The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-10-23
NEST-ECG
FOR LOTTIE'S
EDUCATION

By FANNIE HURST

NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.:
&c by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.l
fWNU Service.l
IBBIE was one of those women
who had married early "a first
~ love elopement). had spent the
subsequent years bemoaning the
| fact that she had not availed herself
of the opportunity for college edu-
| cation.
The stage had all been set for Sib-
bic to attend state university when
she elOped instead. 1t had been no
great blow however to her parents,
the idea of college. which in mod
est way they had been able to afford.
had been to them more of new-fan-
gled notion than a project of value.
So when Sibbie eloped with a nice To-
cal boy. with prospects in his fathers
machinery shop, it had seemed more
of blessing than a calamity.
In way this was true, because the
pretty Sibbie was to enjoy three years
of complete marital happiness before
her husband succumbed to influenza
during an epidemic.
1t had been hard shedding after
that. Her little girl was just two
when the father died. Her father-in-
laws machine shop was destined to
bankruptcy, her own parents had
passed on meanwhile, leaving assets
that were chiefly in the form of mort
cages.
There had not beer a time after
those first three years of married hap
piness when Sibbie had not been
harassed, pressed and burdened with
the responsibilities of the struggle for
existence of herself and little girl.
And through all the driven, work-rid-
den years the regret that had lain up
permost in the mind of Sibbie was her
failure to avail herself, when girl,
of the opportunity of a college edu-
cation. Lack of it seemed the funda-
mental explanation of so many Of the
handicaps that oppressed her. 1t was
humiliating when she thought of her
little daughter Lottie, that she, Sib-
bic, instead of earning their living by
some such activity as teaching or pro-
fessional work. should be obliged to
accept salesladyship in a dry goods
store or sit behind the wire cage of
cashiers desk in lunch room.
A college woman happened to run
one Of these lunch rooms in which
Sibbie was employed as cashier. The
very books she kept on her desk were
sign of reproach to the mother of
little Lottie. They were the kind of
books Sibbie was not only unprepared
to read herself. but was unprepared
to pass along and discuss with her
daughter Books of psychology; sci
ence; collections of essays.
Because her mind had never been
sufficiently trained, Sibbie had not the
patience for reading anything except
the most superficial magazines and
the tabloid newspapers.
And so Sibbie found herself going
through life, branded, as it were, by
this outstanding lack; branded by the
fact that as an uneducated woman
she was fettered to walks of life that
otherwise might have been roads to
higher destiny. Try as she would
to excuse herself, Sibbie was forced
at last to realize that her intellectual
curiosity had simply never been awak-
ened.
The proprietor of the restaurant
was the sort of college woman whose
tastes had been stimulated back in
the formative years. Sibbie realized
that same need within herself.
And, Of course, this regret began
gradually to be offset by an ambition.
Before Lottie was in her teens,
cleaning resolution had already Lit
Sibbie's eyes. Lottie would never
know the bitter pangs of regret that
had eaten their way through the life
of her mother.
When Lottie was thirteen. the fund
for her college education already
amounted to three figures in Sibbie's
little bank book.
And delightfully."- enough, Lottie
showed promise Of distinct appetite
for learning. She was the sort of
child to whom going to school was
pleasure. Her teacher liked her; her
reports were excellent and to Sib-
bie's delight. it was not unusual to
find the little girl, after school hours,
curled up on couch reading book.
instead of playing out of doors with
the neighborhood children. And good
books they were. Dickens. When Lot
tie was sixteen, she spoke French
almost as well as the graphophone
records from which she had learned
it. By this time her application was
in for admission into large eastern
college for girls. and Sibbie's nest
egg was already large enough to ac-
count for the, first two years of Lot
ties college life.
Even in her choice of companions,
Lottie brought qualification to her