The Web of Life

of her calamity. She described the struggle for appointment. If it had not been for her father's old friend, a dentist, she would never have s

, but if a good-natured schoolteacher hadn't coached her on special points in pedagogy, sc

y in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the atmosphere of the great engine to which she had given herself. A mere isolated

described the contortions of her kaleidoscope as they came to mind haphazard, with an indifference, a precis

ng. How could one teach all those? Most of our time, even in 'good' rooms, is taken up in keeping order. I was afraid each day would be my last, when Miss M'Gann, who was the most friendly one of the teachers, told me what to do. 'Give the drawing teacher something nice fro

ried teachers' scare. Every month or so some one starts the rumor that the Board is going to remove all married

gh did much to do away with the constraint, the tension of th

o nearly deaf that she can hear nothing, and they say she can never remember where the lessons are: the pupils conduct the rec

take it so lightly, accept it so humanly? It was the best the world held out for her: to be permitted to remain in the system, to serve out her twenty or thirty years, drying up in the thin, hot air of the schoolroom; then, ultimately, when relea

hat, satisfied probably that this unexpected renewal of their connection was most casual-too fortunate to happen again. So she took hi

t it was a thoroughfare. At the corner there was an advertising sign of The Hub Clothing House; and beneath, on one spoke of a tiny hub, This is Ninety-first Street; and at right angles on another spoke, This is Washington Avenue. He rem

gested faintly the country. Just beyond the tracks of a railroad the ground rose almost imperceptibly, and a grove of stunte

ed, relieved to find a little oas

operatives in the factories at Grand Crossing and on the railroads. Many of the children can scarcely understand a word of English,-and their habits! But they are better than the Poles, in the Halsted Street district, or the Russian

ttage built of yellow "Milwaukee" brick. It was quite hidden from the street by the oak grove. The lane ended just beyond in a tangle of weeds and undergrowth. On the west si

ce, so far from the scattered hamlets, she had got it for a small rent. The house was a tiny imitation of a castle, with crenelated parapet and tower. Crumbling now and wea

plot and the bronzed oaks beyond, as if loath to break the intimacy of the last half hour. In the solitude, the dead silence of the place, there seemed to lurk misfortune and pain. Suddenly fro

p with clouds. Beyond the oak trees, in the southern sky, great tongues of flame shot up into the dark heavens