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Page 49
She had broached the subject of school one evening soon after she arrived,
but was completely squelched by her aunt and cousin.
"You're too old!" sneered Lizzie. "School is for children."
"Lizzie went through grammar school, and we talked about high for her,"
said the grandmother proudly.
"But I just hated school," grinned Lizzie. "It ain't so nice as it's
cracked up to be. Just sit and study all day long. Why, they were always
keeping me after school for talking or laughing. I was glad enough when I
got through. You may thank your stars you didn't have to go, Bess."
"People who have to earn their bread can't lie around and go to school,"
remarked Aunt Nan dryly, and Elizabeth said no more.
But later she heard of a night-school, and then she took up the subject
once more. Lizzie scoffed at this. She said night-school was only for very
poor people, and it was a sort of disgrace to go. But Elizabeth stuck to
her point, until one day Lizzie came home with a tale about Temple
College. She had heard it was very cheap. You could go for ten cents a
night, or something like that. Things that were ten cents appealed to her.
She was used to bargain-counters.
She heard it was quite respectable to go there, and they had classes in
the evening. You could study gymnastics, and it would make you graceful.
She wanted to be graceful. And she heard they had a course in millinery.
If it was so, she believed she would go herself, and learn to make the new
kind of bows they were having on hats this winter. She could not seem to
get the right twist to the ribbon.
Elizabeth wanted to study geography. At least, that was the study Lizzie
said would tell her where the Desert of Sahara was. She wanted to know
things, all kinds of things; but Lizzie said such things were only for
children, and she didn't believe they taught such baby studies in a
college. But she would inquire. It was silly of Bessie to want to know,
she thought, and she was half ashamed to ask. But she would find out.
It was about this time that Elizabeth's life at the store grew
intolerable.
One morning--it was little more than a week before Christmas--Elizabeth
had been sent to the cellar to get seven little red tin pails and shovels
for a woman who wanted them for Christmas gifts for some Sunday-school
class. She had just counted out the requisite number and turned to go
up-stairs when she heard some one step near her, and, as she looked up in
the dim light, there stood the manager.
"At last I've got you alone, Bessie, my dear!" He said it with suave
triumph in his tones. He caught Elizabeth by the wrists, and before she
could wrench herself away he had kissed her.
With a scream Elizabeth dropped the seven tin pails and the seven tin
shovels, and with one mighty wrench took her hands from his grasp.
Instinctively her hand went to her belt, where were now no pistols. If one
had been there she certainly would have shot him in her horror and fury.
But, as she had no other weapon, she seized a little shovel, and struck
him in the face. Then with the frenzy of the desert back upon her she
rushed up the stairs, out through the crowded store, and into the street,
hatless and coatless in the cold December air. The passers-by made way for
her, thinking she had been sent out on some hurried errand.
She had left her pocketbook, with its pitifully few nickels for car-fare
and lunch, in the cloak-room with her coat and hat. But she did not stop
to think of that. She was fleeing again, this time on foot, from a man.
She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated
work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above
the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy
pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few busy flakes floating about
her.
The day seemed pitiless as the world. Where could she go and what should
she do? There seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Instinctively
she felt her grandmother would feel that a calamity had befallen them in
losing the patronage of the manager of the ten-cent store. Perhaps Lizzie
would get into trouble. What should she do?
She had reached the corner where she and Lizzie usually took the car for
home. The car was coming now; but she had no hat nor coat, and no money to
pay for a ride. She must walk. She paused not, but fled on in a steady
run, for which her years on the mountain had given her breath. Three miles
it was to Flora Street, and she scarcely slackened her pace after she had
settled into that steady half-run, half-walk. Only at the corner of Flora
Street she paused, and allowed herself to glance back once. No, the
manager had not pursued her. She was safe. She might go in and tell her
grandmother without fearing he would come behind her as soon as her back
was turned.
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