“Simply apply the rule and make your own,” said Miss Amanda.
But it did not seem simple; Emily Louise was still thinking in the concrete.
Hattie had grasped abstractions. Hattie waved her hand. There was a scarlet spot upon her cheek. Before school there had been words between Hattie and Isobel. The politics of the President of the United States had figured in it, and Emily Louise had learned that the President was a Republican. And yet flags! And processions!
Miss Amanda said, “Well, Hattie?”
Hattie arose. “There is a single, only, solitary Republican pupil in this class,” said she promptly and with emphasis.
Miss Amanda might proceed to consider the proposition grammatically, her mind being on the rule, and not the import, but the class interpreted it as Hattie meant they should. In their midst! And unsuspected!
Emily Louise grew hot. Could Hattie, would Hattie, do this thing? Hattie, accuse her thus? Yet who else could Hattie mean? The heart of Emily Louise swelled—Hattie to do this thing!
And Hattie was wrong. She should know that she was wrong. She should read it in her own autograph album, just brought to Emily Louise for her inscribing. Emily Louise remained in at recess. Verse was beyond her. She recognised her limitations. Some are born to prose and some to higher things. She applied herself to a plain statement in Hattie’s album:
Dear Hattie:
I am a Mugwump and your true friend.