re beginnin' to talk about goin' and that
it was high time fur you to be gittin' ready to go, and, in brief, she
wanted to know whut about it? We told her jest how things stood--that
under the terms of your father's will practically everything you owned
was entailed--held in trust by us--until both of the heirs had come of
age. We told her that, with your consent or without it, we didn't have
the power to sell off any part of the estate, and so, that bein' the
case, the necessary money to send you off to school jest natchelly
couldn't be provided noways, and that, since there was jest barely
enough money comin' in to run the home and, by stintin', to care fur you
and Mildred, any outside and special expense comin' on top of the
regular expenses couldn't possibly be considered--or, in other words,
that you two couldn't hope to go to boardin' school.

"I reckin you kin guess fur yourself whut that old woman done then. She
flared up and showed all her teeth. She said that the quality always
sent their daughters off to boardin' school to give 'em the final polish
that made fine ladies of 'em. She said her Ole Miss--meanin' your
grandmother--had gone to Knollwood and that your mother had gone there,
and that you two girls were goin' there, too, whether or no. We tried to
explain to her that some of the finest young ladies in the land and some
of the best-born ones never had the advantages of a college education,
but she said she didn't keer whut people somewheres else might do--that
the daughters of her kind of quality folks went to college and that you
two were goin', so that all through your lives you could hold up your
heads with the finest in the land. You never seen anybody so set and
determined about a thing ez that old woman was. We tried explainin' to
her and we tried arguin' with her, and Lew Lake tried losin' his temper
with her, him bein' somewhat hot-headed, but nothin' we could say seemed
to have any effect on her at all. She jest set there with her old skinny
arms folded on her breast like a major-general, and that old under lip
of hers stuck out and her neck bowed, sayin' over and over agin that you
girls were goin' to that boardin' school same ez the Dabneys and the
Helms had always done. So finally we throwed up our hands and told her
we were at the end of our rope and she'd kindly have to show us the way
to bring it all about.

"And then she up and showed us. You remember the night me and Lew Lake
come up