CHAPTER VIII
A New Schoolmistress
“But, Ranald,” my father continued, “what are we to do about the reading? I fear I have let you go too long. I didn’t want to make learning a burden to you, and I don’t approve of children learning to read too soon; but really, at your age, you know, it is time you were beginning. I have time to teach you some things, but I can’t teach you everything. I have got to read a great deal and think a great deal, and go about my parish a good deal. And your brother Tom has heavy lessons to learn at school, and I have to help him. So what’s to be done, Ranald, my boy? You can’t go to the parish school before you’ve learned your letters.”
“There’s Kirsty, papa,” I suggested.
“Yes; there’s Kirsty,” he returned with a sly smile. “Kirsty can do everything, can’t she?”
“She can speak Gaelic,” I said with a tone of triumph, bringing her rarest accomplishment to the forefront.
“I wish you could speak Gaelic,” said my father, thinking of his wife, I believe, whose mother tongue it was. “But that is not what you want most to learn. Do you think Kirsty could teach you to read English?”
“Yes, I do.”
My father again meditated.
“Let us go and ask her,” he said at length, taking my hand.