"I am almost fourteen years old."

"Where was the teacher all this time? Did she know anything about it?"

"No; she was out of the room part of the time, but I don't think she
likes colored people, because last week when Joe Smith was cutting up in
school, she made him get up and sit alongside of me to punish him."

"She should not have done so, but I don't suppose she thought for one
moment how it looked."

"I don't know, but when I told grandma about it, Mrs. Larkins was in the
room, and she said if she had done a child of hers so, she would have
gone there and sauced her head off; but grandma said that she would not
notice it; that the easiest way is the best."

"I think that your grandmother was right; but what did Joe say?"

He said that the teacher didn't spite him; that he would as lieve sit by
me as any girl in school, and that he liked girls."

"A little scamp."

"He says he likes girls because they are so jolly."

"But tell me all about Mary Joseph."

"Well, a mean old thing, she went and told her horrid old father, and
just as I was coming along he took hold of my arm and said he had heard
that I had called his daughter, Miss Mary Joseph, a poor white mick and