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Patience Mather was saying the seven-multiplication table, when she heard a heavy step in the entry.

“That is Squire Bean,” whispered her friend, Martha Joy, who stood at her elbow.

Patience stopped short in horror. Her especial bugbear in mathematics was eight-times-seven; she was coming toward it fast–could she remember it, with old Squire Bean looking at her?

“Go on,” said the teacher severely. She was quite young, and also stood in some awe of Squire Bean, but she did not wish her pupils to discover it, so she pretended to ignore that step in the entry. Squire Bean walked with a heavy gilt-headed cane which always went clump, clump, at every step; beside he shuffled–one could always tell who was coming.

“Seven times seven,” begun Patience trembling–then the door opened–there stood Squire Bean.

The teacher rose promptly. She tried to be very easy and natural, but her pretty round cheeks turned red and white by turns.

“Good-morning, Squire Bean,” said she. Then she placed a chair on the platform for him.

“Good-morning,” said he, and seated himself in a lumbering way–he was rather stiff with rheumatism. He was a large old man in a green camlet cloak with brass buttons.

“You may go on with the exercises,” said he to the teacher, after he had adjusted himself and wiped his face solemnly with a great red handkerchief.

“Go on, Patience,” said the teacher.

So Patience piped up in her little weak soprano: “Seven times seven are forty-nine. Eight times seven are”–She stopped short. Then she begun over again–“Eight times seven”–

The class with toes on the crack all swayed forward to look at her, the pupils at the foot stepped off till they swung it into a half-circle. Hands came up and gyrated wildly.

“Back on the line!” said the teacher sternly. Then they stepped back, but the hands indicative of superior knowledge still waved, the coarse jacket-sleeves and the gingham apron-sleeves slipping back from the thin childish wrists.

“Eight times seven are eighty-nine,” declared Patience desperately. The hands shook frantically, some of the owners stepped off the line again in their eagerness.

Patience’s cheeks were red as poppies, her eyes were full of tears.

“You may try once more, Patience,” said the teacher, who was distressed herself. She feared lest Squire Bean might think that it was her fault, and that she was not a competent teacher, because Patience Mather did not know eight-times-seven.

So Patience started again–“Eight times seven”–She paused for a mighty mental effort–she must get it right this time. “Six”–she began feebly.

“What!” said Squire Bean suddenly, in a deep voice which sounded like a growl.

Then all at once poor little Patience heard a whisper sweet as an angel’s in her ear: “Fifty-six.”

“Eight times seven are fifty-six,” said she convulsively.

“Right,” said the teacher with a relieved look. The hands went down. Patience stood with her neat little shoes toeing out on the crack. It was over. She had not failed before Squire Bean. For a few minutes, she could think of nothing but that.

The rest of the class had their weak points, moreover their strong points, overlooked in the presence of the company. The first thing Patience knew, ever so many had missed in the nine-table, and she had gone up to the head.

Standing there, all at once a terrible misgiving seized her. “I wouldn’t have gone to the head if I hadn’t been told,” she thought to herself. Martha was next below her; she knew that question in the nines, her hand had been up, so had John Allen’s and Phoebe Adams’.

This was the last class before recess. Patience went soberly out in the yard with the other girls. There was a little restraint over all the scholars. They looked with awe at the Squire’s horse and chaise. The horse was tied after a novel fashion, an invention of the Squire’s own. He had driven a gimlet into the schoolhouse wall, and tied his horse to it with a stout rope. Whenever the Squire drove he carried with him his gimlet, in case there should be no hitching-post. Occasionally house-owners rebelled, but it made no difference; the next time the Squire had occasion to stop at their premises there was another gimlet-hole in the wall. Few people could make their way good against Squire Bean’s.