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something so ordinary as changing clothes. Why, when she's got one dress off and before she puts on another, she probably stands there in her underwear, just like anybody.

"Do sit down, Mrs. Guester."

"Around here we ain't much with Mr. and Mrs., except them lawyers, Miss Larner. I'm Goody Guester, mostly, except when folks call me Old Peg."

"Old Peg. What a - what an interesting name."

She thought of spelling out why she was called "Old" Peg - how she had a daughter what run off, that sort of thing. But it was going to be hard enough to explain to this teacher lady how she come to have a Black son. Why make her family life seem even more strange?

"Miss Larner, I won't beat around the bush. You got something that I need."

"Oh?"

"That is, not me, to say it proper, but my son, Arthur Stuart."

If she recognized that it was the King's proper name, she gave no sign. "And what might he need from me, Goody Guester?"

"Book-learning."

"That's what I've come to provide to all the children in Hatrack River, Goody Guester."

"Not Arthur Stuart. Not if those pin-headed cowards on the school board have their way - "

"Why should they exclude your son? Is he over-age, perhaps?"

"He's the right age, Miss Lamer. What he ain't is the right color."

Miss Larner waited, no expressionon her face.

"He's Black, Miss Lamer."

"Half-Black, surely," offered the teacher.

Naturally the teacher was trying to figure how the innkeeper's wife came to have her a half-Black boy-baby. Old Peg got some pleasure out of watching the teacher act polite while she must surely be cringing in horror inside herself. But it wouldn't do to let such a thought linger too long, would it? "He's adopted, Miss Larner," said Old Peg. "Let's just say that his Black mama got herself embarrassed with a half-White baby."

"And you, out of the goodness of your heart - "

Was there a nasty edge to Miss Larner's voice? "I wanted me a child. I ain't taking care of Arthur Stuart for pity. He's my boy now."

"I see," said Miss Lamer. "And the good people of Hatrack River have determined that their children's education will suffer if half-Black ears should hear my words at the same time as pure White ears."

Miss Lamer sounded nasty again, only now Old Peg dared to let herself rejoice inside, hearing the way Miss Lamer said those words. "Will you teach him, Miss Lamer?"

"I confess, Goody Guester, that I have lived in the City of Quakers too long. I had forgotten that there were places in this world where people of small minds would be so shameless as to punish a mere child for the sin of being born with skin of a tropical hue. I can assure you that I will refuse to open school at all if your adopted son is not one of my pupils."

"No! " cried Old Peg. "No, Miss Larner, that's going too far."

"I am a committed Emancipationist, Goody Guester. I will not join in a conspiracy to deprive any Black child of his or her intellectual heritage."

Old Peg didn't know what in the world an intellectual heritage was, but she knew that Miss Larner was in too much sympathy. If she kept up this way, she'd be like to ruin everything. "You got to hear me out, Miss Larner. They'll just get another teacher, and I'll be worse off, and so will Arthur Stuart. No, I just ask that you give him an hour in the evening, a few days a week. I'll make him study somewhat in the daytime, to learn proper what you teach him quick. He's a bright boy, you'll see that. He already knows his letters - he can A it and Z it better than my Horace. That's my husband, Horace Guester. So I'm not asking more than a few hours a week, if you can spare it. That's why we worked up this springhouse, so you could do it and none the wiser."

Miss Larner arose from where she sat on the edge of her bed, and walked to the window. "This is not what I ever imagined - to teach a child in secret, as if I were committing a crime."

"In some folks' eyes, Miss Larner - "

"Oh, I have no doubt of that."

"Don't you Quakers have silent meetings? All I ask is a kind of quiet meeting don't you know - "

"I am not a Quaker, Goody Guester. I am merely a human being who