She remembered that she never had found an Emperor before June.
Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. Then she would be
of age, and she meant to sell enough of her share of her father's land
to finish. She knew her mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for
Mrs. Comstock had clung to every acre and tree that belonged to her
husband. Her land was almost complete forest where her neighbours owned
cleared farms, dotted with wells that every hour sucked oil from beneath
her holdings, but she was too absorbed in the grief she nursed to know
or care. The Brushwood road and the redredging of the big Limberlost
ditch had been more than she could pay from her income, and she had
trembled before the wicket as she asked the banker if she had funds to
pay it, and wondered why he laughed when he assured her she had. For
Mrs. Comstock had spent no time on compounding interest, and never added
the sums she had been depositing through nearly twenty years. Now she
thought her funds were almost gone, and every day she worried over
expenses. She could see no reason in going through the forms of
graduation when pupils had all in their heads that was required to
graduate. Elnora knew she had to have her diploma in order to enter the
college she wanted to attend, but she did not dare utter the word, until
high school was finished, for, instead of softening as she hoped her
mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very much the same.
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