ged
to be married at seventeen. Helen ran and played and worked and sewed a
little, which she hated, and studied and read everything she could get
hold of. There were Sunday-school library books, some of them very good,
too; there were books she borrowed, and some old ones up in the garret
belonging to her father. She read these quite on the sly, for she knew
she should hate to hear comments made about them, and Aunt Jane might
burn them up.

Some years before she had a big rag doll that she was very fond of. It
was her confidant, and wonderful stories, complaints, and wishes went
into her deaf ears. 'Reely, the girl next to the two boys, wanted it,
and ran away with it at every opportunity. One day they had a quarrel
about it.

"It's mine!" declared Helen. "I'll hide it away. You have no business
with it."

"What's that?" demanded Aunt Jane sharply. "Helen Grant, you just give
that doll to 'Reely. You're too big for such nonsense! Now, 'Reely, that
doll is yours, and if Helen takes it away, I'll just settle with her in
a way she'll remember one while. You great baby-calf playing with
dolls!"

Helen never troubled the doll after that. There was a crooked old
apple-tree in the orchard, and after she had dipped into mythology she
made a friend and confidant of it, read her stories to it, studied her
lessons with it even in real cold weather. It was a sort of desultory
education, until the last year, when Mr. Warfield came, and then Helen
really found a friend worlds better than the old apple tree, though she
still told it her dreams. And sometimes when the wind soughed through
its branches it seemed as if she could translate what it said.

"Of course you go to the High School next year," Mr. Warfield said a
week or so before school closed. "It would be such a pity for you to
stop here. You have the making of a good scholar, and there is no reason
why you shouldn't be a teacher. You have one admirable quality, you go
so directly to the point, you are so ambitious, so in earnest, and you
acquire knowledge so easily. You will make a broad-minded woman. I must
say the Center people are rather narrow and self-satisfied, except the
few new ones that have come in." And Mr. Warfield smiled.

Helen felt in her inner consciousness that it would be unwise to talk
about the High School. And she was very busy. She was called upon to
help with the ironing now. She darned all the stockings. She washed the
supper dishes because A