to the
teacher she liked, but to the Principal, a man who belonged, like Mrs.
Livery Johnson, to the camp of Thea's natural enemies. He taught school
because he was too lazy to work among grown-up people, and he made an
easy job of it. He got out of real work by inventing useless activities
for his pupils, such as the "tree-diagramming system." Thea had spent
hours making trees out of "Thanatopsis," Hamlet's soliloquy, Cato on
"Immortality." She agonized under this waste of time, and was only too
glad to accept her father's offer of liberty.

So Thea left school the first of November. By the first of January she
had eight one-hour pupils and ten half-hour pupils, and there would be
more in the summer. She spent her earnings generously. She bought a new
Brussels carpet for the parlor, and a rifle for Gunner and Axel, and an
imitation tiger-skin coat and cap for Thor. She enjoyed being able to
add to the family possessions, and thought Thor looked quite as handsome
in his spots as the rich children she had seen in Denver. Thor was most
complacent in his conspicuous apparel. He could walk anywhere by this
time--though he always preferred to sit, or to be pulled in his cart. He
was a blissfully lazy child, and had a number of long, dull plays, such
as making nests for his china duck and waiting for her to lay him an
egg. Thea thought him very intelligent, and she was proud that he was so
big and burly. She found him restful, loved to hear him call her
"sitter," and really liked his companionship, especially when she was
tired. On Saturday, for instance, when she taught from nine in the
morning until five in the afternoon, she liked to get off in a corner
with Thor after supper, away from all the bathing and dressing and
joking and talking that went on in the house, and ask him about his
duck, or hear him tell one of his rambling stories.

XV

By the time Thea's fifteenth birthday came round, she was established as
a music teacher in Moonstone. The new room had been added to the house
early in the spring, and Thea had been giving her lessons there since
the middle of May. She liked the personal independence which was
accorded her as a wage-earner. The family questioned her comings and
goings very little. She could go buggy-riding with Ray Kennedy, for
instance, without taking Gunner or Axel. She could go to Spanish
Johnny's and sing part songs with the Mexicans, and nobody objected.

Thea was still under the first