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THE PRACTICE OF COMPUTING USING
3RD EDITION
WILLIAM RICHARD
PUNCH • ENBODY
C O N T E N T S
•
VIDEONOTES xxiv
PREFACE xxv
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xxix
1.0.1 Data Manipulation xxx
1.0.2 Problem Solving and Case Studies xxx
1.0.3 Code Examples xxx
1.0.4 Interactive Sessions xxxi
1.0.5 Exercises and Programming Projects xxxi
1.0.6 Self-Test Exercises xxxi
1.0.7 Programming Tips xxxi
vii
viii CONTENTS
P A R T 2 S TA RT I N G T O P R O G R A M 35
Chapter 1 Beginnings 37
1.1 Practice, Practice, Practice 37
1.2 QuickStart, the Circumference Program 38
1.2.1 Examining the Code 40
1.3 An Interactive Session 42
1.4 Parts of a Program 43
1.4.1 Modules 43
1.4.2 Statements and Expressions 43
1.4.3 Whitespace 45
1.4.4 Comments 46
1.4.5 Special Python Elements: Tokens 46
1.4.6 Naming Objects 48
1.4.7 Recommendations on Naming 49
1.5 Variables 49
1.5.1 Variable Creation and Assignment 50
1.6 Objects and Types 53
1.6.1 Numbers 55
1.6.2 Other Built-In Types 57
1.6.3 Object Types: Not Variable Types 58
1.6.4 Constructing New Values 60
CONTENTS ix
1.7 Operators 61
1.7.1 Integer Operators 61
1.7.2 Floating-Point Operators 64
1.7.3 Mixed Operations 64
1.7.4 Order of Operations and Parentheses 65
1.7.5 Augmented Assignment Operators: A Shortcut! 66
1.8 Your First Module, Math 68
1.9 Developing an Algorithm 69
1.9.1 New Rule—Testing 73
1.10 Visual Vignette: Turtle Graphics 74
1.11 What’s Wrong with My Code? 75
Chapter 2 Control 87
2.1 QuickStart Control 87
2.1.1 Selection 87
2.1.2 Booleans for Decisions 89
2.1.3 The if Statement 89
2.1.4 Example: What Lead Is Safe in Basketball? 92
2.1.5 Repetition 96
2.1.6 Example: Finding Perfect Numbers 100
2.1.7 Example: Classifying Numbers 105
2.2 In-Depth Control 109
2.2.1 True and False: Booleans 109
2.2.2 Boolean Variables 110
2.2.3 Relational Operators 110
2.2.4 Boolean Operators 115
2.2.5 Precedence 116
2.2.6 Boolean Operators Example 117
2.2.7 Another Word on Assignments 120
2.2.8 The Selection Statement for Decisions 122
2.2.9 More on Python Decision Statements 122
2.2.10 Repetition: the while Statement 126
2.2.11 Sentinel Loop 136
2.2.12 Summary of Repetition 136
2.2.13 More on the for Statement 137
2.2.14 Nesting 140
2.2.15 Hailstone Sequence Example 142
2.3 Visual Vignette: Plotting Data with Pylab 143
2.3.1 First Plot and Using a List 144
2.3.2 More Interesting Plot: A Sine Wave 145
x CONTENTS
P A R T 3 D AT A S T R U C T U R E S A N D F U N C T I O N S 187
Chapter 4 Working with Strings 189
4.1 The String Type 190
4.1.1 The Triple-Quote String 190
4.1.2 Nonprinting Characters 191
4.1.3 String Representation 191
4.1.4 Strings as a Sequence 192
4.1.5 More Indexing and Slicing 193
4.1.6 Strings Are Iterable 198
CONTENTS xi
P A R T 4 C L A S S E S , M A K I N G Y O U R O W N D AT A S T R U C T U R E S
AND ALGORITHMS 527
Chapter 11 Introduction to Classes 529
11.1 QuickStart: Simple Student Class 529
11.2 Object-Oriented Programming 530
11.2.1 Python Is Object-Oriented! 530
11.2.2 Characteristics of OOP 531
11.3 Working with OOP 531
11.3.1 Class and Instance 531
11.4 Working with Classes and Instances 532
11.4.1 Built-In Class and Instance 532
11.4.2 Our First Class 534
11.4.3 Changing Attributes 536
11.4.4 The Special Relationship Between an Instance and
Class: instance-of 537
11.5 Object Methods 540
11.5.1 Using Object Methods 540
11.5.2 Writing Methods 541
11.5.3 The Special Argument self 542
11.5.4 Methods Are the Interface to a Class Instance 544
11.6 Fitting into the Python Class Model 545
11.6.1 Making Programmer-Defined Classes 545
11.6.2 A Student Class 545
11.6.3 Python Standard Methods 546
11.6.4 Now There Are Three: Class Designer, Programmer,
and User 550
