There would be no more of that wretched fooling until fall, a point of time inconceivably far away.

Before it arrived any one of a number of strange things might happen to avert the calamity of education.

For instance, he might be born again, a thing of which he had lately heard talk; a contingency by no means flawless in prospect, since it probably meant having the mumps again, and things like that.

But if it came on the very last day of vacation, or on the first morning of school, just as he was called on to recite, snatching him from the very jaws of the Moloch, and if it fixed him so he need not be afraid in the night of going where Milo Barrus was going, then it might not be so bad.
Nancy, who had now discarded the good name of Lillian May for simple Alice, disapproved heartily of being born again; unless, indeed, one could be born a boy the second time.

She was only too eager for the day when she need not submit to having her hair brushed and combed so long every morning of her life.