you--you like teaching, do you?"

"Why, I can't say I'm dead in love with it," says Miss Snell. "Not this
second grade stuff, anyway. It's all I could qualify for, though. This
is my second year at it. I don't suppose you ever taught second grade
yourself, did you?"

Babe almost gasps, but admits that he never has.

"Then take my advice and don't tackle it," says Miss Snell. "Not that
you would, of course, but that's what I tell all the girls who think I
have such a soft snap with my Saturdays off and a two months' summer
vacation. Believe me, you need it after you've drilled forty youngsters
all through a term. D-o-g, dog; c-a-t, cat. Why will the little imps
sing it through their noses? It's the same with the two-times table. And
they can be so stupid! I don't believe I was meant for a teacher,
anyway, for it all seems so useless to me, making them go through all
that, and keeping still for hours and hours, when they want so much to
be outdoors playing around. I'd like to be out myself."

"But after school hours," suggests Babe, "you surely have time to go in
for sports of some kind."

"What do you mean, sports?" asks Miss Snell.

"Oh, tennis, or horseback riding, or golf," says Babe.

She turns around quick and stares at him. "Are you kidding?" she
demands. "Or do you want to get me biting my upper lip? Say, on five
hundred a year, with board to pay and clothes to buy, you can't go in
very heavy for sports. I did blow myself to a tennis racquet and
rubber-soled shoes last summer and my financial standing has been below
par ever since. As for spare time, there's no such thing. When I've
finished helping Ma do the supper dishes there's always a pile of lesson
papers to go over, and reports to make out. And Saturdays I can do my
washing and mending, maybe shampoo my hair or make over a hat or
something. Can you figure in any chance for golf or horseback riding? I
can't, even if club dues were free to schoolma'ams and the board should
send around a lot of spotted ponies for our use. Not that I wouldn't
like to give those things a whirl once. I'm just foolish enough to
think I could do the sport stuff with the best of 'em."

"I'll bet you could, too," says Babe, enthusiastic. "You--you're just
the type."

"Yes," says Miss Snell, "and a fat lot of good that's going to do me. So
what's the use talking? In a year or so I suppose I'll be swinging a
broom around my own little flat, coaxing a kitchen range to hump it