The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-09-17
DoRoTHY's VACATION.

i feel as if | had lost my opportunity in life"
wrote Dorothy Dane to her college chum, Marcia
Potter, during the first week of vacation. Every
body does not fully appreciate the sense of letting
down which comes to a student, when, a year of
intellectual work and hard routine over she simply
sinks into (, position of of quiet-going fam
lily. Dorothy loved books, loved hard and eager
study and was noted 70 rthe intensity of her ap-
pcation. In her classes she stood very HIGH and
at the commencement exercises she carried off
numerous prizes, and received honorable mention
where somebody else was first. The professors
we're very proud of Miss Dane. She would go out
as a credit to the college, and they were the more
interested that she expected to become a teacher,
and to carry their methods and ways of getting
at things into toher schools and places.
Commencement had been over with its joys and
excitements for several weeks. Dorothy had be-
come used to waking when she pleased in the morn
ING, to regulating her day. not by bells but to suit
herself. he had vaantly laid out a course of read
ing when she first came home, but so many inter
ruptlons broke IN upon her plans that she had
not been able to adhere to her prescribed systems,
and as she finished and sealed her little note to
Marcia, she sighed YEARLY. Dorothy expert
encng the subtle but sharp pain which befalls those
who disappoint themselves. She was not fulfilling
her own ideal, and she was conscious of an acute
pang because of it.
~DoIly!" Her father was calling her from the
foot Of the stairs He used the pet name of her
childhood.
Yes, father"
Your mother needs you, my girl. Eliza has
taken herself off in tiff and Aunt James folks are
coming TO dinner, and the mother has a sick-head-
ache You II have to step into the kitchen and fly
around"
To some girls this necessity would have pre-
sented no alarms but Dorothy's Latin and rhetoric
and algebra had neither given her training in
hausewifery nor developed in her the least incna-
lion 10 what she called domestic drudgery. If the
Il &11-
that Elias departure in the middle of a summer
morning, without adequate warning sufficient
occasion was due.
Dorothys return to her home had made the
weekly wash" much larger than usual, and the
ironing Of pretty pulled waists, rufled and tucked
skirts and elaborate "lingerie" of every description
made a marked inroad on the time and strength,
and also on the temper of Eliza, the single maid
called 1y courtesy, the help. 1t was community
hch help was not readily obtained
While Dorothy in a cool, white muslin dress
Ing -acquc beside a vine-shaded window, in easy
chair. was writing to her school friend Eliza was
aulrilv contemplating the third tucked skirt she
Dad roncd that day. She demonstrated volubly
Miss Dane wants to white pettlcoats,
.as BOT to iron them; that's all I've got to say,
She set her fatiron down with a thump
Nr- Dane, a fragile woman with weary face,
Na- shilling peas in a large tin pam 1t was not
@ ,r to give a hasty answer, but she had com
pan. coming. and the dread Of her life, sick
la@aghe was announcing its advent in creeping
g.- down her spine, dull throbbing aches back OF
her eyes, a screwing, boring sensation IN her tenn
l..- and a wave of nausea at the pit of her stom-
far OF all intoerable miseries, sick-headache IS
worst the most relentless, a nightmare from
rs attacks Mrs Dane always felt cross when a |
headache came. For the life of her, she could not
f1r irritation when people fretted at her in
t1a- aircumstances
Liza she said, "where the difference? If |
you doing that you haven't anything else to
90. 1 m sure you have had it easy for long TIME
and can't understand you; you We done nothing
put find fault ever since my daughter came from
college"
Wen, said the outspoken Eliza, "why doesn t
she take hold ana help!'