from
the weight of digits, and she gave her time to the washing of her desk,
a thing in which her soul revelled, and for which, patterning after her
little girl neighbors, she kept within that desk a bottle of soapy water
and rags of a gray and unpleasant nature, that never dried, because of
their frequent using. When Emmy Lou first came to school, her cleaning
paraphernalia consisted of a sponge secured by a string to her slate,
which was the badge of the new and the unsophisticated comer. Emmy Lou
had quickly learned that, and no one now rejoiced in a fuller assortment
of soap, bottle, and rags than she, nor did a sponge longer dangle from
the frame of her slate.

On coming in from recess this same day, Emmy Lou found the pencil on her
desk again, the beautiful new pencil in the gilded paper. She put it
back.

But when she reached home, the pencil, the beautiful pencil that cost
all of five cents, was in her companion box along with her stumps and
her sponge and her grimy little slate rags. And about the pencil was
wrapped a piece of paper. It had the look of the margin of a Primer
page. The paper bore marks. They were not digits.

Emmy Lou took the paper to Aunt Cordelia. They were at dinner.

"Can't you read it, Emmy Lou?" asked Aunt Katie, the prettiest aunty.

Emmy Lou shook her head.

"I'll spell the letters," said Aunt Louise, the youngest aunty.

But that did not help Emmy Lou one bit.

Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She doesn't seem to be catching up," she
said.

"No," said Aunt Katie.

"No," agreed Aunt Louise.

"Nor--on," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of the aunties, lighting his
cigar to go downtown.

Aunt Cordelia spread the paper out. It bore the words:

"It is for you."

[Illustration: "Emmy Lou shook her head."]

So Emmy Lou put the pencil away in the companion, and tucked it about
with the grimy slate rags that no harm might befall it. And the next day
she took it out and used it. But first she looked over at the little
boy. The little boy was busy. But when she looked up again, he was
looking.

The little boy grew red, and wheeling suddenly, fell to copying digits
furiously. And from that moment on the little boy was moved to strange
behavior.

Three times before recess did he, boldly ignoring the preface of
upraised hand, swagger up to Miss Clara's desk. And going and coming,
the little boy's boots with copper toes and run-down heels marked with
thumping emphasis upon the