“You’ve found a place for all the Pratts to go!” said Dolly.
“You’ve arranged something so that they won’t have to stay here!” agreed Margery.
“I don’t know whether Mrs. Pratt would agree that that was such good news,” she said. “Tell me, Mrs. Pratt—you are still fond of this place, aren’t you?”
“Indeed, and I am, Miss Mercer!” she said, choking back a sob. “When I first saw how it looked this morning, I thought I only wanted to go away and never see it again, if I only knew where to go. But I feel so different now. Why, all the time we’ve been working around here, it’s made me think of how Tom—I mean my poor husband—and I came here when we were first married. Tom had the land, you see, and he’d built a little cabin for us with his own hands.”
“And all the farm grew from that?”
“Yes. We worked hard, you see, and the children came, but we had a better place for each one to be born in, Miss Mercer—we really did! It was our place. We’ve earned it all, with the help from the place itself, and before the fire—”
She broke down then, and for a moment she couldn’t go on.
“Of course you love it!” said Eleanor, heartily. “And I don’t think it would be very good news for you to know that you had a chance to go somewhere else and make a fresh start, though I could have managed that for you.”
“I’d be grateful, though, Miss Mercer,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t. It’ll be a wrench, though—I’m not saying it wouldn’t. When you’ve lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived here, and seen all the changes, and had your children born in it, and—”
“I know—I know,” interrupted Eleanor, sympathetically. “And I could see how much you loved the place. So I never had any idea at all of suggesting anything that would take you away.”