"A," said Emmy Lou hastily, "B, C, D, E, F, G, H," and was going hurriedly on, when Hattie, with a surreptitious jerk, stopped her.

"That is better," said Mr. Cato, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A— exactly-but we are not going to call them A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A-" Mr. Cato paused impressively, his bow poised, and looked at Emmy Lou-"we are going to call them"-and Mr. Cato touched a dot-"do"-his bow went up the punctuated stairway—“re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. Now what is this?" The bow pointed itself to Emmy Lou, then described a curve, bringing it again to a dot.

"A," said Emmy Lou. The bow rapped angrily on the board, and Mr. Cato glared.

"Do," said Mr. Cato, "do-always do-not A, nor B, nor C, never A, nor B, nor C again-do, do," the bow rapping angrily the while.

"Dough," said Emmy Lou, swallowing miserably.

Mr. Cato was mollified. "Forget now it was ever A; A is do here. Always in the future remember the first letter in the scale is do. Whenever you meet it placed like this, A is do, A is do."

Emmy Lou resolved she would never forget. A is dough. How or why or wherefore did not matter. The point was, A is dough. But Emmy Lou was glad when the music man went. And then came spelling, when there was always much bobbing up and down and changing places and tears. This time the rest might forget, but Emmy Lou would not. It came her turn.

She stood up. Her word was Adam. And A was dough. Emma Lou went slowly to get it right. "Dough-d-dough-m, Adam," said Emmy Lou.

They laughed. But Dear Teacher did not laugh. The recess-bell rang. And Dear Teacher, holding Emmy Lou's hand, sent them all out. Every one must go. Desks and slates to be scrubbed, mattered not. Every one must go. Then Dear Teacher lifted Emmy Lou to her lap. And when she was sure they were every one gone, Emmy Lou cried. And after a while Dear Teacher explained about A and do, so that Emmy Lou understood. And then Dear Teacher said, "You may come in." And the crack of the door widened, and in came

Hattie. Emmy Lou was glad she was an intimate friend. Hattie had not laughed.

But that day the carriage which took Dear Teacher to and from her home outside of town-the carriage with the white, woolly dog on the seat by the little colored-boy driver and the spotted dog running behind-stopped at Emmy Lou's gate. And Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy Lou just arriving with her school-bag, went in, too, and rang the bell.

Then Dear Teacher and Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise sat in the parlor and talked.

And when Dear Teacher left, all the aunties went out to the gate with her, and Uncle Charlie, just leaving, put her in the carriage, and stood with his hat lifted until she was quite gone.

"At her age-" said Aunt Cordelia.

"To have to teach-" said Aunt Katie.

"How beautiful she must have been-" said Aunt Louise. "Is-" said Uncle Charlie.

"But she has the little grandchild," said Aunt Cordelia; "she is keeping the home for him. She is happy." And Aunt Cordelia took Emmy Lou's hand.

That very afternoon Aunt Louise began to help Emmy Lou with her lessons. And Aunt Cordelia went around and asked Hattie's mother to let Hattie come and get her lessons with Emmy Lou.

And at school Dear Teacher, walking up and down the aisles, would stop, and her fingers would close over and guide the laboring digits of Emmy Lou, striving to copy within certain ruled lines upon her slate the writing on the blackboard:

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

Emmy Lou began to learn. As weeks went by, now and then Emmy Lou bobbed up a place, although, sooner or later, she slipped back. She was not always at the foot.

But no one, not even Dear Teacher, who understood so much, realized one thing. The day after a lesson, Emmy Lou knew it. On the day it was recited, Emmy Lou had lacked sufficient time to grasp it.

With ten words in the spelling lesson. Emmy Lou listened, letter by letter, to those ten droned out five times down

the line, then twice again around the class of fifty. Then Emmy Lou, having already labored faithfully over it, knew her spelling lesson.

And at home, it was Emmy Lou's joy to gather her doll children in line, and giving out past lessons, recite them in turn for her children. And so did Emmy Lou know by heart her Second Reader; as far as she had gone she often gave the lesson with her book upside down. And an old and battered doll, dearest to Emmy Lou's heart, was always head, and Hattie, the newest doll, was next. Even Emmy Lou must square with Fate somehow.

Along in the year a new feature was introduced in the Second Reader. The Second Reader was to have a Medal. Dear Teacher did not seem enthusiastic. She seemed to dread tears. But it was decreed that the school was to use medals.

