“I wonder very often how we could ever have got through last winter without her,” Gertrude said, with a little sigh, as her thoughts went back to those days of pain and strain, when Nell had been the only breadwinner.
“I suppose we could not possibly have done without her, and that was why God sent her to us,” said Flossie, with such a thrill of confidence in her tones that Gertrude was comforted in spite of herself.
“Dear old Nell, she does deserve to be happy!” she murmured.
“Nell is happy, except for a slight pang now and then when you drop out allusions to her being only our adopted sister. The rest of us never hurt her in that way, because we never remember about her not being our own sister, unless some one reminds us. I’m going indoors now to see what she is doing, and if I find her weeping in the back entry, I shall come out and pinch you for having made her cry,” said Flossie, with a laugh, as she slipped out of her hammock and stole softly into the unlighted house to discover what Nell was doing.
Gertrude sat on in the gloaming, thinking her own thoughts and smiling over them. She was very tired with her day’s work, and rest was welcome. It was pleasant, too, to have a brief space in which to sit with folded hands while visions of the future stretched before her, tinted with a rosy light of happiness.
Back in the sad days of last winter Dr. Russell had asked her to let him share the burdens which had descended upon her, and although she would not let him do it then, it had brought comfort and happiness to her to know that he cared enough to be willing to take her and her family too.
But it was only common prudence to wait, for the doctor was earning little more than sufficed to keep Sonny and himself in food and clothes, although the increase of population in the neighbourhood would doubtless bring him more patients in course of time.
Gertrude could not stand alone and organize a career as Nell had done, she was formed on such entirely different lines. But she possessed a fund of enduring patience, and could bear great burdens if only she had some one to take the initiative for her.
Her thoughts to-night, resolved into plain speech, meant that if Patsey could be got into the school of electrical engineers next fall, it would clear the way considerably for herself and the doctor. Teddy and little Abe would require little more than food and clothes for some years to come, and could be brought up easily with Sonny Russell, for boys, like colts and calves, always do better in groups than singly, while Flossie belonged so entirely to Nell that no one would dream of parting them.
“Are you coming to bed to-night, or do you intend staying out there?” asked the brisk voice of Nell from the door, and then Gertrude’s dream visions fled, leaving her in the world of actualities once more.