She had to divide her desk with another little girl, Freda Payne. Freda was a black-eyed, snappy little girl who could whisper out of the corner of her mouth without the teacher’s seeing her do it. She instructed Carolyn May from time to time regarding this new world the city child had entered into. “Goodness me! didn’t you ever have a slate before?” she whispered to Carolyn May. “No,” the little city girl confessed. “They don’t let us use them where I went to school. They make too much noise. And, then, they aren’t clean.” “Clean! Course they’re clean, if you keep ’em clean,” declared Freda fiercely. She showed the stranger the bottle of water she kept in her desk and the sponge with which she washed her slate. “But the sponge is dirty. And it smells!” ventured Carolyn May, with a slight shudder. She had heard of germs, and the mussy-looking bit of sponge was not an attractive object. “’Tain’t neither!” snapped Freda, making her denial positive with two negatives. “The boys spit on their slates and wipe ’em off on their jacket sleeves. _That’s_ nasty. But us girls is clean.” Carolyn May could not see it, however, and she ignored her own slate. “You can’t use that pencil to write with on paper,” Freda caught her up with another admonition. “That’s a slate pencil, if it has got wood around it.” “Oh, dear me! Is it?” sighed the new pupil. “And I haven’t any other here, that I can see.” “Well, I’ll lend you one. But don’t chew the lead. I hate to have folks chew my lead pencils.” Carolyn May promised not to lunch off of the borrowed writing instrument. But these were not all the pitfalls into which the new pupil fell. The morning session was not half over before she wished for a drink of water. Of course, she asked her seatmate about it. “You must raise your hand till Miss Minnie sees you. You’ll have to waggle your hand good to make her look, like enough,” added Carolyn May’s mentor. “Then, if she nods, you go back to the entry and get your drink.” “Oh,” was the comment of the city child, and she immediately raised her hand. She did not have to “waggle” it much before Miss Minnie took notice of her. “Well, Carolyn May?” she said. “May—may I get a drink—please?” almost whispered Carolyn May, for she felt very much embarrassed. Miss Minnie nodded. The little girl rose and went back to the entry on the girls’ side of the house. She looked all about this rather large square room without finding what she sought. Against two walls were rows of pegs, on which were hung the coats and hats and dinner baskets, or dinner pails, of the pupils. In the corner was a shelf with a dingy bucket upon it and a rusty tin dipper hanging beside it. Finally, Carolyn May came slowly back to her seat. Miss Minnie was busy with a class of older pupils. Freda asked—of course out of the corner of her mobile mouth: “Did you get your drink?” Carolyn May shook her head. “Why not?” “I didn’t see any faucet.”