It was too soon to go home. Granny would quiz her about the Millhouse home and why was she back so fast and did something happen? Her feet found their way to the library.

The Goodhue library had the largest dictionary Tugs had ever seen. It sat on its own small table on a high pedestal. There were pictures next to some of the words. A girl could learn the most amazing things.

Like that a goat was not only an animal, but also the person who caused their team to lose. You wouldn’t think Ralph Stump would have much of a vocabulary, but he had called Tugs a goat when she tripped over third base in the end-of-the-school-year kickball game in May, costing the sixth grade the tying run against the fifth grade.

And that a bonbon was a candy with a creamy center and a soft covering (as of chocolate). Granddaddy Ike was like a bonbon, with his silky, deep old-man voice and his soft, wrinkly skin. Milk baths, he said, were the key to soft skin.

Tugs used to think that everyone’s name was in the dictionary, and when she had realized it was only hers, both Tugs and Button, she felt suddenly fond and possessive of it, as if this book were put here for her guidance alone. She found herself occasionally miffed when other people were using it. This afternoon, though, it was available for her perusal.

In the last two days, Tugs had gotten on the wrong side of G.O., broken Ben Franklin, been reprimanded by Harvey Moore, ruined Mary Alice’s beanbag, and lost Aggie Millhouse’s dog. Lester had called her a rapscallion. Maybe if she knew exactly what that was she could change her course before the Independence Day picnic.

Rapscallion: a rascal; a scamp; a good-for-nothing fellow.

Rascal was on the next page: a mean trickish fellow; a cheeky child; a rogue; a scoundrel; a trickster.

Tugs colored, lifting a hand to her face. She was not a cheeky child. She flipped to rogue.

Rogue: a vagrant; an idle, sturdy beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.

“What’s the word?” asked Miss Lucy in her quiet library voice, coming up behind Tugs.

“Oh!” said Tugs a little too loudly. “Nothing!” She slapped the book shut and hopped off the stool.

Miss Lucy, the librarian, was the most exotic person of Tugs’s acquaintance. Unmarried, yet not a widow or an old maid, taller even than Uncle Elmer, with wavy sunset-orange hair skimming her belt and a warm whispery voice, she seemed completely unaware of Tugs’s lack of academic prowess whenever she chose books for her.

“The Independence Day patriotic essays are due tomorrow,” Miss Lucy said. “How is yours coming?”

Tugs looked around to see whom Miss Lucy was talking to, and when she realized she was addressing her, Tugs Button, about writing an essay for a contest, she laughed. Out loud. In the library. No fewer than six people shushed Tugs, but Miss Lucy put her arm around Tugs’s shoulder and led her to the library office.

“Here,” Miss Lucy said. “You can use my desk. Just write a page on what you think about our good old U.S. of A. First thing that comes to mind. Oh, and a word to the wise. Our judges, Mrs. Winthrop and Miss Potter, are quite excited about the idea of progress, after talking to the man from Chicago who is going to start up a newspaper right here in Goodhue, once he raises the funds for a printing press. Imagine that, Tugs. It will be called the Goodhue Progress. Progress. Now, that would make a nice theme for an essay, wouldn’t it?”

Tugs was not familiar with being asked what she thought about anything. What did she think about the United States? Tugs looked around the library office. She picked up the small dictionary Miss Lucy kept on her desk and looked up the word progress. She studied the portrait of President Hoover hanging on the wall and felt a swell of pride.

When she came out of the office, she felt suddenly shy, and to cover it up, she said roughly, “It’s stupid. Don’t read it.” Then she dropped it in the trash and walked slowly to the door, glancing back and hoping Miss Lucy would retrieve it from the can.

My favorite thing about the United States of America is our new president because he is from Iowa like me. I have been to West Branch where Herbert Hoover was born. The houses in West Branch look like the houses in Goodhue. When he was a boy Herbert Hoover sledded on hills in winter like children in Goodhue do and in summer he fished the streams like we do.

During the Great War he helped get food to hungry people in Europe, and in America he taught people to conserve food.

My Granddaddy Ike and all his friends wrote letters to Herbert Hoover to ask him to run for president. Herbert Hoover solves problems, they said.

The dictionary says progress means moving forward. Herbert Hoover was just a boy in Iowa. Then he lived all over the world helping solve problems. Now he is president of the United States. That is progress. And Iowa is part of progress. So I am part of progress.