“Yes, indeed,” she said with a smile.
“Well, well, King,” he said, going over to the little desk, and laying his hand on it, “do you know I said just those words you’ve used, once to Mamsie; and I wish I could forget it.”
“You said you hated books!” repeated King in amazement, and forgetting to cry, a thing he had just made up his mind to do. “Why, you know just everything.”
“Not quite that,” said Joel, bursting into a laugh; “but I know considerably more because of what Mamsie said to me then.”
“And what did Mamsie say?” asked King, intensely interested, and leaning across his little desk.
“She said study didn’t amount to much unless one was glad of the chance, and that she would stick to it if she had to work herself to skin and bone. I tell you, King, that just about killed me for Mamsie to have to tell me that.”
King drew a long breath. “Do you s’pose she’d have to say so to me, if she was here now?” he asked presently.
“I verily do,” said Joel, with a keen glance out of his black eyes that looked so very like his mother’s, that King quailed immediately. “I’ll—I’ll study, brother Joel,” he said, reaching for the neglected spelling-book.
Joel gave him a pat on his stubby head. “Good for you,” he said.
Outside, Alexia was saying to Amy Loughead in the hall, “Oh! no use to try to get a squint at Phronsie in the morning till ten o’clock.”