BY LAURA F. FITCH.
Pickle had waked in high spirits. That was unlucky, in the first place, for Pickle's high spirits always bubbled over before the day ended into some deed of mischief. Then, Miss Prim had a headache, and could not appear in the school-room. That was unlucky, too, for the new German teacher was to arrive that morning, and she would not be able to introduce him to the girls, and enjoin upon them attention and obedience. To be sure, Miss Meek, the assistant-principal, undertook to perform all necessary ceremonies, but then the girls never minded Miss Meek. In the third place, the new teacher was queer-looking. That was the most unfortunate circumstance of all, and was really to blame for the whole affair.
"What business," Pickle wrathfully demanded of her friend Sally, "has a man, even if he is a German, to come to a girls' boarding-school looking like a guy?"
Sally, who was trying to dispose of two thick slices of bread and butter before recitation, was too much occupied to answer.
But Pickle was not particular about an answer, and continued, nodding her head in the direction of the hall: "Look at him out there, now. Such a great broad-shouldered man. And then see how he blushes. And do just look at that long curly hair, 'way down to his shoulders. Gracious! I should think he'd be ashamed of it."
Pickle evidently resented the teacher's fine curls, which were too long for a man, as a personal insult to herself, it being one of the sorrows of her life that her own thick hair was kept cropped by her mother's orders.
"I know I sha'n't like him," she added to herself, as the unfortunate possessor of the obnoxious curls entered the room.
He was not naturally a nervous man, he thought, but he had never taught girls before, and he found the calm, cool scrutiny to which he was being subjected by every member of the class something formidable. He would rather teach fifty boys, he said to himself, than these fifteen girls.
Pickle, from her desk, watched the new teacher's every movement. She laughed to see him nervously twist his feet around the leg of the chair, while a smile of scorn played over her lips when he ran his fingers through his waving locks.
"Sal," she whispered, "ain't he too funny for anything, though? I hope he speaks English with an accent; that is, if he ever gets the courage to speak at all."