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updown com ten years of prestige Perhaps the fact that Mannel came from a home where Russian was the language in use and that he knew little English, accounted for his abnormal seriousness during school hours. He could not be absolutely sure what was being said or what might be done to him. Perhaps some cruel elder brother, before Mannel had even started his education, had explained to him in voluble Russian that dreadful pains and penalties were likely to follow the slightest deviation from the paths of virtue. Certain it is that he kept a close watch on the teacher, and that none of her slightest movements escaped him. Though his general appearance might cause mirth in others, he himself seldom smiled. Day by day he sat in his little front seat grasping slate and pencil in chubby hands, gazing earnestly at the sums on the blackboard as he copied them down. Afterward he worked these with fitting solemnity. To him they appeared to be of the greatest difficulty and of national importance. Sometimes he wrote endless rows of letters on his slate. Sometimes he made nondescript figures out of plasticine or drew patterns on his slate or counted beads. At other times, grievous to relate, when he felt sure the teacher was otherwise engaged and could not possibly see him, he drew fierce triangular cats with four or perhaps five stiff, geometrical legs and rampant tails.,“It’s up to you now, my girl,” he panted under his breath. “The board will bend—you mustn’t be frightened. Fix your eyes on the tree—come fast.”,Billy was suddenly overcome with bashfulness when the child, quite composed, came forward to meet him. A bath, a shampoo, and new clothes had transformed her from a tangled, smudged little girl to a lovely miss with a high-bred air foreign to the childish manners Billy understood. He recognized Edith’s gown in the pretty frock mother and daughter had sat late to make over; but the neat ties and hose, all the little things it takes to make a girl look pretty, where had they come from?,Ladies cross your lily-white hands,“Elmo saw some gween and white faywies,” he fabricated, “and wanted Mudgie to see them too.”，“Billy, I don’t like the look of your eyes; you’re reading too much at night,” his mother said one evening when he was helping with the dishes. “You must go to bed earlier.”，“Here, here! You mustn’t do that,” Billy gently coaxed, rising and taking her hand. “You’ll make me draw salt water, too. And it don’t help, you know. I’ll tell you what—you can work some, gather the flowers. I’ll show you how. Mother puts ’em fresh in all the rooms for Sunday.” He bustled her up the terrace steps, brought scissors and basket, and, starting her on her pleasant task, began to mow the lawn.，“Giving music lessons isn’t work. I’d love to do that.”“Aren’t you going to say ‘Good-morning’ to me, Billy?” She put out the slenderest little white hand, and looked into his face appealingly.

“Oh, no,” he sighed; “I suppose duty is the first business; but duty is such a narrow, knock-you-down little word.” His voice was tense and hard.,Mrs. Bennett rose and tucked him in snugly. “Let us drop it till school closes, Billy. Then we’ll talk it over.”,“The fleetin’ of youth is most sartin,” answered his wife, coining this epigram on the shortness of life’s spring-time, and sighing as she spoke. The good lady herself was looking through a stereoscope at some views and finding one of Niagara Falls she endeavored to cheer her despondent husband.,“And Jimmy is already Roderick Dhu.”,“A cat tablecloth!” the little girl laughed.,“That’s bul—dandy.”,“Yes, I s’pose we can listen to you scramble up and down the piano keys all night, but if I do anything it’s another story.”,“Here’s Mis’ Mifsud an’ St. Elmo comin’ in the buckboard,” he announced.,“What’s the use of goin’ to a dance and settin’ sleepin’ like one of them spinxes, Ebenezer?” she expostulated as she roused him from his slumbers. The good lady herself had danced almost incessantly until her face had taken on the hue of a ripe pippin.,CHAPTER III.—A DAY AT SCHOOL.,“Never mind Mosey, Next Monday I’m goin’ to ask Mar to let me stay home and turn the nasty mouldy machine.”,But a second idea came that made him fidget about the room, lift his bandage and watch the children on their way to school. His record for attendance for the year had so far been perfect. He knew that he owed it partly to his mother’s tireless watch of the clock, and wondered why he had not realized this before. Now it was to be broken; she would be as sorry as he could be; and it would have counted well toward the prize. He tried to calculate how many days he could be absent and still have left some chance of it. The work was all reviewing, he almost knew it, anyway. If he only had his books,—but no, they wouldn’t let him use his eyes..