The Mayor's son, especially, who might be supposed to fare as well
as any little boy in the city, had been in the school any number of
times.
There was one little boy in the city, however, whom the white-booted
police had not yet found any occasion to arrest, though one might have
thought he had more reason than a good many others to complain of his
lot in life. In the first place, he had a girl's name, and any one
knows that would be a great cross to a boy. His name was Julia; his
parents had called him so on account of his having a maiden aunt who
had promised to leave her money to him if he was named for her.
So there was no help for it, but it was a great trial to him, for
the other boys plagued him unmercifully, and called him "missy," and
"sissy," and said "she" instead of "he" when they were speaking of
him. Still he never complained to his parents, and told them he wished
they had called him some other name. His parents were very poor,
hard-working people, and Julia had much coarser clothes than the other
boys, and plainer food, but he was always cheerful about it, and never
seemed to think it at all hard that he could not have a velvet coat
like the Mayor's son, or carry cakes for lunch to school like the
lawyer's little boy.
But perhaps the greatest cross which Julia had to bear, and the
one from which he stood in the greatest danger of getting into the
Patchwork School, was his Grandmothers.
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