Part 10 (2/2)

”W'y, yes, y'can, too, Ezry,” Aunt Keren argued, ”seems to me you're forehanded enough, to do for an only child. 'Tain't 's if you was like me 'n' Ab., with our four chunies.”

”She'd have to go to an academy first to get fitten for it,” said Ma. ”She couldn't go to the Univers'ty for three or four years yet.”

”Of course not,” I answered; ”but you might write to Mr. Burke to send me a catalogue to find out how much I'd have to know to get taken in. Then I could study at home till I got pretty near ready, and then take a year at the Academy.”

The words flowed easily, eagerly; I had so often gone over the plan.

”Good idee,” said Pa, nodding his head, relieved to find that I wasn't seeking to leave home at once; and so it was arranged.

Isn't it wonderful? Plain and bald and homely the house, unpretending the surroundings, simple and primitive the life, that sent forth the world's first beautiful woman, the Woman of the Secret! I have tried to set it all down exactly as it happened--the quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned dialect, the homely ways, the bearded, booted men. For this place, just as it was, was the birthplace of the new glory; out of this homely simplicity dawned the new era of beauty that is to make the whole world glad.

A catalogue was sent for, books were bought and I set to work unaided, though Mr. Stoddard took an interest in my studies and often helped me out of difficulties. I chose the cla.s.sical course, undeterred by parental demonstrations of the ”plum uselessness” of Latin and Greek; I had for the choice no better reason than that it was more difficult. I no longer went to the little red schoolhouse.

All this time I had almost forgotten Billy, to whom I owed such a debt of grat.i.tude for sending me upon the Quest. Once I met him on the road.

”Ain't ye never comin' to school no more?” he queried.

”No, I am never going again; I am preparing for the State University; I shall take a cla.s.sical course,” I answered with hauteur, looking down upon him as I spoke. Only that morning Ma had let out another tuck in my gown.

”I'm aw'fly sorry,” Billy murmured with a foolish, embarra.s.sed grin.

”Guess I'll walk along of ye, if ye don't care.”

My triumph found me cold. The sting of Billy's words yet rankled, and perhaps I was not so grateful to the little wretch as he deserved. It was about a quarter of a mile to our house; we walked the distance in unbroken silence. Once there, Billy rallied.

”Good-by, Miss Wins.h.i.+p,” he said, holding open the gate for me. It was the first time that any one had addressed me by that grown-up t.i.tle.

”Good-by, Billy.”

And that was the end of the beginning of the Quest.

In blizzard time and through the fierce heat of summer I toiled at self- set tasks in our ugly, comfortable home. During the blessed intervals when we could induce ”girl help” to stay with us I had scarcely any housework to do. Fairly regular exercise came to be a habit and I worried admiring relatives into thinking me a candidate for an early grave by taking a cold bath every morning. In the end I managed, with a single year in a cheerless boarding house near a village academy, where I studied greedily, devouring my books, to enter the State University with a scholars.h.i.+p to my credit.

I took half the examination in Spring and read extra Virgil and Ovid all summer. Then in August, when the long vacation was nearly over, came the village dressmaker. Ma had promised me two new dresses, and I would sit hemming towels or poring over Greek and Roman history while they turned the leaves of fas.h.i.+on magazines and discussed materials and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

I secretly hoped for a silk, but Mother, to whom I suppose I am even now-- now!--a little girl, vetoed that as too showy, and the dressmaker added her plea for good, durable things. The choice fell upon a golf suiting for school and a black cashmere for church.

I begged hard to have the cashmere touch the ground, but both women smiled at the folly of the child who forgot the many re-bindings a long skirt would call for. There was a comic side to my disappointment, for I guessed that the widow Trask could not make the designs I coveted, nor anything of which she could not buy a paper pattern.

But when I went up to the University and became ent.i.tled to join in the cry:--

S!----U!

We're----a----few!

S!----T!----A--T--E!

U!----ni----ver--si--tee!

Wow!----Wow!----Wow!

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