CHAPTER IX.

KIRKE AND JIMMY.

Weezy was so tired after this that she went to sleep in her high-chair at the dinner-table. Papa laid her on the sitting-room lounge; and she slept on, till, late in the afternoon, the slamming of the gate waked her.

A second after, the porch-door creaked, and Kirke skipped into the room in his butternut suit, as eager and frolicsome as a tan terrier.

"Oh, you just ought to see Miss Bailey!" cried he, spinning about on one foot like a humming-top. "You just ought to see her!"

"Weezy want to see too," yawned his little sister, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm glad you have your old teacher back again, my dear," said mamma, setting her work-basket on the table out of reach; for things had such a trick of upsetting wherever Kirke was.

"Yes; and I tell you what, mamma, she's nice," said Kirke, standing his slate up endwise and sitting down upon it. "She's some like aunt Louisa, and she's some like you; but she's most of all like grammy."

"Indeed? what a dear old lady she must be!" said Mrs. Rowe mischievously.

"Now, mamma, she isn't old: you know she isn't. She's just as young as she can be. Only she's like grammy because she looks _goody_. She doesn't peek through glasses like that great cross Miss Cumstan, and shake her finger at a boy when he moves his lips a little easy; no, sir. She's real kind and pleasant, and I'm going to be as still as a mouse in _her_ school."

But, his slate slipping, Kirke's mother saw just then a noisy little boy sitting down hard upon the floor.

"I'm glad your intentions are so good," said she, tenderly smoothing his thick brown hair, which wouldn't stay parted, and would hang straight over his eyes, making his head look like a little hay-cock, or an old-fashioned English bee-hive. "Now you have entered the intermediate grade, I want you to be a manly little fellow."

"Me too, mamma," put in Weezy, anxious to be whatever Kirke was.

"Oh, you silly, silly goosie!" shouted Kirke merrily. "Molly, come in and hear Weezy. She wants to be a boy."

"No, I don't _ever_! I don't, _shoe's_ the world!" cried Weezy, rolling off the lounge in high resentment.

Now, I must tell you, that for one whole week after Miss Bailey came back, Kirke was a model boy, out of pure love to his old teacher; but then came review day, which always was a day of temptation to Kirke. He didn't see the use of studying what he knew already; and the figures he made on his slate he certainly couldn't have copied from the arithmetic, though he had ciphered through long division.

First he drew something which would have been a circle if it had only been round, and placed inside it two big O's, with a tall straight line between them, and the sign of subtraction beneath. This stood for a woman's head; though you might just as easily have supposed it was a tea-plate, with two doughnuts and two sticks of candy in it.

Kirke thought it a very good head indeed; and he put such a furious mop of hair on it, that he quite wore out his slate-pencil. Then he perched the head on a sort of pincushion, with two club feet, and over the whole wrote _Miss Cumstan_ in chalk letters.

Kirke always put down the names of his portraits nowadays: he found it saved awkward blunders. No danger this time of anybody's taking his drawing for a pepper-box on stilts!

He felt an artist's pride in his work; and with one eye on his spelling-book, and the other on Miss Bailey, he passed the slate across the aisle for Jimmy Maguire's approval.

"She ain't got no arms," whispered Jimmy, who had never heard of a grammar.

"Pencil's gone up," answered Kirke, behind his hand.

"Give her here: I'll fix her," said Jimmy, grasping the slate.

Miss Bailey was busy at the desk; but she had quick ears, for all the gold bells in them, and she looked up in the direction of the sound. Kirke seemed to be studying with all his might; but Jimmy, putting on Miss Cumstan's arms with dashing strokes, looked any thing but studious.

"Bring me the slate, Jimmy," said Miss Bailey, satisfied that no example in the simple rules could require such peculiar figuring.

Jimmy dared not disobey, though he did manage to blur the image with his left elbow as he went along.

"Lay the slate on the desk, and remain after school, James," said Miss Bailey: "I want to talk with you;" and Jimmy took his seat with head very high,--for the boys were all looking,--but with spirits fearfully low.

