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little boy and not her. But since he was not looking, she felt
free to let her little fist seek her mouth for comfort.
Nor did Emmy Lou dream, that across the aisle, remorse was eating
into a little boy's soul. Or that, along with remorse there went the image
of one Emmy Lou, defenceless, pink-cheeked, and smiling bravely.
The next morning Emmy Lou was early. She was always early. Since
entering the Primer Class, breakfast had lost its savor to Emmy Lou in
the terror of being late.
But this morning the little boy was there before her. Hitherto his tardy
and clattering arrival had been a daily happening, provocative of
accents sharp and energetic from Miss Clara.
But this morning he was at his desk copying from his Primer on to his
slate. The easy, ostentatious way in which he glanced from slate to
book was not lost upon Emmy Lou, who lost her place whenever her
eyes left the rows of digits upon the blackboard.
Emmy Lou watched the performance. And the little boy's pencil drove
with furious ease and its path was marked with flourishes. Emmy Lou
never dreamed that it was because she was watching that the little boy
was moved to this brilliant exhibition. Presently reaching the end of his
page, he looked up, carelessly, incidentally. It seemed to be borne to
him that Emmy Lou was there, whereupon he nodded. Then, as if
moved by sudden impulse, he dived into his desk, and after ostentatious
search in, on, under it, brought forth a pencil, and held it up for Emmy
Lou to see. Nor did she dream that it was for this the little boy had been
there since before Uncle Michael had unlocked the Primer door.
Emmy Lou looked across at the pencil. It was a slate-pencil. A fine,
long, new slate-pencil grandly encased for half its length in gold paper.
One bought them at the drug-store across from the school, and one paid
for them the whole of five cents.

Just then a bell rang. Emmy Lou got up suddenly. But it was the bell
for school to take up. So she sat down. She was glad Miss Clara was
not yet in her place.
After the Primer Class had filed in, with panting and frosty entrance,
the bell rang again. This time it was the right bell tapped by Miss Clara,
now in her place. So again Emmy Lou got up suddenly and by
following the little girl ahead learned that the bell meant, "go out to the
bench."
The Primer Class according to the degree of its infant precocity was
divided in three sections. Emmy Lou belonged to the third section. It
was the last section and she was the last one in it though she had no
idea what a section meant nor why she was in it.
Yesterday the third section had said, over and over, in chorus, "One and
one are two, two and two are four," etc.--but to-day they said, "Two
and one are three, two and two are four."
Emmy Lou wondered, four what? Which put her behind, so that when
she began again they were saying, "two and four are six." So now she
knew. Four is six. But what is six? Emmy Lou did not know.
When she came back to her desk the pencil was there. The fine, new,
long slate-pencil encased in gold paper. And the little boy was gone. He
belonged to the first section, and the first section was now on the bench.
Emmy Lou leaned across and put the pencil back on the little boy's
desk.
Then she prepared herself to copy digits with her stump of a pencil.
Emmy Lou's were always stumps. Her pencil had a way of rolling off
her desk while she was gone, and one pencil makes many stumps. The
little boy had generally helped her pick them up on her return. But
strangely, from this time, her pencils rolled off no more.
But when Emmy Lou took up her slate there was a whole side filled
with digits in soldierly rows across, so her heart grew light and free
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 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 rejoiced in a fuller
assortment of