Elizabeth Ann was startled by this request, which was unheard of in her experience.  She was very uncertain of herself as she sat down on a low chair in the corner of the schoolroom away from the desks, with the little child leaning on her knee.  And yet she was not exactly afraid, either, because Molly was such a shy little roly-poly thing, with her crop of yellow curls, and her bright blue eyes very serious as she looked hard at the book and began:  “Once there was a rat.  It was a fat rat.”  No, it was impossible to be frightened of such a funny little girl, who peered so earnestly into the older child’s face to make sure she was doing her lesson right.

Elizabeth Ann had never had anything to do with children younger than herself, and she felt very pleased and important to have anybody look up to her!  She put her arm around Molly’s square, warm, fat little body and gave her a squeeze.  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.  She came forward with Ralph and Ellen again, very low in her mind.  She hated arithmetic with all her might, and she really didn’t understand a thing about it!  By long experience she had learned to read her teachers’ faces very accurately, and she guessed by their expression whether the answer she gave was the right one.  And that was the only way she could tell.  You never heard of any other child who did that, did you?