Ester Ried Yet Speaking | Page 4

eyes from smiling.
"She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. They will frighten her out before she commences, will they not?"
"I presume so; but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come, and I could not tell her she must not."
"No, of course,--the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them to-day; and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are more difficult than others. I will let her try it."
Meantime, "the boys" of the dreaded class were studying the new face. She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at her and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed and nudged elbows and giggled outright, every one of them,--meantime chewing tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely wherever he judged it would be most offensive.
Alfred Ried watched them, inwardly groaning. Being used to their faces, he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than usual, and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim.
But young Ried was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts, without seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a nudge. She was studying her material; and it must be confessed that they startled her not a little. They represented a different type of humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the old church at home,--rather, an advanced stage of both those types.
When Mr. Durant came toward her, the look on his face was not reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected failure, and was sorry for her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a formal introduction.
"Boys, this is Mrs. Roberts, who is willing to try to teach you to-day. I wish you would show her that you know how to behave yourselves."
Mrs. Roberts wished that he had left her to introduce herself, or that he had said almost anything rather than what he did; the mischievous gleam in several pairs of eyes said that they meant to show her something that they considered far more interesting than that.
Many were the sympathetic glances that were bestowed on the young and pretty lady as she went to her task. As for Alfred Ried, there was more than sympathy in his face. He was vexed with the young volunteer and vexed with himself.
He told himself savagely that this was what came of his silly habit of thinking aloud. If only he had kept his anxieties about that class to himself, Mrs. Roberts would never have heard of it, and been tempted to put herself in such a ridiculous position; and if this episode did not break him of the habit, he did not know what would.
He was presently, however, given a class of small boys, with enough of original and acquired depravity about them to keep him intensely employed, and the entire school settled to work.
CHAPTER II.
"WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?"
Settled, that is, so far as the class of boys in the corner would permit the use of that term. They had not settled in the least. Two of them indulged in a louder burst of laughter than before, just as Mrs. Roberts took her seat. Yet her face was in no wise ruffled.
"Good afternoon," she said, with as much courtesy as she would have used in addressing gentlemen. "I wonder if you know that I am a stranger in this great city? You are almost the first acquaintances that I am making among the young people, and I have a fancy that I would like to have you all for my friends. Suppose we enter into a compact to be excellent and faithful friends to one another? What do you say?"
What were they to say? They were slightly taken back, surprised into listening quietly to the close of the strange sentence, and then giving no answer beyond violent nudges and aside-looks. What did she mean? Was she "chaffing" them? This was unlike the opening of any lesson! It certainly could not be the first question on the lesson-paper; nor did it sound like certain well-meant admonitions to "try to improve the opportunity" and "learn all that they could." With each of these commencements they were entirely familiar; but this was something new.
"Do you agree to the compact?" she asked, while they waited, her face bright with smiles.
"Dunno about that," said one whom she very soon discovered occupied the position of a ringleader; "as a general thing, we like