Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/116

 since she had taken lessons of the best piano teacher in Grinnell, Iowa, she herself would decide what pieces Grace should study. Thea readily consented to that, and Mrs. Johnson rustled away to tell a neighbor woman that Thea Kronborg could be meek enough when you went at her right.

Thea was telling Ray about this unpleasant encounter as they were driving out to the sand hills the next Sunday.

"She was stuffing you, all right, Thee," Ray reassured her. There 's no general dissatisfaction among your scholars. She just wanted to get in a knock. I talked to the piano tuner the last time he was here, and he said all the people he tuned for expressed themselves very favorably about your teaching. I wish you did n't take so much pains with them, myself."

"But I have to, Ray. They 're all so dumb. They 've got no ambition," Thea exclaimed irritably. "Jenny Smiley is the only one who is n't stupid. She can read pretty well, and she has such good hands. But she don't care a rap about it. She has no pride."

Ray's face was full of complacent satisfaction as he glanced sidewise at Thea, but she was looking off intently into the mirage, at one of those mammoth cattle that are nearly always reflected there. "Do you find it easier to teach in your new room?" he asked.

"Yes; I 'm not interrupted so much. Of course, if I ever happen to want to practice at night, that 's always the night Anna chooses to go to bed early."

"It 's a darned shame, Thee, you did n't cop that room for yourself. I 'm sore at the padre about that. He ought to give you that room. You could fix it up so pretty."

"I did n't want it, honest I did n't. Father would have let me have it. I like my own room better. Somehow I can think better in a little room. Besides, up there I am away from everybody, and I can read as late as I please and nobody nags me."