Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/19



HE master in charge of the great silent schoolroom touched a bell. Instantly the silence was broken with a variety of sounds. There was an outburst of confused speech, a scraping of chairs and feet on the wooden floor, a slamming together of books, and a banging of desk-lids. For the touching of the bell signified that the last study hour of this September afternoon was ended.

The boys issuing from the brick building divided into two streams, which turned to right and left, moving up or down the maple-shaded road toward the two big dormitories of St. Timothy's School. Some of the boys were frolicking, chasing one another, playing leap-frog as they went, out in the middle of the road; but most of them moved languidly along the sidewalk in groups of three and