“I SHALL REMEMBER THE BEAUTIFUL REPAST FOR A LONG TIME TO COME, SISTER LANE,” SAID THE PRESIDING ELDER
Blanche’s bright eyes sparkled with fun, and Mary, although she could not have told why, felt just a bit uncomfortable. “Isn’t it interesting to know that our English words transfer and translate come from the same root?” she said, presently, in her own mind trying to vindicate herself for not helping her mother.
“Oh, don’t,” broke in Blanche, laughingly, “talk about the dirty old roots under ground when we have these glorious flowers that grow on top.”
It had grown too dark for any one to see the pity in Mary’s smile for this frivolous city-bred girl who wasted her time on amusements and learning a little chafing-dish cooking, and didn’t even know what a Latin root was.
Blanche’s mother was kept in her room the next day with a headache, so Blanche’s time was divided between taking care of her invalid and lending a hand to Mrs. Lane till she could get another cook. Mrs. Lane had never expected Mary to help her; knowing how hard her own life had been, she was trying to fit her for a teacher, but as she watched Blanche flying about the house, setting the table, rolling out her cheese straws, running up and down to her mother’s room with a patch of flour on her curly hair, and singing gayly about her work, her tired eyes followed the young girl wistfully. It would be worth a great deal, she admitted, to have a daughter like that, even if she had not a word of Latin in her head. But, of course, the higher education could not be interfered with by the old-fashioned way of bringing up a daughter, and Mary took to books.
“I am going to college this fall if I pass the entrance examinations,” Mary announced at the lunch table, with just a touch of superiority in her tone. She could not have explained just why she felt so resentful toward the city girl.
“Are you going East, or will you stay out here on the coast?” Blanche asked, as if it were the most every-day thing to go to college.
“I have not decided yet, for I shall be the only girl anywhere around here who has gone to college,” she answered, nibbling one of Blanche’s cheese straws with an evident relish.
“Have another,” Blanche interrupted, passing her the plate with a hand that showed two burns and a slight scald. “We used to serve them with tamales when our friends came down from town to the trial foot-ball games.”
“Why, I thought you lived in San Francisco?” Mary said, looking up in surprise.