"Then I ought to know 'em, 'cause that's what I'm doing. Do you know 'em?"
"I'm studying arithmetic, and I'm as far as fractions."
"Will you show 'em to me?"
"Mother," said Winny, turning despairing eyes on the attentive old lady, "he's such a funny boy. I don't know what to make of him."
"He wants to study and learn, deary, don't you see?"
"I think that's just as nice as can be," she added, turning to Tode. "Winny, she's a great scholar, keeps to the head of her class all the time, most, and she studies evenings, and you could get out your book, and she would show you all about things, couldn't you, deary?"
"I don't care," said Winny, listlessly. "Yes, I might if he wants to learn, and if he won't bother me too much."
Tode's cheeks were all aglow. He had awakened lately to the fact that there was a great deal in this world that he didn't understand, that he wanted to know about; and without a doubt but that this wise-eyed girl knew it all, and that he should learn it all, and that he should learn it from her in a little while. He went to work with alacrity. Examination came first—that is, it came after the dishes were washed. Then Tode displayed his reading powers, which really were remarkable when one considered that he could hardly tell himself how he happened to learn, but which sank into insignificance by the side of Winny's clear-toned, correct, careful reading. Tode listened in amazement and delight.
"That sounds just like mine," he said at last, drawing in his breath as she finished.
In return for which graceful compliment, which had the merit of being an unconscious one, Winny condescended to compliment him on the manner in which his letters, large and small, were gotten up.