"Have you been keeping up with your studies?" Miss Cathby asked.
"Yes, ma'am," said Harky.
"Which books have you been using?" queried Miss Cathby.
"Same ones I used last year," Harky mumbled.
Miss Cathby frowned prettily. Harky's last year's books were for the fifth grade; Harky had started in the fourth solely because he'd been too old to begin in the first. Miss Cathby's frown deepened.
She knew that, with the best of luck, Harky would be under her influence for a maximum four weeks. But Miss Cathby's fragile body harbored a will of granite. If she combined guile with persistence, four weeks were enough to turn this youngster from the heathenish ways of his ancestors and show him at least a glimmer of the one true light.
"Very well," she said pleasantly. "We'll review your last year's arithmetic. If a farmer harvests thirty tons of hay, sells two thirds and feeds the remainder, how much will he feed?"
Harky shuffled nervous feet and stared past her at the blackboard. "I never could figger that one, Miss Cathby."
Miss Cathby said, "It isn't difficult."
"Parts ain't," Harky admitted. "But parts are. He'll sell twenty tons, always reckoning he can find somebody to buy. The rest just shrivels me up."