"But it isn’t worldly. God made my curls, and it is just as bad to plait them up and take out the curl as it would be to go to work and curl them on an iron if they were straight. My curls are n’t frivolous, and I take care of them myself. My mother loves them, and I must do as she says." Friend Ruth looked at the determined little face set in its frame of dark curls, and hesitated. She was not used to logic from a child, yet there seemed to be reason in the words. Besides, Friend Ruth was a great advocate of honor to parents. It was a complicated question. She decided to temporize. "I will speak to Friend Isaac about the matter, but thee will have to wear them in a net. It is untidy to have curls tumbling about thy face." That was the end of the matter. Dawn wore her curls without further question, albeit in a plain, dark net. Though outwardly the little girl was docile, except upon occasion, Friend Ruth learned to avoid any crossing of swords with the young logician, for she nearly always got the worst of it. Dawn took to learning as a bird to the air, having inherited her father’s brilliant mind and taste for letters, combined with her mother’s keen insight and wide perceptive faculties. Her lessons were always easily and perfectly learned, and she looked with contempt upon the plodders who could not get time from their tasks for the fun which she was always ready to lead. The pranks she played were many. On one occasion she led an expedition of the entire school in a slide down a newly made straw-stack, thereby damaging its geometrical shape and necessitating several hours’ work by the farmhands. As a punishment, she was remanded to the garden alone to write a composition on the beauties of Nature. It began: A great green worm come cameing down the populo tree with great tribusence. Friend Ruth read the finished composition with the dismay of a hen which has a duck on its hands, and handed it over to Friend Isaac. "The child has an original mind, and is going to be a brilliant woman," he remarked gravely. "Yes, Isaac, but thee will not tell her so," said Friend Ruth quickly.