In Farmington the girls were of small account. Of course we had to tolerate them, for all of us had sisters, and then, too, we were told that we ought to treat them more than the boys: but still we never really wanted them around.  
The girls were much prettier than the boys, and they had on clean clothes, and generally shoes, and they wore red or blue ribbons around their necks and white or colored sashes around their waists, and their hair was combed and in long twists and tied with ribbon every day; and it was almost always as smooth and nice at night as when they came to school in the morning. As for us boys, our mothers combed our hair in the morning before we went to school, and occasionally with a fine-tooth comb; and when we left home it was usually parted on the side, and had no , and lay down on the top 156of our heads,—but of course it was different before we got home. Sometimes even on our way to school we would turn somersaults, or walk on our hands, or “skin a cat” on the limb of a tree, and then our caps would fall off and our hair get pretty badly mussed. Then, too, we often ran and got warm, and had to take off our caps and fan ourselves, and run our hands through our hair; and sometimes we and fell down, and things like that; and when we were not playing ball we often went in swimming at noon, and of course we could not keep our hair straight, and did not much care or try. But the girls were different; they never would do anything that hurt their hair, and if it got mussed the least little bit they always stopped and combed it out so that it looked almost as well as when they went to school. Generally they had little pocket looking-glasses; but even if they had not, any of the girls would help the others to comb and tie their hair. But no boy would ever think of asking another boy to help him to fix his hair; if he had done anything like this, he would have known pretty well what he might expect to get.
 
We used to wonder how the girls could keep their clothes so smooth and nice; for many of them had a long way to walk to school, and the road was dusty, and the dirt got on them from the long grass and weeds. We thought the reason they looked so well was that they were different from the boys. All of us liked to watch the girls, for they were so pretty and behaved so well. Their side of the schoolhouse was always the cleaner, and they never threw things on the floor, and their desks looked better, for the books and the were not tumbled around as they were on our side of the room. And there was no writing on their desks, nor made with jack-knives; and in every way one could tell which was their side of the house, even if no scholars were in the room.
 
The girls always behaved better in school than the boys; of course they whispered some, and quite a bit, but they hardly ever threw apples, or brought in , or set pins in the seat, or played jokes, or contradicted the teacher, or refused to do what she said. As a rule, they got their lessons better than the boys, and had more headmarks in spelling; 158and the teacher hardly ever made them stand on the floor, and did not keep them in at noon or or after school nearly as often as she did the boys. Then, if one girl told another that she could have a piece of her apple at lunch, or a bite of her stick candy, and took a pencil and marked off how much she could have, she would always bite in the right place, and never take any more,—if anything, she took a little less. But if a boy held up his apple and told another boy that he could take a little bite, not so far down as the core, very likely the boy would have to pull his hand back quick to keep his fingers from being bitten off. Really, no boy who was not green would let another boy take a bite of his apple, or his candy, or his gum. If he really wanted to give any of it away or trade it for something, he always took out his knife and cut off just the part he wanted to give away, or else he bit it out himself without taking any chances.
 
In the games we played, the girls were of no use; they could not run, or jump, or climb a tree, or even throw a ball or a stone, or do anything that had to be done to play a game. Sometimes they stood around and watched us 159boys, and us to choose them in, and sometimes we let them play just as we did the little fellows. But if they ever played “fox and geese” or “pump-pullaway,” they were sure to get caught the first thing, and they hurt the game. And when they had to catch you, of course you couldn’t run right through and knock them down just as if they were boys. Sometimes they coaxed us to let them play ball; but they never could hit the ball, and if they did it only went a little ways, and they couldn’t run to the first base, and you never knew where they were going to throw, and they were always in the way when you were running, and you were afraid to hit the ball as hard as you could, or to throw it very hard, when they were around. They were not much good to play “I spy,” for they never could hide very well. If they got behind a tree, their dresses would stick out, and they couldn’t climb ............