She belongs with
wild creatur's, I do believe,--just the same natur'. She'd better be
kept to school, 'stead o' growin' up this way; but she keeps the rest
o' the young ones all in a brile, and this last teacher wouldn't have
her there at all. She'd toll off half the school into the pasture at
recess time, and none of 'em would get back for half an hour."
"What's a tick-tack? I don't remember," asked the doctor, who had been
smiling now and then at this complaint.
"They tie a nail to the end of a string, and run it over a bent pin
stuck in the sash, and then they get out o' sight and pull, and it
clacks against the winder, don't ye see? Ain't it surprisin' how them
devil's tricks gets handed down from gineration to gineration, while
so much that's good is forgot," lamented Mrs. Meeker, but the doctor
looked much amused.
"She's a bright child," he said, "and not over strong. I don't believe
in keeping young folks shut up in the schoolhouses all summer long."
Mrs. Meeker sniffed disapprovingly. "She's tougher than ellum roots. I
believe you can't kill them peaked-looking young ones. She'll run like
a fox all day long and live to see us all buried. I can put up with
her pranks; 't is of pore old Mis' Thacher I'm thinkin'. She's had
trouble enough without adding on this young 'scape-gallows. You had
better fetch her up to be a doctor," Mrs. Meeker smilingly continued,
"I was up there yisterday, and one of the young turkeys had come
hoppin' and quawkin' round the doorsteps with its leg broke, and she'd
caught it and fixed it off with a splint before you could say Jack
Robi'son.
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