Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton CollegeChase, Josephine
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Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College
Chase, Josephine
College stories; Women college students -- Juvenile fiction
"Where was I?" asked Kathleen. "Oh, yes, I remember. Well, as soon as I
had fully determined to go to college, I began to save every penny on
which I could honestly lay hands. I went without most of the school-girl
luxuries that count for so much just at that time. You girls know what I
mean. Mother and Father didn't wish me to go to college. They planned a
course in stenography and typewriting for me after I should finish high
school, and when I pleaded for college they were angry and disappointed.
They argued, too, that they couldn't possibly afford to send me there.
As soon as I saw that I was going to have trouble with them, I kept my
own counsel, but I was more determined than ever to do as I pleased. At
the beginning of the vacation before my senior year in high school I
went to the only daily paper in our town and asked for work. The editor,
who had known me since I was a baby, gave me a chance. Father and Mother
made no objection to that. They thought it was merely a whim on my part.
But it wasn't a whim, as they found out later, for I wrote stuff for the
paper during my senior year, too, and when I did graduate I turned the
house upside down by getting a position on a newspaper in a big city.
Father and Mother forgave me after awhile, but not until I had been at
work on the other paper for a year.
"At first I did society, then clubs, went back to society again, and at
last my opportunity came to do general reporting. I was the only woman
on the staff who had a chance to go after the big stories. I have been
doing that only the last two years, though.
"Naturally, I made more money on the paper than I would as a
stenographer. I saved it, too. It was ever so much harder to hang on to
it in the city. There were so many more ways to spend it. But I kept on
putting it away, and, now, by going back on the paper every summer, I
will have enough to see me through college."
"But why do you wish so much for a college education when you are
already successful as a newspaper woman?" asked Elfreda.
"Because I want to be an author, or an editor, or somebody of importance
in the literary world, and I need these four years at college. Besides,
it's a good thing to bear the college stamp if one expects always to be
before the public," was the prompt retort.
"Suppose you were to find afterward that you weren't going to be before
the public," said Elfreda almost mischievously.
"But I shall be," persisted Kathleen, setting her jaws with a little
snap. "I always accomplish whatever I set out to do. On the paper they
used to say, 'Kathleen would sacrifice her best friend if by doing it
she could scoop the other papers.'"
"What do you mean by 'scoop the other papers'?" queried Elfreda
interestedly.
"Why, to get ahead of them with a story," explained Kathleen. "Suppose I
found out an important piece of news that no one else knew. If I gave it
to my paper and it appeared in it before any other newspaper got hold of
it then that would be a scoop."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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