"I'll tell ma," was their parrot cry: and that meant boxes on the ear.
"I up with my hand" was a favourite phrase of Aunt Lena's.
In the evenings Ina must always be sung to sleep, and sometimes would not go off for more than an hour. Then Mrs. Kennedy would say briskly:
"Now get your lessons done, Porpie!"
But by then Poppy's head would be aching and her eyes would hardly keep open, and what she did learn would not stay in her head until the next morning.
And after all, none of the teachers seemed to care much whether she learned them or not. If by accident she did them well, she got no praise; if she did them ill she was scolded and the lesson was "returned"—that meant being kept in on Friday afternoons until the lesson had been learnt or rewritten. But when Friday afternoon came, Poppy could not stay; there were the children to be taken out, and her ears would be boxed if she were too late to do that; she would get no tea, and the whole house would be thoroughly upset. So the "returned" lessons had to go to the wall. She would slink home when supposed to be taking recreation in the play-ground before the "returned" bell rang. That meant bad conduct marks, unpopularity with the teachers, and as the deserted Fridays mounted up—all hope lost of gaining a prize. After a while the teachers said she was incorrigible, and gave her no more attention.
"I wonder you bother to come to school at all, Poppy," was the favourite gibe of Miss Briggs.
When examination days came she did badly, except in history and geography, which she liked and found easy.
Break-up day was the worst of all.
The girls all came in their pretty soft white frocks and looked sweet. Only Poppy was ugly, in a piqué frock, starched like a board, her hair frizzed out in a bush, her pale face looking yellow and sullen against the over-blued white dress; her long legs and her narrow feet longer and narrower than ever in white stockings and elastic-sided boots.