CHAPTER X
CARRIE GOES AWAY TO SCHOOL
Tabitha stood at the open window of Carrie's pretty room and looked out over the scorched landscape burning under the pitiless sun of late summer. But she did not see the scanty, shrivelled vegetation of the parched mountains, nor was she aware of the terrible heat of the day that seemed to have burned away the ambition of every living creature. On the floor beside the little white bed with its pink draperies sat Carrie, panting in the sultry atmosphere, and anxiously watching the figure beside the window, as she fanned herself with all the energy she could command.
"You aren't a bit glad, Puss," she said at last, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. But if Tabitha heard she gave no sign and the tears rose in the gentle blue eyes of the speaker. "I thought you would think it was nice." Still Tabitha made no reply, but kept her gaze fixed on the hot sands of the sizzling desert. "We have planned it out so often, and now when w—I can go, you don't like it."
Gulping back the lump that rose in her throat, the black-eyed girl by the window wheeled toward her playmate, now lying prostrate on the floor, and dropping on her knees beside her she exclaimed penitently,
"I am mean, Carrie! I am glad because you are going away to school, but—it is so hard to have you leave here—when I can't go, too. Ain't I selfish? It isn't as if it would be only for a week or even a month, but for whole years with only a few days here in the winter! And you're the only friend I ever had so near my own age!"
Tabitha was crying now and Carrie forgot her own disappointment in soothing the greater sorrow of her mate.
"Don't feel so bad, Puss; maybe you can go, too."
"No, I can't! There isn't any use of thinking that, Carrie Carson! It takes money to go to boarding school and Dad never has any any more. His claims take all he gets. I wish he would let the Cat Group go to Guinea and work for the Silver Legion like Mr. McKittrick does. Mercedes McKittrick is going next year. I want to go so much. I'm almost as far as I can get in this little mite of a school and I can't bear to think of growing up a know-nothing."
"You won't be a know-nothing, Puss, even if you never went to school another day. Papa says it is ambition that wins, and you're the most ambitious girl I ever knew. I'd like to go to boarding school for the fun of it, but I do hate to study. Papa thinks maybe—"