He meant no harm; but Kyzie thought him very disrespectful to accost her in that way before the children, and she tossed her head without answering him.

Nate was angry.  How polite he had always been to her, never telling her what a queer school she kept!  And now that he had consented to be her grandson in Jimmy’s play, just to please her and the rest of the family, it did seem as if she needn’t put on airs in this way!

“Ahem!” said he; “did you hear about that dreadful earthquake in San Diego?”

There had been a very slight one, but he was trying to tease her.

“No, oh, no!” she replied, throwing up both hands.  “When was it?”

“Last night.  I’m afraid of ’em myself, and if we get one here to-day you needn’t be surprised to see me cut and run right out of the schoolhouse.”

The children looked at him in alarm.  Kyzie could not allow this.

“Oh, you wouldn’t do that!” said she, with another toss of the head.  “Before I’d run away from an earthquake!  Besides, what good would it do?”

By afternoon the news had spread about among the children that there was to be a terrible earthquake that day.  They huddled together like frightened lambs.  The little teacher, wishing to reassure them, planted herself against the wall, and made what Edith would have called a “little preach.”

She pointed out of the window to the clear sky and said she “could not see the least sign of an earthquake.”  But even if one should come they need not be afraid, for their heavenly Father would take care of them.

“And you mustn’t think for a moment of running away!  No, children, be quiet!  Look at me, I am quiet.  I wouldn’t run away if there were fifty earthquakes!”

Strange to say, she had hardly spoken these words when the house began to shake!  They all knew too well what it meant, that frightful rocking and rumbling; the ground was opening under their feet!

Kyzie, though she may have feared it vaguely all along, was taken entirely by surprise, and did—­what do you think?  As quick as a flash, without waiting for a second thought, she turned and jumped out of the window!

Next moment, remembering the children, she screamed for them to follow her, and they poured out of the house, some by the window, some by the door, all shrieking like mad.

It was a wild scene,—­the frantic teacher, the terrified children,—­and Kyzie will never cease to blush every time she recalls it.  For there was no earthquake after all!  It was only the new “colonel” and his men blasting a rock in the mine!

Of course this escapade of the young teacher amused the people of Castle Cliff immensely.  They called it “the little schoolma’am’s earthquake”; and the little schoolma’am heard of it and almost wished it had been a real earthquake and had swallowed her up.

“Oh, Papa Dunlee!  Oh, Mamma Dunlee!” she cried, her cheeks crimson, her eyelids swollen from weeping.  “I keep finding out that I’m not half so much of a girl as I thought I was!  What does make me do such ridiculous things?”