“Well, you certainly have nerve,” she said. “Of course everybody knows the influence your father always has had with the School Board, and from the time we’ve been little children we’ve had demonstrated to us what your combined efforts could do, but I didn’t think you’d sit up and boast about it—openly admit it!”
“Why not?” said Junior. “What’s calculus and radicals and Greek and Latin got to do with figuring on exactly how big a mortgage it would be safe to place on Timothy Hollenstein’s farm? I’ve gone through the motions of this school thing. I’ve got the scum of it. Did you ever see me make a mistake in addition? I’m not interested in subtraction, and I’m not very particular about division, but have you ever noticed that I’m greased lightning on multiplication?”
And again Mahala laughed when she knew in her heart that she should do nothing of the kind. Coupled with Junior’s physical attractions there was this daring, this carelessness of what any one might say or think, this disarming honesty concerning transactions that had been the width of the world from honesty or fairness.
“All right,” she said, “don’t go to college. You’d get nothing out of it but the fun of spoiling other boys who were really trying to make men of themselves. But I’m going. I think I shall go to Vassar, and as for picnics and parties, I must put in the greater share of my time this summer in making my own clothes. I figure that the new store has cut into Father pretty deeply and I think I ought to help all I can by doing my sewing.”
Then Junior, reinforced by the most agreeable evening he had ever spent with Mahala, reached over and covered one of her hands with his. He grasped it lightly, giving it a little shake as he said to her: “I have to inform you, young lady, that it’s written in the stars that you’re not going to college.”
Obliquely Junior watched the girl, and he was wondering what she would think if he told her reasons that he could have told her, as to why she would not go to college.
Mahala withdrew her hand under the pretext of rearranging her hair, and laughingly remarked: “That’s very unkind of the stars to write things first to you concerning me. But, while we’re on the subject, in the epistle did the stars tell you what it is that I’m going to do?”
“Certainly,” said Junior. “I hope you noticed that I always came the nearest to making a decent grade in astronomy. I have to inform you that the swan went swimming down the Milky Way and he told a star lily floating there that you were going to preside over the finest house in Ashwater, furnished far more exquisitely than this place, that there was going to be a devoted lover at your feet and your door plate is going to read, ‘Martin Moreland, Junior’.”
For one minute Mahala stared at Junior with questioning eyes. Then she decided that to laugh was the thing, so she laughed as heartily as she possibly could. She laughed so heartily that it became an exaggeration and then she shook her head and said: “Put no belief in astronomical communications. They’re too far-fetched. I think Vassar will suit me best and in about a week after Commencement I’m going to begin a trunk full of the nicest school clothing that has gone East in many a long day. And that reminds me that I’ve quite a bit of sewing to finish before Commencement, and I must be at it. So take yourself away, but for pity’s sake, don’t tell Edith that her aunt showed her dress. It’s against the law and she’d be furious.”
“She’d be so furious,” interrupted Junior, “that she’d turn a darker green than the Lord made her.”