One to Make Ready

Everyone in Cranberry Cove, Maine, took it for granted that school "away" followed the sixth grade. There was no further schooling available in the little seacoast village.
But when twelve-year-old Minta, at the end of the spring term, came face to face with the dismal prospect of going away to school that very fall - in hardwick, all of ten miles away! - she was rebellious. She never wanted to leave the place and people she loved so dearly; and she was especially troubled by a little nibbling fear that her place at home might be taken by the new baby her mother and father expecting in September.