"Two girls in our class are going to the University of Missouri, papa. That's what I'd like to do--go to college." "Don't spoil a good thing by trying to overdo it, Lilly. It is as bad for a young girl to permit herself to be educated into one of those bold, unwomanly woman's-rights girls as it is for her to be frivolous and empty-headed. When women get too smart they get unattractive." "But, papa, girls are beginning more and more to go to college, and all women will be--suffrage--some day." "Not womanly girls, Lilly." "I always said that High School would be her ruination." "I didn't learn it there, mamma. I always wanted to be something--" "Well, you're a finished stenographer, aren't you? Why not go down to your father's office a couple of mornings a week?" "I don't mean stenography. I hated learning it. I mean something--something--beyond--" Suddenly Mrs. Becker, quiet at the business of wrapping away some of the gifts, glanced up, two round spots of color on her cheeks. "You _are_ going to do something, Lilly. Have a home and entertain in it like other girls." "But--" "I've a piece of news for you and your father. If I waited for him to take the initiative I'd wait until the crack of doom." "What is it, little woman?" "I signed a lease yesterday for one of those yellow-brick houses--seven rooms, bath, furnace heat, and privilege of buying. Twenty-eight dollars, out on Page Avenue near Union. We move in two weeks from to-day." CHAPTER VIII There followed one of those years which come and go even in the small affairs of small men, when for Ben Becker swift waters flowed under the bridge. He was just that, a small man, prided himself upon it and was frequent in his boast: "I'm a small man, Carrie. I don't hope to make a big or showy success of it. Just a comfortable and unassuming living is about all I expect to get out of it, and that's a pretty good deal." The Spanish-American War, something of musical comedy in its setting, had run its brief malarial engagement, netting Ben Becker, in one order of hemp rope alone, a cleanly realized profit of forty-two hundred dollars. On a new and gradually attained bank credit the B. T. Becker Hemp, Rope, and Twine Company bought out the about-to-be-insolvent Mound City Flax Twine Company, the consolidated interests moving into a two-story brick building on South Seventh Street. The firm took on the subtle and psychological proportions that go with incorporation, however unassuming, capitalizing at fifteen thousand dollars, B. T. Becker, president; Jerry Hensel, trusted foreman of years, vice president and holder of ten shares; Carrie Becker, secretary and treasurer and, to propitiate the law, holder of one share.