Truly the cackling hen brought no such thoughts to simple Esther and her brother John. To them it merely announced that another egg was laid, and thereby another cent gained toward the purchase of a new book. They talked the stories over by the light of the moon, or recited to each other favorite passages from Burns and Bloomfield. When the field-labourers took their noon-day rest, you would be sure to find John hidden away in the shade of a haystack, devouring a book. His zeal attracted the minister’s attention, and he often stopped to talk with him. One day, he said to the mother, “This boy will make something extraordinary. He must get an education. He must go to college, ma’am.” “Bless my heart, I might as well think of sending him to the moon!” she replied. But Esther heard it with a quick blush of pleasure and pride; and henceforth the one absorbing thought of her life was how to assist in sending John to college. Busily she calculated how much could be earned in two years by knitting, and binding shoes, and braiding straw. John listened with rapture to her plans, but his triumph was checked midway by the recollection that his sister could not go to college with him. “Why, Esther, you have always been my teacher,” he said. “You learn faster than I do, and you remember better. Why don’t _women_ go to college?” “They couldn’t be lawyers, and ministers, and judges, if they _did_,” answered Esther. “Why not?” said John. Esther’s knowledge and reflection on the subject stopped there, and she simply replied that women never _had_ done such things. “Why, yes, they have,” said John. “The Bible says that Deborah was a judge; and Queen Elizabeth was more than a judge; and we read the other day that Isabella of Spain knew how to direct an army, and govern the state, better than her husband, King Ferdinand. I am sure I don’t see why women _shouldn’t_ go to college.” The boy, in the eagerness of brotherly love, had started ideas which he was too ignorant to follow. But in his simple question lies the germ of thoughts that will revolutionize the world. For as surely as there is a God of harmony in the universe, so surely will woman one day become the acknowledged equal and co-worker of man, in _every_ department of life; and yet be more truly gentle and affectionate than she now is.