"Why, what's the matter?" asked the teacher again.
This time Elizabeth Ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know
what the matter was. But I do, and I'll tell you. The matter was that
never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always
thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was
ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there
to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so
she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course,
she didn't really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she
had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the
way you do when you're learning to skate and somebody pulls away the
chair you've been leaning on and says, "Now, go it alone!"
The teacher waited a minute, and then, when Elizabeth Ann didn't say
anything more, she rang a little bell. "Recess time," she said, and as
the children marched out and began putting on their wraps she followed
them into the cloak-room, pulled on a warm, red cap and a red sweater,
and ran outdoors herself. "Who's on my side!" she called, and the
children came darting out after her. Elizabeth Ann had dreaded the first
recess time with the strange children, but she had no time to feel shy,
for in a twinkling she was on one end of a long rope with a lot of her
schoolmates, pulling with all her might against the teacher and two of
the big boys.
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