“I would rather go away, because I want to be educated, and I can’t be if I stay here.”

“Fiddlestick! you will know as much as the balance of us, and that’s all you will ever have any use for.  I notice you have a hankering after books, but the quicker you get that foolishness out of your head the better; for books won’t put bread in your mouth and clothes on your back; and folks that want to be better than their neighbors generally turn out worse.  The less book-learning you women have the better.”

“I don’t see that it is any of your business, Peter Wood, how much learning we women choose to get, provided your bread is baked and your socks darned when you want ’em.  A woman has as good a right as a man to get book-learning, if she wants it; and as for sense, I’ll thank you, mine is as good as yours any day; and folks have said it was a blessed thing for the neighborhood when the rheumatiz laid Peter Wood up, and his wife, Dorothy Elmira Wood, run the mill.  Now, it’s of no earthly use to cut at us women over that child’s shoulders; if she wants an education she has as much right to it as anybody, if she can pay for it.  My doctrine is, everybody has a right to whatever they can pay for, whether it is schooling or a satin frock!”

Mrs. Wood seized her snuff-bottle and plunged a stick vigorously into the contents, and, as the miller showed no disposition to skirmish, she continued: 

“I take an interest in you, Edna Earl, because I loved your mother, who was the only sweet-tempered beauty that ever I knew.  I think I never set my eyes on a prettier face, with big brown eyes as meek as a partridge’s; and then her hands and feet were as small as a queen’s.  Now as long as you are satisfied to stay here I shall be glad to have you, and I will do as well for you as for my own Tabitha; but, if you are bent on factory work and schooling, I have got no more to say; for I have no right to say where you shall go or where you shall stay.  But one thing I do want to tell you, it is a serious thing for a poor, motherless girl to be all alone among strangers.”

There was a brief silence, and Edna answered slowly: 

“Yes, Mrs. Wood, I know it is; but God can protect me there as well as here, and I have none now but Him.  I have made up my mind to go, because I think it is the best for me, and I hope Mr. Wood will carry me to the Chattanooga depot to-morrow morning, as the train leaves early.  I have a little money—­seven dollars—­that—­that grandpa gave me at different times, and both Brindle’s calves belong to me—­he gave them to me—­and I thought may be you would pay me a few dollars for them.”

“But you are not ready to start to-morrow.”

“Yes, sir, I washed and ironed my clothes yesterday, and what few I have are all packed in my box.  Everything is ready now, and, as I have to go, I might as well start to-morrow.”

“Don’t you think you will get dreadfully homesick in about a month, and write to me to come and fetch you back?”