m the part
in her hair at the back of her head, where two little braids began their
separate careers to end in a couple of blue-and-red checked bits of
ribbon, one upon each of her thin shoulder blades. He was conscious that
the part in Dora's shining brown hair was odious, but he was unconscious
of anything arithmetical. His sensations clogged his intellect; he
suffered from unsought notoriety, and hated Dora Yocum; most of all he
hated her busy little shoulder blades.

He had to be "kept in" after school; and when he was allowed to go home
he averted his eyes as he went by the house where Dora lived. She was
out in the yard, eating a doughnut, and he knew it; but he had passed
the age when it is just as permissible to throw a rock at a girl as at a
boy; and stifling his normal inclinations, he walked sturdily on, though
he indulged himself so far as to engage in a murmured conversation with
one of the familiar spirits dwelling somewhere within him. "Pfa!" said
Ramsey to himself--or himself to Ramsey, since it is difficult to say
which was which. "Pfa! Thinks she's smart, don't she?"... "Well, I guess
she does, but she ain't!" ... "I hate her, don't you?"... "You bet
your life I hate her!"... "Teacher's Pet, that's what _I_ call her!"...
"Well, that's what _I_ call her, too, don't I?" "Well, _I_ do; that's
all she is, anyway--dirty ole Teacher's Pet!"

Chapter III

He had not forgiven her four years later when he entered high school
in her company, for somehow Ramsey managed to shovel his way through
examinations and stayed with the class. By this time he had a long
accumulation of reasons for hating her: Dora's persistent and increasing
competency was not short of flamboyant, and teachers naturally got the
habit of flinging their quickest pupil in the face of their slowest and
"dumbest." Nevertheless, Ramsey was unable to deny that she had become
less awful lookin' than she used to be. At least, he was honest enough
to make a partial retraction when his friend and classmate, Fred
Mitchell, insisted that an amelioration of Dora's appearance could be
actually proven.

"Well, I'll take it back. I don't claim she's every last bit as awful
lookin' as she always has been," said Ramsey, toward the conclusion of
the argument. "I'll say this for her, she's awful lookin', but she may
not be as awful lookin' as she was. She don't come to school with the
edge of some of her underclo'es showin' below her dress any more