“You shut your mouth and don’t go talking about your Paw.” The mother gave the girl a sharp slap on the ear as she spoke. The child’s face crimsoned. “I don’t care. It ain’t right. We don’t ever do anything but work, work, work, and Paw, he never works. Then everything goes for hateful old booze. It ain’t right.” “Now, now, Mandy, you orta treat your Paw with respect. I can’t see what’s getting into the young ones these days, especially the girls. Mandy here, bellered her head off cause we let Jeffie, that’s our oldest, stop last winter with my brother Jed to go to school. She thought she orta gone too.” “Jeff’s had two years more in school now than I’ve had, and still I’m ahead of him.” “That’s all the more reason why you orta stay home and work. Jeffie’s a boy and needs schoolin’, while you’re a——” “You’re quite right,” Mrs. Adams interrupted; “a girl don’t need much book learning. She wants to learn to cook and sew and take good care of her house so she can make some man a good wife.” “Yes, so she can plough and harrow and husk corn and carry swill to the hogs while her man goes to town and gets drunk. I hate men. I hate men.” The girl’s eyes blazed. “Get out that door, you ungrateful hussy, or I’ll give you a good lambasting.” The child burst into tears as her mother pursued her from the untidy living room. “I can’t see what’s got into the child. She’s always been such a comfort to me—worked since she was knee high to a duck. Seems like she’s dead set on going to school, but I can’t spare her. Why this spring, she and I put in eighty acres of corn with our own hands, besides milking seven cows and all the other work. I’ve only got the one boy; he’s the oldest in the family. I aim he should have an education, but Jeffie hates school. Mandy can learn as much in eight weeks scattered through the winter term as he can in a year, but the spite of it is she’s only a girl and don’t need schoolin’.” “You’re very wise to keep her with you. A woman’s place is in the home. Now, don’t you think it would be a good idea to trade me that bacon? It’ll make the girl contented to get these things she wants and she’ll forget all about that fool notion of going to school. She needs stuff like this to attract the boys. You make the trade and then figure out some way of pulling the wool over the old man’s eyes.” “Well, maybe I can manage some way. I orta get something for the poor child, I suppose. Paw’ll raise Cain, but he does that anyhow. Now, what’ll you let me have for a good fat side of bacon?” Leaving the two women to conclude the bargain, I stepped outside and sought Mandy. The poor girl seemed only too glad to find a sympathetic soul to confide in.