.. yet you're no more good in
school than you are at work ... I can't make you out, by the living God,
I can't ... what is it you want to be?"
"I don't know, only I want to go back to school again."
"But what did you leave for?"
"I hated arithmetic."
"What do you want to study, then?"
"Languages."
"Would you like a special course in the high school?
"Principal Balling of the Keeley Heights High School might be able to
work you in. He is a brother Mason of mine."
"I know some Latin and Greek and Ancient History already. I have been
teaching myself."
"Well, you _are_ a queer fish ... there never was anyone like you in the
family, except your mother. She used to read and read, and read. And
once or twice she wrote a short story ... had one accepted, even, by the
_Youth's Companion_ once, but never printed."
* * * * *
Though it was some months off till the Fall term began, on the strength
of my desire to return to school my father let me throw up my job....
But we soon found out that, brother in the bond, or not, Principal
Balling could not get me into high school because I was not well enough
prepared. My studying and reading by myself, though it had been quite
wide, had also been too desultory. The principal advised a winter in the
night school where men and boys who had been delayed in their education
went to learn.
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