11.7 Example: Point Class 551
11.7.1 Construction 553
11.7.2 Distance 553
11.7.3 Summing Two Points 553
11.7.4 Improving the Point Class 554
11.8 Python and OOP 558
11.8.1 Encapsulation 558
11.8.2 Inheritance 559
11.8.3 Polymorphism 559
11.9 Python and Other OOP Languages 559
11.9.1 Public versus Private 559
11.9.2 Indicating Privacy Using Double Underscores (__) 560
CONTENTS xvii
APPENDICES 753
Appendix A Getting and Using Python 753
A.1 About Python 753
A.1.1 History 753
A.1.2 Python 3 753
A.1.3 Python Is Free and Portable 754
A.1.4 Installing Anaconda 756
A.1.5 Starting Our Python IDE: Spyder 756
A.1.6 Working with Python 757
A.1.7 Making a Program 760
A.2 The IPython Console 762
A.2.1 Anatomy of an iPython Session 763
A.2.2 Your Top Three iPython Tips 764
A.2.3 Completion and the Tab Key 764
A.2.4 The ? Character 766
A.2.5 More iPython Tips 766
A.3 Some Conventions for This Book 769
A.3.1 Interactive Code 770
A.3.2 Program: Written Code 770
A.3.3 Combined Program and Output 770
A.4 Summary 771
Appendix B Simple Drawing with Turtle Graphics 773
B.0.1 What Is a Turtle? 773
B.0.2 Motion 775
B.0.3 Drawing 775
B.0.4 Color 777
B.0.5 Drawing with Color 779
B.0.6 Other Commands 781
B.1 Tidbits 783
B.1.1 Reset/Close the Turtle Window 783
Appendix C What’s Wrong with My Code? 785
C.1 It’s Your Fault! 785
C.1.1 Kinds of Errors 785
C.1.2 “Bugs” and Debugging 787
C.2 Debugging 789
C.2.1 Testing for Correctness 789
C.2.2 Probes 789
C.2.3 Debugging with Spyder Example 1 789
C.2.4 Debugging Example 1 Using print() 793
CONTENTS xxi
xxiv
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
“But it struck six,” said the puzzled Elizabeth Ann.
“Now for pity’s sake, don’t tell that child about ship’s time to-
night,” begged Aunt Grace. “I’ve been married to your Uncle Hiram
for fifteen years,” she added, turning to Elizabeth Ann, “and I can’t
make head or tail of his bells. I go by my good Christian clock, and I
say it’s seven o’clock when it is seven o’clock; six bells will never
mean seven o’clock to me.”
“Don’t try to learn it all at once,” advised Uncle Hiram kindly. “Take
things easy—you’ll have all winter to learn ship’s time in, and I will
help you. There’s your Aunt Grace calling you now.”
Aunt Grace wanted Elizabeth Ann to take her bath, and after
peeping into the kitchen and seeing that Tony was asleep on a small
round rug quite as though he felt at home there, Elizabeth Ann
climbed the ladder up to the pretty blue and white bathroom and
had her bath. Three minutes after that she was fast asleep, for no
matter how exciting it might be to sleep in a bunk, no little girl who
had traveled more than two hundred miles in one day could hope to
keep awake very long after she had gotten into such a nice soft bed.
“Your Uncle Hiram,” said Aunt Grace, and while of course he was
Doris’s uncle Elizabeth Ann felt as though he might be her uncle “a
little bit” as she said, for Doris was her cousin. “Your Uncle Hiram
was on a sailing vessel for forty years. It’s no wonder he can’t bear
to get away from the sea. But when he retired, he came back to
Gardner, where he lived when he was a boy, and we planned to be
married. I’m twenty years younger than he is and I didn’t want to
give up this farm—in fact I’d promised my mother and father to
always live here. Your uncle would have liked to live nearer the
ocean, I think, but he was very nice about it. He had some money
saved and he said he’d build us a house to live in, if I would let him
build the kind of house he liked. So he built this ship and I had the
tenant farmer move in the old farm house and we’ve been right
happy. Plenty of people think we’re crazy to live in a place that is
part ship and part house, but there are some things I like about it.”
