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On a certain warm day in summer Rebecca’s thirst exceeded the bounds of propriety. When she asked a third time for permission to quench it at the common fountain Miss Dearborn nodded “yes,” but lifted her eyebrows unpleasantly as Rebecca neared the desk. As she replaced the dipper Seesaw promptly raised his hand, and Miss Dearborn indicated a weary affirmative.

“What is the matter with you, Rebecca?” she asked.

“It is a very thirsty morning,” answered Rebecca.

There seemed nothing humorous about this reply, which was merely the statement of a fact, but an irrepressible titter ran through the school. Miss Dearborn did not enjoy jokes neither made nor understood by herself, and her face flushed.

“I think you had better stand by the pail for five minutes, Rebecca; it may help you to control your thirst.”

Rebecca’s heart fluttered. She to stand in the corner by the water pail and be stared at by all the scholars! She unconsciously made a gesture of angry dissent and moved a step nearer her seat, but was arrested by Miss Dearborn’s command in a still firmer voice.

“Stand by the pail, Rebecca!–Samuel Simpson how many times have you asked for water already?”

“This is the f-f-fourth.”

“Don’t touch the dipper, please. The school has done nothing but drink all day; it has had no time whatever to study. What is the matter with you, Samuel?”

“It is a v-very thirsty m-morning,” remarked Samuel, looking at Rebecca while the school tittered.

“I judged so. Stand by the other side of the pail, with Rebecca.” Rebecca’s head was bowed with shame and wrath. Life looked too black a thing to be endured. The punishment was bad enough, but to be coupled in correction with Seesaw Simpson was beyond human endurance.

Singing was the last exercise in the afternoon, and Minnie Smellie chose “Shall we Gather at the River?” It was a curious choice and seemed to hold some secret association with the situation and general progress of events; or at any rate there was apparently some obscure reason for the energy and vim with which the scholars looked at the empty water pail as they shouted the choral invitation again and again:–

“Shall we gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river?”

Miss Dearborn stole a look at Rebecca’s bent head, and was frightened. The child’s face was pale save for two red spots glowing on her checks. Tears hung on her lashes; her breath came and went quickly, and the hand that held her pocket handkerchief trembled like a leaf.

“You may go to your seat, Rebecca,” said Miss Dearborn at the end of the first song. “Samuel, stay where you are till the close of school. And let me tell you, scholars, that I asked Rebecca to stand by the pail only to break up this habit of incessant drinking, which is nothing but empty-mindedness and desire to walk to and fro over the floor. Every time Rebecca has asked for a drink to-day the whole school has gone to the pail like a regiment. She is really thirsty, and I dare say I ought to have punished you for following her example, not her for setting it. What shall we sing now, Alice?”

“‘The Old Oaken Bucket,’ please.”

“Think of something dry, Alice, and change the subject. Yes, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ if you like, or anything else.” Rebecca sank into her seat and pulled the singing book from her desk. Miss Dearborn’s public explanation had shifted some of the weight from her heart, and she felt a trifle raised in her self-esteem.

Under cover of the general relaxation of singing, offerings of respectful sympathy began to make their appearance at her shrine. Living Perkins, who could not sing, dropped a piece of maple sugar in her lap as he passed her on his way to the blackboard to draw the map of Maine, while Alice Robinson rolled a perfectly new slate pencil over the floor with her foot until it reached Rebecca’s place.