"Take off your hat," said the teacher, and he took it off slowly.
"I suppose you can read?" was the first question.
"No."
A snicker ran round the room, and little Darby's brow clouded.
As he not only could not read, but could not even spell,
and in fact did not know his letters, he was put into the alphabet class,
the class of the smallest children in the school.
Little Darby walked over to the corner indicated with his head up,
his hands in his pockets, and a roll in his gait full of defiance,
and took his seat on the end of the bench and looked straight before him.
He could hear the titter around him, and a lowering look came into
his blue eyes. He glanced sideways down the bench opposite.
It happened that the next seat to his was that of Vashti Mills,
who was at that time just nine. She was not laughing,
but was looking at Darby earnestly, and as he caught her eye
she nodded to him, "Good-mornin'." It was the first greeting
the boy had received, and though he returned it sullenly, it warmed him,
and the cloud passed from his brow and presently he looked at her again.
She handed him a book. He took it and looked at it as if it were something
that might explode.
He was not an apt scholar; perhaps he had begun too late; perhaps there was
some other cause; but though he could swim better, climb better,
and run faster than any boy in the school, or, for that matter, in the county,
and knew the habits of every bird that flitted through the woods
and of every animal that lived in the district, he was not good at his books.
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