and calling some small delinquent to order,
Emmy Lou's heart sank within her.

Now Miss Clara's tones were tart because she did not know what to do
with this late comer. In a class of seventy, spare time is not offering
for the bringing up of the backward. The way of the Primer teacher was
not made easy in a public school of twenty-five years ago.

So Miss Clara told the new pupil to copy digits.

Now what digits were, Emmy Lou had no idea, but being shown them on the
blackboard, she copied them diligently. And as the time went on, Emmy
Lou went on copying digits. And her one endeavor being to avoid the
notice of Miss Clara, it happened the needs of Emmy Lou were frequently
lost sight of in the more assertive claims of the seventy.

Emmy Lou was not catching up, and it was January.

But to-day was to be different. The little boy was nodding and
beckoning. So far the seventy had left Emmy Lou alone. As a general
thing the herd crowds toward the leaders, and the laggard brings up the
rear alone.

But to-day the little boy was beckoning. Emmy Lou looked up. Emmy Lou
was pink-cheeked and chubby and in her heart there was no guile. There
was an ease and swagger about the little boy. And he always knew when to
stand up, and what for. Emmy Lou more than once had failed to stand up,
and Miss Clara's reminder had been sharp. It was when a bell rang one
must stand up. But what for, Emmy Lou never knew, until after the
others began to do it.

But the little boy always knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the
bench, glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat.
To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou
was glad to have the little boy beckon her.

And in her heart there was no guile. That the little boy should be
holding out an end of a severed india-rubber band and inviting her to
take it, was no stranger than other things happening in the Primer World
every day.

The very manner of the infant classification breathed mystery, the sheep
from the goats, so to speak, the little girls all one side the central
aisle, the little boys all the other--and to overstep the line of
demarcation a thing too dreadful to contemplate.

Many things were strange. That one must get up suddenly when a bell
rang, was strange.

And to copy digits until one's chubby fingers, tightly gripping the
pencil, ached, and then to be expected to take a sponge and wash those
digits off, was stran