Rupy seemed to feel that he had started all this and was responsible. His air, too, like Henry's, had changed from the demanding and the challenging to the protective. She was a girl, and she didn't know! What further proof needed that she was here to be taken care of?
"Well, anyhow this one's A. Go on. The next one's B. We all know 'em."
Willy came to as though the burden of the proof suddenly was put upon him.
"B bit it, C cut it, D dealt it——"
"Aw, Willy," from Rupy disgustedly, "you go on like a girl when she thinks she knows it."
William emerged into an outraged being. "Don't go on like a girl. You gimme back them rose-hips. They was mine to give the teacher."
"Well," grumbled Rupy as with one willing to take part of it back, "if, 'tain't like a girl, it's like a twin, then."
They knew their letters, they knew their numbers, up to ten at least, they all had primers and had them with them, and proved to her they knew cat, and rat, and mat, and hen, and pen and men, on the page.
Selina didn't believe, however, that any of them could read. As well make a start somewhere and find out. She turned to a page well on in the primer, a page she had met before in her day. She held it up to them. It showed a benevolent bovine gazing downward at a frog on a lily-pad.