Understood Betsy | Page 8

his
ears, and drawing out a stubby pencil and a bit of paper. "I've got some
figgering to do. You pull on the left-hand rein to make 'em go to the left
and t'other way for t'other way, though 'tain't likely we'll meet any
teams."
Elizabeth Ann had been so near one of her wild screams of terror that
now, in spite of her instant absorbed interest in the reins, she gave a

queer little yelp. She was all ready with the explanation, her
conversations with Aunt Frances having made her very fluent in
explanations of her own emotions. She would tell Uncle Henry about
how scared she had been, and how she had just been about to scream
and couldn't keep back that one little ... But Uncle Henry seemed not to
have heard her little howl, or, if he had, didn't think it worth
conversation, for he ... oh, the horses were CERTAINLY going to one
side! She hastily decided which was her right hand (she had never been
forced to know it so quickly before) and pulled furiously on that rein.
The horses turned their hanging heads a little, and, miraculously, there
they were in the middle of the road again.
Elizabeth Ann drew a long breath of relief and pride, and looked to
Uncle Henry for praise. But he was busily setting down figures as
though he were getting his 'rithmetic lesson for the next day and had
not noticed ... Oh, there they were going to the left again! This time, in
her flurry, she made a mistake about which hand was which and pulled
wildly on the left line! The horses docilely walked off the road into a
shallow ditch, the wagon tilted ... help! Why didn't Uncle Henry help!
Uncle Henry continued intently figuring on the back of his envelope.
Elizabeth Ann, the perspiration starting out on her forehead, pulled on
the other line. The horses turned back up the little slope, the wheel
grated sickeningly against the wagonbox--she was SURE they would
tip over! But there! somehow there they were in the road, safe and
sound, with Uncle Henry adding up a column of figures. If he only
knew, thought the little girl, if he only KNEW the danger he had been
in, and how he had been saved ... ! But she must think of some way to
remember, for sure, which her right hand was, and avoid that hideous
mistake again.
And then suddenly something inside Elizabeth Ann's head stirred and
moved. It came to her, like a clap, that she needn't know which was
right or left at all. If she just pulled the way she wanted them to go-- the
horses would never know whether it was the right or the left rein!
It is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her
brain, waking up. She was nine years old, and she was in the third A

grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole
thought of her very own. At home, Aunt Frances had always known
exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places
before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had
been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars. Somebody had
always been explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so industriously that
she had never found out a single thing for herself before. This was a
very small discovery, but an original one. Elizabeth Ann was as excited
about it as a mother-bird over the first egg that hatches.
She forgot how afraid she was of Uncle Henry, and poured out to him
her discovery. "It's not right or left that matters!" she ended
triumphantly; "it's which way you want to go!" Uncle Henry looked at
her attentively as she talked, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one
spectacle-glass. When she finished--"Well, now, that's so," he admitted,
and returned to his arithmetic.
It was a short remark, shorter than any Elizabeth Ann had ever heard
before. Aunt Frances and her teachers always explained matters at
length. But it had a weighty, satisfying ring to it. The little girl felt the
importance of having her statement recognized. She turned back to her
driving.
The slow, heavy plow horses had stopped during her talk with Uncle
Henry. They stood as still now as though their feet had grown to the
road. Elizabeth Ann looked up at the old man for instructions. But he
was deep in his figures. She had been taught never to interrupt people,
so she sat still and waited for him to tell her what to do.
But, although they were driving in the midst of a winter thaw, it was a
pretty cold