in the morning, when ella reached the head of the stairs on the second floor, there stood the principal. the little girl looked up at him in a friendly fashion and he said “good morning,” and added, rather to his surprise, for he seldom talked with the children,

“do you like our school?”

“oh, i do! i do!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm. “i think it is just splendid.”

at the other side of ella’s desk sat a little girl in a blue dress with a dainty white apron trimmed with narrow edging. this was ida. the teacher introduced the two children. ida said,

“haven’t you been in the public school before?”

“no,” answered ella.

“did you go to a private school?”

“yes,” ella replied rather unwillingly, for suddenly, in view of the businesslike ways of the public school, all that she had done before began to seem very childish. “before that, i went to a seminary.”

“did you really? i should think that would be splendid. i knew a girl once who went to a seminary, but she was old, as much as sixteen. are you going to be in the second class?”

[pg 112]

“yes. i was here yesterday, and i heard the geography class.”

“after the opening exercises,” said ida, “the first class recites in arithmetic, and then ours comes. i’ll show you where the lesson is, and you’ll have time to do the examples before we recite. but you haven’t covered your books yet!”

ella looked at ida’s books and saw that every one was neatly covered with light brown paper; and again she felt out of the circle.

“i’ll show you how at recess,” said ida; and ella was comforted, for in an hour and a half she would be “in” and like other girls. she noticed that ida’s name was neatly written on the outside of her light brown covers, and that she had the prettiest capital i that ella had ever seen. it began like all i’s, then at the line the pen moved away to the left in a handsome little horizontal loop that made quite a different thing of the letter from the common everyday i’s of other people. ella determined to work till she could make one as good. she wished her name began with an i! evidently her earthquake handwriting would not do for schoolbooks. beejay’s older brother wrote beautifully; she would ask him to write on her books, and she would tell him about that handsome letter.

the lesson in arithmetic consisted of ten examples in simple interest. ella finished these in a little while, and supposed there was nothing more to be done; but when the class was called, she found that the scholars[pg 113] were sent to put their work on the blackboard, and were then to explain it in exactly the way given in the book. she had done the examples in a way that was easier, but was different; and she was out of it again. oh, if she only could be just like other girls, she wailed mentally.

so the morning went on. ella was first “in,” then “out” again. the lesson in mental arithmetic was very easy, she thought, as she read the questions, but she never dreamed of learning them by heart. the teacher told the class to close their books, and then she read,

“bought a piano for $300, and ⅖ of the cost of the instrument was 4/3 of what i received of nine young ladies for its use one year; how much did each young lady pay for its use?”

ella was greatly taken aback. she could not recite the question with her book closed; and even if she had learned this one, could she learn such nonsense as the one that stood next to it, “¾ of ⅔ of 70 are 5/12 of 4 times what number?” she was afraid not, and for the first time she began to wonder if a school of boys and girls would really be so much pleasanter than a school of young ladies. she felt hopelessly disgraced when she had to say to the teacher, “i don’t know.”

there was one more recitation before the school closed at noon, and that was grammar. the little store had been out of grammars, and therefore ella had not been able to learn the lesson. the teacher[pg 114] had told her that she might ask ida anything that she wanted to know. the first thing she asked was why ida’s grammar was pencil-marked with straight lines beside some of the paragraphs and not the rest.

“why, those marked are what we learn,” ida replied.

“what are the others about?”

“i don’t know. no one ever reads those.”

ella’s little pink grammar at home began,

“do all nations use the same language?” and the answer was,

“they do not.”

this was easy and sensible, and about things that even very little girls could understand, but this new grammar began,

“english grammar treats of the principles and usages of the english language,” and went on to say that grammar was divided into four parts, “orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody.” her grammar at home declared that

“a noun’s the name of anything,

as school, or garden, hoop, or swing.”

the new grammar remarked that “letters cannot be too carefully distinguished from elementary sounds.” ella wondered why. she had known letters ever since she could remember, and she had never confused them with elementary sounds—whatever elementary sounds might be. how could things be so important when they were not?

