A quarter-mile from the school-house, the hill on which it stood fell away abruptly in a bank out of which a clear little spring ran through a pipe into a trough below. There Flea paused to wash her face and hands, and to rinse the handkerchief she had used to stanch the blood. She even took pains to make herself look more tidy than usual, wetting her "Shetland-pony" forelock, and combing it back with the round comb which she wore for the first time that day. Then she smoothed her apron, and swinging her luncheon-bag around and around as she went, she tripped blithely up the slope into the clearing that made the play-ground. At the same instant the figure of the teacher came into view from the opposite quarter, and there was a rush and a scuffle among boys and girls to get into the school-room before he arrived.
Thus it happened that nobody noticed the raw scratch crossing Flea's left cheek, about an inch below the eye, until the dictionary class was called up to recite. Much attention was paid in the Old Field school to spelling and definition, the text-book being Walker's Dictionary. Two columns of words and definitions under the head of A were assigned to the class of five girls and six boys, who had been busy studying the lesson ever since the beginning of the afternoon session. For no reason except that it pleased him to put down in every way the girl to whom he had taken a dislike, Mr. Tayloe placed Flea Grigsby at the foot of the row ranged in front of his chair. The scholars stood while reciting, their hands close to their sides, their chins level, and shoulders back. When a word was misspelled, or a wrong definition given, it was passed down the line until somebody supplied the proper spelling and meaning, and went above those who had failed.
Flea mounted steadily and rapidly in this exercise, spelling being one of her strong points. She was the fourth from the head of the class when the word "adolescence" was given out. The first one who tried it put in two d's, the second left out the first c, the third spelled the word right, but had forgotten the meaning. Flea instinctively cast her eyes down, and tried with all her generous might not to look elated as the trial in which she knew she would succeed drew nearer and nearer.
"Felicia Grigsby!" said the teacher.
"Ado—"
"Instead of staring that ink-spot out of countenance, suppose you have the politeness to look at me when I speak to you." He broke off to stare at her. "What have you been doing to your face?"
Flea put her hand up to her wounded check, and felt that it was wet. The water had checked the bleeding for a while, but now specks of blood, like tiny beads, were starting out along the line of the cut. Her blush at the discovery looked to the master like the confusion of guilt.
"Can't you speak?" he said, roughly. "You are usually over-ready with your tongue. With whom have you been fighting, now?"
A titter from the school behind her made Flea color yet more deeply.
"With nobody," she answered, in a low tone. "My face got scratched in the woods."