CHAPTER XVIII
THE HEART'S DESIRE
At the approach of cold weather Mrs. Thorpe was obliged to close the school, but she and Margaret worked among the people during the winter and were rewarded by the fact that there was less suffering and sickness than there had been the year before.
Some of the older boys and girls came to Mrs. Thorpe's cottage for instruction, and prepared to enter the Edgerly school in the spring. The classes in sewing and cooking were also continued, although necessarily on a reduced scale.
In the spring when the school was again opened there was no difficulty in arousing interest and enthusiasm. The garden lots were in great demand, and the children begged for a corner for flowers. The vines that had been cared for and trained the year before now climbed about the posts and columns and transformed the old Resort into a mass of greenery and rioting bloom.
The sweet summer days drew on with golden sunshine and lavish promise, and the Flat received something of Nature's benediction. Throughout the summer Mrs. Thorpe and Margaret continued their work. Day by day they bound the sheaves; day by day they saw dear smiles break on childish faces and light dawn where darkness had reigned before.
Yet there were times when the magnitude of the work arose before Mrs. Thorpe and appeared to her like a Red sea in her path. The ignorance and immorality, the poverty and the want, the small, poorly built homes and lack of order and law massed themselves into a rolling sea which she could see no way around and no way through unless the Lord of Hosts should cleave the waters for her. But with characteristic faith she resolved that should the command ever come to her "To lift up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it," she would be ready to obey. And for her there was consolation in the thought that her work had come to her with no uncertain appeal; she had sought it and it had found her. She loved it with her heart and soul, this work of hers, and stripped of its gruesome exterior, beneath the sackcloth of poverty and misfortune, the loving, throbbing heart of it responded to her.
The long summer days slipped by and the frost of autumn was again in the air. Red and yellow leaves fluttered down from the trees, sported with the winds, and lay in garlands along the streets and pathways. Mrs. Thorpe and Margaret left the school together at the close of one blue, balmy day; but at the gate they parted.
"I shall not go directly home," Margaret said. "I am going for a walk, over to Cedar Brook, perhaps; I shall be back before dark."
"Very well, my dear," Mrs. Thorpe replied. "The walk will do you good, no doubt." She stood for a minute at the gate and watched the retreating figure. Many times of late she had seen the fire of the girl's spirit leap into the dark eyes; and all that day her heart had ached at the sight of the restless pain in the thin, dark face. Was the turbulent nature warring again?--the restlessness of her spirit not yet subdued?