"Read, read, read!" commanded the teacher, whacking the chart with a pointer.
"'M-a-n, man,'" repeated the little girl, her eyes on his face.
"Don't look at me," he scolded; "look at the chart."
"I don't haf' to," said the little girl, earnestly; "I—I—"
Something unpleasant would certainly have happened at that moment, had not "Frenchy," deep in his geography lesson, piped up at the teacher from the rear of the room.
"T-a-n-g-a-n-y-i-k-a," he spelled, snapping his fingers and waving his arm. "Wot eez dat?"
For a moment the teacher was silent, scowling down at the little girl. Then he came back to the chart with another whack of the pointer. "Call it Moses," he growled.
"Mozez," repeated "Frenchy," resignedly, but with a shake of his head over the intricacies of the English language.
The little girl had twisted half around to look at a Dutch child, and the teacher, angry because he had neglected to look over the geography lesson, jerked her into place again by her sleeve. "Now, you read," he said; "look at the end of my pointer and read."
"I can read them words 'thout looking at 'em," she protested, pointing at an inquiring line, "'cause I can read everyfing in this." And she held up the Second Reader.