never shall do it."

"Well, girls can all make school-mistresses," said Addison.

"Kate is going to make something besides a school-mistress," said Ellen.
"Kate means to study chemistry and be a chemist."

"She said last winter that she meant to learn how to telegraph and be a
telegraph operator," said Halse, laughing.

"Yes, I did," replied Kate, coldly. "But I have changed my mind. I
don't know much about chemistry yet, but I think I like it. I mean to
study it and I mean to learn all about drugs, too, and have a pharmacy
in some large pleasant town. I'll make as much money as Addison; for I
think money is a great thing."

"Shall you have a soda-fountain in your drug store and sell soda with a
'stick' in it?" asked Halse.

"I don't think so," replied Kate. "But if I do, I shall hire somebody
like you to tend the 'stick' part of it."

Halse had sat poking fun at all the others, while they talked of their
plans, pretending to be on the point of fainting away, when Addison, Tom
and Theodora discussed different pursuits in life; and this retort from
Kate hit him hard; he was angry. "I would not work for anyone with a
tongue like yours," he exclaimed.

"Never mind," replied Kate. "We will not quarrel about that now. It is
rather too far ahead. It will take you years and years to get education
enough to tend a soda-fountain," she added, mischievously. "Perhaps you
know enough already about putting the 'stick' in it, as you call it; I'm
rather afraid you do from what I heard your friend Alfred Batchelder say
a few days ago. It doesn't sound well for little boys like you to talk
about 'sticks' in soda."

Halse usually fared ill when he attempted jokes at Kate's expense. It
seemed odd to the rest of us that he did not learn to avoid such
efforts; but he never did; he was always worsted, promptly, and always
got angry. "Tom, if I had such a sister as you've got, I'd tie a hot
potato in her mouth," he exclaimed.

"She is a terrible girl," said Tom, with a wink. "Her tongue is just
like a new whalebone whip with a silk snapper on it. Takes the skin
right off. But as she is all the sister I've got, I try to put up with
her.

"She is a pretty good sister," he added, going across where Kate sat and
sitting down beside her. "I don't know what I should do without her."

"Thank you, Tommy dear," said Kate. "I know now that you want me to coax
father to let you take 'White-foot' (their colt) to the Fair. Perhaps I
will;