The Reformation of Mary Hogan 



Jean Dawson 



Josephine Lacy, or "Mrs." Lacy, as many of the school children 

 called her, was in despair, — ^the despair of the deep black sort, 

 that admits not a single ray of hope. The school dismissed, 

 she sat long at her desk, her face bowed on her arm; her heart 

 sore and heavy with a sense of dismal failure. 



How differently things had turned out for her. Happy and 

 brave at the thought of facing the world, to earn a living for 

 herself and her widowed mother, she had never entertained a 

 single thought of failure. Why should she? "Joe" Lacy, as 

 her classmates fondly called her, had always been a lucky girl. 

 She had taken the highest honors of her class in college, and had 

 been among the very first to get a position to teach, and that too" 

 in a high school in one of the largest cities in the State. She was 

 particularly pleased with her position because she was to teach 

 biology, the one subject over which she was most enthusiastic, 

 and the one she was best prepared to teach. 



Graduation over, the summer had passed in one continuous 

 round of gayety and fun. It was not until her mother had begun 

 to pack their household goods preparatory to moving, and her 

 friends to give her "good-bye" parties ,that she realized what it 

 really meant to leave the town of her birth and the college in 

 which her father had been an honored professor until his death. 



Perhaps the present blackness of her despair was due somewhat 

 to homesickness. Things had not gone well with her since she 

 had arrived in the city. Her disappointment had been keen 

 when she learned that Miss Grimes, the woman whose position she 

 was to have taken, was back, ready to go to work. The doctor 

 had advised the superintendent that it would be years before 

 Miss Grimes could teach again. The Superintendent told Miss 

 Lacy that he was sorry, but the best he could do was to give her a 

 fifth grade, until a vacancy occurred in one of the high schools. 



It was best any way he had added for a girl to get a little experi- 

 ence in the grades first. Feeling glad that Miss Grimes had 

 recovered and yet smarting under the disappointment, the girl 

 put up a brave front. She received the assignment from Mr. 

 Dahl, the principal, and awaited with some anxiety the opening 

 of school. 



189 



