“You might as well go on and let us see how it came out,” said the teacher, and Betsy finished triumphantly.

“Well,” said the teacher, “there’s no sense in your reading along in the third reader.  After this you’ll recite out of the seventh reader with Frank and Harry and Stashie.”

Elizabeth Ann could not believe her ears.  To be “jumped” four grades in that casual way!  It wasn’t possible!  She at once thought, however, of something that would prevent it entirely, and while Ellen was reading her page in a slow, careful little voice, Elizabeth Ann was feeling miserably that she must explain to the teacher why she couldn’t read with the seventh-grade children.  Oh, how she wished she could!  When they stood up to go back to their seats she hesitated, hung her head, and looked very unhappy.  “Did you want to say something to me?” asked the teacher, pausing with a bit of chalk in her hand.

The little girl went up to her desk and said, what she knew it was her duty to confess:  “I can’t be allowed to read in the seventh reader.  I don’t write a bit well, and I never get the mental number-work right.  I couldn’t do ANYthing with seventh-grade arithmetic!”

The teacher looked a little blank and said:  “I didn’t say anything about your number-work!  I don’t know anything about it!  You haven’t recited yet.”  She turned away and began to write a list of words on the board.  “Betsy, Ralph, and Ellen study their spelling,” she said.  “You little ones come up for your reading.”

Two little boys and two little girls came forward as Elizabeth Ann began to con over the words on the board.  At first she found she was listening to the little, chirping voices, as the children straggled with their reading, instead of studying “doubt, travel, cheese,” and the other words in her lesson.  But she put her hands over her ears, and her mind on her spelling.  She wanted to make a good impression with that lesson.  After a while, when she was sure she could spell them all correctly, she began to listen and look around her.  She always “got” her spelling in less time than was allowed the class, and usually sat idle, looking out of the window until that study period was over.  But now the moment she stopped staring at the board and moving her lips as she spelled to herself the teacher said, just as though she had been watching her every minute instead of conducting a class, “Betsy, have you learned your spelling?”

“Yes, ma’am, I think so,” said Elizabeth Ann, wondering very much why she was asked.

“That’s fine,” said the teacher.  “I wish you’d take little Molly over in that corner and help her with her reading.  She’s getting on so much better than the rest of the class that I hate to have her lose her time.  Just hear her read the rest of her little story, will you, and don’t help her unless she’s really stuck.”