CHAPTER IV
A CULTURED MAN
When no remonstrance of hers availed to prevent the constant increase of expenses, Elizabeth saw that her assistance, instead of helping the family to get out of debt, was simply the means of providing toys for experimentation, and that she was being quietly but persistenly euchred out of all that her heart cherished. Mr. Farnshaw valued the machinery he was collecting about him, Mrs. Farnshaw valued the money, partly because in one way and another it added to the family possessions, and also because her husband having found out that he could obtain it through her easier than by direct appeal, she could avoid unpleasantness with him by insisting upon her daughter giving it to him; but Elizabeth’s education was valued by no one but Elizabeth, and unless she were to learn her lesson quickly the time for an education to be obtained would have passed.
“It’s of no use for you to talk to me, ma,” Elizabeth said the spring after she was twenty years old, “I shall keep every cent I make this summer. Pa gets into debt and won’t let anybody help him out, and I am going to go to Topeka this fall. I’m years older right now than the rest of the scholars will be—not a single pupil that was there when I went before will be there—and I’m going to go. I don’t ever intend to pay the interest on that old mortgage again—it’s just pouring money into a rat-hole!”
“‘NOW LOOK HERE, LIZZIE, ... YOUR PA EXPECTS IT’”
It was early morning and they were planting potatoes. Her mother stood with her back turned toward the raw April wind as they talked, her old nubia tied loosely about her head and neck, and her hands red with the cold.
“Now look here, Lizzie”—Mrs. Farnshaw always refused to use the full name—“your pa expects it.”
“Of course he expects it; that’s why he keeps adding to the mortgage; but that don’t make any difference. I’m going to Topeka this fall just the same. I am not going to pay one dollar on the interest in May, and you can tell pa if you like.”