plenty of people here who think they know a lot and
don't want to know any more, but you're an entirely new kind."

Pearl laughed--the easy, infectious laugh that won for her so many
friends.

"You see," she said, "I've got to learn as fast as I can, now while
the money lasts, for there's so many of us. I'm ignorant for me age,
too. I'm thirteen now, and I haven't been to school since I was ten,
but I should be able to learn a whole lot, for I'm going to come as
long as this dress lasts anyway, and I've got sateen sleeves to put
on over it past the elbows to save it, for that's where it'll likely
go first, and I'm takin' long steps to keep my boots from wearin'
out, and I'm earnin' a little money now, for I've got the job of
takin' care of the school, me and Jimmy."

The schoolmaster forgot that he was discouraged, forgot that he had
been having a hard time with Grade VIII's geography, forgot that he
had just made up his mind to quit teaching. He saw nothing but a
little girl standing eagerly before him, telling him her hopes, and
depending on him to help her to realize them.

He put out his hand impulsively, and took hers.

"Pearl," he said, "you're all right!"

That night, when Pearl went home, she gave her family the story of
the Magna Charta, drawing such a vivid picture of King John's general
depravity that even her father's indignation was stirred.

"That lad'll have to mend his ways," he said seriously, as he opened
the stove door to get a coal for his pipe, "or there will be trouble
coming his way."

"And you bet there was," Pearl replied. "What did they do but all git
together one day, after they got the crop cut, and they drawed up a
list of things that he couldn't do, and then they goes to him, and
says they: 'Sign this, yer Highness;' and he takes the paper and
wipes his glasses on his hanky, and he reads them all over polite
enough, and then he says, says he, handing it back: 'The divil I
will!'"

"Did he really say that, Pearlie?" her Mother asked.

"Did he?" Pearl said scornfully. "He said worse than that, Ma; and
then they says, says they: 'Sign it, or there'll be another man on
yer job.' And says he, brave as ye please: 'I'll see ye some place
before I sign it,' and with that what did they do but jist sit down
where they were, lit their pipes, as unconcerned as could be, and
says they: 'Take yer time, your Highness, we're not in a hurry; we
bro't our dinners,' says they, 'an' we'll stay ri