What Might Happen if Books and Bells Could Talk

The little schoolhouse was painted white, with green shutters. Over the front gable was a little old-fashioned belfry. In it swung a little old-fashioned school bell, for this was a country district school, with scarcely a house in sight.

One bright September morning, the opening day of school, forty or fifty noisy children were drawn up in line, waiting for the bell to stop ringing.

When the bell stopped, the children marched[43] inside and took their seats facing the teacher’s desk.

“Order!” tapped the desk bell, and the room was suddenly still.

The pupils looked to see who had tapped the bell, for the teacher was nowhere to be seen.

They saw the new school-books piled on the platform and on the teacher’s desk—but where was the teacher?

“I am the new Spelling Book, full of hard words,” said the top book of the pile of spellers on the right-hand side of the platform.

“I am the new Reader, full of good stories,” announced the top one of a stack of readers on the left-hand side of the platform.

The pupils were startled. It was so quiet you could hear the clock tick.

“I am the new Arithmetic, full of problems harder to crack than the hickory nuts in the woods,” spoke up a book on the teacher’s desk; “but why don’t you find your teacher?”

No one answered. The children only sat half-frightened, wondering what would happen next.

“I am the new Language Book,” declared another book in the row on the teacher’s desk; “but who will teach you your mother tongue?”

Everyone was still. Only the clock ticked on.

[44]

“I am the Geography; in my pages are maps of all countries. Who will give you permission to look?” It was the largest book of all that asked this question.

The pupils stared opened-eyed over the desk at the teacher’s empty chair. They saw nothing but a sunbeam coming in through the window—full of particles of shining dust.

“There must be somebody hiding,” spoke up one boy who could stand the strain no longer.

“I am going to see,” said another boy braver than the rest.

Getting up, he looked behind the desk and in the closet, but nothing was to be seen, not even a mouse.

“Let us go out and look for the teacher,” he cried. With one accord they ran pell-mell out the door into the playgroun............