Mrs. Hanson gave a mournful sigh.
“You like Fraternia anyway, don’t you, Sister Benigna? You always did?”
Anna smiled at the naïveté of the question, and assented.
“I must like what I have chosen above all other things.”
“Well, I confess I never did like it, and I never shall. Oh, it will do very well for a summer vacation if one could be sure of getting safe home at the end. But as for a life like this! and when it comes to bringing up children here!—” and Mrs. Hanson’s voice broke into a suppressed sob.
“I am sorry,” said Anna, gently.
“Oh, Sister Benigna!” cried the other, letting loose the floodgates of her tears, while they still stood on the bridge in the piercing rain, “I never was so homesick in my life! When I hear my children asking if they are not going home to see grandma pretty soon, it just breaks my heart. They have no appetite for this hard meat and coarse bread, and they look so white and thin, and plead so for a good old-fashioned turkey dinner! I have a little money of my own, and I would spend every cent of it for better food for them, but Mr. Hanson, he says that would be unjust to the rest who cannot have such things, and that all must share alike. He says it would cost a hundred dollars to give one such dinner as the children want to the whole village.”
“I suppose that is true,” said Anna, seriously; “and then it would only be harder to come back—”
“To prison fare,” Mrs. Hanson interjected with unconcealed bitterness. “Well, all I have to say is that, if this is coöperation, I’ve had all I want of it. As for ‘the brotherhood of man,’ I wish I may never hear of it again as long as I live! I believe we have some duties to ourselves.”
With this she passed slowly on, and Anna hastened homeward, a deep pang in her heart.