The question was, What would it do for her? Could she, too, rise above this crushing blow of fate and watch all her bright ambitions smitten to the dust, while only the satisfaction of duty done remained to her? Could she rise above it? Could she?
But meanwhile there was bread to bake, five little children to care for and feed, the housework to do, and all the thousand-and-one things that come to tax the strength and patience of the prairie housekeeper, so Bertha went straight on, leaving the question of what she could really do and bear to settle itself.
CHAPTER XII
The Glory of the Wheat
The magic of Manitoba was laying hold of Bertha. There was a vigour and a stir in the wild, solitary life of the prairie which was like new life to the girl who had been so pale and listless when she lived at home, sheltered and cared for by the two hard-working elder sisters. There was not much sheltering or carefulness on her account in these glowing summer days while the wheat was ripening and the busy farmers were preparing to deal with a record crop.
Grace lay in the same helpless condition in which she had been brought home. She could move one hand a little, her face and speech were just the same as when she was well, but the rest of her was as if it were dead so far as her feeling went.
Regardless of the expense, Tom had had a specialist out from Winnipeg; but the great man could only endorse the opinion of Dr. Benson, who had said that Mrs. Ellis might recover after some years, when the paralyzing effects of the fall had worn off, or she might all her life remain a helpless invalid. The cost of the specialist’s visit would leave Tom Ellis a poor man until after he had reaped his harvest, and the worst of it was no good had come from it save that little ray of hope for the future, which, after all, might not be hope. But husband and wife accepted the inevitable with the resignation and patience born of a great faith and trust, making the best of things so far as a best could be made.
Friends and neighbours were as kind as kind could be, but it was on Bertha that the heavy load of the household burden fell. It was she who had to mother the children now, to make the bread, and cook the dinners. It was her sorely incapable hands which, when the cooking and cleaning were done, had to fashion the little garments for the children. Only in this matter of sewing Grace, though helpless, was of the greatest assistance, because she knew just how it ought to be done, and she could direct the cutting out, the putting together, and all the planning and fixing which goes to work of that kind.
Bertha’s revolt was over. No one had even guessed the time of struggle through which she had gone, unless indeed Eunice Long had read what was in her heart during those black hours when the disaster was new. But Bertha felt that never again would she be able to respect herself because of the manner in which she had fallen in her self-esteem that day, when first she had been told that Grace would probably be helpless. She hated the thought of her bondage as much as ever, but she knew that there was no escaping it, and so accepted her fate with the best grace she could.
Perhaps it was that most wholesome disgust of herself which helped her most at this time, because she forced herself to perform all her manifold duties with the quickness and thoroughness she would have put into work that was a joy, and if in the morning her soul revolted at the thought of the long, toilsome day ahead of her, no one knew it but herself.
The children grew and throve in the sunshine, they lived in the fields from morning to night, and the narrow little house was strangely quiet and peaceful in the long summer noons when Bertha came to sit by the couch, and learn the unspoken lessons of patience which Grace was teaching her day by day.