“Well, I like the deck, myself,” Aunt Grace explained. “It’s the best
place to dry clothes you ever did see. And in summer we have a
awning stretched over part of it and have chairs out there and it is
fine—there’s always a breeze. Some folks call it the roof, of course,
but your Uncle Hiram likes me to say ‘deck’ and I always do.”
And after the dishes were dried and put away, Aunt Grace took
Elizabeth Ann and Doris up to see the deck. It was scrubbed to a
shining whiteness, and there was a railing all around, just as there
would be on a ship, so that no one could fall off. They could see far
over the fields, and Aunt Grace pointed out the farm house where
the tenant farmer lived and even the chimneys of the house on the
next farm.
“Can we see the school from here?” asked Elizabeth Ann, who was
just the least bit anxious over the idea of going to a new school.
CHAPTER VII
SCHOOL NEWS
“See the school?” echoed Aunt Grace. “My dear child, of course
you can’t see the school; why it’s fully three miles from here, on the
other side of that section of woods. You have to walk half a mile to
get the bus.”
Elizabeth Ann hadn’t heard about the bus, and neither had Doris.
“Why doesn’t the bus come and get us right here?” Doris asked.
That was almost the first question she had asked and Aunt Grace
told her she was glad to hear her voice.
“The bus couldn’t go round to every farm—it would take too long,”
Aunt Grace said. “So the pupils gather in certain places where the
bus driver knows they’ll be, and he picks them up in groups. You
and Elizabeth Ann and the other children who live around here, have
to walk to the nearest cross-roads—your uncle will tell you what time
the bus passes there and what time you have to leave the house. If
there’s a bad storm or it rains too hard, he will take you in the car as
far as the cross-roads; but your Uncle Doctor wrote to tell me that
he wanted both of you to walk whenever it is possible.”
Elizabeth Ann liked to walk and Doris didn’t. But everyone did as
Uncle Doctor directed, always.
“Why you’ll have to take your lunch,” Aunt Grace replied. “I believe
some of the teachers make hot soup in the winter, but there is no
place where you can buy anything to eat. The consolidated school is
right in the country; there was some talk of building it in Gardner,
but they couldn’t agree on a plot of ground for it. You’ll both be
country girls if you live on a farm all winter, and go to a country
school.”
Elizabeth Ann and Doris had always wanted to take their lunches
to school. In Seabridge, Doris came home at noon to lunch, and
Elizabeth Ann had done that, too, wherever she went to school.
Even at Aunt Ida’s school, they had gone to Aunt Ida’s house for
lunch—her house was next door to the school.
Elizabeth Ann said “Aunt Grace” because Doris did, and now Aunt
Grace told her a surprising thing.
They went down from the deck presently and Aunt Grace said she
thought Doris should lie down and take a little nap. This gave
Elizabeth Ann an excellent chance to study the mahogany clock, and
listen to it strike. And if ever she had said in her careless little mind
that Aunt Grace was “silly” not to learn ship-time, Elizabeth Ann was
soon sorry.
For the more she puzzled over the eight bells, and the two and
three bells, the more confused she became. And when Uncle Hiram
came in and asked her where the first mate was, Elizabeth Ann
merely raised her head and stared at him.
“Your Aunt Grace, to be sure,” said Uncle Hiram. “I’m the Captain
of this ship and she’s first mate. She stands the forenoon watch.”
“Is that the watch you carry in your pocket?” Elizabeth Ann asked,
beginning to feel that she didn’t understand anything Uncle Hiram
said.
“No, the forenoon watch is from eight o’clock till noon,” said Uncle
Hiram. “That’s the morning hours, you see. At eight bells, or 12
noon, I come up to the house for dinner.”
“How many bells is it now?” she asked, pointing to the clock which
said half-past eleven.
“Don’t bother your head about it,” he said now, noticing that
Elizabeth Ann was bewildered. “Perhaps you’ll pick it up as you go
along, and if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Your Aunt Grace was
brought up on a farm and she can’t learn about the sea; I went to
sea when I was a young lad and I can’t pick up land ways. But we
each do our way and get along splendidly. There’s more than one
way of doing a thing and I haven’t much use for any man who thinks
his is the only possible one.”
Elizabeth Ann thought that was very nice. If she learned to tell
time by the bells that would be fine—she could surprise Lansing and
Ted. But if she didn’t learn, Uncle Hiram wouldn’t be annoyed—he
thought that the old way of telling time—by the old way, Elizabeth
Ann meant the way she had been taught—was good, too.
“Does it?” Doris, who had just woke up from her nap, and was still
a bit sleepy, inquired doubtfully.
“Of course you may go,” said Aunt Grace, who had found time to
cook a marvelous dinner—with peach shortcake for dessert—
informed them. “Uncle Hiram just loves to have company with him
when he drives to Gardner.”
Aunt Grace wouldn’t hear of them waiting to help her with the
dishes—she said there were not many, and she was used to doing
them alone—and when Elizabeth Ann and Doris went outdoors to
get into the car, they found Tony sitting on the front doorstep,
washing his face as though he had always lived in the “Bonnie
Susie.”
And all the way to town he told Elizabeth Ann and Doris stories of
what had happened to him while he was at sea.
“I can feel the way the hammocks used to sway in a storm, even
now,” he said. “I still sleep in a hammock, but your Aunt Grace
couldn’t get used to one; she had to have a bunk.”
Elizabeth Ann and Doris looked at each other. They were glad they
had bunks instead of hammocks—a hammock was all very well to
sleep in for an hour or two on a warm afternoon, but they didn’t
care to sleep in one.
Gardner was a pretty little town, about four miles from the farm.
There was one main store, where almost everything was sold that
you could mention. Uncle Hiram drove directly to this store and he
said Elizabeth Ann and Doris might come in with him while he
bought the things he had come for—knives for cutting corn, and
gloves for the men who were to cut it.
Elizabeth Ann and Doris saw a pretty girl, about their own age,
very beautifully dressed. She didn’t look as though she could have
much fun in her pink silk frock, but it certainly was pretty. And she
smiled at Elizabeth Ann and Doris and was about to say something
when suddenly she frowned and looked so cross Elizabeth Ann was
startled.
“Hello, Cathy!” said a boy’s voice, and a lad in faded overalls, with
a large package under his arm, pulled off his cap and smiled as he
passed the three girls.
ROGER CALENDAR
“I don’t know what your father would say, Kitty, if he heard you
make a remark like that,” said Uncle Hiram. “Roger Calendar is a fine
boy in every respect. I hope the other pupils in school don’t feel
toward him as you do.”
“It’s a pity there isn’t a law that says all children have to be taught
kindness and politeness,” said Uncle Hiram. “I hope Elizabeth Ann
and Doris will have too much sense to follow your example.”
Catherine Gould didn’t seem abashed. She merely smiled a little,
as though Uncle Hiram was mistaken about her. Then she told
Elizabeth Ann that she would stop for her and Doris the next
morning “in time to get the bus,” and went out of the store.
Elizabeth Ann saw her cross the street and get into a beautiful dark
blue car—a much larger and handsomer car than Uncle Hiram’s.
“Isn’t she pretty!” said Doris wistfully. “And did you see her dress?
I wanted a new dress, but Mother said I’d better wait till Christmas
time.”
“Is he the taken boy who was lost?” asked Elizabeth Ann quickly.
“Oh, my, no,” Uncle Hiram answered. “That poor boy must live
many miles away from us. I never saw the man before who was
searching for him. Roger Calendar lives with the Bostwicks whose
land adjoins ours on one side. The Goulds live on the other side.
Catherine and Roger must go in to school every morning on the
same bus, when school is in session; I don’t like to think of her
being rude to him.”
Roger smiled a little shyly at the two girls. He had a friendly face
and nice dark eyes and hair. But his clothes were terribly patched
and Elizabeth Ann didn’t wonder he was ashamed of his shoes. She
caught a glimpse of them, patched with great squares of different
colored leather, before Roger seemed to suddenly remember them,
and then he thrust his feet out of sight, under the seat as far as they
would go.
“You’ll be on time all right, if Cathy Gould calls for you,” said
Roger. “Hardly anyone is late, anyway, because if you miss the bus
you never can walk to school in time for the nine o’clock bell. The
only thing to do is to turn around and go home and be marked
absent for a day.”
When they reached the road that led to the Bostwick farm, Roger
insisted he must get out.
“I’ll drive you all the way in,” offered Uncle Hiram. “I have plenty
of time. That package you are carrying is too heavy for a boy your
size, anyway. Better let me take you right up to the barn door,
Roger.”
“No, please,” Roger said, getting out of the car so hastily that he
almost tripped. “You’re awfully good, Mr. Kent, but Mr. Bostwick
doesn’t like me to take rides. He wouldn’t like it if he saw you
bringing me home.”
“What did I tell you about calling me Mr. Kent?” said Uncle Hiram
in his crossest voice.
Tony was still on the front stoop of the Bonnie Susie when they
reached home. But he consented to follow Elizabeth Ann and Doris
out to the corn field. They wanted to see the corn being cut and
Uncle Hiram said it was high time they saw the farm.
The tenant farmer, whose name was Mr. Lawton, and his two sons
were cutting corn, and Elizabeth Ann and Doris watched them for a
while as they went up and down the long rows. Tony caught a field
mouse and was so pleased with himself that Elizabeth Ann scolded
him, and told him he was vain.
“You run up to the house, and see my wife,” said Mr. Lawton, the
first time he stopped long enough to talk to them, “and she’ll show
you what she has been doing this morning and, likely as not she’ll
give you a sample. Mother likes to give away samples.”
Uncle Hiram wanted to stay in the field and as Elizabeth Ann and
Doris could see the farmhouse from where they stood, there was no
reason why they couldn’t go alone to call on Mrs. Lawton. Elizabeth
Ann thought she would be surprised to see them, but when they
rang the old-fashioned pull bell and a stout, pink-cheeked woman
came to the door, she didn’t look at all surprised to see two little
girls on her door step.
“You’re the two little nieces Mrs. Kent has been expecting, aren’t
you?” she said pleasantly. “I’m Mrs. Lawton, of course. Come right
in. If you don’t mind coming into the kitchen, I can finish putting the
labels on my jelly.”
“I’ve made forty glasses of grape jelly this morning,” said Mrs.
Lawton proudly. “I’d like you to try some on bread and butter; I
always think jelly tastes better on bread and butter than any other
way you can eat it. And I’ll be writing my labels while you eat.”
She cut two perfectly huge slices from a loaf of fine white home-
made bread, and spread each of them thickly with butter. Then she
covered the butter with sparkling grape jelly, and put the bread on
two blue and white plates.
Elizabeth Ann and Doris thought the jelly was the best they had
ever tasted. And while Mrs. Lawton wrote “Grape Jelly” on a lot of
little red and white labels and pasted them on the glasses she had
filled, Elizabeth Ann told her about the jam and jelly she had seen in
the cellar of the restaurant; also how the strange woman had
mistaken her for Esther, and had punished her with the ruler.
“Well, I think that was a shame,” said Mrs. Lawton, “and I’ll give
you a glass of jelly for yourself, to help you forget that experience.
And here’s a glass for Doris, too.”
When Elizabeth Ann and Doris showed Aunt Grace the jelly, she
said they should have it in their sandwiches for school the next day.
That made both little girls feel as though school time was very near;
and when they went to bed early that night in order to be ready for
their walk in the morning, they said they knew they would stay
awake and think about the new school. They didn’t, of course, but
went straight to sleep like sensible children, and were very much
surprised to be awakened by Aunt Grace the next morning, and told
that it was time to get dressed to go to school.
CHAPTER IX
Elizabeth Ann and Doris had just finished their breakfast when
Catherine Gould called for them. Catherine wore the prettiest dress
—perhaps a little too “fussy” for school, but a beautiful green color.
She had a fancy lunch box, too, with all sorts of compartments, for
her sandwiches and a bottle to keep her soup hot in.
Aunt Grace had packed a nice lunch for Elizabeth Ann and one just
like it for Doris; she had told them that their dresses were pretty, too
—Elizabeth Ann wore a blue and white gingham dress and Doris had
a pink one.
“Do you like living in that funny place?” asked Catherine, as the
three little girls walked down the lane which led to the road they
were to take.
“Why, it’s the nicest house I ever lived in!” Elizabeth Ann said
enthusiastically. “Doris is crazy about it—aren’t you, Doris? We go up
and down ladders instead of stairs, and we sleep in bunks instead of
beds. And the roof is a deck, and it’s the nicest place to play you
ever saw.”
“Yes it is,” declared Doris, forgetting her shyness. “And Elizabeth
Ann can tell ship-time—she learns everything.”
“Oh, Doris, I only know a little bit about it,” Elizabeth Ann
protested, turning red. “I have to stop and count, and most of the
time I get it all wrong.”
Catherine did not seem to be listening. She was peering down the
road.
