Mrs. Craig smiled. “That’s nice, dear,” she said. “Are you going to enter it?”
Doris frowned slightly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s for a scholarship to a music school. I don’t know whether I want to try for it or not.”
Mrs. Craig stared at her. “But good heavens, why not? What school is it?”
“Timothy College in North Carolina. It’s very small—all music, you know. It’s awfully far away, too. And with Jean getting married and Kit away at school, well, I don’t know whether I want to leave home or not.”
Mrs. Craig slowed down the car. “Let’s talk about this with your father. But, dear, I think you should at least try out. It would be a shame to let your talent go to waste.”
Doris hesitated. Then she said, “But Mother, I don’t want to go away! I’m not like Jean and Kit. I’d just like to stay right here in Elmhurst forever and ever. I like it at home.”
Mrs. Craig tapped the steering wheel with her fingers. “Doris, I want you to enter that contest. Why shouldn’t you have the right to go away to school? We were able to send Jean to New York for a year of Art School,” she said, referring to Jean’s experiences which are recounted in Jean Craig in New York. “Then Kit won herself the chance to go to Hope College. Now, it’s your turn.”
“But Mother....” Doris began.
Mrs. Craig shook her head. “I don’t know very much about art or music, my dear,” she interrupted, “but your father and I have always felt that you were extremely talented. Frankly, I’ve always felt that you were the most talented of all my daughters. Jean is a good artist. Competent, I think she calls herself. But she has no illusions about being a great artist. I think perhaps you have the ability to develop into a fine musician.”
Doris shook her head. “Oh, golly,” she said, “I just don’t want to go through what Jean and Kit have gone through.”