"It's the best there is here, my boy; and we shall have to put up with it," said his mother, looking up from her work.
"Tom, I do think you might wipe your feet when you come in," said Elsie, at this point. "Just look what a muddy mess you have made all through the passage."
"The roads are so dirty," complained Tom in turn. "I did try to find a clean place, but it rained all day yesterday, and the mud is an inch thick. Nobody comes to sweep it away, or make the road passable," he added.
"Well, you might have rubbed your boots on the mat. For if any ladies should come to see mother about her work, what would they think to see such a passage?"
Mrs. Winn sighed, but only sewed the faster, for she was beginning to fear that she had made a mistake in coming here, for more reasons than one; and that Elsie would have no chance of feeling hurt that customers had seen a dirty passage when they called.
When Tom had rubbed his boots on the doormat, he went back to his mother. "I really can't go to that beastly old school," he began again; "why, they're half girls, mother."
"Well, it would not hurt you to learn your lessons among girls," said Mrs. Winn. "Elsie is a better scholar than you are, and she is a girl."
Tom winced as he thought of his neglected opportunities at the Board School. "It isn't that they are only girls," he went on, "but they don't seem to have a Seventh Standard class at all, and I don't believe they have got a Sixth. The teacher said the examination was just over, and the biggest boys had left; but I expect they were all big dunces, for the rest are that are left behind; and I am sure I shall never learn anything there."
"But why not? You must try to learn, Tom, and make the most of the time you are there, for there is no telling how long you may be able to stay at school," said Mrs. Winn.
"Try? I'd like to know what's the good of trying to learn in such a row as they make at that place," grumbled Tom.