At recess Emmy Lou asked Hattie what a medal was. The big Fourth and Fifth Reader girls were playing games from which the little girls were excluded; for the school was large and the yard was small. At one time it had seemed to Emmy Lou that the odium, the obloquy, the reproach of being a little girl was more than she could bear. But she would not change places with any one, now she was an intimate friend.

Emmy Lou asked Hattie what it was-this medal.

Hattie explained. Hattie knew everything. A medal was -well-a medal. It hung on a blue ribbon. Each little girl brought her own blue ribbon. You wore it for a week-this medal.

That afternoon Emmy Lou went round the corner to Mrs. Heintz's little fancy store. Her chin just came to Mrs. Heintz's counter. But she knew what she wanted-a yard of blue ribbon.

She showed it to Hattie the next day, folded in its paper, and slipped it for safety beneath the long criss-cross stitches which held the calico cover of her Second Reader.

Then Hattie explained. One had to stay head a whole week to get the medal.

Emmy Lou's heart was heavy-the more that she had now seen the medal. It was a silver medal that said "Merit." It was around Kitty McKoeghany's neck.

And Kitty tossed her head. And when, at recess, she ran, the medal swung to and fro on its ribbon. And the big girls all stopped Kitty to look at the medal.

There was a condition attached to the gaining of the medal. Upon receiving it one had to go foot. But that mattered little to Kitty McKoeghany. Kitty climbed right up again.

And Emmy Lou peeped surreptitiously at the blue ribbon in her Second Reader. And at home she placed her dolls in line and spelt the back lessons faithfully, with comfort in her knowledge of them. And the old battered doll, dear to her heart, wore oftenest a medal of shining tinfoil. For even Hattie, in one of Kitty's off weeks, had won the medal.

It was late in the year when a rumor ran around the Second Reader room. The trustees were coming that day to visit the school.

Emmy Lou wondered what trustees were. She asked Hattie. Hattie explained. "They are men, in black clothes. You daren't move in your seat. They're something like ministers." Hattie knew everything.

"Will they come here, in our room?" asked Emmy Lou. It was terrible to be at the front desk. Emmy Lou remembered the music man. He still pointed his bow at her on

Fridays.

"Of course," said Hattie; "comp'ny always comes to our room."

Which was true, for Dear Teacher's room was different. Dear Teacher's room seemed always ready, and the Principal brought company to it accordingly.

It was after recess they came-the Principal, the Trustee (there was just one Trustee), and a visiting gentleman.

There was a hush as they filed in. Hattie was right. It was like ministers. The Principal was in black, with a white tie. He always was. And the Trustee was in black. He rubbed his hands and bowed to the Second Reader class, sitting very straight and awed. And the visiting gentleman was in black, with a shiny black hat.

The Trustee was a big man, and his face was red, and when urged by the Principal to address the Second Reader class, his face grew redder.

The Trustee waved his hand towards the visiting gentle

man. "Mr. Hammel, children, the Hon. Samuel S. Hammel, a citizen with whose name you are all, I am sure, familiar." And then the Trustee, mopping his face, got behind the visiting gentleman and the Principal.

The visiting gentleman stood forth. He was a short, little man—a little, round man, whose feet were so far back beneath a preponderating circumference of waist line, that he looked like nothing so much as one of Uncle Charlie's pouter pigeons.

He was a smiling-and-bowing little man, and he held out his fat hand playfully, and in it a shining white box.

Dear Teacher seemed taller and very far off. She looked as she did the day she told the class they were to have a medal. Emmy Lou watched Dear Teacher anxiously. Something told her Dear Teacher was troubled.

The visting gentleman began to speak. He called the Second Reader class "dear children," and "mothers of a coming generation," and "molders of the future welfare."

The Second Reader class sat very still. There seemed to be something paralyzing to their infant faculties, mental and physical, in learning they were "mothers" and "molders. But Emmy Lou breathed freer to have it applied impartially and not to the front seat.

Their "country, the pillars of state, everything," it seemed, depended on the way in which these mothers learned their Second Readers. "As mothers and molders, they must learn now in youth to read, to number, to spell-exactly—to spell!" And the visiting gentleman nodded meaningly, tapped the white box, and looked smilingly about. The mothers moved uneasily. The smile they avoided, but they wondered what was in the box.

The visiting gentleman lifted the lid, and displayed a glittering, shining something on a bed of pink cotton.

The visiting gentleman, as if struck by a happy thought, turned to the blackboard. He looked about for chalk. The Principal supplied him. Fashioned by his fat, white hand, these words sprawled themselves upon the blackboard:

The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal.

There was silence. Then the Second Reader class moved. It breathed a long breath.