"Now I feel that I'm really at home when I hear that voice. As far back as I can remember it's always been saying, 'All right! All right!' I made the nurse carry it back into the kitchen where I couldn't hear it the day the doctor told me I could never walk again. Its cheerfulness nearly drove me wild when I knew that everything was so hopelessly all wrong. But now listen!" he insisted exultantly. "Everything is all right now, and every day is Thanksgiving Day to me the year around."
There was a huskiness in his voice as he added, "Nobody can know what it means to me—the blessedness of being able to go to work."
He dashed away to the office soon after to discover what had been done in his long absence. Norman hurried through the tasks assigned to him as soon as possible, impatient to be off to explore old haunts with Billy Downs. Two pairs of quick, capable hands made light work of the cleaning and unpacking that had to be done that day, and accomplished much more that might have been left till another time had not Mary's usual zeal for getting everything in proper place in the least possible time taken possession of her.
"Oh, yes, I know, mamma," she called back in answer to a protest from the next room. "These curtains could wait till to-morrow, but they are all fresh and ready to hang, and I'll sleep better if they are on their poles instead of on my mind."
"'I'LL SLEEP BETTER IF THEY ARE ON THEIR POLES INSTEAD OF ON MY MIND.'"
As she climbed up and down the step-ladder her thoughts were not on the curtains which she adjusted mechanically, nor on the song which she was humming in the same way. She was composing the letter which she intended sending to the Girls' Winter Camp in Florida, applying for the vacant position, and she wanted to make it perfect of its kind. Mrs. Ware, watching the zest with which she fell upon her work of beautifying the little cottage, thought it must be because she felt the truth of the refrain which she sang softly over and over:
"'Mid pleasures and palaces, tho' we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
She was so glad to be back herself, that presently, when she had occasion to go through the room again, she joined in for a few notes in passing.
The sweet alto voice made Mary suddenly aware of what she was singing, and she gave a guilty little start, glad that her mother could not know that her thoughts had all been absorbed in planning to get away from the home she was singing about so fondly.