From that day forward the doctor's boy considered that I belonged to
him, but not until I was sent to school, with my cousin and her
stepsister, did he feel called upon to claim his property.
It was a mixed day-school in the village, and it was controlled by a
Board which had the village butcher as its chairman. The only teacher
was a tall woman of thirty, who plaited her hair, which was of the
colour of flax, into a ridiculous-looking crown on the top of her head.
But her expression, I remember, was one of perpetual severity, and when
she spoke through her thin lips she clipped her words with great
rapidity, as if they had been rolls of bread which were being chopped in
a charity school.
Afterwards I heard that she owed her position to Aunt Bridget, who had
exercised her influence through the chairman, by means of his account
with the Big House. Perhaps she thought it her duty to display her
gratitude. Certainly she lost no time in showing me that my character
had gone to school before me, for in order that I might be directly
under her eye, she placed me in the last seat in the lowest class,
although my mother's daily teaching would have entitled me to go higher.
I dare say I was, as Father Dan used to say, as full of mischief as a
goat, and I know I was a chatterbox, but I do not think I deserved the
fate that followed.
One day, not more than a week after we had been sent to school. I held
my slate in front of my face while I whispered something to the girl
beside and the girl behind me. Both began to titter.
"Silence!" cried the schoolmistress, who was sitting at her desk, but I
went on whispering and the girls began to choke with laughter.
I think the schoolmistress must have thought I was saying something
about herself--making game, perhaps, of her personal appearance--for
after a moment she said, in her rapid accents:
"Mary O'Neill, please repeat what you have just been saying."