CHAPTER IV.
MADAME MOROZOFF-SMITH.
The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having a window on three sides and a door on the fourth, facing south. Inside there were several rough benches, two tables, an iron stove, and a large easy chair, with a small desk beside it, upon which stood a pair of candles. There were no curtains and no carpets, absolutely no attempts at beautifying the place. But the board-floor was clean.
Olive dressed herself in a flutter of expectation for her first visit to this abode of wisdom.
“I expect everybody will be there, because they’ll all want to see you, little woman,” said her husband, who, tired as he was after his day’s work, changed his earth-stained clothes for a fresh suit. Olive wore a white dress with lavender ribbons, and looked as fresh as a daisy as she tripped along daintily holding up her skirts. She wore the nattiest of boots over the neatest of feet, altogether a bright and unexpected sight upon the glum-looking prairie. It was a quarter of a mile to the Academy, down a road hardly more than a cart-track, and across a dry gully where there were no stepping stones.
As Ezra had predicted, everybody had turned out to welcome the new bride. Uncle David met her at the door.
“Wal, little girl,” he said, “we’re all a-looking out for you. Here’s Sister Mary Winkle, you’ve seen her, and this is her husband, Brother Wright.”
Olive shook hands with a dark, broad-shouldered man who spoke in snaps as if he had been a dog. He had glittering white teeth.
“We’ve been looking to have your husband back,” he said.
“I’m sure you’re very kind,” murmured Olive conventionally.
“We needed him for the ploughing,” snapped Wright.