“Go ’long thar, her father doan’t want her to marry--she hain’t got no call to get married.” I was rather pleased at this: if it showed anything, I thought, it showed that I was to have something different from a merely domestic career; but I had no idea what my course in life was to be, nor what I wanted it to be; and I think I was not then particularly concerned about my sick schoolmate. It was that night after returning home, as Mother and I sat on the “stoop” in the darkness, talking in a desultory way, that this news about Dora’s improvement occurred to me. Our talk was mingled with my own dreams and cogitations as to what my future was to be. I knew I must do something, but what that something was I did not know. Music had been prohibited, teaching was out of the question because of my incompetency in mathematics--suddenly into my mind there came the strange, hitherto undreamed-of idea, and I said, first to myself, then to Mother, “I will be a doctor.” It all came in a twinkling--how scarce women physicians were, how much they must be needed, and that if there were more of them in the smaller towns, poor modest girls like Dora, who had refused treatment from a man, need not suffer so for lack of means to employ them. I can hear now the dismay in Mother’s voice as she said, “Oh, Eugenia!” Fired with the idea, I talked eagerly and rapidly; it seemed clear that it was to be; there was no question about its fulfilment; but how it was to be accomplished, so far as finances were concerned, I was puzzled to know. For Father’s health was precarious then--two bank failures and hard times made just the ordinary expenditures hard to meet. I did not see how it could be done, but knew it would. Elated over the project, the very suddenness with which it had come to me convinced me of its ultimate accomplishment. I felt annoyed at Mother’s objections. When she demurred, I insisted on her giving a reason. Her chief one, that it was going out of my sphere, irritated me. In those days (I hope I am less so now) I was very intolerant of another’s point of view, and Mother’s illogical way of meeting questions tried me exceedingly. Her insight, her intuition, her faith, her estimate of character, were strong, but her logic was poor. Probably then, knowing me as she did, she felt it would be a life for which temperamentally I was not suited; perhaps she divined some of the disappointments and failures I have since experienced; but she was unable to give a reason and could only protest in a pitying way. I can hear her tones yet, her words of regret and dismay, as I announced my intention with a finality she seemed to realize.