read your sentence or two, which by that time sounded just like nonsense
because you'd read it over and over so many times to yourself before
your chance came. And often you didn't even have a chance to do that,
because the teacher didn't have time to get around to you at all, and
you closed your book and put it back in your desk without having opened
your mouth. Reading was one thing Elizabeth Ann had learned to do very
well indeed, but she had learned it all by herself at home from much
reading to herself. Aunt Frances had kept her well supplied with
children's books from the nearest public library. She often read three a
week--very different, that, from a sentence or two once or twice a week.

When she sat down on the battered old bench she almost laughed aloud, it
seemed so funny to be in a class of only three. There had been forty in
her grade in the big brick building. She sat in the middle, the little
girl whom the teacher had called Ellen on one side, and Ralph on the
other. Ellen was very pretty, with fair hair smoothly braided in two
little pig-tails, sweet, blue eyes, and a clean blue-and-white gingham
dress. Ralph had very black eyes, dark hair, a big bruise on his
forehead, a cut on his chin, and a tear in the knee of his short
trousers. He was much bigger than Ellen, and Elizabeth Ann thought he
looked rather fierce. She decided that she would be afraid of him, and
would not like him at all.

"Page thirty-two," said the teacher. "Ralph first."

Ralph stood up and began to read. It sounded very familiar to Elizabeth
Ann, for he did not read at all well. What was not familiar was that the
teacher did not stop him after the first sentence. He read on and on
till he had read a page, the teacher only helping him with the hardest
words.