“We called them the kid-gloved Dandy Fifth
When we passed them on parade.”
A sharp, imperative rat-a-tat-tat on the class-room door almost at her back startled the speaker, Sidney Dallas. She turned for an instant, but that instant was enough to scatter her wits like chaff before the wind. She paused—stammered—paused again, then repeated vaguely:
“We called—we called them the kid-gloved Dandy Fifth
When we passed them on parade.
We called—we called—”
But the words would not be coaxed back. Her mind was a perfect blank. She was so confused that she did not see that the visitor who was being ushered in by Bess Martin, and whose sharp knock had so disconcerted her, was her own mother.
A hot flush of shame scorched her face, the crowd of attentive faces before her began to waver, her knees grew weak, her feet cowardly, but she made one more brave effort:
“We called—we called”—she repeated weakly and hurriedly, then stopped short.
“But it would not come,” murmured mischievous Ted Scott, lugubriously. Ted had been crowded to the front seat, which he shared with two other boys. The boys snickered, and Sidney’s misery was complete. Never before had she failed in a speech, or realized the humiliation.