“I will now leave him with you. He is a good boy and easy enough to manage, though a little inclined to mischief.”
“Oh, I will take care of that,” she said. “We will be first rate friends; won’t we, Johnnie?”
Father left me, the door closed on him, and I was beginning to enter Life’s shallowest waters alone.
“Come here, Johnnie,” said Miss Hester, “let me see how much you know, so that I can put you in a class.”
I rose, and with a great swelling knot in my throat, drew my book from my side pocket and carried it to her.
“How far have you been in this?” she said, as she carelessly fluttered over the leaves.
“I went clear through it, ma’am, under mother.”
“Well, let me see how you spell; spell ‘honest’?”
I had begun, at first, spelling by recollecting how the letters looked on the page, but mother had broken me from it and taught me to spell words by their sound. Accordingly I stammered out, while my eyes filled with tears and the knot in my throat almost choked me: