Then she asked him who Copernicus was; and he said he was one of
the Emperors of Rome, who burned the Christians in a golden pig, and the
worms ate him up while he was still alive. I don't know why," said Em
plaintively, "but she just put her books under her arm and walked out; and
she will never come to his school again, she says, and she always does what
she says. And now I must sit here every day alone," said Em, the great
tears dropping softly.
"Perhaps Tant Sannie will send him away," said the boy, in his mumbling
way, trying to comfort her.
"No," said Em, shaking her head; "no. Last night when the little Hottentot
maid was washing her feet, he told her he liked such feet, and that fat
women were so nice to him; and she said I must always put pure cream in his
coffee now. No; he'll never go away," said Em dolorously.
The boy put down his skins and fumbled in his pocket, and produced a small
piece of paper containing something. He stuck it out toward her.
"There, take it for you," he said. This was by way of comfort.
Em opened it and found a small bit of gum, a commodity prized by the
children; but the great tears dropped down slowly on to it.
Waldo was distressed. He had cried so much in his morsel of life that
tears in another seemed to burn him.
"If," he said, stepping in awkwardly and standing by the table, "if you
will not cry I will tell you something--a secret.
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