"I guess so, mebbe. But I didn't mean to make no fuss. I—I—why, I just get so mad still! I hadn't ought to pull her hair, for that hurts vonderful much."
"Then you might tell her to-morrow how sorry you are about it."
"Yes." Phœbe looked up at the lovely face of the teacher. She felt that some explanation of Mary's tale was necessary. "Why, now," she stammered, "you know—you know that Mary said I said I don't like you?"
"Yes."
"Why, this summer once, early in June it was"—the child hung her head and spoke almost inaudibly—"you laughed at me and called me a Little Dutchie!" She looked up bravely then and spoke faster, "And for that, it's just for that I don't like you like all the others do a'ready."
"Laughed at you!" Miss Lee was perplexed. "You must be mistaken."
But Phœbe shook her head resolutely and told the story of the pink rose. Miss Lee listened at first with an incredulous smile upon her face, then with dawning remembrance.
"You dear child!" she cried as Phœbe ended her quaint recital. "So you are the little girl of the sunbonnet and the rose! I thought this morning I had seen you before. But you don't understand! I didn't laugh at you in the way you think. Why, I laughed at you just as we laugh at a dear little baby, because we love it and because it is so dear and sweet. And Dutchie was just a pet name. Can't you understand? You were so quaint and interesting in your sunbonnet and with the pink rose pressed to your face. Can't you understand?"
Phœbe smiled radiantly, her face beaming with happiness.
"Ach, ain't that simple now of me, Miss Lee?" she said in her old-fashioned manner. "I was so dumb and thought you was makin' fun of me, and just for that all summer I was wishin' school would not start ever. And I was sayin' all the time I ain't goin' to like you. But now I do like you," she added softly.