Miss Chase smiled, and seated him beside Jamie Cushing (a boy of eight), and Posy beside a lame girl of seven. Pollio liked Jamie, because he had a pop-gun in his desk, and promised to show him at recess how to fire it off. Posy liked her seat-mate, because she had a very sweet face, and because she hopped on one foot, and dragged the other as a tired bird does; but her clothes were very ragged.
“I know who you are: you are Posy Pitcher.”
Posy nodded.
“And I’m Lucinda Outhouse.”
“Oh! are you? And does your mamma know you have such big holes in your clo’es, Lucy-vindy?”
“Oh! this woman I live with isn’t my mamma: my mamma’s dead.”
Posy looked sorry.
“My papa died first, and my mamma married me another papa; and then my mamma died, and he married me another mamma. But she don’t belong to me, and he don’t belong to me; and I haven’t any papa and mamma.”
Posy could not understand.