Em said quite shamelessly that she didn't know--it had just been passed over from the next row.
"And I suppose you have no idea where it came from?" said Mr.
Perkins, with his frightful, sardonic grin. "Well, perhaps Cecily can tell us. You may take your seat, Emmeline, and you will remain at the foot of your spelling class for a week as punishment for passing the note. Cecily, come here."
Indignant Em sat down and poor, innocent Cecily was haled forth to public ignominy. She went with a crimson face.
"Cecily," said her tormentor, "do you know who wrote this letter to you?"
Cecily, like a certain renowned personage, could not tell a lie.
"I--I think so, sir," she murmured faintly.
"Who was it?"
"I can't tell you that," stammered Cecily, on the verge of tears.
"Ah!" said Mr. Perkins politely. "Well, I suppose I could easily find out by opening it. But it is very impolite to open other people's letters. I think I have a better plan. Since you refuse to tell me who wrote it, open it yourself, take this chalk, and copy the contents on the blackboard that we may all enjoy them.
And sign the writer's name at the bottom."
"Oh," gasped Cecily, choosing the lesser of two evils, "I'll tell you who wrote it--it was--"Hush!" Mr. Perkins checked her with a gentle motion of his hand.
He was always most gentle when most inexorable. "You did not obey me when I first ordered you to tell me the writer. You cannot have the privilege of doing so now. Open the note, take the chalk, and do as I command you."
Worms will turn, and even meek, mild, obedient little souls like Cecily may be goaded to the point of wild, sheer rebellion.
"I--I won't!" she cried passionately.
Mr. Perkins, martinet though he was, would hardly, I think, have inflicted such a punishment on Cecily, who was a favourite of his, had he known the real nature of that luckless missive. But, as he afterwards admitted, he thought it was merely a note from some other girl, of such trifling sort as school-girls are wont to write; and moreover, he had already committed himself to the decree, which, like those of Mede and Persian, must not alter. To let Cecily off, after her mad defiance, would be to establish a revolutionary precedent.
"So you really think you won't?" he queried smilingly. "Well, on second thoughts, you may take your choice. Either you will do as I have bidden you, or you will sit for three days with"--Mr.
Perkins' eye skimmed over the school-room to find a boy who was sitting alone--"with Cyrus Brisk."
This choice of Mr. Perkins, who knew nothing of the little drama of emotions that went on under the routine of lessons and exercises in his domain, was purely accidental, but we took it at the time as a stroke of diabolical genius. It left Cecily no choice. She would have done almost anything before she would have sat with Cyrus Brisk. With flashing eyes she tore open the letter, snatched up the chalk, and dashed at the blackboard.
In a few minutes the contents of that letter graced the expanse usually sacred to more prosaic compositions. I cannot reproduce it verbatim, for I had no after opportunity of refreshing my memory. But I remember that it was exceedingly sentimental and exceedingly ill-spelled--for Cecily mercilessly copied down poor Cyrus' mistakes. He wrote her that he wore her hare over his hart--"and he stole it," Cecily threw passionately over her shoulder at Mr. Perkins--that her eyes were so sweet and lovely that he couldn't find words nice enuf to describ them, that he could never forget how butiful she had looked in prar meeting the evening before, and that some meels he couldn't eat for thinking of her, with more to the same effect and he signed it "yours till deth us do part, Cyrus Brisk."
As the writing proceeded we scholars exploded into smothered laughter, despite our awe of Mr. Perkins. Mr. Perkins himself could not keep a straight face. He turned abruptly away and looked out of the window, but we could see his shoulders shaking.
When Cecily had finished and had thrown down the chalk with bitter vehemence, he turned around with a very red face.
"That will do. You may sit down. Cyrus, since it seems you are the guilty person, take the eraser and wipe that off the board.
Then go stand in the corner, facing the room, and hold your arms straight above your head until I tell you to take them down."
Cyrus obeyed and Cecily fled to her seat and wept, nor did Mr.
Perkins meddle with her more that day. She bore her burden of humiliation bitterly for several days, until she was suddenly comforted by a realization that Cyrus had ceased to persecute her.
He wrote no more letters, he gazed no longer in rapt adoration, he brought no more votive offerings of gum and pencils to her shrine.
At first we thought he had been cured by the unmerciful chaffing he had to undergo from his mates, but eventually his sister told Cecily the true reason. Cyrus had at last been driven to believe that Cecily's aversion to him was real, and not merely the defence of maiden coyness. If she hated him so intensely that she would rather write that note on the blackboard than sit with him, what use was it to sigh like a furnace longer for her? Mr. Perkins had blighted love's young dream for Cyrus with a killing frost.
Thenceforth sweet Cecily kept the noiseless tenor of her way unvexed by the attentions of enamoured swains.
