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back?" Richard laughed. He patted a
bulging pocket significantly. “When a
fellow has as much money arotind him
as I have, the best thing he can do is to
stay away. That's what I told Mr. Mor-
rison before I started.”
‘‘‘Don’t talk so, Dick," his sister pleaded,
her expressive face sobering suddenly.
“You don‘t mean it, of course, but it
seems like-like trifling with temptation.
And just suppose anything should hap-
en”
“And something is going to happen
-right off, sir.” He raised his voice, mim-
icking her anxiety in a whining tone.
“Embrace your erring brother while you
may, Ruthie, dear. It may be years be-
fore your red lips press his bearded check
again." He caught her up in his arms
with melodramatic eagerness. “Good-by,
dear. a long good-by! iVhat the mis-
chief is that?"
A shadow fell across the open door, ,
and Richard turned quickly. It was quite
natural that he should look surprised and
a bit confused, as he
Drrtwlnpl by Jim-,; R. Ilmhner.
“ ELL, I suppose I must 0 and
pack my trunk," and Lilian rose
with a gusty sigh.
don't seem to enjoy the pros-
pect.” Jack looked tip in amusement
front the map he was drawing. His sis-
ter paused as if glad of an excuse to stay.
"I don't enjoy anything connected with
the whole affair, Jack, and that's the truth
if I ever told it," she declared, straight-
ening the doily under a vase of flowers.
“ daughter, you don’t ’mean that.”
Mother’: tone was tender, but it held a
note of reproof and Lilian shook her head
rebelliously. '
"I do-vevery word,” she insisted.
“After my passing a creditable examina-
tion, then sending applications to the four
quarters of the -globe for a position, to
be assigns to a hateful little country
school is a bit too much to bear patiently,
and I give you fair warning, mot er, I
don’t intend‘ to try.” -.
"Then you’ll get called down and
bounced.” Jack's speeches were often
more graphic than elegant.
disapproved his sister's
mother repeated the last four words of
“You
,Lilian’s declaration with an interrogation
point after them. “Don't, intend to try.
That doesn't sound like you, daughter.”
“To be patient, I mean,” explained
Lilian, dropping down again into the heck-
oning easy-chair. “Of course I'll teach
the yery bestgl can. It is to my own in-
terest to do that and, anyway, I'm honest.
I’ll cam my money. little as it‘ is. But
I'll rnakethose pupils come-to time and
I won't waste words on them, either."
Jack chuckled. “,We’reidangei'ous when
we get started,'arcn’t we?“ he asked teas-
ingly. “Going ‘to use corporal punish-
ment, Lil, or moral suasion .7” V
" ‘School daysl
School daysl
Dear old golden-rule days, "
chanted Daisy over in the corner. She
was sitting on the floor in front of her.
own private drawer in'the big secretary,
opened on Monday. .Shc had been too
mtich absorbed to heed the conversation
going on about her, and after having se-
lected the special pencil box and set of
crayons she wanted, proceeded to pack
them in her book bag. ,The grave respon- .
- sibility ofpsuch decision having been re-
moved, she broke out in song-as Daisy,
was sure to do, many times a day.
"Those lines don’t appeal to Lil,
midget.” Jack's voice was bantering.
“Try the next couplet. 'l'hat‘ll ht to a dot.
" ‘Reading and writing and jnnimmp.
Taught to the tune of a hickory stielt,'
confronted a strange :
Rcizfe
. b ;; +2? -
to me it is anything else.
. careful siirv
TI can do without, so they will have
THE VVELLSPRING
gentleman in a stylish rubl>t-r-tired run-
- about.
“Beg pardon!" The iicwcniucr raised
his hat, acknowledging Ruth's presence
and furious blushes. “I drove in to iii-
qnire if I'm on the right mad to Lod-
wick. There was a ttirn back here by the
bridge, and I tliotigltt perhaps I ought to
have taken it. “.'hcn I'm not sure about
a thing. I find it saves time to ask some-
body uho knows.’
““'hy-yes!" Richard stepped down on
the Hagstone and spoke a little ahscntly.
He was wondering what the young fel-
low in the buggy thought of the little
farce he had witnessed, and.trying to de-
vise some offhand way of explaining it.
“You came tip this-this direction, didn’t
you? No, of course you didn't, though,
‘for you spoke of-of passing the bridge.
