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“And to whom did you write about entering?” said the lady kindly.

“To nobody. You see I didn’t know I could come till Tuesday,” said Janie.

“Well, I am so sorry,” said the lady, “but you see we have all the girls we can possibly take. So we can’t have you this term. Perhaps you could come next term if you leave your name now.”

The whole world seemed to fall from under Janie’s feet. She was here, thirty miles from home. She had all the money–she had sold dear old Biddy–yet she could not stay. Not a word did she answer. She just stood and stared into space.

“I am very tired for I have walked thirty miles to get here. May I stay just for to-night?” she asked, rolling the ten dollars carefully in her big handkerchief.

“School doesn’t open till to-morrow but we will tuck you in somewhere for to-night. I am so sorry for you, but we just haven’t a bit of room after to-morrow. Sit down on the porch and rest yourself,” said the lady.

She brought her a glass of milk and then left her alone with her thoughts. How could she go home? Perhaps there would never come a time when she could be spared again. Was there no way in which she could stay?

Ten minutes later, a little girl in a short red calico dress went down the steps and along the street, looking for a doctor’s sign. When she found it, she rang the bell and asked for the doctor.

“Please, sir,” she said, “I thought you might know some one who wanted a girl to work for them. I want to go to school this term and I have earned the money to come. And now that I am here, there is no place for me and I must walk the thirty miles back. But I am willing to work. I will work for nothing if only I can go to the school in the afternoon. Sir, I just must be a teacher and I just must stay now and get started.”

The doctor whistled a little tune before he answered. “And tell me how you earned the money to come.” Then he whistled another tune as she talked. “Stay here to-night,” he said. “I will find out at the school just how much they will let you come in the afternoons. I am sure you can find work enough, so don’t worry.”

And sure enough, he found a place for her and so she started with the rest on the very first morning. She was radiantly happy till she heard a boy say,

“Look at the red dress that is coming in! Better loan her a red handkerchief to piece it down with.”

Then she knew that she was different from the rest. Her shoes were coarse and rough. Her hair looked, oh, so different. Her hands were red and big. She was here where she had longed to come but oh, how unhappy she was! She was almost ready to cry. Instead she shook her head proudly and said to herself, “I will be a teacher. What do I care if they laugh?”

The lessons were very hard, for her preparation was not good; every minute that she could spare she must spend on getting ready for the next day, so she had little time to be lonely. But she still minded the fact that her clothes were so very different. Many a good cry she had in the quiet of her little room as she looked at the red dress laid out for the coming day.

The term sped by and she was making good. Oh, if she could only stay! But she had no money except the little that the good doctor had given her now and then for doing errands for him. She could take her books home and perhaps she could do it all by herself.

So she waited till almost the last day before she told the woman for whom she worked that she was leaving.