacher's gesture arrested her. An unpleasant smile drew up the corners of his mouth; his eyes were fixed upon Flea's face. To the amazement of the school he proceeded to read aloud the verse she had just finished, mimicking her girlish pipe, and exaggerating into absurdity the emphasis she had meant to make effective.
Some of the boys snickered; a few girls giggled. The rest looked scared and puzzled.
