“Who said I had any notion of leaving school? Not a bit of it. My plan won’t affect my school work. But of that later. Now to our capital. Mother will have at the outside nineteen hundred a year, and out of that she will have to pay five hundred rent for this house. That leaves fourteen hundred wherewith to feed and clothe five people, doesn’t it? Now, she can’t possibly feed, let alone clothe, us for less than twenty dollars a week, can she? And out of that must come fuel which is no small matter now-a-days. That leaves only three hundred and sixty dollars for all the other expenses of the year, and, Nornie, it isn’t enough. We could live on less in town I dare say, but town is no place for Jean while she’s so little. She’d give up the ghost without a place to romp in. Then, too, mother loves every stone in Riveredge, and she is going to stay here if I can manage it. So listen: You know what a fuss everybody at the fair made over my nut-fudge and pralines. Well, I’m going to make candy to sell——.”
“Oh, Constance, you can’t! You mustn’t!” interrupted Eleanor whose instincts shrank from any member of her family launching upon a business enterprise.
“I can and I must,” contradicted Constance positively. “And what is more, I shall. So don’t have a conniption fit right off, because I’ve thought it all out and I know just exactly what I can do.”
“Mother will never consent,” said Eleanor firmly, and added, “and I hope she won’t.”
“Now Nornie, see here,” cried Constance with decided emphasis. “What is the use of being so ridiculously high and mighty? We aren’t the first people, by a long chalk, that have met with financial reverses and been forced to do something to earn a livelihood. The woods are full of them and they are none the less respected either. For my part, I’d rather hustle round and earn my own duddies than settle down and wish for them, and wail because I can’t have them while mother strives and struggles to make both ends meet. I haven’t brains to do big things in the world, but I’ve got what Mammy calls ‘de bangenest han’s’ and we’ll see what they’ll bang out!” concluded Constance resolutely.
“Mammy will never let you,” cried Eleanor, playing what she felt to be her trump card.
“On the contrary, Mammy is going to help me,” announced Constance triumphantly.
“What, Mammy consent to a Blairsdale going into trade?” cried Eleanor, feeling very much as though the foundations of the house were sinking.
“Even so, Lady,” answered Constance, laughing at her sister’s look of dismay. “Old Baltie was not rescued for naught. His days of usefulness were not ended as you shall see. But don’t look so horrified, and, above all else, don’t say one word to mother. There is no use to worry her, and remember she is a Blairsdale and it won’t be so easy to bring her to my way of thinking as it has been to bring you; you’re only half one, like myself, and remember we’ve got Carruth blood to give us mercantile instincts.”
“As though the Carruths were not every bit as good as the Blairsdales,” brindled Eleanor indignantly.