You wouldn't have thought that he cared one bit. Somehow, it would seem that a boy in such an ugly jacket, and with so many warts on his hands, couldn't have much feeling. Why, all the boys would have laughed at the idea of his minding being "talked to,"--this Jimmy Maguire, who was always getting feruled.

But Jimmy did mind, because Miss Bailey, ever since she came to the school, had spoken kindly to him, and treated him "as if he _was_ somebody." Kindness was a new thing to him, and he liked it.

But now it was all over with him! Miss Bailey would inquire about him, and find out that his father was in the State prison; and of course she would hate him, just as everybody else did. And there sat Kirke Rowe looking as innocent as a Jack-in-the-pulpit. Nobody suspected _him_ of getting into scrapes: _his_ father wasn't a jail-bird.

"Are you going to tell on me, Jimmy?" whispered Kirke at recess.

The boys were in the yard, with a long flight of stairs and two closed doors between them and the schoolroom; but Kirke couldn't speak aloud.

"Tell on you? No, baby, I don't tell tales," said Jim fiercely; "but you better keep your old slate at home next time, or I will."

Kirke felt relieved. That very morning Miss Bailey had patted him on the shoulder, calling him her "good boy;" and now he always would be good: he wouldn't draw any more pictures, and nobody need know any thing about the forenoon's mischief. He hadn't got caught whispering: if Jim had, Jim must bear the blame. He didn't ask Jim to draw Miss Cumstan's arms, and put a ferule in one hand and a book in the other. It wasn't his fault if Jim did get "talked to."

So Kirke went home at noon among the "good-deportment scholars," and tried to believe that the reason he felt so uncomfortable was that he was hungry. As if he didn't know better! He knew, as well as you do, that he had been a very mean little boy; but he didn't say any thing about it, not he!

He only grumbled at every thing, and made himself more disagreeable than a grown man five times as large could possibly have done, if he had tried with all his might. His mother couldn't think what ailed him, unless he was coming down with measles.

"I'm going to have a birfday to-morrow, and Kisty'll have a birfday too," said little Weezy.

"Well, what of it?" said Kirke crossly, and hurried out of the house.

He was trying to hush his troublesome mite of a conscience, which kept telling him, over and over again, that he ought to confess to Miss Bailey that he drew the picture.

It is just possible that he might have done so before school in the afternoon, if Jimmy hadn't made mouths at him as he came down the aisle. Kirke couldn't stand that, and he got very angry indeed. He didn't care what happened to Jimmy. He hated him. He hated Miss Bailey: she had green eyes!

After that, it really seemed as if Kirke couldn't be naughty enough. In the arithmetic-class he chalked the seams of Peter Flint's jacket,--stupid Peter Flint, who never could tell how many grains make a scruple; and afterwards, when Miss Bailey was writing a question on the blackboard, for the boys to perform,--it is dreadful to think of,--he blacked his own face with a bit of coal, at which Jimmy Maguire laughed outright.

Miss Bailey turned around in dismay. If an example in reduction wouldn't keep a boy sober, what would?

"James Maguire," said she severely, "I cannot excuse this second misdemeanor. At recess you will report yourself in this room, for punishment."

But behind Jimmy at recess came a very frightened little boy, the roguery crowded out of his eyes by tears.

"Please, Miss Bailey," said Kirke, winking very fast, "it's _I_ that's to blame. 'Twas I, playing chimney-sweep, that made Jimmy laugh. I drew the picture, too, this morning,--all but the arms,--and I whispered as much as Jim did!"

The story was out now; and, in spite of himself, Kirke's handkerchief had to come out too, just like any girl's; though, maybe, girls' handkerchiefs are not usually made into rabbits, as Kirke's was.

Miss Bailey was surprised and grieved to find her pet boy had been so naughty; though she forgave him in a minute, with a smile for all the world like grammy's.

But Jimmy, poor Jimmy, there he stood, as stock-still as an exclamation-point, too astonished to speak.

Just think of that little snip of a Kirke Rowe owning up to a trick he hadn't been caught in! Poor Jim couldn't understand it: he hadn't had any bringing-up, you know.

But it gave him a clearer idea of honesty than he had ever had in his life before, and did him as much good as it did Kirke, which is saying a great deal.