But when put to vote, the motion was lost. The Auburn Ladies’ Literary Association triumphed, and the “Woman’s Club” died before it was born.
“That snip of a Barbara Grafton!” said Mrs. Bellows to her neighbor, as the pink sherbet and the paper napkins went around. “The idea of her being invited to address us, and then giving that fool advice to women that knew her when she should have been spanked! I’d never send a child of mine to college, if I had all the money in the world. Normal school can do enough harm. I didn’t know she could be such a fool! Kretch!”
Susan leaned over from the next chair. “Barbara isn’t a fool, Mrs. Bellows,” she said warmly; “she’s the cleverest girl I ever knew.”
“In books, maybe,” sniffed Mrs. Bellows.
“No, in everything,” said Susan. “It is in books that she’s had the most training, but she is just as clever in other things. She’s had an awful time this summer with sickness, and poor help, and housework, and no experience in any of them. Any one else would have been discouraged long ago. But she has stuck it out, and been big and brave and cheerful about it, to give her mother a chance to get well. I can’t let any one say anything against Barbara.”
The two women looked their surprise at the warm defense from quiet Susan.
“It’s her theories I object to, not her,” said Mrs. Bellows.
“She won’t keep them all,” said Susan. “She’ll always be loyal to her own convictions, just as she is now; but she’ll find out later that some of them are not so worth while as she is herself. Then she’ll sift them out.”
“I wish she’d hurry up with her sifting, then,” said Mrs. Bellows.
Barbara, in the meantime, had not waited for her sherbet but had hurried home to prepare the meal. In the evening she laid the matter of the nursery before her father, and was surprised to be met with some of the same objections that had been advanced at the woman’s club.