"Let me see, you are only fourteen?"
"Fourteen last April, mamma. But everybody says, don't you know, that I'm very large for my age."
She tried to speak bravely, but the look of quiet amusement on her listener's face made it rather hard for her to go on.
"I suppose," said she, dropping her eyes again, "I suppose they don't know much here, mamma,—the families that live here all the time. Some of the boys actually go barefooted."
"So I have observed. A great saving of shoes."
"And they had a school last summer," went on Kyzie, resolutely. "A young girl taught it who boarded where we do. Mr. Templeton said she did it for fun."
"Indeed!"
"But they didn't like her a bit. I could teach as well as she did anyway, mamma, for she just went around the room boxing their ears."
"Is it possible, Katharine?" Mrs. Dunlee was serious enough now. "To box a child's ears is simply brutal!"
"I knew you'd say so, mamma; but that was just what Miss Severance did. Of course I wouldn't touch their ears any more than I would fly!"