Her father's death had meant the giving up of all Sarah's dreams and hopes. Three years before, they had driven one day to a neighboring town. Drives were not frequent in that busy household. Sarah remembered yet how fine Dan and Bill had looked in their newly blackened harness, and how proud she had felt, sitting with her father on the front seat.
They had seen many wonderful things: a paint-mill, a low, long building, covered, inside and out, with thick layers of red powder; and the ore mines, great holes in the yellow soil, where the ore needed only to be dug out from the surface; and they had stopped to watch a cast at a blast-furnace. But most wonderful of all was the "Normal." Sarah had seen the slender tower of the main building against the sky.
"What is then that?" she had asked.
"That is the Normal, where William went to school."
"Ach, yes, of course!" cried Sarah.
All the delightful things in the world were connected with William. Her father looked down at the sparkling eyes in the eager little face. He had had little education himself, but he knew its value.
"Would you like, then, to come here to school?"
Sarah's face grew a deep crimson. She looked at the trees, the wide lawns, the young people at play in the tennis-courts.