“Here comes that awful Roger Calendar,” she said crossly. “It will
be just like him to try to walk with us; don’t pay any attention to him
and maybe he’ll let us alone.”
“He only lives with the Bostwicks who own the farm,” said
Catherine scornfully. “Roger is a taken boy—didn’t you hear me tell
you that yesterday? He used to live at the poor farm, until the
Bostwicks took him. He works for them, and the only reason they
send him to school is because the Board of Education makes them.”
Roger fell into step beside Elizabeth Ann. He carried a small brown
paper parcel in his hand—his lunch, probably, thought Elizabeth Ann,
who also suspected that there could not be more than a couple of
sandwiches in such a small package. Two sandwiches were not
much lunch for a hungry boy, she thought. Aunt Grace had insisted
on making four apiece for her and Doris.
“If you’re in our class, you’ll like school,” declared Roger. “We have
the finest teacher in the whole school, haven’t we, Cathy?”
“You may like her,” she said coldly. “I never could see anything in
her to rave about. Sometimes she gets too cross for words.”
Mattie Harrison was quite breathless when she reached them. She
was short and fat and her brown eyes twinkled as Catherine
introduced her. Elizabeth Ann liked her at once because she spoke to
Roger and asked him if he had had a nice summer.
“I guess he worked the same as usual,” said Catherine in what she
may have intended to be a low voice, but which Roger heard, for his
face flushed.
“Line up,” he commanded. “Who’s the little girl in the blue and
white dress? Did she ride with me last winter?”
“She’s Elizabeth Ann Loring, Dave,” said Roger Calendar. “And this
is her cousin, Doris Mason. They’re going to spend the winter with
Uncle Hiram and go to our school.”
“Let company get in first,” Dave, the driver, directed. “Hop in,
Elizabeth Ann Loring, and Doris Mason.”
“Glad to know you,” said Dave from behind his wheel. “Sit down
anywhere you like. Now then, line move up—one at a time and
anyone who crowds goes to the foot of the class.”
One by one the boys and girls filed into the bus and took seats.
Elizabeth Ann, watching, saw at once how wise Dave was to make
them enter one at a time. If they had tried to board the bus in a
struggling crowd, it would mean only confusion and delay. Dave kept
an eagle eye on the entering line and no one dared push his
neighbor. Elizabeth Ann saw that the girls came first—Dave had
taught the boys to wait their turn.
“All right,” said Dave, when the last pupil was safely in. “I hope
you’ll all study your books and improve your time on the way to
school.”
This was a joke and everyone laughed at it. Of course there were
no lessons to be studied the first day of school. Instead the boys and
girls talked to each other, and as the bus made a great noise the
children had to shout to make themselves heard. Dave did not seem
to mind the noise—— Roger told Elizabeth Ann that he was used to
it, since he had driven the school bus for three years. But while Dave
didn’t mind noise, he wouldn’t allow anyone to leave his seat and
play in the aisle. It was the rule—Roger told Elizabeth Ann this, too
—that if anyone left his seat Dave would stop the bus at once, and
refuse to go ahead until the boy or girl sat down again.
“We haven’t any too much time and if Dave stops even once or
twice, we may be late,” Roger shouted to Elizabeth Ann. “Once the
whole bus load was late, and we had to stay an hour after school.
That made us miss the bus home and we all had to walk. Dave
won’t stand for any skylarking, and the kids know he means what he
says.”
The bus made two more stops, picking up four boys and two girls
at one place, and three girls and three boys at another. Then it was
comfortably filled and Dave drove steadily and at a fair rate of speed
until they came in sight of a large brick building with a fenced in
yard in front of it, and a flag on the flag pole near the gate.
A BUSY MORNING
“I think this school is too big,” whispered Doris, who felt she had
seen enough strange children to last her for a long time.
“Oh, we can play tag and everything,” Elizabeth Ann reminded her
happily, standing up because the girl in front of her was standing up
and that meant it was time to leave the bus.
Elizabeth Ann had no brothers or sisters, and she had never in all
her life had too many children to play with. She thought that school
yard was a fine place and she could just see herself playing tag in it
from one end to the other.
These were almost the only words she had said since Roger had
begun to talk to Elizabeth Ann. Catherine had talked to Mattie
Harrison most of the time.
“I’ll show you,” offered Catherine, pushing her way through the
groups of laughing, chattering children.
