After some hesitation, Mrs.Ring had accepted the position, feeling sure that it would rest her nerves.
But never had the good woman suffered such a disillusionment.

Allie, she soon discovered, was anything but a child, or rather she was an amazing and contradictory combination of child and adult.

What Mrs.
Ring had taken to be mental apathy, inherent dullness, was in reality caution, diffidence, the shyness of some wild animal.
Nor was that the most bewildering of the teacher's surprises; Allie possessed character and will power.

For some time she had accepted Mrs.
Ring's tutorship without comment or question--Calvin Gray had recommended it, therefore she obeyed blindly--but one day, after they had become settled in the mountains, she came out with a forceful declaration.
She knew full well her own shortcomings, so she declared, and she was not content to learn a few things day by day.

She demanded intensified training; education under forced draught.
"They took green country boys durin' the war--" "During the war.