"Never is a long day, Annette, but go on with your story."

"Well, after the teacher put her in the seat next to me she began to
wriggle and squirm and I asked her if anything was biting her, because
if there was, I did not want it to get on me."

"Oh, Annette, what a girl you are; why did you notice her? What did she
say?"

"She said if there was, it must have got there since the teacher put
her on that seat, and it must have come from me."

"Well, Mary Joseph knows how to scratch as well as you do."

"Yes, she is a real scratch cat."

"And what are you, my dear; a pattern saint?"

"No," said Annette, as the ruefulness of her face relaxed into a smile,
"but that isn't all; when I went to eat my lunch, she said she wasn't
used to eating with niggers. Then I asked her if her mother didn't eat
with the pigs in the old country, and she said that she would rather eat
with them than to eat with me, and then she called me a nigger and I
called her a poor white mick."

"Oh, Annette, I am so sorry; I am afraid that trouble may come out of
this fuss, and then it is so wrong and unlady-like for you to be
quarrelling that way. Do you know how old you are?"