[pg 115]

the class took their places around the room. somehow there seemed to be more of them than when they were seated. ella remembered days when she did not have to recite her french lesson because the young lady who was for a little while the rest of the class had failed to come. with all these boys and girls in the class, there would plainly be no such good fortune. there would be no hurrying to learn her lessons and then being excused to go home early, for classes came at just such times, and ida had told her that if a pupil stayed away, or was excused, she would be marked zero for the lesson.

ella sat and listened while the class recited. she grew more and more discouraged with every recitation. not one girl or boy asked a question as to the meaning of these queer statements. ella supposed that was because they understood it all—and she did not. how could she ever go on with them? she was almost sorry that she had ever come to a public school. she was a plucky little girl, however, and when she went home at noon, she set to work bravely to learn her spelling lesson, and never a word did she say about the inferiority of public schools to private.

ida had told her that in the intermediate school the children had to learn the words of the spelling lesson in order and “put them out” to themselves, but that this was not done in the grammar school, and ella was quite at ease about this lesson, for she could not[pg 116] see how there could be anything “queer and cranky” in a recitation in spelling. there was not, and at the end of the lesson the teacher called the names for reports. ella had often written in her little diary, when she could not think of anything else to say, “had a perfect lesson, didn’t fail,” or “didn’t have a very good lesson and the teacher was cross”; but to have her name called and have her report recorded in definite figures in the big book that lay on the table—that was quite a different matter. she answered shyly but happily, “one hundred.”

after the spelling came twenty minutes of writing; and now the little newcomer was in despair, for she knew just how poor her handwriting was. she knew that no two letters were of the same height or slanted the same way. she knew that it made her hand ache to write half a page, and she knew that the writing was hardly the least bit better since the seminary days. she opened the new copybook at the first page, and behold there was the old familiar sentence, “honesty is the best policy,” printed in the fashionable “spencerian hand” with all its rounded flourishes. she had long ago tried her best to copy this very sentence and had failed. what would the teacher say? perhaps the principal would even put her back into a lower room.

the watchful teacher saw that something was going wrong, and when she looked at the line or two that the little girl had written, she knew what it was.

[pg 117]

“writing is a little hard for you, isn’t it,” she said, “just as arithmetic is hard for alice?” the teacher was ahead of her times, and as she looked at the cramped little letters, she added:

“did you ever guess that you were making your fingers work too hard, while there was a good strong muscle here”—and she touched ella’s forearm—“that would be glad to help them? just let the muscle lie on the table in this way and try to make some curves like these,” and she gave her a slip of paper with a whole line of curves and loops. “hold the pen so,” she continued, “but don’t hold it too tight. no one will try to take it away from you.”

“oh, i see! i see!” exclaimed ella. “if that muscle is right and not rolled over on its side, the pen has to be right; it can’t point the wrong way if it tries”; and she went to work on the impossible writing with fresh courage, for now she had a definite idea of what she was to do.

the spelling and writing lasted from two until a quarter of three. then came the geography and the reading.

the geography lesson was a review of questions on the central and pacific states. ella had been over and over these questions till she was sure that she could answer every one of them. she stood at the foot of the class of course as the newest arrival, and she never dreamed of going up any higher; but a boy who stood three above her recited:

[pg 118]

“iron and lead are found in indiana, and the richest mines in the world are found in michigan.”

not one pupil raised a hand. those below the boy did not know that there was anything wrong, and those near the head had nothing to gain and were not watching so closely as they would have done if there had been a chance to move up. very timidly ella put up her hand.

“what is it, ella?” asked the teacher.

“he should have said, ‘the richest copper mines in the world,’” she answered in a voice that trembled a little, for they were all looking at her.

“that is right,” said the teacher. “take your place,” and she moved up three places. she was so happy that she could hardly stand still. what a story she would have to tell the mother and to write to boy cousin, of going up three places the very first day!

but even greater glory awaited her. the next pupil recited:

“kentucky is noted for foosle remains of animals and for its mammoth cave.”

“what kind of remains?” asked the teacher, and the boy replied,

“foosle.”

“the whole class may tell what that word is,” said the teacher, and there was a chorus of “fossil.”

“can any one tell what a fossil is?”

no one but ella raised a hand. her cheeks were still burning, but she answered bravely:

[pg 119]

“a fossil is what used to be a plant or an animal. it has turned into stone, and is dug up out of the ground.”

“excellent,” said the teacher. “it sounds as if you really knew fossils. have you any of your own that you could bring to school to show us?”

“yes,” said ella, remembering the doctor’s generous package of specimens. “i have some that were given me and two that i found.”

it was too dark for the reading lesson. the school was dismissed, and ella went home, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks all aglow. she loved the public school.