"A vacation school, Katharine? And pray what may that be?"
Kyzie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. She held her mother's
hand and talked fast, though plainly she did not feel quite at her ease.
"Why, mamma, you've certainly heard of vacation schools--summer schools?
They're very common nowadays. In the summer, you know; so that college
people can go to them, and business people."
"Ah! Like the one at Coronado Beach? Now I understand. But it didn't
occur to me that my little daughter would know enough to teach college
people!"
"Now, mamma, don't laugh at me! Of course I mean children, the little
ignorant children right around here," making a sweeping gesture toward
the cottages and "bunk houses" that dotted the country lower down the
mountain, "I know enough to teach little children, I should hope,
mamma."
"Possibly!"
Mrs. Dunlee's tone was so doubtful that her daughter felt crushed.
"Possibly you may know enough about books; but book-knowledge is not all
that is required in a teacher. Could you keep the children in order?
Would they obey you?"
The little girl's head drooped a little.
"Let me see, you are only fourteen?"
"Fourteen last April, mamma. But everybody says, don't you know, that
I'm very large for my age."
She tried to speak bravely, but the look of quiet amusement on her
listener's face made it rather hard for her to go on.
"I suppose," said she, dropping her eyes again, "I suppose they don't
know much here, mamma,--the families that live here all the time. Some
of the boys actually go barefooted."
"So I have observed. A great saving of shoes."
"And they had a school last summer," went on Kyzie, resolutely. "A young
girl taught it who boarded where we do. Mr. Templeton said she did it
for fun."
"Indeed!"
"But they didn't like her a bit. I could teach as well as she did
anyway, mamma, for she just went around the room boxing their ears."
"Is it possible, Katharine?" Mrs. Dunlee was serious enough now. "To
box a child's ears is simply brutal!"
"I knew you'd say so, mamma; but that was just what Miss Severance did.
Of course I wouldn't touch their ears any more than I would fly!"
Mrs. Dunlee turned now and regarded her daughter attentively.
"But how did you ever happen to take up this sudden fancy for teaching,
dear? It's all new to me. What first made you think of it--at your age?
Can you tell?"
"Oh, mamma, I've been thinking about it, off and on, for a year. Ever
since I was at Willowbrook last summer and heard Grandma Parlin talk
about _her_ first school. Why, don't you remember, she was just
fourteen, she said, nearly three months younger than I am."