Page:On Our Selection.djvu/226

212 What a voice! I've heard kittens that had n't their eyes open make a fiercer noise.

Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on the school-teacher's bed. I don't know what she had on her own, but we only had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and other remnants of the family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night, the whole confounded pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Do what we boys would—tie ourselves in knots and coil into each other like ropes—we could n't get warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, and glared into the darkness towards the schoolmistress's room, which was n't more than three yards away; then we would lie back again and shiver. We were having a time. But at last we heard a noise from the young lady's room. We listened—all we knew. Miss Ribbone was up and dressing. We could hear her teeth chattering and her knees knocking together. Then we heard her sneak back to bed again and felt disappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was getting up early, and would n't want the bed any longer that night. Then we too crawled out and dressed and tried it that way.

In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said she had "slept very well indeed."

We did n't say anything.

She was n't much of an eater. School-teachers are n't as a