There was more of the same sort, and when she had read it a wave of the most terrible homesickness swept over Bertha. It seemed to her that she simply could not bear the hard life that she was living for another day. She must get out of it somehow, oh, she must, she must! Grace and Tom had no right to expect so much of her; it was not fair. Her sisters never expected her to be capable and efficient, and why should other people put such heavy burdens upon her?
It was true that Tom had generously increased her salary, and would have given her still more, only, knowing the struggle he was having, she would not accept it. But if he could pay her, of course he could pay someone else instead, and then she might slip the burden of this distressful family from her shoulders. Then she would go out to Australia and settle down to the old life of irresponsible ease, with nothing to do but to dream dreams and think noble thoughts. She might even attain to fame as a story-writer, although she was a little dubious about this, as a farm in the back-blocks of Australia did not seem exactly the place for acquiring knowledge.
“And it is knowledge that I need most of all,” murmured Bertha to herself, as she sat with the letter tightly clasped in her hand.
It was her only bit of wisdom to know that before she could write with any sort of power she must have knowledge, far more knowledge than at present she possessed. But her one idea of knowledge was that it must be gained from books, whereas by far the most valuable knowledge is gained at first hand by experience and observation.
“They must find a housekeeper and let me go; oh, they must let me go!” she muttered, standing up and stretching out her arms towards that point of the compass where she imagined Australia to be. “Oh, Anne, Anne, why didn’t you take me with you at the first?”
But she had inadvertently spoken aloud, and it was the sound of her own voice which aroused her to an understanding of her own selfishness. It was then that she realized it was more a desire for her own ease than from such a sick desire to see her sister that she was so anxious to go to Australia.
“Oh, what a horrible, low-down sort of nature mine must be, for it is only my own ease that I am thinking about!” she exclaimed, with an impatient shrug, and, springing to her feet, she bustled about her room for a few moments, just to get rid of those telltale marks of tears on her face, the sight of which would be sure to make poor Grace uncomfortable. Then presently she went out to the other room, to find Grace with an open letter in her hand.
“Why, why, however did you manage that?” demanded Bertha, for none of the children were in the house, and the letter had not been opened when she went to her room.
“I did it myself,” said Grace, with a sob of pure happiness. “Oh, Bertha, darling Bertha, I do believe that I am going to get better, for see, I can hold that finger and thumb quite close together, and I managed to scratch the envelope across that spike in the wall. I reached out to it, do you understand?”
“Hush, hush, you must not excite yourself so much or you may do yourself an injury,” said Bertha soothingly, for she was fairly frightened by the blaze in the eyes of Grace; then she said quietly, “I have noticed that you were getting more power. Eunice Long pointed it out to me when she was here helping at harvest time. But we did not say anything, because we did not know whether the improvement would go on, and it seemed so cruel to raise hopes that were not going to be realized.”