"That's the House of Knights where all the nobility hang up their coats-of-arms," said the mother.
But Keith was too excited to ask any questions at that moment.
They entered a house much finer and neater than their own and stopped in front of a door on the second floor. A hubbub of shrill voices could be heard from within. Keith gripped his mother's hand more firmly.
Then the door was opened by a white-haired lady with spectacles and they were admitted to a large room, containing a score of little boys and girls. A dead silence fell on the room as they appeared, and every eye turned toward Keith, who blushed furiously as was his wont whenever he found himself observed.
After a brief talk with the teacher, Keith's mother to him:
"This is Aunt Westergren, whom you must obey as you obey me. And now be a good boy and don't cry."
As the mother tarried by the door for a moment to exchange a last word with the teacher, and perhaps also to cast one more lingering glance at the boy, a little girl ran up to Keith, put her right fore-finger on top of his head and cried out:
"Towhead!"
All the other children giggled. Keith blushed more deeply than ever, but did not say a word or stir a limb. A moment later the teacher began to cross-question him about his knowledge of letters and spelling, and he found it much easier to answer her than to face the children. But, of course, after a while he was quite at home among them without knowing how it had happened.
That afternoon his mother came for him. The next morning he had to start out alone under direct orders from the father, and alone he made his way home again, his bosom swelling with a sense of wonderful independence. Years passed before he learned that his mother had watched over him for days before she was fully convinced of his ability to find the way by himself.