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Three years he remained in the school of the Misses Ahlberg. Three times fall and winter and spring were followed by that painfully delicious period of almost unbroken daylight, when the very books seemed to lose some of their magic, when even the air of the old lane became fraught with some mystic urge, and when life within stone walls turned into an unbearable burden.
It would be wrong to conclude that the little school of the Misses Ahlberg was characterized by any reign of terror. As a rule, the atmosphere was peaceful and kindly, and the teaching was rather good. Keith was eager to learn, and learning came easy to him. In those early days, of course, there was no studying to be done at home, but even in later years he never knew what it was to "plug."
The third time the elder Miss Ahlberg applied a ruler to the finger-tips of his left hand, which she held in a firm grasp within one of her own. The physical sensation gave the boy a terrible shock. No one had ever really hurt him before. The spankings administered at home once in a very great while were like thunderstorms, with a great deal of noise and small harm done.
At the end of the third year he had practically exhausted the possibilities of the little school in the South End, and it was understood that he would not return in the fall, when he would be nine years old. But nothing had been decided about what he was to do instead. He had not been unhappy with the Misses Ahlberg and his leave-taking lacked none of the expected emotional colouring.
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