somewhere—then—silence.

Emmy Lou waited. She wondered how long it would be. There was watermelon at home for dinner; she had seen it borne in, a great, striped promise of ripe and juicy lusciousness, on the marketman’s shoulder before she came to school. And here a tear, long gathering, splashed down the pink cheek.

Still that awesome personage presiding over the fortunes of the First-Readers failed to return. Perhaps this was “the examination into—into—” Emmy Lou could not remember what—to be left in this big, bare room with the flies droning and humming in lazy circles up near the ceiling. The forsaken desks, with a forgotten book or slate left here and there upon them, the pegs around the wall empty of hats and bonnets, the unoccupied chair upon the platform—Emmy Lou gazed at these with a sinking sensation of desolation, while tear followed tear down her chubby face. And listening to the flies and the silence, Emmy Lou began to long for even the Bombazine Presence, and dropping her quivering countenance upon her arms folded upon the desk she sobbed aloud. But the time was long, and the day was warm, and the sobs grew slower, and the breath began to come in long-drawn, quivering sighs, and the next Emmy Lou knew she was sitting upright, trembling in every limb, and someone coming up the stairs—she could hear the slow, heavy footfalls, and a moment after she saw The Man—the Recess Man, the low, black-bearded, black-browed, scowling Man—with the broom across his shoulder, reach the hallway, and make toward the open doorway of the First-Reader room. Emmy Lou held her breath, stiffened her little body, and—waited. But The Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus afforded, slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael having put the room to rights, sweeping and dusting, with many a rheumatic groan in accompaniment, closed the windows, and going out, drew the door after him and, as was his custom, locked it.

Meanwhile, at Emmy Lou’s home the elders wondered. “You don’t know Emmy Lou,” Aunt Cordelia, round, plump, and cheery, insisted to the lady visitor spending the day; “Emmy Lou never loiters.”

Aunt Katie, the prettiest auntie, cut off a thick round of melon as they arose from the table, and put it in the refrigerator for Emmy Lou. “It seems a joke,” she remarked, “such a baby as Emmy Lou going to school anyhow; but then she has only a square to go and come.”

But Emmy Lou did not come. And by half-past two Aunt Louise, the youngest auntie, started out to find her. But as she stopped on the way at the houses of all the neighbors to inquire, and ran around the corner to Cousin Tom Macklin’s to see if Emmy Lou could be there, and then, being but a few doors off, went on around that corner to Cousin Amanda’s, the school-house, when she finally reached it, was locked up, with the blinds down at every front window as if it had closed its eyes and gone to sleep. Uncle Michael had a way of cleaning and locking the front of the building first, and going in and out at the back doors. But Aunt Louise did not know this, and, anyhow, she was sure that she would find Emmy Lou at home when she got there.

But Emmy Lou was not at home, and it being now well on in the afternoon, Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor and the cook all started out in search, while Aunt Cordelia sent the house-boy downtown for Uncle Charlie. Just as Uncle Charlie arrived—and it was past five o’clock by then—some of the children of the neighborhood, having found a small boy living some squares off who confessed to being in the First Reader with Emmy Lou, arrived also, with the small boy in tow.

“She didn’t know ‘dog’ from ‘frog’ when she saw ’em,” stated the small boy, with the derision of superior ability, “an’ teacher, she told her to stay after school. She was settin’ there in her desk when school let out, Emmy Lou was.”

But a big girl of the neighborhood objected. “Her teacher went home the minute school was out,” she declared. “Isn’t the new lady, Mrs. Samuels, your teacher?” this to the small boy. “Well, her daughter, Lettie, she’s in my room, and she was sick, and her mother came up to our room and took her home. Our teacher, she went down and dismissed the First-Readers.”

“I don’t care if she did,” retorted the small boy. “I reckon I saw Emmy Lou settin’ there when we come away.”

Aunt Cordelia, pale and tearful, clutched Uncle Charlie’s arm. “Then she’s there, Brother Charlie, locked up in that dreadful place—my precious baby——”

“Pshaw!” said Uncle Charlie.

But Aunt Cordelia was wringing her hands. “You don’t know Emmy Lou, Charlie. If she was told to stay, she has stayed. She’s locked up in that dreadful place. What shall we do, my baby, my precious baby——”

Aunt Katie was in tears, Aunt Louise in tears, the cook in loud lamentation, Aunt Cordelia fast verging upon hysteria.

The small boy from the First Reader, legs apart, hands in knickerbocker pockets, gazed at the crowd of irresolute elders with scornful wonder. “What you wanter do,” stated the small boy, “is find Uncle Michael; he keeps the keys. He went past my house a while ago, going home. He lives in Rose Lane Alley. ’Taint much outer my way,” condescendingly; “I’ll take you there.” And meekly they followed in his footsteps.

It was dark when a motley throng of uncle, aunties, visiting lady, neighbors, and children went climbing the cavernous, echoing stairway of the dark school building behind the toiling figure of the skeptical Uncle Michael, lantern in hand.

“Ain’t I swept over every inch of this here school-house myself and carried the trash outten a dust-pan?” grumbled Uncle Michael, with what inference nobody just then stopped to inquire. Then with the air of a mistreated, aggrieved person who feels himself a victim, he paused before a certain door on the second floor, and fitted a key in its lock. “Here it is then, No. 9, to satisfy the lady,” and he flung open the door. The light of Uncle Michael’s lantern fell full upon the wide-eyed, terror-smitten person of Emmy Lou, in her desk, awaiting, her miserable little heart knew not what horror.

“She—she told me to stay,” sobbed Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia’s arms, “and I stayed; and the Man came, and I hid in the coal-box!”

And Aunt Cordelia, holding her close, sobbed too, and Aunt Katie cried, and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor cried, and Uncle Charlie passed his plump white hand over his eyes, and said, “Pshaw!” And the teacher of the First Reader, when she heard about it next day, cried hardest of them all, so hard that not even Aunt Cordelia could cherish a feeling against her.