When the second tug at the bell-rope gave the final call for the opening of school there was an air of gladness in the room. The new teacher possessed enough of the elusive "something" the country children felt belonged to a teacher from a big city like Philadelphia. The way she conducted the opening exercises, led the singing, and then proceeded with the business of arranging classes and assigning lessons served to intensify the first feelings of satisfaction. When recess came the children ran outdoors, ostensibly to play, but rather to gather into little groups and discuss the merits of the new teacher. The general verdict was, "She's all right."
"Ain't she all right?" David Eby asked Phœbe as they stood in the brown grasses near the school porch.
"But honest now, Phœbe, don't you like her?"
"I don't know," came the tantalizing answer.
"Ach, sometimes, Phœbe, you make me mad! You act dumb just like the other girls sometimes."
"Then keep away from me if you don't like me," she retorted.
"Sassbox!" said the boy and walked away from her.
The little tilt with David did not improve the girl's humor. She entered the schoolroom with a sulky look on her face, her blue eyes dark and stormy. Accordingly, when Mary Warner shook her enviable curls and leaned forward to whisper ecstatically, "Phœbe, don't you just love the new teacher?" Phœbe replied very decidedly, "I do not! I don't like her at all!"
For a moment Mary held her breath, then a surprised "Oh!" came from her lips and she raised her hand and waved it frantically to attract the teacher's attention.
"Why, Miss Lee, Phœbe Metz says she don't like you at all!"
"Did she ask you to tell me?" A faint flush crept into the face of the teacher.
But Phœbe Metz did not dismiss the matter so easily. She turned in her seat and gave one of Mary's obnoxious curls a vigorous yank.
"Tattle-tale!" she hurled out madly. "Big tattle-tale!"
"Yank 'em again," whispered David, seated a few seats behind the girls, but Phares called out a soft, "Phœbe, stop that."
It all occurred in a moment--the yank, the outcry of Mary, the whispers of the two boys and the subsequent pause in the matter of teaching and the centering of every child's attention upon the exciting incident and wondering what Miss Lee would do with the disturbers of the peace.