The Turn of the Tide: The Story of How Margaret Solved Her Problem

by Eleanor H. Porter

Frank paused, and looked at the letter in his hand. After a minute he laid it gently down. When he spoke his voice was not quite steady.

“Our brother Harry was a physician, as you know, Ned. You were twelve years old when he married a widow by the name of Kendall who lived in Houghtonsville where he had been practising. As it chanced, none of us went to the wedding. You were taken suddenly ill, and neither Della nor myself would leave you, and father was in Bermuda that winter for his health. Mrs. Kendall had a daughter, Margaret, about ten years old, who was at school somewhere in the Berkshires. It was to that school that I went when the terrible news came that Harry and his new wife had lost their lives in that awful railroad accident. That was the first time that I saw Margaret.

“The poor child was, of course, heartbroken and inconsolable; but her grief took a peculiar turn. The mere sight of me drove her almost into hysterics. She would have nothing whatever to do with me, or with any of her stepfather’s people. She reasoned that if her mother had not married, there would have been no wedding journey; and if there had been no wedding journey there would have been no accident, and that her mother would then have been alive, and well.

“Arguments, pleadings, and entreaties were in vain. She would not listen to me, or even see me. She held her hands before her face and screamed if I so much as came into the room. She was nothing but a child, of course, and not even a normal one at that, for she had had a very strange life. At five she was lost in New York City, and for four years she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops, enduring almost unbelievable poverty and hardships.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Ned under his breath.

“It was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was found,” went on Frank, “and of course the influence of the wild life she had led was still with her more or less, and made her not easily subject to control. There was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little thing where she was, particularly as there seemed to be no other place for her. She would not come with me, and she had no people of her own to whom she could turn for love and sympathy.

“As you know, poor Harry was conscious for some hours after the accident, long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me, leaving Margaret to my care—boy though I was. I was only twenty, you see; but, really, there was no one else to whom he could leave her. That was something over thirteen years ago. Margaret must be about twenty-three now.”

“And you’ve not seen her since?” There was keen reproach in Ned’s voice.

Frank smiled.

“Yes, I’ve seen her twice,” he replied. “And of course I’ve written to her many times, and have always kept in touch with those she was with. She stayed at the Berkshire school five years; then—with some fear and trembling, I own—I went to see her. I found a grave-eyed little miss who answered my questions with studied politeness, and who agreed without comment to the proposition that I place her in a school where she might remain until she was ready for college—should she elect to go to college.”