“Murmuring is of no use, and only a waste of breath. What we have got to do is to learn the lesson the disaster was sent to teach, and try to manage our affairs more wisely next time,” said Eunice briskly; then she asked abruptly, “What will Mr. Ellis do? Will he go away to work next winter, do you expect?”
“I don’t know,” said Bertha, and there was surprise and dismay in her tone. “But how could he go away with Grace in such a condition?”
“Very easily, seeing that he has you for an understudy,” answered Eunice, with a laugh. “My dear Bertha, how truly modest you are! I don’t believe you have the slightest idea of the power there is in you, or how really capable you are. Why don’t you get a better opinion of yourself?”
“I don’t know,” answered Bertha ruefully. “I never seem to be able to do things unless I am pushed into them, and I never want to be pushed either.”
Again Eunice laughed softly, and then she said: “I expect you are one of those people who unconsciously always measure their own capacity by what other people think that they can do. You have lived with two elder sisters who could never be brought to realize that you were grown up and able to do anything properly, and so it has come about that you feel you cannot do things unless you are absolutely forced into the work or endeavour, or whatever it is that wants doing.”
“I expect that you are right. But oh, dear, I am always sighing for a quiet life—I mean one that runs on peaceful lines and has no upheavals in it—but somehow I do not seem able to get what I want,” said Bertha, with a sigh; for she saw very plainly that this disaster which had overtaken Grace and Tom would be sure to involve her in heavier responsibility. Happily for her peace of mind, however, she had not the dimmest idea as yet how heavy her burden was likely to prove.
“Then plainly a peaceful life, as you call it, would not be good for you,” said Eunice. “But I wish that you would ask Mr. Ellis to come over to-morrow if he has nothing very important to do. Tell him to be here by noon, for a man is coming over from Rownton to see my brother, and it might be useful for Mr. Ellis to meet him.”
“I will tell him,” said Bertha, and then she went out and mounted the wagon, to drive back along the trail through those ruined stretches of wheat which not a week ago had promised such a bountiful harvest.
Oh, how dreadfully sad it was! And because of the terrible suffering and misery which had overtaken so many people whom she knew and cared for, Bertha gave way to a fit of bitter crying, which, of course, was very silly, although she felt better when the tears were dried.
“I must do my very best for poor Grace and Tom now,” she said softly to herself, as she hurried the leisurely trot of old Pucker, as she was anxious to get back to start on doing some of the many things which were occurring to her as ways in which she might help to tide over this time of trouble.