"Yes, I will, darling!"
She had never thought of the high school before. She had always
expected to leave school that very season, and to go into service
somewhere. But from that moment she resolved that nothing should keep
her away from those walls that had suddenly become her Paradise.
Her mother was easily won over. She was a woman of weak will, more
afraid of her children than of her husband, a phenomenon of frequent
occurrence in that latitude. She therefore sided naturally with her
daughter in the contest which, when Maud announced her intention of
entering the high school, broke out in the house and raged fiercely
for some weeks. The poor woman had to bear the brunt of the battle
alone, for Matchin soon grew shy of disputing with his rebellious
child. She was growing rapidly and assuming that look of maturity which
comes so suddenly and so strangely to the notice of a parent. When he
attacked her one day with the brusque exclamation, "Well, Mattie,
what's all this blame foolishness your ma's being tellin' me ?" she
answered him with a cool decision and energy that startled and alarmed
him.
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