IVell, yes, you're on the direct road. It
isn't far-not more than two miles.”
"Thanks-ever S0)'nuClIl" The strange
gentleman shot a keen glance at his in-
formant. “Great day, isn't it?”
. [T0 in: CONTINUED]
J’
8[2'zabez‘lz’(1,3r7‘&e
That's more like it, eh, Lilian?"
’“You may think it is a joke, Jack, but’
“School daysl School daysl
Dear old golden-rule days.'”
to arrange a reader
t protrude, and began
ister, what does that
mean-‘golden-rule days’? I don't quite
understand it.” The fair little face was
lifted as Daisy spoke and Lilian smiled
back into it.
“It doesn’t mean a thing. sweetlicart.
not a single thing. The person who wrote
that song needed two more words to make
that line the right length, so he hit upon
those. It isn't even sensib e."
“Oh, I‘m sorry. I think that song’ is
pretty. Anyway, I'm going to sing it be-
cause it sounds as if it meant something
nice,” and the child turited again to her
work, humming softly to herself.
“Do you know, Lilian, I don't altogether
agree with you,” said mother, threading
her needle busily. “Why may it not mean
just what it says? Why shouldn't all otir
days be ‘golden-rule days‘? That would ‘
simply he doing as we'd like to be done
by. It seems to me a very sweet idea.”
“Sure thing,” aliirmed Jack. “Peda-
gogues might take the hint saute as the
pupils. Sister got mixed, midget. That
song tells you to treat everybody in school
just the way you want them to treat yoti.
e good and you will be happy, you
ow” '
“Of course.” Daisy understood that al-
ready. Didn’t she know from conscien-
tious experience that to do wrong meant
a sad heart aitd contrite confession?
“I don’t believe the writer of that verse
ever gave it a thought,” insisted Lilian
rather crossly as Jack picked up his geog-
raphy and laid his drawing between its
leaves.‘ ’ '
“Perhaps riot, daughter, but we could
make it mean that to us at all events.
It might smooth many rough places for
ourselves ‘and others if we would.”
‘Lilian rose .again and cast a wistful
glance about the big pleasant room. "To
think I don’t see you all any more till
Christmas." she moaned. “I’ve got to
live in the horrid country the whole long
winter. Oh. dearl" '
Upstairs her work was waiting for her,
the open trunk, the pile of freshly laun-
dered linen, the pretty dresses and the
while the schools she had counted on and
planned for passed into more experienced
a
it.
Tlirntigli her rebellious meditations
IIaisy's song kept creeping. “School
ilziys-golden-rule days.’ ” It annoyed her
and she tried to shut it out, till mother's
words jnineil it and then Jack's coinrnents
nirirshalletl into line. “Oh, dear me, con-
science is waking up. too,” she declared
at last, half aloud. “I know I'm a miser-
able sinner about this thing. btit I want
to be. I don’t aspire to be unselfish and
patient and good. I want to scol an
make myself generally disagreeable and
I think I have;snflicient cause'to do.so.
I wish.my family was not so-so.par-‘
tieular in its ideas. They might leave me
a few days to scold in-undisturbedly, I
mean. I'm going to do it, just the same,
but it isn't half the ftin. There, the last
thing is in, all right."
Appearances confirmed her worst fears
as she faced her charges on Monday
morning. It seemed impossible that a
school, situated so near the excellent edu-
‘ cational system of-Lilian's. home town,
could be so utterly primitive in its rneth-‘
odsvor perhaps, lack of methods.
One room contained all ages and sizes,
and--what was worse-all shades of at-‘
Vat. Lxx. No. 39
good so far. However, I won't yield one
inch and maybe to-morrow they‘ll begin
to understand that I will be obeyed.”
But they didn't-to-tnorrow or the next
day. The miserable week dragged by.
Lilian from the depths of her “Slough
of Dcspond,” commanded, scolded and
fretted until her’ home folks would
scarcely have known her. Friday after-
noon. the last pupil having departed. she
sat down to rest and regain her mental
poise which had been sadly disturbed by
the day's happenings.
“lOh, if pupils were all like Daisy," she
moaned‘. With the mention of er sis-
‘ter's name came the recollection of the
fair little.face and-curiously, enough-
the words of Daisy's favorite song. Like
a flash it came overiher-the memory of
that last afternoon at home and the con-
versation that had offered better advice
than she was following.
