Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/78

 A great blond girl, who leaned against the trunk of a tree reading eagerly in a book, turned around and said, "No, I have to study my French lesson."

"You can do that at home, for it is not school work."

"Yes, but if I do not learn my French lessons well, I shall not be allowed to go to Holland year after next; and I am so anxious to go there to study at the Normal School. When I come back later as a teacher, perhaps I shall be placed here; and then I shall sit on the platform before the class as our teacher does now. But tell me, Ni, you have never yet said what you were going to be when you grew up."

Two large eyes were turned toward the speaker in astonishment. "Only tell me."

The Javanese shook her head and said laconically, "I do not know."

No, truly she did not know, she had never thought of it, she was still so young, still so full of joyous young life. But the question of her little white friend made a deep impression upon her; it would not let her rest, incessantly—she seemed to hear sounding in her ears the words "What are you going to be when you grow up?" That day she did much task work in school, she was so absent-minded, gave the most foolish answers when she was asked a question, and made the sillest [sic] mistakes in her work. It could not have been otherwise, for her thoughts were not on her lessons, she was thinking of what she had heard in the recreation hour.

The first thing that she did when she got home was to run to her father and lay the problem before him.

"What am I going to be when I grow up?"

He said nothing, but smiled and pinched her cheek. But she would not allow herself to be put off, and waited, teasing him for an answer. —56—