Jimmy’s face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression of astonishment and aggrieved innocence.  “Aw, you’re off yer base!  I wouldn’t ha’ gone to your darned old picnic—­an’ wasn’t I in the room every minute this afternoon?”

“No, you weren’t—­you weren’t!” More of the girls had come to the attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him.  “You got excused to get a drink of water!  And so did Pete Roberts!  You did it then!  You did it then!  You did—­”

“Hush, children!  Not so loud!” said Miss Miller. “You’ll have the Principal down here!”

At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, lowered their voices.  Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest—­“Aw, ‘twas a tramp must ha’ got in an’ saw—­” when he was pushed out of the way by a small, vigorous hand.  Judith Marshall walked in, her face very pale.  She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, as though she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed like those of an enraged squirrel.  “I threw your picnic things in the river,” she said.

The older children recoiled from this announcement, and from the small, tense figure.  Even the teacher kept her distance, as though Judith were some dangerous little animal,

“What in the world did you do that for?” she asked in a tone of stupefaction.

“Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things,” said Judith, “and if they weren’t going to let C-C-Camilla go to the picnic, I wasn’t going to let them have any picnic!”

The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as white as her sister, and said helplessly, “Sylvia, do you know what she’s talking about?”

Sylvia went forward and took Judith’s hand.  She was horrified beyond words by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister.  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, to Miss Miller’s question, speaking, for all her agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very coherently.  “Yes, ma’am, I know.  Everybody was saying this morning that the Fingals’ mother was a negro, and so the girls weren’t going to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad.”

“Why, she didn’t know Camilla very well, did she?” asked the teacher, astonished.

“No, ma’am,” said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes.  “It just made her mad because the girls weren’t going to invite her because she didn’t think it was anyhow her fault.”

“Whose fault!” cried the teacher, completely lost.

“Camilla’s,” quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall.

There was a pause. “Well—­I never!” exclaimed the teacher, whose parents had come from New England.  She was entirely at a loss to know how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision.  “You children go right straight home, along out of the building this minute,” she commanded.  “You know you’re not allowed to loiter around after school-hours.  Sylvia and Judith, stay here. I’m going to take you up to the Principal’s office.”