“Indeed we do--we’ll send him to college! I wonder, now, wouldn’t he like to be a doctor?”
“Perhaps,” admitted the other cautiously, “or a minister.”
“Sure enough--he might like that better; I’m going to ask him!” and she sprang to her feet and tripped across the room to the parlor-bedroom door. “Ralph,” she called softly, after turning the knob, “are you asleep?”
“Huh? N-no, ma’am.” The voice nearly gave the lie to the words.
“Well, dear, we were wondering--would you rather be a minister or a doctor?” she asked, much as though she were offering for choice a peach and a pear.
“A doctor!” came emphatically from out of the dark--there was no sleep in the voice now. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.”
“You shall, oh, you shall!” promised the woman ecstatically, going back to her sister; and from that time all their lives were ordered with that one end in view.
The Hapgood twins were far from wealthy. They owned the homestead, but their income was small, and the added mouth to fill--and that a hungry one--counted. As the years passed, Huldy came less and less frequently to help in the kitchen, and the sisters’ gowns grew more and more rusty and darned.
Ralph, boylike, noticed nothing--indeed, half the year he was away at school; but as the time drew near for the college course and its attendant expenses, the sisters were sadly troubled.
“We might sell,” suggested Tabitha, a little choke in her voice.