"She's worth it, is she?" roared Cap'n Forsyth.
Mr. Hazen nodded. "She's worth it, Stephen."
"I'm glad to hear it, John," Cap'n Forsyth shouted. No doubt he thought he was whispering. "It's getting to be as common a sight—you and Sally—as those Carling nuisances. And Patty's just as bad with that little boy brother of hers. I hope he's worth it, too. Good-bye, John."
There was some doubt in Uncle John's mind as to Charlie's being worth it. He and Patty were inseparable, too, and Charlie was not improved. He was in imminent danger of being spoiled, if the mischief was not already done. Uncle John sighed and turned homeward. He found Sally sitting on the front steps, waiting for him.
After Dick went, in the fall, Sally had nothing to do but to try to play by herself and devote herself to her studies and miss Dick. She found that she missed him almost as much as she had missed Fox. As for playing by herself, she had had that to do nearly all summer; for, although she had tried, conscientiously, she could not feel any interest in the other girls of her own age. They were uninteresting, somehow. Uncle John was better, and she got into the habit of going down to his office in the afternoons and coming home with him. Miss Patty was very glad to have her do it. It relieved her mind; in case, you know, he should stumble or slip or—or anything else should happen. She felt that Sally was to be relied upon, and so she was; but Miss Patty was putting a rather grave responsibility upon her and she was a little too lonely. It is not good for little girls to be lonely. She was unaware of the responsibility.
Sally's school was a diversion. Diversion seems to be the right word. There were about seventy scholars in the school; and, with six classes, that makes about a dozen scholars to a class, more or less. The lower classes had more and the upper classes, by natural processes of elimination, had less. Sally's class had fourteen; and Sally had no trouble at all in standing at the head of a class of fourteen. It had made Dick envious—no, not envious, for Dick was never that; but it was a constant wonder to him that any one should be able to stand first in fourteen with so little work.
In the great schoolroom, where all the scholars sat when they had no classes to go to, the boys sat on one side and the girls sat on the other. They were given seats according to their rank, the first class at the back of the room and the sixth class right under the eye of the principal, almost under his very hand. In general, this was a good arrangement. It happened, however, that the worst behavior was not in the lowest class, but in the fourth, which was Sally's class. So Sally, from her seat in the fourth row from the front, saw Eugene Spencer, commonly called "Jane," suddenly haled from his seat at her side—Sally sat next to the boys and Jane next to the girls—and, after a severe lecture, assigned a desk within touch of the desk of the principal, Mr. MacDalie.
Jane was a boy of immaculate and ladylike appearance. He listened respectfully to the lecture and received the assignment of the desk with a bow of thanks; all of which behavior was, in itself, unobjectionable. Jane had a knack at that. But it drove the principal, who was a man of irascible temper, into a white-hot rage, which Jane respectfully sat through, apparently undisturbed. A suppressed excitement ran along the rows of boys, who were as if on tiptoe with expectation of what might happen. Sally, herself, was trembling, she found; for it seemed, for a few minutes, as though the principal would do Jane bodily harm. But nothing happened. The white-hot rage cooled quickly, as such rages do; and the principal smiled with amusement, changing in a moment, as such men change, and went on with his hearing of the class in Civil Government.
Sally was very glad that Jane was gone from his seat beside her, for he had almost convulsed her by his pranks on countless occasions and had very nearly made her disgrace herself by laughing aloud. She had fears, however, still; for Jane's new desk was between the principal and the classes that he was hearing, and was on the floor, while the principal's desk was on the platform. Jane, therefore, was, in a measure, concealed from the view of the astute MacDalie, but in full view of the class, which occupied benches a few feet behind him. Moreover, the desks on either side of Jane's—there were three of them in a row, of which Jane occupied the middle one—were occupied, respectively, by the Carlings. The Carlings always occupied those desks. They had got to feeling a sort of proprietorship in them. Jane, however, knew too much to continue his mischief on that day. He was filled to the brim with it, that was all, and it was only a question how long before it would run over.