"Please, Miss Stone, let me take 'Dodd' and I'll take care of him."

Without waiting for a reply, she came forward, took the boy by the hand
and led him out of the room.

O, Nature, Nature! How inexorable art thou! As people are born, so
are they always, and what do all our strivings to change thy decrees
amount to? Esther Tracy, aged seven, who had never heard of a Theory
and Art of Teaching, and who scarce knew her letters; indeed, has put
to shame Miss Elvira Stone, the handmade disciple of Froebel and the
St. Louis Kindergarten system! She knew what to do with "Dodd," and
Miss Stone didn't. This was the success of one, the failure of the
other. The principle obtains always.




CHAPTER III.

It was fully fifteen minutes before Esther and "Dodd" returned to the
schoolroom. It takes a large reserve force of both patience and
scraping to make presentable such a specimen as "Dodd" was on this
memorable morning. But when the two appeared again, the boy's boots
were clean, and his hair was smoothed down, while the book cover showed
only a wet spot, of deeper tint than the rest of the book, in place of
the black blot that had been so prominent a few minutes before. The
girl led the boy to a seat not far from hers and then returned to her
own little desk.