He was waiting to see if the schoolma’am said anything about “Under the Mistletoe” with red fire—­and Annie Pilgreen.  If she did, Happy Jack meant to get out of the house with the least possible delay, for he knew well that no man might face the schoolma’am’s direct gaze and refuse to do her bidding,

So far the Jarley Wax-works held the undivided attention of all save Happy Jack; to him there were other things more important.  Even when he was informed that he must be the Chinese Giant and stand upon a coal-oil box for added height, arrayed in one of the big-flowered calico curtains which Annie Pilgreen said she could bring, he was apathetic.  He would be required to swing his head slowly from side to side when wound up—­very well, it looked easy enough.  He would not have to say a word, and he supposed he might shut his eyes if he felt like it.

“As for the tableaux”—­Happy Jack felt a prickling of the scalp and measured mentally the distance to the door—­“We can arrange them later, for they will not require any rehearsing.  The Wax-works we must get to work on as soon as possible.  How often can you come and rehearse?”

“Every night and all day Sundays,” Weary drawled.

Miss Satterly frowned him into good behavior and said twice a week would do.

Happy Jack slipped out and went home feeling like a reprieved criminal; he even tried to argue himself into the belief that Weary was only loading him and didn’t mean a word he said.  Still, the schoolma’am had said there would be tableaux, and it was a cinch she would tell Weary all about it—­seeing they were engaged.  Weary was the kind that found out things, anyway.

What worried Happy Jack most was trying to discover how the dickens Weary found out he liked Annie Pilgreen; that was a secret which Happy Jack had almost succeeded in keeping from himself, even.  He would have bet money no one else suspected it—­and yet here was Weary grinning and telling him he and Annie were cut out for a tableau together.  Happy Jack pondered till he got a headache, and he did not come to any satisfactory conclusion with himself, even then.

The rest of the Happy Family stayed late at the school-house, and Weary and Chip discussed something enthusiastically in a corner with the Little Doctor and the schoolma’am.  The Little Doctor said that something was a shame, and that it was mean, to tease a fellow as bashful as Happy Jack.

Weary urged that sometimes Cupid needed a helping hand, and that it would really be doing Happy a big favor, even if he didn’t appreciate it at the time.  So in the end the girls agreed and the thing was settled.

The Happy Family rode home in the crisp starlight gurgling and leaning over their saddle-horns in spasmodic fits of laughter.  But when they trooped into the bunk-house they might have been deacons returning from prayer meeting so far as their decorous behavior was concerned.  Happy Jack was in bed, covered to his ears and he had his face to the wall.  They cast covert glances at his carroty top-knot and went silently to bed—­which was contrary to habit.