Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/307

Rh school and do it again. Patted me on the head and said I was "an honor to my parents and an example to my playmates."

I had been looking down all the time, feeling mighty proud and scared, but at that I couldn't help glancing up to see the other boys admire me. But the first person my eye lit on was your grandma, standing in the back of the room, where she had stopped for a moment on her way up to church, and glaring at me in a mighty unpleasant way.

"Tell 'em, John," she said right out loud, before everybody.

There was no way to run, for the Elder had hold of my hand, and there was no place to hide, though I reckon I could have crawled into a rat hole. So, to gain time, I blurted out:

"Tell 'em what, mam?"

"Tell 'em how you come to have your lesson so nice."

I learned to hate notoriety right then and there, but I knew there was no switching