"So I have observed. A great saving of shoes."

"And they had a school last summer," went on Kyzie, resolutely. "A young
girl taught it who boarded where we do. Mr. Templeton said she did it
for fun."

"Indeed!"

"But they didn't like her a bit. I could teach as well as she did
anyway, mamma, for she just went around the room boxing their ears."

"Is it possible, Katharine?" Mrs. Dunlee was serious enough now. "To
box a child's ears is simply brutal!"

"I knew you'd say so, mamma; but that was just what Miss Severance did.
Of course I wouldn't touch their ears any more than I would fly!"

Mrs. Dunlee turned now and regarded her daughter attentively.

"But how did you ever happen to take up this sudden fancy for teaching,
dear? It's all new to me. What first made you think of it--at your age?
Can you tell?"

"Oh, mamma, I've been thinking about it, off and on, for a year. Ever
since I was at Willowbrook last summer and heard Grandma Parlin talk
about _her_ first school. Why, don't you remember, she was just
fourteen, she said, nearly three months younger than I am."

Mrs. Dunlee understood it all now, and said to herself:--