"I just went for the name of it," she explained. "I should never teach, and what is the use of wasting all that time and bothering your brains for nothing? I shall get married the first good chance I have."
Lu Searing bewailed the hard work as well and wasn't sure she would keep on. She wanted to go somewhere to boarding school, she had heard girls had such fun getting in scrapes and out of them again. Marty Pendleton was sick of it too, and was going to learn dressmaking. Dan Erlick had gone to be clerk in the drug store.
"And to think how hard Mr. Warfield worked over them all!" Helen exclaimed, indignantly. "It doesn't do him a bit of credit."
"He had four new ones this summer. Well, there does seem a good deal of work in this world without much result," said Jenny.
Helen studied her Latin with a will, and one day to make some knotty point clearer went to the reference department of the library. Miss Westerly, the librarian, had seen her the summer before and been interested in what had befallen her, and now they took up quite a friendship. The library was open only two evenings in the week, after eight o'clock, and Miss Westerly found it very pleasant to visit on Mrs. Dayton's porch and talk to a girl as bright and ambitious as Helen. She was a college graduate and a thorough student, not considering her education finished.
"I should like so to go to college," Helen said. "But I don't know—I should have to earn some money first."
"I have a friend who entered college at twenty-seven. She was a clerk in a store and then an old uncle left her some money. She was born for a student, and she graduated with honors. She is thirty-five now, vice-principal in a large seminary at the West, and a very successful teacher. Then I know of a girl who spent two years at college, taught three years and then went back and finished. Some women, as well as some men, love knowledge."
"I have half a mind to say I will go, no matter what stands in the way," and Helen smiled vaguely. If one could see into the future.
"Perhaps your friend may send you."
Helen wondered whether she would dare propose it.