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THE ECLECTIC SERIES OF READERS
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to cram them down with a crowbar.
At any rate McGuffey goes on to relate that when the door was opened it "admitted a violent gust of wind and rain which was very unpleasant to the feeling of the sleeping passengers."
However, Mr. Lawrence wasn't even irked. He just bailed out the pockets of his coat, squeezed two or three gallons of water from his hat and with disgusting serenity remarked : " 'I hope, coachman, you have a good, thick coat on, to guard you against the cold and the wet.' "
" 'I have a very good one, sir,' " the coachman proclaimed. " 'But I have lent it to a poor little girl we have on top. My heart bled for her — so little clothing to keep her warm.' "
This news served one good purpose. It jarred Mr. Lawrence out of that pestiferous dead-pan calm of his.
" 'A child exposed on the outside of
the coach on such a night as this!' he exclaimed. 1 am sure it would be very wrong in us to let her stay there. Do let us have her inside.' "
That idea went over like an iron balloon!
" 'Oh, no!' cried a gentleman sitting opposite. 'It is quite out of the question. The coach is already full and she will be wet. Besides, she is a poor child, in charge of the master of the workhouse, and one does not know what she may have about her.' "
The coachman treated this snide comment with the withering contempt it deserved: He pointed out that she had very little about her.
" 'The girl is clean but delicate,' " he asserted. Naturally she was "delicate" because she was a McGuffey urchin. If he ever found one good, sturdy child, full of vitamins, wandering by accident into his books he'd kill the youngster off if he had to get a shotgun to do it.
They brought her inside where she cuddled up against Mr. Lawrence of the sterling qualities, who apparently didn't worry about anything the orphan might have about her.
The girl unfolded an amazing story when questioned by Lawrence. She was the most consistently abandoned child in history. It seems that she once lived with her mama and her papa but her mama left the house one day and never returned. Then she went to live with her Aunty Mary. Same thing happened — Aunty Mary took it on the lam. The orphan bounced back to papa who had remarried. Well, sir, it wasn't long before papa ran away to sea and got