The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-23
Our Daily $bort Story

money. tndt way. I SuOulQ like to write, but what can write about? Nothing that would make story ever happens here. Newspaper work ia fascinating, and I tried, just for the practice, to be the correspondent from here for The Prattville Prattler, but the editor said ne wanted moro news than I sent in. wrote good items too-that father had been to the coun- ty seat on business. that Uncle James had bought a new team of horses, that Aunt Minerva was III with rheuma- tism. that Cousin John was building new barn.
 T have decided to teach. No profession is more respected than that of teaching, and 1t is the only thing father and mother will allow me to do. Father is one of the di- rectors of the school here, and he says I can be appointed teacher. I shall nave to take a teachers examination and tomorrow I shall commence re- viewing the common branches. That will be a simple matter, and in a few days I shall take the examination. This little country school will bo a stepping stone and I shall not despise it, humble as it is."
 The next morning Jennie hunted up her old school books Studying the common branches seemed a trifle and
 
 wanted to expend in her great work. It would not be necessary to spend any time on arithmetic. A glance would be sufficient. Addition; she could add correctly--if she was not in a hurry; Subtraction. Multiplication,
 Division, she was wasting her time in looking over such familiar sub jects. Fractions--um-er--d division Of fractions, she remembered, was some- what complicated. Which fraction
 must be turned upside down. the divi-
 dend or the divisor. and why? Deci- mals, United States Money. Linear Measure Surveyors Measure. She
 turned the pages less rapidly. Square
 Measure. Cubic Measure. Must she
 learn all those tables? Liquid Meas
 ure, Dry Measure. Avoirdupois Weight.
 Troy Weight. Apohtecarys Welght, why was there not one weight for all? Over and over she repeated the
 tables. She worked some of the prob l. llems. added bushels and pecks, gallons and pints, sold calico, estimated the size of field and weighed sugar, gold and quinine. She compared her
 answers with those on the last pages
 of the book. Less than hah were correct.
 The dinner bell rang but she worked on. Circular Measure. Longitude ana
 Time. Angles. she had forgotten there
 was such a thing as trapezoid; sne would learn those another time. Pro- portion; Square and Cube Root, she had never studied them. She laid down her arithmetic. She would fin ish 1t later.
 Grammar would be easier, she
 thought. But grammar was not cas-
 fer. Rules and definitions were as troublesome as. tables The parts or speech mixed themselves up and she could not separate them. Clauses, phrases, adverbial modifiers, subordi- nate conjunctions, beacem unlntelligi- ble. The grammar followed the arltn- metic. ,,,.. and Physiology were full ot iacts
 which she had forgotten or never learned. ,,+ aside her books. There was so much | to be learned. For many weeks sne would have to work as she had Workeu | today and then she would pc ohly at the first stepping stone, the one
 she had thought so humble. she re, membered reading thar the man anu
 woman who worked with tnelr pralhS
 worked all the time and with all their strength and she knew no rest
 She had dreamed of being one of them, l of living in their great, beautllui
 world But now that world seemed
 far away and not beautiful. and the
 workers were no longer envleo'
 The farmhouse seemed very peace,
 fuI No one in it worked hard and
 everyone eve was contened and happy :.
 Father and the hired man were sit- ting on the back porch smoking Aho
 tha hired girl was singing in the
 Joe was at the gate and she went
 you look tired. little girl" he saio
 gently. .. u.,.n lit-
 t1a ouiver in her voice. My head
 He drew the tired head to his shoni- @
 ders. ."Tired of knives ana Iorhs'
 plates and glasses cup ana sau
 oeSi No, I am not tired of them. Joe, o
 dear love them. They are so-so Fcomfortable."