It must be remembered that in those days a boy of eleven was nearing the end of his school life. Soon he would be at work; already he felt himself nearly a man and too old for petticoat government. Moreover, those were country boys, wild and rough, and many of them as tall as she was. Those who had failed to pass Standard IV and so could not leave school until they were eleven, looked upon that last year as a punishment inflicted upon them by the school authorities and behaved accordingly. In this they were encouraged by their parents, for a certain section of these resented their boys being kept at school when they might be earning. “What do our young Alf want wi’ a lot o’ book larnin’?” they would say. “He can read and write and add up as much money as he’s ever likely to get. What more do he want?” Then a neighbour of more advanced views would tell them: “A good education’s everything in these days. You can’t get on in the world if you ain’t had one,” for they read their newspapers and new ideas were percolating, though slowly. It was only the second generation to be forcibly fed with the fruit of the tree of knowledge: what wonder if it did not always agree with it.

Meanwhile, Miss Holmes carried her cane about with her. A poor method of enforcing discipline, according to modern educational ideas; but it served. It may be that she and her like all over the country at that time were breaking up the ground that other, later comers to the field, with a knowledge of child psychology and with tradition and experiment behind them, might sow the good seed.

She seldom used the cane on the girls and still more seldom on the infants. Standing in a corner with their hands on their heads was their punishment. She gave little treats and encouragements, too, and, although the children called her ‘Susie’ behind her back, they really liked and respected her. Many times there came a knock at the door and a smartly dressed girl on holidays, or a tall young soldier on leave, in his scarlet tunic and pillbox cap, looked in “to see Governess”.

That Laura could already read when she went to school was never discovered. “Do you know your A B C?” the mistress asked her on the first morning. “Come, let me hear you say it: A-B-C—”

“A-B-C—” Laura began; but when she got to F she stumbled, for she had never memorized the letters in order. So she was placed in the class known as the babies and joined in chanting the alphabet from A to Z. Alternately they recited it backward, and Laura soon had that version by heart, for it rhymed: Z-Y-X and W-V U-T-S and R-Q-P O-N-M and L-K-J I-H-G and F-E-D And C-B-A!