A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [187]
A plan took shape in Katie’s mind and she spoke to Francie about it.
“Will they keep you on night work?” she asked.
“Will they! They’re tickled to death. No girl wants to work nights. That’s why they push it off on the new girls.”
“I was thinking that maybe in the fall you could keep on working nights and go to high school in the daytime. I know it’ll be hard but it could be done somehow.”
“Mama, no matter what you say, I won’t go to high school.”
“But you fought to go last year.”
“That was last year. That was the right time to go. Now it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late and don’t be stubborn.”
“But what in the world could I learn in high school now? Oh, I’m not conceited or anything, but after all, I read eight hours a day for almost a year and I learned things. I’ve got my own ideas about history and government and geography and writing and poetry. I’ve read too much about people—what they do and how they live. I’ve read about crimes and about heroic things. Mama, I’ve read about everything. I couldn’t sit still now in a classroom with a bunch of baby kids and listen to an old maid teacher drool away about this and that. I’d be jumping up and correcting her all the time. Or else, I’d be good and swallow it all down and then I’d hate myself for…well…eating mush instead of bread. So I will not go to high school. But I will go to college someday.”
“But you’ve got to go through high school before they’ll let you in college.”
“Four years of high school…no, five. Because something would come up to delay me. Then four years of college. I’d be a dried-up old maid of twenty-five before I was finished.”
“Whether you like it or not, you’ll get to be twenty-five in time no matter what you do. You might as well be getting educated while you’re going towards it.”
“Once and for all, Mama, I will not go to high school.”
“We’ll see,” said Katie as her jaw settled into a square line.
Francie said nothing more. But the set of her jaw was like her mother’s.
However, the conversation gave Francie an idea. If Mama thought she could work evenings and go to high school in the day, why couldn’t she go to college that way? She studied a newspaper ad. Brooklyn’s oldest and most reputable college was advertising summer courses available for college students wishing to take advanced work or to make up or work off conditions, and for high school students wishing to gain advance college credits. Francie thought she might come under the last heading. She wasn’t exactly a high school student but she was eligible to be one. She sent for the catalogue.
From the catalogue, she chose three courses with classes meeting in the afternoon. She’d be able to sleep as usual until eleven, attend classes and go straight to work from the college. She chose Beginning French, Elementary Chemistry, and something called Restoration Drama. She figured up the tuition; a little over sixty dollars with laboratory fees. She had one hundred and five dollars in her savings account. She went to Katie.
“Mama, could I have sixty-five dollars of the money you’ve been saving for me towards college?”
“What for?”
“College, of course.” She was deliberately casual for the drama of it. She was rewarded by the way Mama’s voice scaled up as she repeated after Francie:
“College?”
“Summer school college.”
“But-but-but,” sputtered Katie.
“I know. No high school. But maybe I can get in if I tell them I don’t want a diploma or any grades—that I just want the lessons.” Katie got her green hat down from the closet shelf. “Where’re you going, Mama?”
“To the bank for the money.”
Francie laughed at her mother’s eagerness. “It’s after hours. The bank’s closed. Besides there’s no hurry. Registration’s a week off yet.”
* * *
The college was located in Brooklyn Heights, another strange section of great Brooklyn for Francie to explore. As she filled out the registration blank, her pen hovered over the question of previous education. There were three headings