ral; she did not say that I
would get over them, that every growing girl suffers from the blues;
that I was, in brief, a little goose stretching my wings for flight.
She told me rather that it would be noble to bear my sorrows bravely,
to soothe those who irritated me, to live each day with all my might.
She reminded me of great men and women who have suffered, and who
overcame their troubles by living and working. And she sent me home
amazingly comforted, my pettiness and self-consciousness routed by the
quiet influence of her gray eyes searching mine. This, or something
like this, had to be repeated many times, as anybody will know who was
present at the slow birth of his manhood. From now on, for some years,
of course, I must weep and laugh out of season, stand on tiptoe to
pluck the stars in heaven, love and hate immoderately, propound
theories of the destiny of man, and not know what is going on in my
own heart.

CHAPTER XV

TARNISHED LAURELS

In the intervals of harkening to my growing-pains I was, of course,
still a little girl. As a little girl, in many ways immature for my
age, I finished my course in the grammar school, and was graduated
with honors, four years after my landing in Boston.

Wheeler Street recognizes five great events in a girl's life: namely,
christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage, and burial. These
occasions all require full dress for the heroine, and full dress is
forthcoming, no matter if the family goes into debt for it. There was
not a girl who came to school in rags all the year round that did not
burst forth in sudden glory on Graduation Day. Fine muslin frocks,
lace-trimmed petticoats, patent-leather shoes, perishable hats,
gloves, parasols, fans--every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed
floors for years to keep her girl in school was not going to have her
shamed in the end for want of a pretty dress. So she cut off the
children's supply of butter and worked nights and borrowed and fell
into arrears with the rent; and on Graduation Day she felt
magnificently rewarded, seeing her Mamie as fine as any girl in the
school. And in order to preserve for posterity this triumphant
spectacle, she took Mamie, after the exercises, to be photographed,
with her diploma in one hand, a bouquet in the other, and the gloves,
fan, parasol, and patent-leather shoes in full sight around a fancy
table. Truly, the follies of the poor are worth studying.

It did not strike me as