“My,” said Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy was gone.
“What does it read?” asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl, and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
“Get any valentines?”
“Yes,” said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl’s friendliness, she added, “It has reading on it.”
“Pooh,” said the little girl, “they all have that. My mamma’s been reading the long verses inside to me.”
“Can you show them—valentines?” asked Emmy Lou.
“Of course, to grown-up people,” said the little girl.