But the boys could not see it in that light any more than their mother. They were as content to work as are most men and boys who seem to take it for granted that it is in the course of nature for them to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, but they had been at it long enough to have lost the sense of novelty and to understand that it was work and not play which their sister was undertaking.
"Won't you be sick of it!" said Alfred, in answer to one of Katie's outbursts, "and long, when Saturday comes, to go out nutting with the girls, or off on a hay-ride, or something! You'll wish you were free before you've been a slave many months, or I'm no prophet."
"Well, she shall be free if she wants to," said Eric, kindly. "Our only little sister sha'n't work if she don't want to; we can take care of her, Alfred, can't we?"
"But I do want to work," said Katie; "I know I sha'n't get tired, or if I do get tired of the work, I sha'n't of getting the money; for, boys, I mean to be a rich, independent woman, and help take care of mother. You needn't suppose that I'm going to be dependent upon you."
"All right, young lady," said Alfred, "only I think you'll sing a different tune before many months are over."
"The tune you ought to sing just now, children," said Mrs. Robertson, "is 'Good-night.' You all have to go to work very early, and Katie is not used to it. Good-night, darling, and don't forget to ask God to bless you and shield you in your new undertaking."
"I asked him that night to make Mr. Mountjoy listen to Mr. Sanderson and give me the place," said Katie, with a rising color; "don't you think he heard me and answered my prayer? It seems as though he had just made it all straight and plain. I feel just like thanking him to-night; and, mother, don't you worry so much. Don't you think Jesus is strong enough to take care of me anywhere if I ask him to?"
"Yes, indeed," said the mother, almost ashamed of her forebodings, and rebuked, as she had many a time been, by the bright, hopeful faith of her child. Surely when she looked at the bright, happy, healthy faces of her children, she too had ample cause for thankfulness, and for continued trust in the divine love which had carried her safely through so many emergencies and had promised never to leave or forsake her or hers.