Oh, how she wanted Aunt Frances to take care of her! Nobody cared a thing about her! Nobody understood her but Aunt Frances! She wouldn’t go back at all to Putney Farm. She would just walk on and on till she was lost, and the night would come and she would lie down and freeze to death, and then wouldn’t Cousin Ann feel ... Someone called to her, “Isn’t this Betsy?”
She looked up astonished. A young girl in a gingham dress and a white apron like those at Putney Farm stood in front of a tiny, square building, like a toy house. “Isn’t this Betsy?” asked the young girl again. “Your Cousin Ann said you were coming to school today and I’ve been looking out for you. But I saw you going right by, and I ran out to stop you.”
“Why, where is the school?” asked Betsy, staring around for a big brick, four-story building.
The young girl laughed and held out her hand. “This is the school,” she said, “and I am the teacher, and you’d better come right in, for it’s time to begin.”
She led Betsy into a low-ceilinged room with geraniums at the windows, where about a dozen children of different ages sat behind their desks. At the first sight of them Betsy blushed crimson with fright and shyness, and hung down her head; but, looking out the corners of her eyes, she saw that they, too, were all very red-faced and scared-looking and hung down their heads, looking at her shyly out of the corners of their eyes. She was so surprised by this that she forgot all about herself and looked inquiringly at the teacher.
“They don’t see many strangers,” the teacher explained, “and they feel very shy and scared when a new scholar comes, especially one from the city.”
“Is this my grade?” asked Elizabeth, thinking it the very smallest grade she had ever seen.
“This is the whole school,” said the teacher. “There are only two or three in each class. You’ll probably have three in yours. Miss Ann said you were in the third grade. There, that’s your seat.”
Elizabeth sat down before a very old desk, much battered and hacked up with knife marks. There was a big H. P. carved just over the inkwell, and many other initials scattered all over the top.
The teacher stepped back to her desk and took up a violin that lay there. “Now, children, we’ll begin the afternoon session by singing ‘America,’” she said. She played the air over a little very sweetly and stirringly, and then as the children stood up she came down close to them, standing just in front of Betsy. She drew the bow across the strings in a big chord, and said, “Now,” and Betsy burst into song with the others. The sun came in the windows brightly, the teacher, too, sang as she played, and all the children, even the littlest ones, opened their mouths wide and sang lustily.