Elizabeth Ann and Doris followed her into the building, down a
long hall, and up a short flight of stairs.
“How do you do?” she said in a lovely voice. “I’m glad you are
going to be in my room this term. Your Uncle Hiram wrote to me
about you and I’ve been expecting you.”
Of course that made even the shy Doris feel at home at once.
Then Miss Owen showed them their desks and the cloakroom and
then the nine o’clock bell rang and it was time to go down stairs
where the auditorium was, and where assembly was held every
morning.
This was the largest school Doris had ever attended. It was the
largest Elizabeth Ann had ever gone to, except the school where she
had been a pupil in New York when she visited her Aunt Isabel. This
new school was, as Aunt Grace had explained, really six or seven
little country schools rolled into one—and when all the pupils were
gathered together in the auditorium, they filled all the seats that
were arranged in rows on the first floor, and rose in tiers in the
gallery.
And how they could sing! One of the older pupils played the piano
for them and when the students sang the hymn Elizabeth Ann
wondered whether Uncle Hiram, at home in the Bonnie Susie,
couldn’t hear them. She sang, too, and so did Doris. It was
impossible to be in that auditorium and not join in the song.
Elizabeth Ann knew right away that she was going to like the new
school.
Afterward she was just as sure. They marched back to their class
room and Miss Owen began to teach them spelling. They had
spelling and reading, and then it was time for recess. They were
allowed twenty minutes for recess, and Miss Owen made every one
of them go out and play in the yard. She said no pupil of hers could
sit indoors on such a fine day.
Elizabeth Ann and Doris were asked to join a game of jack stones
with Mattie Harrison and another little girl who had not been on the
bus. Her name was Flora Gabrie. Catherine Gould walked up and
down the yard with her arm around one of the older girls and
seemed to be listening intently to what she was saying.
“Is she going to give a party?” asked Elizabeth Ann, who could ask
questions and scoop up jack stones at the same time.
The bell rang for the end of recess just then, and the rest of the
morning Elizabeth Ann was too busy trying to learn to write nicely, to
think much about parties, or girls whose mothers allowed them to
do anything they pleased.
Mattie had explained to Elizabeth Ann and Doris about the lunch
hour. In the winter she said, there was a large, warm, light room in
the basement with tables, where the pupils ate their lunches. But as
long as the weather remained warm and pleasant—as it usually did
throughout September—the children were supposed to eat their
lunches outdoors.
“Miss Owen,” Mattie had explained, “is crazy about fresh air.”
At noon, when the bell rang, Elizabeth Ann was starving. She was
sure she had never been so hungry before in her life.
Elizabeth Ann grasped her lunch box and caught hold of Doris’s
hand.
“Hurry!” she said, and helter skelter across the play ground they
ran, to a row of apple trees that were behind the building.
Boys and girls were climbing into these trees—you know an apple
tree is close to the ground and easy to climb—and though Elizabeth
Ann and Mattie both had to tug and pull Doris, to get her up into the
tree, they all agreed, once they were settled, that it was a lovely
place to eat lunch.
They could look out through the branches, and the way the limbs
of the tree grew sitting in it was as easy as sitting in a comfortable
rocking chair.
“Hello!” called Roger Calendar, leaning out from the tree next to
the one where Elizabeth Ann and Doris and Mattie were perched.
“Hello!” Mattie answered. “Did you see your writing that Miss
Owen pinned up on the board?”
Catherine sat on the grass, eating her lunch with several of the
grammar grade pupils. Catherine never would climb a tree, Mattie
whispered to Elizabeth Ann. She said that only boys liked to climb
trees.
“Why, I like to climb ’em,” said Elizabeth Ann, meaning the trees.
“So does Doris, though she can’t climb a very high tree. Lots of girls
like to climb trees.”
“Of course they do,” Mattie agreed. “Catherine only says that,
because she doesn’t like to climb trees. And she’s mad because
Roger’s writing was the best in the class this morning, and Miss
Owen pinned it on the board. When Catherine is mad you can
always tell—she says some mean thing.”
“Why—what did she say that was mean?” asked Elizabeth Ann,
not understanding.
Yes, Elizabeth Ann could see that kind of thing was unkind for
Catherine to say. You couldn’t excuse her, either, by telling yourself
that she didn’t know about Roger. Catherine lived near Roger and
knew all about him—that he was a “taken boy” and dependent upon
the people for whom he worked for his food and clothing. There was
every reason in the world why Catherine Gould, with a father and
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