III.

In the lower three grades, a single teacher with the title of Class Principal had complete charge of the morals, manners and instruction of the children in his grade.  Keith had the luck of falling into the hands of one of the kindest and shrewdest men in the school—­a man who seemed to understand that his mission was to guide rather than to drive, and who, in addition to his broad, human sympathy, possessed a genuine sense of humour.

His name was Lector Dahlstroem, but everybody spoke of him as Dally, and little did he care.  He was large of body and large of mind, with a most impressive girth and a voice that commanded attention without grating on supersensitive nerves.  He had very rarely to assert his authority, but if ever the need arose, no one remained long in doubt as to who was the master, and a recurrence of the offense was unheard of.  Even on such occasions he never used corporal punishment, although at that time the right of such administration still remained with him.  He simply appealed to the self-respect and the sense of fairness in his pupils, asking no one to render what lay beyond his capacity.  The main secret of his hold on the boys, however, lay in his ability to keep them interested, and to do so he frequently broke away from the text books and time-worn pedagogical methods.  If there was anything he deposed, it was learning things by rote.

The boys sat in rows of four and were placed with regard to scholarship and behaviour, so that the best pupils were farthest away from the teacher and the least reliable ones right in front of him.  Keith found himself number two in the class, and that position at first tickled his pride considerably.  Later, as the term went by, and boys now and then were shifted up or down, he began to wonder why he always remained number two.  It was reassuring in a way, as showing that he held his own, but he failed to see why another boy should always remain primus, although his performances during lessons did not surpass those of Keith.  Once he dared even give utterance to some such speculation in his father’s hearing, but was promptly put down with a stern: 

“If the teacher puts another boy above you, he has probably some very good reason for doing so, and you had better feel thankful for being where you are in the class.”

“Humph,” said his mother.  “You forget, Carl, that the father of that boy is one of the richest bankers in the city.”

This was a way of looking at it which had never occurred to Keith.  He was pretty contented, on the whole, and like all the rest, he placed the most implicit trust in the teacher’s justice.  From the very start, he had a feeling that Dally kept a special eye on him, and yet he was rarely spoken to except when questions were passed around.  Even then the teacher was rather apt to leave Keith alone to such an extent that the boy now and then began to think himself disliked.  Always, however, when he got to this point, some little incident would occur that restored his faith both in himself and in the teacher.