When at last she threw open the door of the poor, bare little chamber, she found it empty. For once words failed her—she sat down on the stairs gasping.
Pa wisely kept out of her way. She missed her servant, but poor pa went about more silent than ever; it seemed that in one short month he grew visibly gray and bent; he worked on hopelessly through heat and cold. The only smile that ever crossed his face was when he received a thick letter from the village postmaster; he would hide it away in his inside pocket with trembling hands for fear Mandy would see it; a little spot of color coming into his thin old cheeks at the thought; at nightfall he would wander down the lane where he used to walk with Thella, and just to make believe that she would come to meet him, he would crook his little finger and whistle shrilly. Oh, the comfort those letters were to him; after reading them over and over again, he would hide them away in a hollow log.
Thella always wrote to him that she was well and happy; she told him nothing of the hard labor and bitter disappointments she met; her situation had been assured to her before she left home, but there were many things that were hard to bear; not the least of which was a terrible homesickness. Then, too, when she came to go to school, she found that others of the same age were far in advance of her in their studies, and consequently looked down upon her. Patient effort at last brought success; by this time her homesick feeling had worn away; she still longed to see her father, but had ever the hope before her of a home in which “pa” should have the warmest corner in winter and the brightest window when he wished it.
Later on she wrote that she was teaching; pa whispered it softly to himself: “My Thella is a schoolmam!” Such innocent pride as pa took in the fact.
After four years she wrote to him that she was married.
“Married! My little girl, married!” His old face puckered up queerly; he did not know whether to laugh or cry. She wrote that she was very happy. After that the burden of every letter was, “Pa, do come and see me.”
Sitting by the fire one evening, late in the fall, pa said, “Mandy, I am going to Adairville to-morrow.”
“I should like to know if you are possessed, you’ll do no such thing! What do you want to go there for?”
“I want to see Thella; it’s a long time since I seen her!” deprecatingly.
“Well, you won’t go trapezing after her; she run away, and you’ll not follow her.”