d a door in one end. And from its roof, which
was not too high for a game of "anti-I-over," protruded a joint of rusty
stovepipe. During spring and summer the building stood empty, with the
whole sloping green place to itself and the pronghorns, and in every
high wind it toppled over, with its pipe pointing to the east, until it
was pried into place again. But, after school "took up" in the fall, the
glade rang with the laughter and shouts of the scholars, and the
antelope crossed the Vermillion and traveled to the rugged country
farther west, where, when the snow fell and hid the dried grass, they
could browse off the bushes; and the school-house did not topple any
more, for its deep coal-bins, which were built against the wall by the
door, were full to the brim.

Often on warm summer afternoons, the little girl rode down to the glade
beyond the sloughs and, sitting her horse quietly, induced a tawny doe
and her twin kids to approach by exciting their curiosity with her
bright red flannel petticoat. But if she took the herd along, she did
not dare display her skirt, for Napoleon did not like it and had, on one
occasion, viciously gored the Indian pony in the ribs when the little
girl was busy coaxing the deer. After a wind-storm she liked to climb
from her pony to the overturned school-house and walk about on it. Once,
she slipped on a window-pane, when she was peering in, and fell through;
and would have had to remain there a long time (for the door was
locked), if she had not thought to pull the joint of stovepipe out of
the roof and crawl through the hole to freedom.

But she had never been near the building when the teacher was in charge.
She did not want to go to school, because she meant to learn her lessons
at home the way her mother had,--and her mother had been taught by
_her_ mother, and, after that, by a governess. The little girl had never
talked the matter over at the farm-house, however, for she never doubted
that the governess, whatever that was, would come all in good time.

So her surprise and grief were great when she heard one day that she was
to learn her lessons from the lanky Yankton man who presided over the
school, and along with the other little girls who lived near enough to
attend. She held one tearful argument after another with the eldest
brother, declaring that she could read and study at home. But he said
that a young one nearly six years old ought to know something more than
stories--s