His laugh was reassuring.
“Why, Janey, I am just twice her age.”
“She is like a little doll, isn’t she, David?”
“No; like a little princess.”
The next morning Little Teacher came to show them her present from Joe.
“I am sure he chose a camera so I could take your pictures to send to him,” she declared. 109
“Miss Rhody wants her picture taken in the black silk Joe gave her. If you will take it, she won’t have to spend the money he sent her,” said the thoughtful David.
Little Teacher was very enthusiastic over this proposition, and offered to accompany him at once to secure the picture. Miss Rhody was greatly excited over the event. Ever since the dress had been finished she had been a devotee at the shrine of two hooks in her closet from which was suspended the long-coveted garment, waiting for an occasion that would warrant its débût. She nervously dressed for the “likeness,” for which she assumed her primmest pose. A week later David sent Joe a picture of Miss Rhody standing stiff and straight on her back porch and arrayed, with all the glory of the lilies of the field, in her new silk. 110
CHAPTER X
When the hot, close-cropped fields took on their first suggestion of autumn and a fuller note was heard in the requiem of the songbirds, when the twilights were of purple and the morning skies delicately mackereled in gray, David entered the little, red, country schoolhouse. M’ri’s tutelage and his sedulous application to Jud’s schoolbooks saved him from the ignominy of being classified with the younger children.