ger ones were
dismissed for recess.

"Cynthy Leverett, come up here and see how many words you can spell. You
ought to be ashamed, a big girl like you staying behind in next to the
baby class."

Cynthia's face was scarlet. Alas! She had been so interested watching
and listening she had not studied at all. But the words were rather easy
and she did know all but two.

"Now you take the next line and those two over again. See if you can't
get them all learned by noon."

The next little girl, who could not have been more than six, missed a
number. She had a queer drawl in her voice.

"What did I tell you, Jane Mason? And you have missed more than two.
Hold out your hand!"

The switch came down on the poor little hand with an angry swish.
Cynthia winched.

"Now you go back and study. No going out to play for you this morning.
Jane Mason, you're the biggest dunce in school."

The two other girls did better. Then the bell rang and the girls came in
with flushed and laughing faces.

Cynthia studied her two words over until they ceased to have any
meaning. At twelve they were all dismissed.

"Isn't she a hateful old thing?" said Janie Mason, when they were
outside of the door. "I wish I was big enough to strike back. I don't
like school anyhow. Do you?"

"I--I don't know. I have never been before."

Several of the other girls swarmed around her with curious eyes.

"What a pretty frock!" began Betty Upham. "I suppose it's your Sunday
best, with all that work."

"Betty said you were an Injun," said another. "I never saw an Injun who
didn't have coarse, straight, black hair, and yours is lightish and
curls. I'd so love to have curly hair."

"I'm not the kind of Indians you have here," she returned indignantly.
"I was born right here in Salem. I've lived in Calcutta and in China,
and been to Batavia, and ever so many places."

"Then you ain't an Injun at all! Betty, how could you?"

"Well, that's what some of them said. Maybe your mother was an Injun!"
looking as if she had fixed the uncertain suspicion.

"No, she wasn't. She lived here part of the time. She was born in
Boston."

They glanced at each other in a kind of upbraiding fashion.

"And you had to be put with the little children! Aren't there any
schools in that place you came from? It's a heathen country. Our
minister prays for it. Don't you have any churches either? What do
people do when they are grown up if they never go to school?"

"Are you