nd.

"Ain't I swept over every inch of this here school-house myself and
carried the trash outten a dust-pan?" grumbled Uncle Michael, with what
inference nobody just then stopped to inquire. Then with the air of a
mistreated, aggrieved person who feels himself a victim, he paused
before a certain door on the second floor, and fitted a key in its lock.
"Here it is then, No. 9, to satisfy the lady," and he flung open the
door. The light of Uncle Michael's lantern fell full upon the wide-eyed,
terror-smitten person of Emmy Lou, in her desk, awaiting, her miserable
little heart knew not what horror.

"She--she told me to stay," sobbed Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia's arms,
"and I stayed; and the Man came, and I hid in the coal-box!"

And Aunt Cordelia, holding her close, sobbed too, and Aunt Katie cried,
and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor cried, and Uncle Charlie passed his
plump white hand over his eyes, and said, "Pshaw!" And the teacher of
the First Reader, when she heard about it next day, cried hardest of
them all, so hard that not even Aunt Cordelia could cherish a feeling
against her.

HARE-AND-TORTOISE OR THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE

There was head and foot in the Second Reader. Emmy Lou heard it
whispered the day of her entrance into the Second-Reader room.

Once, head and foot had meant Aunt Cordelia above the coffee tray and
Uncle Charlie below the carving-knife. But at school head and foot meant
little girls bobbing up and down, descending and ascending the scale of
excellency.

There were no little boys. At the Second Reader the currents of the
sexes divided, and little boys were swept out of sight. One mentioned
little boys now in undertones.

But head and foot meant something beside little girls bobbing out of
their places on the bench to take a neighbor's place. Head and foot
meant tears--that is, when the bobbing was downward and not up. However,
if one bobbed down to-day there was the chance of bobbing up
to-morrow--that is, with all but Emmy Lou and a little girl answering
to the call of "Kitty McKoeghany."

Step by step Kitty went up, and having reached the top, Kitty stayed
there.

And step by step, Emmy Lou, from her original, alphabetically determined
position beside Kitty, went down, and then, only because further descent
was impossible, Emmy Lou stayed there. But since the foot was nearest
the platform Emmy Lou took that comfort out of the situation, for the
Teacher sat o