As Beth Baldwin went her way, these thoughts weaved through her mind. And, too, she compared her own lot to that of her whilom playmate and confidant. When Beth learned that Larry was to go to college and finally enter the law school, she had expressed her intention of getting the maximum amount of education to be secured by a girl—and Larry had encouraged her to try for it.
Beth had stood well in her classes all through her high-school course. She had graduated among the first ten pupils in the class. She possessed a deep longing to continue her course. But——
“There’s about as much chance of my going to Rivercliff as there is of my getting an aeroplane and soaring in it to the Heights of Parnassus,” Beth told herself, with a little laugh and a little sigh. She was not of a melancholy disposition, and even the seriousness of her desire to learn and to achieve, in her way, as much as Larry had achieved in his, could not make her gloomy.
Mr. Baldwin earned three dollars and seventy-five cents a day as foreman of the erecting shop in the Hudsonvale Locomotive Works. The family had often “figured and refigured” that sum; but they could not make it come to more than twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week.
Marcus, although but thirteen, was already talking bravely about going to work. In another half year he could get his certificate and become an aid in the family’s support.
“While I,” thought Beth, shaking her head, “am desirous of adding to its burdens for three years to come. But then—if I only could—I know I could pay them all back,” she sighed.
It was Beth’s desire to take a normal and teacher’s course in a very thorough boarding school up the river. Having a diploma from Rivercliff would enable her to obtain a certificate to teach in the State schools. That was her aim—to be self-supporting, as well as to obtain an education the equal of that Larry Haven had secured.
She had surreptitiously dipped into Larry’s college textbooks when he was at home during his freshman and sophomore years, and she was sure that such studies were not beyond her comprehension.
“Dear me,” thought Beth, “the grapes that hang highest are always the sweetest. How am I ever going to get admission to Rivercliff School; or, once admitted, how am I to remain there the necessary three years? Dear me! if Larry——”
Just then she looked up before crossing the street and gazed directly into the calm, rather proud face of Larry’s mother who, in her little electric runabout, was just drawing in to the opposite curb.