“I’ve got to have,” assented Harry. “I worked my freshman year, but last year wasn’t so good, and Dad says he won’t stand for it. My grades weren’t so bad, but you should have heard the razzing I got! Dad took the card and went through the grades out loud.
“‘That grade in English from the son of a teacher!’
“‘Eighty in Latin, when you ought to have had ninety at least!’
“I mustered up grit enough to tell him that Latin was hard and that eighty was a pretty good grade and that I hadn’t failed in anything. But did that stop him? It did not.
“‘Fail! Fail? Hum! Mathematics, not so bad. Pretty respectable showing in science,’–‘well, make a better showing next year or I might have to put you to work.’ He gave me a quizzical smile, at least that is what Mother called it, and handed me back my card. Gee, sometimes I wish he would put me to work, but after all, if you can get by with, your lessons, the old place here looks pretty good.”
“I’ll say it does today. How long do you suppose we’ll have to stand here?”
“Until after lunch time, that’s what.”
Betty, who had scarcely been able to keep from laughing out when “Harry” had been impersonating his father, so good and funny a performance he had made of it, now sighed. She was tired already. It was worse than waiting in line at the one moving picture house that their little town had boasted. She changed her weight, a light one, from one foot to the other. She fiddled with the long white envelope in her hand and once opened it to peep inside and make sure that its contents were still there.
But that was just the beginning. She held her place in line, wondering what the two boys to whose conversation she had listened were there to do. Perhaps there had to be some change in their work. But they talked about everything else. Finally Betty thought she would “just have to go and sit down somewhere to rest,” but she kept standing in spite of her real fatigue. She was toward the end of the line and only two or three persons had followed the boys at first; then a few scattered additions had been made. A few in front had dropped out.
Finally some one came from the office to make an announcement to the line. Only a few more would be interviewed before lunch; and after lunch, those who were new would be seen first. Others need not take their place in line until later, as all changes of schedule would be handled later in the day.