Carolyn of the Corners Part 14

The school she had attended in New York was a big brick-and-stone building, with wide corridors, well-ventilated rooms, a lovely bas.e.m.e.nt gymnasium, a great hall, a roof garden in summer, part of which was enclosed with gla.s.s and steam-heated in winter.

Inside the little red schoolhouse were only rows of desks and "forms"-all marred, knife-marked, and ink-stained. The initials of the very "oldest inhabitant" of The Corners, Mr. Jackson Sprague, were carved in the lid of one desk. And the system of education followed in this school seemed to be now much what it had been in Mr. Sprague's day.

Miss Minnie Lester taught the school, and although Miss Minnie looked very sharply through her gla.s.ses at one, Carolyn May thought she was going to love the teacher very much.

Indeed, that was Carolyn May's att.i.tude towards almost everybody whom she met. She expected to love and to be loved. Was it any wonder she made so many friends?

But this country school was conducted so differently from the city school that Carolyn May found herself quite puzzled on many points.

She had to divide her desk with another little girl, Freda Payne. Freda was a black-eyed, snappy little girl who could whisper out of the corner of her mouth without the teacher's seeing her do it. She instructed Carolyn May from time to time regarding this new world the city child had entered into.

"Goodness me! didn't you ever have a slate before?" she whispered to Carolyn May.

"No," the little city girl confessed. "They don't let us use them where I went to school. They make too much noise. And, then, they aren't clean."

"Clean! Course they're clean, if you keep 'em clean," declared Freda fiercely.

She showed the stranger the bottle of water she kept in her desk and the sponge with which she washed her slate.

"But the sponge is dirty. And it smells!" ventured Carolyn May, with a slight shudder. She had heard of germs, and the mussy-looking bit of sponge was not an attractive object.

"'Tain't neither!" snapped Freda, making her denial positive with two negatives. "The boys spit on their slates and wipe 'em off on their jacket sleeves. _That's_ nasty. But us girls is clean."

Carolyn May could not see it, however, and she ignored her own slate.

"You can't use that pencil to write with on paper," Freda caught her up with another admonition.

"That's a slate pencil, if it has got wood around it."

"Oh, dear me! Is it?" sighed the new pupil. "And I haven't any other here, that I can see."

"Well, I'll lend you one. But don't chew the lead. I hate to have folks chew my lead pencils."

Carolyn May promised not to lunch off of the borrowed writing instrument.

But these were not all the pitfalls into which the new pupil fell. The morning session was not half over before she wished for a drink of water. Of course, she asked her seatmate about it.

"You must raise your hand till Miss Minnie sees you. You'll have to waggle your hand good to make her look, like enough," added Carolyn May's mentor. "Then, if she nods, you go back to the entry and get your drink."

"Oh," was the comment of the city child, and she immediately raised her hand. She did not have to "waggle" it much before Miss Minnie took notice of her.

"Well, Carolyn May?" she said.

"May-may I get a drink-please?" almost whispered Carolyn May, for she felt very much embarra.s.sed.

Miss Minnie nodded. The little girl rose and went back to the entry on the girls' side of the house. She looked all about this rather large square room without finding what she sought.

Against two walls were rows of pegs, on which were hung the coats and hats and dinner baskets, or dinner pails, of the pupils. In the corner was a shelf with a dingy bucket upon it and a rusty tin dipper hanging beside it.

Finally, Carolyn May came slowly back to her seat. Miss Minnie was busy with a cla.s.s of older pupils. Freda asked-of course out of the corner of her mobile mouth:

"Did you get your drink?"

Carolyn May shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I didn't see any faucet."

"Faucet! What's that for?" demanded the other little girl.

"Why, to get the water out of. Isn't there a cold-water tank? And don't you have paper cups?" demanded Carolyn May. "I didn't see a thing like what we use in our school in New York."

"Mercy me, Carolyn May!" fairly hissed Freda. "What _are_ you talking about? We don't have water laid on in the schoolhouse like they do at home. The pump's in the yard. And whoever heard of paper cups? Why, paper won't hold water!"

"Yes, they do," the other little girl said eagerly. "They are all folded, and you take one and open it, and it holds water."

"I think you're fibbing!" declared her seatmate flatly.

"Oh!" gasped the new pupil, deeply hurt by the imputation.

"Yes, I do!" said Freda. "I've got a folding nickel cup. But who ever heard of paper cups? Everybody drinks out of the dipper."

"That rusty old saucepan?" murmured Carolyn May in wonder.

"Huh, you're awful finicky!" scoffed the other.

"Is the water in that pail on the shelf?"

"Yes. And don't you spill none, or Miss Minnie will get mad at you."

"I guess I'll wait till I get home at noon recess," said the little city girl. "I'm-I'm not so thirsty now."

There proved, too, at the start, to be a little difficulty with Miss Minnie. Prince would not remain at home. He howled and whined for the first half of Monday morning's session-as Aunty Rose confessed, almost driving her mad. Then he slipped his collar and tore away on Carolyn May's cold trail.

He heard the children's voices as they came out of the school at recess, and charged into the group in search of his little mistress. Carolyn May was just getting acquainted with the other pupils of her own age and was enjoying herself very much.

"Carolyn May," p.r.o.nounced Miss Minnie from the girls' door-stoop, "you must take that horrid dog home at once! Hurry, or you will be late for the next cla.s.s."

Carolyn May was hurt by the teacher's tone and words, and she _knew_ Prince felt bad about it. He fairly slunk out of the schoolyard by her side, and some of the pupils laughed.

She pulled his collar up a hole tighter and begged Prince to be good and remain at home till noon. Yet, ten minutes after the session had again opened there sounded a rattling on the porch floor, and into the school marched the dog, having drawn the staple with which his chain had been fastened to the bole of the tree in Mr. Stagg's back yard.

Miss Minnie was both alarmed and angry. Some of the little girls shrieked and wept when Prince pranced over to Carolyn May's seat.

"If you do not shut that awful dog up so that he cannot follow you here, Carolyn May, I shall speak to your uncle, Mr. Stagg, about it. Ugh, the ugly beast! Take him away at once!"

This was entirely too much for the little girl's good temper. Her best friend, she felt, was maligned.