it all fixed, and she's going to board with her sister through the week. Marty Pendleton's going, too. Dear me! There wa'n't any High School in my day, and I guess girls were just as smart."
Helen was with the girls in a merry crowd. Some were going away to aunts and grandmothers, and the envied one, Ella Graham, was going to the seaside, as the doctor had recommended that to her ailing mother. So they walked on, chatting, until paths began to diverge. Two roads ran through the Center, north and south, east and west. There were South Hope and North Hope, settlements that had branched out from the Center. North Hope had grown into quite a thriving town with a railroad station and several social advantages. The High School for the towns around was situated here.
"Now," began Aunt Jane, as they neared the gate and said good-by to a few who were going farther on, "now Helen, you just run in and take off your frock and that white petticoat. They'll do for Sunday. There's peas to shell and potatoes to clean, and I have to look after the chickens, and make some biscuits. After spending 'most all the day it's time you did something."
Helen drew a long breath. She wanted to go out to the old apple tree to dream and plan. But Aunt Jane didn't consider anything real work outside of housekeeping and earning money, though Helen had been up since five in the morning, and very busy with chores before she went to help adorn the schoolroom.
Sam, who had been inducted into farming two years before, was out in the field mowing with father and the man. Nathan, next in age, was most enthusiastic about the good time they had, only if there'd been a treat like a Sunday School picnic!
"Do stop!" said his mother, "I'm tired and sick of all this school stuff. Go out and bring in a good basket of wood, or you won't have any chicken potpie for supper."
Helen hung up her frock, and put on the faded gingham and a checked apron, and kept busy right along. 'Reely helped shell peas; Fan and Lou were out playing.
"It's splendid that there isn't any more school," said Fan. "We can just play and play and play."
The big girl inside was sorry enough there was no more school. Somehow Aunt Jane's voice rasped her terribly this afternoon. Two whole months of it! A shudder ran all over her.
There was a savory fragrance through the house presently. Helen tried to remember everything that went on the table, though she was repeating snatches of verses to herself. Then Jenny came up the path, stood her umbrella in the corner, gave her hat a toss that landed it on a stand under the glass, that Helen had just cleared up, and dropped into a rocking chair.
"It's been hot to-day, now I tell you;" she said. "Well, did your fandango go off to suit, Helen?"
"I shouldn't call it fandango," the girl replied.
"Oh, well, what's in a name! Now I'll bet you can't tell what smart chap said that!"
"Shakspeare."
"Did he really? I suppose it's always safe to tack his name to everything;" and Jenny laughed. The word buxom could be justly applied to her. Her two long walks, and her day in the factory, did not seem to wear on her. Her color was rather high, her eyes and hair dark, her voice untrained, and everything about her commonplace.
"Go and blow the horn," said Aunt Jane to Helen.
"Did you go, mother? Was it anything worth while?" asked the daughter.
"Oh, well, so, so. Mr. Warfield seemed very proud of his pupils. Yes, the singing was good. Harry Lane had the 'Surrender of Cornwallis', and it was just fine."
Father and Sam and the hired man came in. The two children straggled along, and Helen had to wash them, but presently they were all ranged about the table.
"Well, how did it go?" Uncle Jason asked, looking up as Helen finally took her place after doing Aunt Jane's bidding several times.
"Oh, it was splendid!" A thrill of delight swept over Helen as she met the good-humored eyes. "And I have a diploma."
"And did you carry the house by storm, or did you forget two lines in the most important place?" asked Sam, mischievously. "Dan Erlick is going to the High School in the fall. Are you?"
"O, I wish I could," cried Helen, eagerly, with a beseeching glance at her uncle. Occasionally he did decide matters.
"Well, I declare!" Aunt Jane threw back her head with her fork poised half way to her mouth, "And I dare say you'd like to go over to Europe, too!"
"I just should," said Helen with a good natured accent. "There are a great many things I should like to do."
"Where's the money coming from to do 'em?"
"I hope to earn it. I should like to teach, and Mr. Warfield thinks I ought."
"And follow in your father's steps."
Helen's face was scarlet.
"You just won't go to any High School, I can tell you," began her aunt in an arbitrary tone. "You'd look fine walking in three mile and out again every day. Who'd keep you in shoes? Or did you think you'd take the horse and wagon? You're learning enough for the kind of life you're likely to lead, and there are other things to do."
"And I'll tell you one of them, Nell," said Jenny with a rough comfort in her tone. "There will be three vacancies in the factory come September, and you better take one of them. Now I haven't been there but little more than two years, and take up my twelve dollars every two weeks. The work isn't hard. I almost think I'm a fool to get married quite so soon, only Joe does need a housekeeper, and will have the house all fixed up – and doesn't want to wait;" laughingly.
"Joe's a nice fellow," said her mother, "and well to do. And you didn't go to any High School, either."
Mrs. Mulford took great pride in her daughter's prospects, though when Joe Northrup first began to "wait on her," she said: "I don't see how you'll ever get along with old lady Northrup, and Joe won't leave his mother."
"I aint in any hurry," returned Jenny. "Joe's a good catch and worth waiting for."
In March Mrs. Northrup began to clean house and took a bad cold, and a month later was buried. Quite a sum of ready money came to Joe, and he built on a parlor room, a new wide porch, papered and painted, and Jenny felt not a little elated at her good luck. She had been steadily at work preparing for her new home, improving evenings and odd hours, for she was an industrious girl, and she declared Mrs. Northrup's old things would be a "disgrace to the folks on the ridge." These were the poorest and most inelegant people at the Center, and had somehow herded together.
"Yes, that will be a good thing for Helen," said Aunt Jane. "She's old enough to do something to earn her way. And you'll want everything new this winter, you've grown so. And if you have had any idee of High Schools and that folderol, you may just get it out of your head at once. If you'd a fortune it would be more to the purpose, but a girl – "
"It would be too far for her to walk," said Uncle Jason, warding off a reference to her father as he saw tears in Helen's eyes. "Mother, this is a tip-top potpie. You do beat the Dutch!"
"And I never went to school a day after I was twelve. I've kept a house and helped save and had six children of my own and Helen, and none of 'em have gone in rags. And there's Kate Weston, who's secretary of something over to North Hope, and who paints on chiny, and see what a house she keeps!"
"You can have lots of learning, and if it isn't of the right sort it won't do you much good," said Jenny sententiously. "There's a girl in the factory who was
