Miss Amelia picked up the ruler and started toward me.

Possibly I raised my hands.
That would be no Crusader way, but you might do it before you had time to think, when the ruler was big and your head was the only place that would be hit.

The last glimpse I had of her in the midst of all my trouble made me think of Sabethany Perkins.
Sabethany died, and they buried her at the foot of the hill in our graveyard before I could remember.

But her people thought heaps of her, and spent much money on the biggest tombstone in the cemetery, and planted pinies and purple phlox on her, and went every Sunday to visit her.

When they moved away, they missed her so, they decided to come back and take her along.