"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'."
"But it would be something to do," exclaimed Janice, with vigor.
"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to jest let things go along easy?"
"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter want ter go ter 'Rill
Scattergood's school," was again Marty's scornful comment.
"Just the same I'm going," declared Janice. "It's not far, is it?"
"Right up at the edge of town," said her uncle. "They built it there ter git the young'uns out o' the way. Hard on some of 'em in bad weather, it's sech a long walk. Some o' these here flighty folks has been talkin' up a new buildin' an' a new teacher; but taxes is high enough as they be, I tell 'em!"
"'Rill Scattergood ain't no sort er teacher," said Mrs. Day. "She didn't have no sort er control over Marty."
"Huh!" grunted that young man, "she couldn't teach nothin' ter nobody—that ol' maid."
"But 'most of the girls and boys of Poketown go to school to her, don't they?" asked Janice.
"Them whose folks can't send 'em to the Middleboro Academy," admitted her aunt.