The Imp and the Drum
blue blouse, his taps were too light to cover the sound of the tramping feet.
Miss Eleanor's cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the children were getting restless. She did not know what to do.
"Oh, dear! Who would have thought it was so hard?" she exclaimed pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again.
"What is it, Perry?" she asked.
"I can—I can play a drum, Miss Eleanor!" he burst out.
She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most things.
"This is n't a play drum, you know, dear; it's a real one," she said.
"But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up like a good 'un!" the Imp exploded again.
Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among
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