And she so behaved to all the people she met, and by that means obtained the name of Goody Two-Shoes, though her playmates called her Old Goody Two-Shoes.
Little Margery was very happy in being with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who were very charitable and good to her, and had agreed to breed her up with their family. But at last they were obliged to send her away, for the people who had ruined her father commanded them to do this, and could at any time have ruined them.
Little Margery saw how good and how wise Mr. Smith was, and concluded that this was owing to his great learning; therefore she wanted, of all things, to learn to read. For this purpose she used to meet the little boys and girls as they came from school, borrow their books, and sit down and read till they returned. By this means she soon got more learning than any of her playmates, and laid the following scheme for instructing those who were more ignorant than herself. She found that only the following letters were required to spell all the words in the world; but as some of these letters are large and some small, she with her knife cut out of several pieces of wood ten sets of each of these:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
And six sets of these:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
And having got an old spelling-book, she made her companions set up all the words they wanted to spell, and after that she taught them to compose sentences. You know what a sentence is, my dear. I will be good, is a sentence; and is made up, as you see, of several words.
Every morning she used to go round to teach the children, with these rattletraps in a basket. I once went her rounds with her. It was about seven o'clock in the morning when we set out on this important business, and the first house we came to was Farmer Wilson's. Here Margery stopped, and ran up to the door, tap, tap, tap.
"Who's there?"