At a quarter of nine every weekday morning Aunt Frances dropped whatever
else she was doing, took Elizabeth Ann's little, thin, white hand
protectingly in hers, and led her through the busy streets to the big
brick school-building where the little girl had always gone to school.
It was four stories high, and when all the classes were in session there
were six hundred children under that one roof. You can imagine, perhaps,
the noise there was on the playground just before school! Elizabeth Ann
shrank from it with all her soul, and clung more tightly than ever to
Aunt Frances's hand as she was led along through the crowded, shrieking
masses of children. Oh, how glad she was that she had Aunt Frances there
to take care of her, though as a matter of fact nobody noticed the
little thin girl at all, and her very own classmates would hardly have
known whether she came to school or not. Aunt Frances took her safely
through the ordeal of the playground, then up the long, broad stairs,
and pigeonholed her carefully in her own schoolroom. She was in the
third grade,--3A, you understand, which is almost the fourth.
Then at noon Aunt Frances was waiting there, a patient, never-failing
figure, to walk home with her little charge; and in the afternoon the
same thing happened over again. On the way to and from school they
talked about what had happened in the class.
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