Molly snuggled up closer; and the two children put
their heads together over the printed page, Elizabeth Ann correcting
Molly very gently indeed when she made a mistake, and waiting patiently
when she hesitated. She had so fresh in her mind her own suffering from
quick, nervous corrections that she took the greatest pleasure in
speaking quietly and not interrupting the little girl more than was
necessary. It was fun to teach, LOTS of fun! She was surprised when the
teacher said, "Well, Betsy, how did Molly do?"
"Oh, is the time up?" said Elizabeth Ann. "Why, she does beautifully, I
think, for such a little thing."
"Do you suppose," said the teacher thoughtfully, just as though Betsy
were a grown-up person, "do you suppose she could go into the second
reader, with Eliza? There's no use keeping her in the first if she's
ready to go on."
Elizabeth Ann's head whirled with this second light-handed juggling with
the sacred distinction between the grades. In the big brick schoolhouse
nobody EVER went into another grade except at the beginning of a new
year, after you'd passed a lot of examinations. She had not known that
anybody could do anything else. The idea that everybody took a year to a
grade, no MATTER what! was so fixed in her mind that she felt as though
the teacher had said: "How would you like to stop being nine years old
and be twelve instead! And don't you think Molly would better be eight
instead of six?"
However, just then her class in arithmetic was called, so that she had
no more time to be puzzled.
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