The Master called the roll. There were fifteen boys and thirteen girls.
When the roll was called and the number marked down on a slate in front of the school, the Master said, "First cla.s.s in reading."
All the little boys and girls of the size of Larry and Eileen came forward and stood in a row. There were just three of them: Larry and Eileen and Dennis.
"Larry, you may begin," said the Master.
Larry read the first lines of the lesson. They were, "To do ill is a sin.
"Can you run far?"
Larry wondered who it was that had done ill, and if he were running away because of it, and who stopped him to ask, "Can you run far?" He was thinking about it when Eileen read the next two sentences.
They were, "Is he friend or foe?
"Did you hurt your toe?"
This did not seem to Larry to clear the mystery.
"Next!" called the Master.
Dennis stood next. He read, "He was born in a house on the hill.
"Is rice a kind of corn?
"Get me a cork for the ink jar."
Just at this point the Master went to the open door to drive away some chickens that wanted to come in, and as Dennis had not been told to stop he went right on. Dennis was eight, and he could read quite fast if he kept his finger on the place. This is what he read:--
"The morn is the first part of the day.
"This is my son, I hope you will like him.
"Sin not, for G.o.d hates sin.
"Can a worm walk?
"No, it has no feet, but it can creep.
"Did you meet Fred in the street?
"Weep no more."
By this time the chickens were frightened away and Dennis was nearly out of breath.
The Master came back. Then Eileen had a turn. They could almost say the lessons by heart, they knew them so well.
After the reading-lesson they went back to their benches, and studied in loud whispers, but Larry was thinking of something else. He drew a pig with a curly tail on his slate--like this--
He held it up for Dennis to see. He wanted to tell him about Diddy and the Fair, but the Master saw what he had done. "Come here, Larry McQueen, and bring your slate," he said. "Sure, I"ll teach you better manners. Get up on this stool now, and show yourself." He put a large paper dunce-cap on Larry"s head, and made him sit up on a stool before the whole school!
The other children laughed, all but Eileen. She hid her face on her desk, and two little tears squeezed out between her fingers. But Larry didn"t cry. He pretended he didn"t care at all. He sat there for what seemed a very long time, while other children recited other lessons in reading, and grammar, and arithmetic. The Master gave him this poem to learn by heart:--
"I thank the Goodness and the Grace That on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days, A happy English child."
Larry wondered why he was called an English child, when he knew he was Irish. And he wasn"t so sure either about the "Christian days"; but he learned it and said it to the teacher before he got down off the stool.
It seemed to him that it was about three days before noontime came. At last they were dismissed, and the Twins went out with the other children into the schoolyard to eat their luncheon. Dennis ate his with them, and Larry told him the Secret.
After lunch they went back into the dark, smoky little schoolroom for more lessons, and when three o"clock came, how glad they were to go dancing out into the sunshine again, and walk home along the familiar road, with the air sweet about them, and the little birds singing in the fields.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
THE FAIR.
For many weeks Eileen and Larry kept the Secret. They told no one but Dennis and Grannie Malone, and they both promised they would never, never tell.
Mr McQueen worked hard--early and late--over his turnips and cabbages and potatoes, and Larry and Eileen helped by feeding the pig and chickens, and driving the cows along the roadsides, where they could get fresh sweet gra.s.s to eat.
One evening Mr McQueen said to his wife. "Rent-day comes soon, and next week will be the Fair."
Larry and Eileen heard him say it. They looked at each other and then Eileen went to her Father and said, "Dada, will you take Larry and me to the Fair with you? We want to sell our pig."
"_You_ sell your pig!" cried Mr McQueen. "You mean you want to sell it _yourselves_?"
"You can help us," Eileen answered; "but it"s our pig and we want to sell it, don"t we, Larry?"
Larry nodded his head up and down very hard with his mouth tight shut.
He was so afraid the Secret would jump out of it!
"Well, I never heard the likes of that!" said McQueen. He slapped his knee and laughed.
"We"ve got it all planned," said Eileen. She was almost ready to cry because her Father laughed at her. "We"ve fed the pig and fed her, until she"s so fat she can hardly walk, and we are going to wash her clean, and I have a ribbon to tie on her ear. Diddy will look so fine and stylish, I"m sure some one will want to buy her!"
Mrs McQueen was just setting away a pan of milk. She stopped with the pan in her hand.
"Leave them go," she said.
Mr McQueen smoked awhile in silence. At last he said:--
"It"s your own pig, and I suppose you can go, but you"ll have a long day of it."
"The longer the better," said the Twins.
All that week they carried acorns, and turnip-tops, and everything they could find that was good for pigs to eat, and fed them to Diddy, and she got fatter than ever.
The day before the Fair, they took the scrubbing-pail and the broom, and some water, and scrubbed her until she was all pink and clean. Then they put her in a clean place for the night, and went to bed early so they would be ready to get up in the morning.
When the first c.o.c.k crowed, before daylight the next morning, Eileen"s eyes popped wide open in the dark. The c.o.c.k crowed again.