She did not believe in high fences or uniforms or bodily punishment. She
was tall, handsome, and serene, and she treated the girls with the same
grave courtesy with which she treated the directors.
Nance regarded her with something of the worshipful awe she had once felt
before an image of the Virgin Mary.
"She don't make you 'fraid exactly," she confided to Birdie. "She makes
you 'shamed."
"You can tell she's a real lady the way she shines her finger-nails,"
said Birdie, to whom affairs of the toilet were of great importance.
"Another way you can tell," Nance added, trying to think the thing out
for herself, "is the way she takes slams. You an' me sass back, but a
real lady knows how to hold her jaw an' make you eat dirt just the same."
They were standing side by side at a long table in a big, clean kitchen,
cutting out biscuit for supper. Other white-capped, white-aproned girls,
all intent upon their own tasks, were flitting about, and a teacher sat
at a desk beside the window, directing the work. The two girls had fallen
into the habit of doing their chores together and telling each other
secrets. Birdie's had mostly to do with boys, and it was not long before
Nance felt called upon to make a few tentative observations on the same
engrossing subject.
"The prettiest boy I ever seen--" she said, "I mean I have ever
saw"--then she laughed helplessly. "Well, anyhow, he was that Clarke
feller. You know, the one that got pinched fer smashin' the window the
first time we was had up?"
"Mac Clarke? Sure, I know him.
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