"I would rather stay at home," she faltered. "Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen can have my things, and—and when they are big, they can go in—in the Normal. I—I would rather stay at home and do the work."
Laura sat down again in her chair by the window, and drew Sarah to her knee.
"Why would you rather stay at home, Sarah?" she asked gently. It was not strange that a reaction had come. There had been the struggle with Uncle Daniel, and then the long, hot months of summer, and now the immediate excitement of the afternoon. "Tell me, Sarah."
"I am too dumb," wailed Sarah. "Nobody can't teach me nothing."
"I thought I had taught you a good deal this summer."
"But there won't be any teachers like you at the Normal. I would rather stay at home. I am too old to go any more in the school. I am little but I am old."
"Like Runty," cried Louisa Ellen. The twins had been listening in frightened and fascinated attention. Runty was a pig which had never grown. "Runty is little, but he is old."
Even Sarah had to smile at this.
"But you will have too much work to do," she said to Laura. "It is not right for me to go."
Laura laughed.