if I told him."

"Then do you mean you're going to tell him my foolish remark?" she
giggled.

"No use," I said. "He knows it now. Every time he parts his hair he
sees how good looking he is. He doesn't care. He says the only thing
that counts with a man is to be big, strong, manly, and well educated."

"Is he well educated?"

"Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will
go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it
is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn
more important things each day, and by the time you are old enough to
die, you have almost enough sense to know how to live comfortably.
Pity, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Miss Amelia, "it's an awful pity, but it's the truth. Is
your mother being educated too?"

"Whole family," I said. "We learn all the time, mother most of any,
because father always looks out for her. You see, it takes so much of
her time to manage the house, and sew, and knit, and darn, that she
can't study so much as the others; so father reads all the books to
her, and tells her about everything he finds out, and so do all of us.
Just ask her if you think she doesn't know things."

"I wouldn't know what to ask," said Miss Amelia.

"Ask how long it took to make this world, who invented printing, where
English was first spoken, why Greeley changed his politics, how to make
bluebell perfumery, cut out a dress, or cure a baby of worms. Just ask
her!"

Miss Amelia threw a peach stone through a fence crack and hit a pig.
It was a pretty neat shot.

"I don't need ask any of that," she said scornfully. "I know all of it
now."

"All right! What is best for worms?" I asked.

"Jayne's vermifuge," said Miss Amelia.

"Wrong!" I cried. "That's a patent medicine. Tea made from male fern
root is best, because there's no morphine in it!"

The supper bell rang and I was glad of it. Peaches are not very
filling after all, for I couldn't see but that Miss Amelia ate as much
as any of us. For a few minutes every one was slow in speaking, then
mother asked about cleaning the schoolhouse, Laddie had something to
explain to father about corn mould, Sally and the dressmaker talked
about pipings--not a bird--a new way to fold goods to make trimmings,
and soon everything was going on the same as if the new teacher were
not there. I noticed that she kept her head straight, and was not
nearly so glib-tongued and bird