"A girl
ought to be in the primer that turns her letters the wrong way."
"Well, my letters spell the words right," said Nance hotly, "an' that's
more'n yours do, Pie-Face!"
Whereupon the girl stuck out her tongue, and Nance promptly shoved her
off the end of the seat, with the result that her presence was requested
in the office at the first recess.
"If you would learn to make your letters right, the girls would not tease
you," said the principal, kindly. "Why do you persist in turning them the
wrong way?"
Now Nance had learned to write by copying the inscriptions from the
reverse side of the cathedral windows, and she still believed the
cathedral was right. But she liked the principal and she wanted very much
to get a good report, so she gave in.
"All right," she said good-naturedly, "I'll do 'em your way. An' ef you
ketch me fightin' agin, I hope you'll lick hell outen me!"
The principal, while decrying its forcible expression, applauded her good
intention, and from that time on took special interest in her.
Nance's greatest drawback these days was Mrs. Snawdor. That worthy lady,
having her chief domestic prop removed and finding the household duties
resting too heavily upon her own shoulders, conceived an overwhelming
hatred for the school, the unknown school-teacher, and the truant
officer, for whom she had hitherto harbored a slightly romantic interest.
"I ain't got a mite of use for the whole lay-out," she announced in a
sweeping condemnation one morning when Nance was reminding her for the
fourth time that she had to have a spelling book.
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