What Katy Did | Page 8

befe for diner, and cabage, and potato and appel
sawse, and rice puding. I do not like rice puding when it is like ours.
Charley Slack's kind is rele good. Mush and sirup for tea.
March 19.--Forgit what did. John and me saved our pie to take to
schule.
March 21.--Forgit what did. Gridel cakes for brekfast. Debby didn't fry
enuff.
March 24.--This is Sunday. Corn befe for dinnir. Studdied my Bibel
leson. Aunt Issy said I was gredy. Have resollved not to think so much
about things to ete. Wish I was a beter boy. Nothing pertikeler for tea.
March 25.--Forgit what did.
March 27.--Forgit what did.
March 29.--Played.

March 31.--Forgit what did.
April 1.--Have dissided not to kepe a jurnal enny more."
Here ended the extracts; and it seemed as if only a minute had passed
since they stopped laughing over them, before the long shadows began
to fall, and Mary came to say that all of them must come in to get ready
for tea. It was dreadful to have to pick up the empty baskets and go
home, feeling that the long, delightful Saturday was over, and that there
wouldn't be another for a week. But it was comforting to remember that
Paradise was always there; and that at any moment when Kate and
Aunt Izzie were willing, they had only to climb a pair of bars--very
easy ones, and without any fear of an angel with flaming sword to stop
the way--enter in, and take possession of their Eden.
CHAPTER III
THE DAY OF SCRAPES
Mrs. Knight's school, to which Katy and Clover and Cecy went, stood
quite at the other end of the town from Dr. Carr's. It was a low,
one-story building and had a yard behind it, in which the girls played at
recess. Unfortunately, next door to it was Miss Miller's school, equally
large and popular, and with a yard behind it also. Only a high board
fence separated the two playgrounds.
Mrs. Knight was a stout, gentle woman, who moved slowly, and had a
face which made you think of an amiable and well-disposed cow. Miss
Miller, on the contrary, had black eyes, with black corkscrew curls
waving about them, and was generally brisk and snappy. A constant
feud raged between the two schools as to the respective merits of the
teachers and the instruction. The Knight girls for some unknown reason,
considered themselves genteel and the Miller girls vulgar, and took no
pains to conceal this opinion; while the Miller girls, on the other hand,
retaliated by being as aggravating as they knew how. They spent their
recesses and intermissions mostly in making faces through the
knot-holes in the fence, and over the top of it when they could get there,
which wasn't an easy thing to do, as the fence was pretty high. The

Knight girls could make faces too, for all their gentility. Their yard had
one great advantage over the other: it possessed a wood-shed, with a
climbable roof, which commanded Miss Miller's premises, and upon
this the girls used to sit in rows, turning up their noses at the next yard,
and irritating the foe by jeering remarks. "Knights" and "Millerites," the
two schools called each other; and the feud raged so high, that
sometimes it was hardly safe for a Knight to meet a Millerite in the
street; all of which, as may be imagined, was exceedingly improving
both to the manners and morals of the young ladies concerned.
One morning, not long after the day in Paradise, Katy was late. She
could not find her things. Her algebra, as she expressed it, had "gone
and lost itself," her slate was missing, and the string was off her
sun-bonnet. She ran about, searching for these articles and banging
doors, till Aunt Izzie was out of patience.
"As for your algebra," she said, "if it is that very dirty book with only
one cover, and scribbled all over the leaves, you will find it under the
kitchen-table. Philly was playing before breakfast that it was a pig: no
wonder, I'm sure, for it looks good for nothing else. How you do
manage to spoil your school-books in this manner, Katy, I cannot
imagine. It is less than a month since your father got you a new algebra,
and look at it now--not fit to be carried about. I do wish you would
realize what books cost!
"About your slate," she went on, "I know nothing; but here is the
bonnet-string;" taking it out of her pocket.
"Oh, thank you!" said Katy, hastily sticking it on with a pin.
"Katy Carr!" almost screamed Miss Izzie, "what are you about?
Pinning on your bonnet-string! Mercy on me, what shiftless thing will
you do next? Now stand still, and don't