The chapter was ended then! Flea grew sick all over. Her head felt queer, and the sweat started out in icy drops upon her forehead and upper lip. She never knew how she got upon her knees, but she was there, her face in her hands, her elbows upon the bench. Mr. Tayloe stood up and read a short prayer from a book. It asked, among other things, that "our hands may be kept from picking and stealing." There was nothing about breaking the hearts and casting down the dreams of others, or trampling under foot the small, sweet courtesies that make working-day lives tolerable. If there had been, Mr. James Tayloe would have read it all in the one tone—a tone as void of feeling and sympathy as the "rat-a-tat-tat" of a spoon upon a dish-pan.
The morning was given up to examination and arrangement of the scholars into classes. There was good stuff in Felicia, for by the time she was called forward, with six other girls about the same age and size with herself, to show what she knew, she had plucked up spirit to answer clearly every question put to her. Except that her eyes were dull, and the lip-lines sagged somewhat, she looked like her usual self. The questions that fell to her were many, and the questioner pressed them closely, taking nothing for granted. He even laid traps for her by varying the forms of the queries.
"You said that General Washington fought the battle of the Cowpens, I believe?" he said once.
"No, sir; Colonel Washington."
And again, "You don't pretend to tell me that Cornwallis did not give his sword to Washington's representative after the battle of Trenton?"
"No, sir. That was at Yorktown."
By-and-by—"The sun is nearer to the earth than the moon is, or it would not be so much hotter. That is so—isn't it?"
Flea's dull eyes did not light up, but a slight smile contracted her mouth. "The sun is 95,000,000 miles from the earth. The moon is 240,000 miles."
It was small game for a grown man, but the exchange of question and reply became presently a sort of wordy duel. The girl was on her mettle—Scotch mettle—and showed no sign of confusion when sure of her ground. Hers was an excellent mind, retentive as well as quick. What she had learned she kept, and understood how to use it.
Her father would have been proud of his lassie's proficiency in geography, grammar, and history, of her reading, her spelling, and her writing, had he been there. His heart would have been sore for her when the inquisitor at length probed her weak spot. She disliked arithmetic, and was hardly further advanced in it than the little girls beside her, who had heard with hanging jaws and round eyes what was to them a miraculous show of learning.