Being a Senior now, I got away from school
early. Sometimes I overtook the girls down-
town and coaxed them into the ice-cream
parlor, where they would sit chattering and
laughing, telling me all the news from the
country. I remember how angry Tiny Soder-
ball made me one afternoon. She declared
she had heard grandmother was going to make
a Baptist preacher of me. "I guess you'll
have to stop dancing and wear a white necktie
then. Won't he look funny, girls?"

Lena laughed. "You'll have to hurry up,
Jim. If you're going to be a preacher, I want
you to marry me. You must promise to marry
us all, and then baptize the babies."

Norwegian Anna, always dignified, looked
at her reprovingly.

"Baptists don't believe in christening ba-
bies, do they, Jim?"

I told her I didn't know what they be-
lieved, and didn't care, and that I certainly
wasn't going to be a preacher.

"That's too bad," Tiny simpered. She was
in a teasing mood. "You'd make such a good
one. You're so studious. Maybe you'd like
to be a professor. You used to teach Tony,
didn't you?"

[[245]]

p244 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p245w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p246

v?