Jane Lends A Hand Part 3

"What a busybody you are. Always prying into other people's affairs. It wouldn't hurt you to mind your own business for a while, I must say."

"I don't pry into other people's affairs," said Jane, quite unruffled.

"Most of 'em seem to like to talk, and I just listen-that's all."

"There's the bell, now! Hang it, we're late. Why can't you-" but here Carl set off in a race for the school-house, outstripping the two squealing, panting twins. And in another moment, Jane, too, was scampering across the square as fast as her legs would carry her.

That was, in truth, not destined to be a very successful day for Jane.

To begin with, she was marked "tardy" for the third time that month. The first cla.s.ses went off pa.s.sably; but she came to grief as she was congratulating herself on the fact that she had managed to sc.r.a.pe along fairly well.

With all her quickness and curiosity, Jane had small love for hard study; but her aptness in gathering the general sense of a lesson at almost a glance stood her in good stead, and with very little trouble on her part she succeeded in shining quite brilliantly in history, general science, and geography. When it came to mathematics however, she met her Waterloo.

This cla.s.s was presided over by Miss Farrel, a vague old lady, with near-sighted, reproachful blue eyes, and an almost inaudible voice, who taught a dry subject in the dryest possible manner.

For some reason, Jane found it more difficult than ever to keep her mind on square roots and unknown quant.i.ties that morning. Her eyes wandered longingly to the window. It was open, for the day had grown warmer toward noon, and in the quiet square an old man was raking up the fallen leaves into a row of small bonfires, and lifting them in bundles into a little wheeled cart. Patiently he limped back and forth, stopping every now and then to push his old felt hat back on his head and mop his forehead with a colored handkerchief, which in between times waved jauntily from his hip pocket. The pungent smell of leaf smoke drifted in through the window. The golden and ruddy foliage of the elm-trees and lindens made a fretted canopy over the drowsy green, through which sifted the mellow light of an Indian summer sun.

Fat Lulu Pierson's thick, glossy pig-tails next engrossed Jane's attention. She took one gently in her fingers; the evenly clipped end of it reminded her of the brush that Sam Lung, the Chinese laundry-man used when he wrote out his receipts. She dipped it in the ink, and began to make hieroglyphics on her scratch-tablet. Then Lulu gave an impatient jerk, and the wet pig-tail just missed causing general disaster. Jane carefully took it again, dried it on her blotter, and made a serious effort to concentrate her attention by fixing her gaze gravely on Miss Farrel's wrinkled face. But she soon found that she was merely wondering why that prim old dame took the trouble to wear a little bunch of false curls across her forehead-such a remarkable cl.u.s.ter, as smooth and crisp as spun gla.s.s, pinned with a little bow of black taffeta ribbon. And so honestly false-certainly they could not have been selected with the intention of deceiving, for not even Miss Farrel, near-sighted as she was, could have imagined for a moment that they matched the diminutive nubbin into which her own grey locks were twisted every morning.

"Why doesn't she wear a wig? Though after all that auburn is rather nice. I don't see why she doesn't change 'em around sometimes-"

"Well, Jane, perhaps you can tell us," Miss Farrel's soft voice broke in upon these reflections, and Jane started as if she had been awakened from a sound sleep. She gasped, and then quickly recovering herself, said blandly,

"Yes, Miss Farrel."

There was a dead silence. Jane looked about her in surprise, to find every eye in the room fixed on her.

"Well?" prompted Miss Farrel.

Jane swallowed. She had not the remotest idea what the question was.

Nevertheless she made a bold attempt to conceal this fact, and with an aplomb admirable under the circ.u.mstances, said,

"I didn't exactly understand the question, Miss Farrel."

A faint tinge of color appeared upon each of Miss Farrel's cheekbones, and her almost invisible eyebrows went up.

"And what didn't you understand about it? I am sure I don't see how it could be expressed in any clearer terms. Will you repeat it to me? Then we can soon find out just where my words confused you." The old lady felt that she was being exceedingly cunning.

Jane winked her eyes rapidly, opened her mouth, shut it, and moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She knew she was cornered.

"Yes, Jane. And stand up please when you recite," said Miss Farrel in ominously gentle tones. "And don't fidget, Jane. Put that eraser down.

We are waiting, Jane."

"Well, what I didn't understand was-was-I didn't understand-I didn't understand the question."

Another silence.

"Did you _hear_ the question?"

"No, Miss Farrel."

"Oh. And what, pray, have you been doing?"

"Why-just thinking."

"Ah. How interesting. And what were you thinking of?"

Jane tried to keep her face straight, and looked down to hide the laughter in her eyes.

"Nothing, Miss Farrel."

Silence again. Miss Farrel opened her little black record book, and slowly and deliberately registered Jane's crime.

"Sit down, Jane. And will you please wait for me here after school. At three o'clock. Well, Isabel, will _you_ give me the formula for finding the area of a circle."

Jane took her seat.

"What a goose I am, anyway," she thought, and accepted her punishment with her usual calmness.

At three o'clock, when the other girls, chattering and laughing gathered their books and left the school-room singly and in groups, she sat at her desk waiting for Miss Farrel. The cleaning woman came in, with her mop and bucket, and began to splash the dusty wooden floor. She was a talkative, good-natured old thing, and one of Jane's numerous intimates.

"Well, now, what are they keepin' you here for, this fine afternoon, Miss Janey?" she said sympathetically.

"Oh, I don't mind much. How's Amelia, Mrs. Tinker?"

"Fine. Fine, miss, thank yer."

"And how's Henry Clay?"

"He's fine, too, I thank yer."

"Is Mr. Tinker out of the hospital yet?"

"Not yet, I thank yer," said Mrs. Tinker, cheerfully. "They think as how he'll have to be there another six weeks or so. Well, I'm not one to complain against what the Lord thinks best, and I says to Henry Clay, 'Don't complain, Henry. You let well enough alone,' says I."

"Is Henry Clay the one that's going to be an undertaker?"

"That's right, miss. The boy's always had his heart set on it, and as I says to Mr. Tinker, 'Don't oppose him.' And Henry shows wonderful talent for it, miss. Wonderful."

Jane was going to ask how a precocious talent for undertaking manifested itself, when Miss Farrel appeared.

"Perhaps, Mrs. Tinker, you might work just now in one of the other rooms," she suggested with dignity. "You may return in an hour."

And then she turned her attention to Jane.

The old lady began by a plaintive little discourse on Jane's shortcomings, and on the future disasters that they would most certainly lead to. She tried to sound severe and cold, but now and then she said "my dear," and once she laid her small, old hand on Janey's. It was so difficult to be severe with Jane.

"And now, Jane, we must review all last week's work. You see how much time you lose?"

The lesson began; but it turned out that Jane was able to answer very nearly every question that Miss Farrel asked.