Jimmy, Lucy, and All | Page 8

in the evening at nine o'clock. But I can tell 'em they ought to set
it back two minutes."
"A nine o'clock bell? Why, that's a curfew bell! How romantic!" cried
Kyzie. She had read of "the mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells," but
had never heard it. "Let's go to the schoolhouse."
As luncheon at the Templeton House would not be served for an hour
yet, they kept on to the hollow where the schoolhouse stood. It was a
small, unpainted building in the shade of three pine trees.
"Just wait a minute right here," said Edith, the young artist, unstrapping
her kodak. "I want a snap-shot at it. Stand there by that tree, Jimmum.
Put your foot out just so. I wish you were barefooted!"
Just then, as if they had overheard the wish, two little boys came
running down the hill, and one of them was barefooted. Moreover,
when Kyzie asked if they would stand for a picture, they consented at
once.
"My name's Joseph Rolfe," said the elder, twitching off his hat, "and
his name,"--pointing to his companion with a chuckle,--"his name is
Chicken Little."
"No such a thing! Now you quit!" retorted the younger lad in a choked
voice, digging his toes into the dirt, "quit a-plaguing me! My name's
Henry Small and you know it!"
While Edith was busy taking their photographs, Kyzie thanked the
urchins very pleasantly. They both gazed at her with admiration.
"See here," said Joe Rolfe, twitching off his hat again very respectfully,
"Are you going to keep school in the schoolhouse? I wish you would!"

At this remarkable speech Jimmy and Edith fell to laughing; but Kyzie
only blushed a little, and smiled. How very grown-up she must seem to
Joe if he could think of her as a teacher! She was now a tall girl of
fourteen, with a fine strong face and an earnest manner. She was
beginning to tire of being classed among little girls, and it was
delightful to find herself looked upon for the first time in her life as a
young lady. But she only said:--
"Oh, no, Joe, people don't teach school in summer! Summer is
vacation."
"Well, but they do sometimes," persisted Joe; "there was a girl kep' this
school last summer. She called it 'vacation school.' But we didn't like
her; she licked like fury."
"So she did," echoed Chicken Little, "licked and pulled ears. Kep' a
stick on the desk."
And with these last words both the little boys took their leave, running
up hill with great speed, as if they thought that standing for a picture
had been a great waste of time.
"That Chicken boy is the biggest cry-baby," said Nate. "The boys like
to plague him to see him cry. Joe Rolfe has some sense."
As the little party walked on, Miss Katharine turned her head more than
once for another look at the schoolhouse.
"Wouldn't it be fun, Edy, to teach school in there and ring that
'lin-lan-lone bell' to call in the scholars? I'd make you study botany
harder'n you ever did before."
"No, thank you, Miss Dunlee," replied Edith, courtesying. "You'll not
get me to worrying over botany. I studied it a month once, but when I
go up in the mountains I go to have a good time."
She pursed her pretty mouth as she spoke. Her sister Katharine was by
far the best botanist in her class, and was always tearing up flowers in

the most wasteful manner. Worse than that, she expected Edith to do
the same thing and learn the hard names of the poor little withered
pieces.
"You don't love flowers as well as I do, Kyzie, or you couldn't abuse
them so!"
This is what she often said to her learned sister after Kyzie had made "a
little preach" about the beauties of botany.
As they entered the hotel for luncheon, Kyzie was still thinking of the
schoolhouse and the sweet-toned bell and the singular speech of Joe
Rolfe, about wanting her for a teacher. What came of these thoughts
you shall hear later on.
"Well, I declare, I forgot all about that zebra kitty," said Edith. "What
will the knitting-woman think of such actions?"

IV
THE "KNITTING-WOMAN"
The "knitting-woman" met Edith at the dining-room door after
luncheon, and said to her rather sharply:--
"Well, little girl, I thought you liked kittens?"
"I do, Mrs.--madam, I certainly do," replied Edith feeling guilty and
ashamed. "But Nate Pollard took us to see the gold mine and the
schoolhouse and we've just got back."
"Oh, that's it! I thought 'twas very still around here--I missed the noise
of the boyoes.--You don't know what I mean by boyoes," she added,
smiling. "I picked up the word in Ireland. I'm always picking up