"I don't mean stenography. I hated learning it. I mean something—something—beyond—"
Suddenly Mrs. Becker, quiet at the business of wrapping away some of the gifts, glanced up, two round spots of color on her cheeks.
"You are going to do something, Lilly. Have a home and entertain in it like other girls."
"But—"
"I've a piece of news for you and your father. If I waited for him to take the initiative I'd wait until the crack of doom."
"What is it, little woman?"
"I signed a lease yesterday for one of those yellow-brick houses—seven rooms, bath, furnace heat, and privilege of buying. Twenty-eight dollars, out on Page Avenue near Union. We move in two weeks from to-day."
CHAPTER VIII
There followed one of those years which come and go even in the small affairs of small men, when for Ben Becker swift waters flowed under the bridge. He was just that, a small man, prided himself upon it and was frequent in his boast: "I'm a small man, Carrie. I don't hope to make a big or showy success of it. Just a comfortable and unassuming living is about all I expect to get out of it, and that's a pretty good deal."
The Spanish-American War, something of musical comedy in its setting, had run its brief malarial engagement, netting Ben Becker, in one order of hemp rope alone, a cleanly realized profit of forty-two hundred dollars.