“Do stop crying,” the weary mother now remonstrated, “and tell me where is Miss Bayley? I didn’t see her coming down the trail with you just now.”
“She—she wouldn’t come, Ma,” Jessica sobbed afresh. “She—she treats me awful mean. She says that horrid Dixie Martin is the smartest girl in the school. She says she can read better’n I can. I told her you wanted her to come to supper to-night, and she said she had another engagement, and—and, ma, it wasn’t so. She just had Dixie Martin go home with her, that’s all, for I hid and saw, and she didn’t act ladylike neither, ma; she skipped!”
Mrs. Sethibald Archer arose, and the expression in her eyes was not pleasant to see. “There’s your pa coming into the barnyard this very minute,” she said. “Run right out, darling of my heart, and tell him not to unhitch. Tell him I’m wishing him to drive me over to the inn. We’ll see whether or not my requests are to be set aside like this.”
Jessica ran out to deliver the message, which was really a command, and Sethibald Archer understood it as such. Then, returning, the child asked eagerly: “Ma, I want to go along.”
“Of course you may go. This thing’s going to be settled this very day. I’m not going to have any upstart of a teacher refuse my hospitality when I offer it. Indeed not.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A DEFIANT TEACHER
When Dixie entered the pleasant living-room of the little log cabin near the inn, she clasped her hands, and her eyes glowed with appreciation as she looked about.
“Oh, teacher, Miss Bayley,” she breathed rapturously, “you’ve got books, haven’t you? I never did see so many books all in one room. Oh, please, may I touch them?”
Then it was that the young teacher remembered that the little girl had said that “Oliver Twist” and “Pilgrim’s Progress” were the only books that she had, and an almanac.
“Poor little story-hungry girl,” she thought, as she removed her hat and turned toward the child. “Of course you may touch them, dear. I’m going to make us some hot chocolate to drink, and you may browse around all that you wish. Choose any book that you like and I will help you read it. One of my reasons for asking you here to-day, Dixie, was to suggest that once or twice a week you come with me and let me tutor you in advanced reading. Then you can take the book home and give the same instruction to your brother, Ken. There is no reason why you two children, who are so unusually gifted, should be held back by one of little natural intelligence.”