' quarrel dimmed the ecstasy of the "personal belongings."
From that time we used napkins and a table-cloth on Sundays--that is,
when any one remembered it was Sunday.

Great-Aunt Martha's napkins opened up a new world for me, and they
strengthened father's determination to give his children an education.
The September before I reached seventeen, we persuaded mother to let me
go to Madison and study for a half year.

So great was my eagerness to learn from books, that I had given no
thought to people. Madison, my first town, showed me that my clothes
were homemade and tacky. Other girls wore store shoes and what seemed
to me beautifully made dresses. I was a backwoods gawk. I hated myself
and our home.

With many cautions, father had intrusted eighty dollars to me for the
half year's expenses. I took the money and bought my first pair of
buttoned shoes and a store dress with nine gores and stylish mutton-leg
sleeves! It was poor stuff, not warm enough for winter, and, together
with a new coat and hat, made a large hole in my funds.

I found work in a kindly family, where, in return for taking care of an
old lady, I received room and board and two dollars a week. Four hours
of my day were left for school.

The following February brought me an appointment as teacher in a
district school, at eighteen dollars a month and "turnabout" boarding in
farmers' families.

The next two years were spent teaching and attending school in Madison.
When I was twenty, a gift from father added to my savings and made
possible the realization of one of my dreams. I went East for a special
summer course.

No tubes shuttled under the Hudson in those days. From the ferry-boat
I was suddenly dazzled with the vision of a towering gold dome rising
above the four and five-story structures. The New York World building
was then the tallest in the world. To me it was also the most
stupendous.

Impulsively I turned to a man leaning on the ferry-boat railing beside
me. "Is n't that the most wonderful thing in the world?" I gasped.

"Not quite," he answered, and looked at me. His look made me
uncomfortable. I could have spoken to any stranger in Madison without
embarrassment. It took me about twenty years to understand why a plain,
middle-aged woman may chat with a strange man anywhere on earth, while
the same conversation cheapens a good-looking young girl.

That summer I met my future husband. He was doing research work at
C