But whatever ailed that man I couldn't possibly think.

It had got to be him, for Shelley was so all right at Christmas, it made her look that pretty we hardly knew her.
I was thinking about her until I scarcely could study my lessons, so I could recite to Laddie at night, and not fall so far behind at school.
Miss Amelia offered to hear me, but I just begged Laddie, and father could see that he taught me fifty things in a lesson that you could tell to look at Miss Amelia, she never knew.

Why, he couldn't hear me read: "We charged upon a flock of geese, And put them all to flight Except one sturdy gander That thought to show us fight,"-- without teaching me that the oldest picture in all the world was made of a row of geese, some of which were kinds we then had--the earth didn't seem so old when you thought of that--and how a flock of geese once wakened an army and saved a city, and how far wild geese could fly without alighting in migration, and everything you could think of about geese, only he didn't know why eating the same grass made feathers on geese and wool on sheep.

Anyway, Miss Amelia never told you a word but what was in the book, and how to read and spell it.

May said that father was very much disappointed in her, and he was never going to hire another teacher until he met and talked with her, no matter what kind of letters she could send.