"Is she graduated as a teacher?" asked Happie, wondering.
"Mercy, no! She went to the Normal for one term down at Schultzburg, and she got a certificate, but she was there only one term. Why, she yet wears dresses only down to her insteps!" said Gretta.
"Is that the way they make teachers?" cried Happie. "Why, I never heard of such a thing!"
"That's the way," said Gretta nodding. "Sometimes we have a good school—we had a fine teacher three winters while I went—but we're more than likely to get some one who can't teach. This is a real nice girl—Hattie Franz is her name—but she isn't fit to teach school. You see, when she applied, the directors hired her because her father lives around here, and they all know him. There was a young man applied at the same time who really was a normal graduate, but Hattie got it because the directors wanted to favor her father."
"Well, of all things!" cried Happie with the scorn of her age for anything like personal favors, or political "pulls." "I don't consider that fair; the directors ought to do their duty and get the very best teacher they can. As if the children's education wasn't more important than pleasing some man who happened to be a neighbor! What makes the people stand such directors?"
"I guess because they're used to this way of doing things, partly, and partly because they want their children made teachers the same way when their turn comes," said Gretta, laughing at Happie's disgusted face. "You don't seem to know as much about meanness and folks' ways as I do; you must all be good and unselfish in New York."
"I suppose we aren't," began Happie slowly. And Gretta laughed again.
"But I'll tell you," Happie went on, rallying to her own defense. "We don't see the mean and wrong things as plainly as you do in the country. Our friends are nice and high-minded, and all that, and the other side doesn't get turned around. Here you know every single thing that people do wrong—almost what they think. Maybe this Hattie Franz will teach better than you think she will."
"Oh, I like her lots," said Gretta shaking her head positively, "but she won't do that. She's good-natured, and she's bright enough, but she's easy-going and sort of lazy-minded, and she couldn't make children behave, not one bit! They'll do just as they please; the little ones because she will hate to scold them, and the big ones because they are too much for her, and then the little ones will be worse than ever. I can see just how it will go!"
"What a pity——" began Happie, but Gretta interrupted her with an exclamation, turning to Happie with laughter flashing over all her face.