Bert spoke good naturedly, but we felt, none the less, as if he were rebuking us.
“He thinks we are butting in,” said Stella, as we walked home. “I suppose you have to live in a New England town thirty years before you are really a citizen. Well, I’m getting my mad up. Let’s butt!”
We next consulted Mrs. Pillig on the subject, and found her as stiffly opposed to vocational education as Bert, but on entirely different grounds.
“I don’t want my boy educated as if he wa’n’t as good as anybody else’s,” she said. “Just because I’m poor is no reason why my boy shouldn’t be fitted to go to college same as young Carl Swain.”
Carl Swain was the son of the village bank president. He, I happened to know, had been obliged to go to Phillips Andover for a year after his graduation from our high school before he could get into college.
“In the first place,” I answered, “your high school doesn’t fit for college now. In the second place, is Peter going to college?”
“Of course he ain’t,” said Mrs. Pillig.
“Then why not educate him in some way that will really fit him to make a better living, and be a better man?” said Stella.
“I want he should have what the rest have,” the mother stoutly maintained.
Stella shook her head. “It’s hopeless,” she whispered.