She meditated for some time, then drew
a sheet of paper toward her and picked
tip a pencil. “As I’d like to be done by,”
she said to herself. “I'll just reduce that
proposition to order and see'where it
leads. I'll ptit down the figure one, and
under it write, ‘Big boys.’ Figure two,
‘Big girls.’ . Then the medium, and last
the little ones. I’ll consider each in turn
tainment from primary class to higherywith mother's thought in mind and then-
grammar grades. All ranged in rows,
stolid or mischievous, clean or unclean,
rt-Fined or coarse-all raw material, as it
came to her mind-the unpacked trunk,
its varied contents and the maneuvering
necessary to arrange them all in the lim- >
itcd space assigned them.
“I did it," she remembered. “It took
some strategic moves to get them fixed,
so the lid would shut, but-it shut when
the time came. '
get this motley roomful classified and ar-
ranged. I will not let this trying situa-
tion get the best of me, but I'll not waste
I'll do it there, too, and’
maybe I’ let it drop again, and maybe
I won t.
fortable, which these boys are'not in their
low, cramped desks-especially as they are
used to having all out-ofaioors to expand
' . Next, if I was painfully conscious
of being awkward with my hands and feet
I wouldn't enjoy being reminded of it,
thereby making matters worse. Third,
if I'd used what chance for education had
come my way, I'd hate to be compared
with city boys who are in reach of pub-
lic libraries, lecture courses and such
things. FotIrth,I
ft har to
respect and ven-
ate a teacher
hardly older than
myself - particu-
larly if she's a
crosspatch. So
much for a start."
paused to
read aloud her
resume’. “Uncom-
fortable, con-
sciously awk-
ward, mortified
over lack of at-
tainment and
nagged by an
‘impatient in-
strtictor.
haven't
I've scolded them
. under the first
' h e a d,’ ridiculed
had been com-
posed of Daisy’s
‘golden-rule
“‘ YOU can swam -ro VOUR FATHER ABOUT IT -ro-m<;nr.' "
any honicd words in getting it straight."
She kept the latter resolution at least, for
the day was a trial from first to last.
Many times her voice rose sliarplvabove
the din, demanding order, criticising awk-
wardness, lamenting stupidity. Her pupils.
dainty toilet accessories laid ready to her ‘embarrassed, bewildered, dithdent, shudled
:'
D
nd. “I don't know how I'll ever get
them all in,” she thought as she took .1
“But there isn't a thing
to go.”
'She packed them neatly, litting, turning.
lifting out and laying in, her thoughts
busy meantime-with her disappointment
and the uncongenial work that had fallen
to her lot. Pretty. bright, fresh from her
own graduation and full of ambition for
the future, it seemed like the death knell
to all her hopes when the little country
school prnved to be her appointment.
noisily back and forth, spilled ink,
dropped books and tore papers. The big
boys-always the terror of a country
school-teacher-grinned gleefully'over the
confusion and the city girl's apparent dis-
coinfiture, doing nothing whatever to allay
the one or lessen the other.
It was dreadful, and when at fotir
o'clock the noisy troop dispersed and the
relief of silence reigned, Lilian sat down
to her desk, exhausted and discouraged.
"It's been a wretched failure." she con-
fessed. “I have been very positive and
very strict, but it hasn't done a hit of
days’? I know,
without stopping
to consider-alas
and alack, I know. And this is only one
list out of several.”
The ittle room was very quiet and
Liliait’s meditation was unbroken. It was
nearly dark when she locked her desk and
rose. “I've made a failure in every sense
of the word out of my first week as a.
teacher," she confessed sorrowfully to
herself. “It’s been my own fault and I
have deserved to suffer, for I knew bet-
ter. I do really want to do right even
though I feel sometimes as if I didn't. It
seems as'if I could never; never endure
these hopeless-looking pupils, but I will
try to be more to them than a strict dis-
ciplinarian. I suppose I've really deserved
reproof as much as any 0 them. This
list I'll keep for a while-as a reminder."
“’ith Lilian, to resolve was to act.
lVhen a half-dozen of the older boys
sauntered in Monday morning, the new
done if this week '
