It was to escape from a home which was unendurable that Elizabeth flat-footedly, and for the first time, refused to accede to her parents' authority. When the matter of a spring term of school came up for discussion she refused to teach the home school again, though Mr. Crane had been so pleased with her work that he had offered it to her. When asked if Jake Ransom was the objection she indignantly asserted to the contrary.
"He was the best pupil I had," she said, "but I don't want to teach at home, and I won't do it," and that was all she would say. She secured a school ten miles north of her home; ten miles had been the nearest point which she would consider.
The interest was at last paid, but when the summer groceries were paid for there was no money left with which to go back to Topeka, and it was necessary to teach a winter school. Elizabeth went to work anew to collect funds for another year's schooling. Mr. Farnshaw sold himself short of corn in the fall, however, and the young girl was expected to make up the deficit. In the spring the interest was to be paid again, and so at the end of a year and a half the situation was unchanged. The next year a threshing machine was added to the family assets, and again the cry of "help" went up, again Elizabeth's plans were sacrificed. The next year the interest was doubled, and for four years Elizabeth Farnshaw worked against insurmountable odds.
When no remonstrance of hers availed to prevent the constant increase of expenses, Elizabeth saw that her assistance, instead of helping the family to get out of debt, was simply the means of providing toys for experimentation, and that she was being quietly but persistenly euchred out of all that her heart cherished. Mr. Farnshaw valued the machinery he was collecting about him, Mrs. Farnshaw valued the money, partly because in one way and another it added to the family possessions, and also because her husband having found out that he could obtain it through her easier than by direct appeal, she could avoid unpleasantness with him by insisting upon her daughter giving it to him; but Elizabeth's education was valued by no one but Elizabeth, and unless she were to learn her lesson quickly the time for an education to be obtained would have passed.