f me.
I scratch like fury when I am mad. Now Tom doesn't get mad, though his
name is almost, or just, as bad as mine."

"What do you get mad at?"

"Lots of things, but 'specially my name. Folks make such fun of it and
say the hatefullest rhymes, and when they do that I just light into them
with my fists."

"And you a girl!"

"I am always sorry afterwards, but then it is too late to help it. I've
got to learn to let them tease without getting mad at all and then they
won't torment me, but it is a mighty hard thing to do, I think. I've
been trying for twelve years now and it is almost as bad as ever. Tom
says I am doing splendidly, but he doesn't know how often I get mad."

"Where is Tom?"

"Going to college at Reno."

"College, eh? He's a smart boy, is he?"

"Yes, indeed! We're both smart." He laughed at her naive reply, and her
face flushed, but she continued convincingly, "I am almost as far as I
can get in school here. I am ready for Latin. Mrs. Carson says if I
can't go to boarding school next fall, she will teach me herself, so I
can keep up with Carrie."

"Why didn't you go this year?"

"There wasn't any money."

"Would you like to go?"

"Wouldn't I!" was the emphatic exclamation, as she clasped her hands in
rapturous longing.

"If you could have one wish granted what would it be?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you were told that you could have any one thing you wanted, what
would you choose?"

"Only one?"

"Yes."

"Well, it would be pretty hard to choose. I want to go to boarding
school awfully bad, but--I believe--I would choose a home like Carrie
Carson's."

"Carrie Carson's! What is the matter with your own? Isn't your house as
big as theirs or as nice?"

"No, but I wasn't thinking of houses just now. A house isn't a home
always. Our house isn't. Tom and I are the home part of our house. Aunt
Maria is housekeeper and Dad just stops there once in a while. They
don't care about having a home, I reckon."

The man was silent with astonishment at her keen observations, and
mistaking his silence for disapproval at her criticisms, she hastily
resumed, "The kind of a home I mean is where all the folks in it like
each other and are always nice like the Carsons."

"So your father isn't like Mr. Carson?"

"Not a bit--yet."

"Is he mean to you?"

"N-o, not exactly. He is a Catt, that's all. I reckon it is me--I, who
is mean. I get mad and sass him when he shakes me, and once when he
whippe