He smiled. “It is the head work she does—overseeing and directing—while the actual hard labor, ploughing, sowing, reaping, foddering the cattle, and so forth, is done by hired men.”
We will put in a few words the story of the Heath family, which the doctor proceeded to tell his wife.
The parents of Miriam and Ronald were persons of education and refinement, native-born Americans, who shortly after their marriage had sought a home in this Northwestern State, locating themselves on the banks of one of those pretty little lakes so common in that region of country, and within a mile of the village of Prairieville.
When the War of the Rebellion broke out Mr. Heath was one of the first to volunteer for the defence of the imperilled Union, while his wife, equally full of patriotic zeal, undertook to fill his place at home in overseeing and directing operations upon their farm.
In this she proved herself most efficient and capable; fields, orchard, and garden flourished under her sway, cattle increased in numbers and grew sleek and fat.
In the second year of the war her husband came home sick and wounded, to die in her arms. His eldest son, a lad of eighteen, then enlisted in the Union army, and when, a few months later, Mrs. Heath followed her husband to the grave, Miriam assumed the whole burden laid down by her mother—the superintendence of the farm, and, with the assistance of her grandmother, the care of the house and of a little brother and sister many years younger than herself and Ronald.
Serena listened to the tale with interest about equally divided between it and the beauties of the landscape.
For the first quarter of a mile the road made a gradual ascent; then the home of the Heaths came into view—a comfortable and tasteful dwelling, on the hither side of the pretty sheet of water from which it took its name. A grove of forest trees half hid the house from sight as they approached, but passing that, vine-wreathed porches, lawn, and flower-garden in the foreground, and the rippling, sparkling waters of the lake beyond, added their attractions to the scene.
Serena uttered an exclamation of delight. “Why, it’s a sort of paradise!”
“A very fine situation,” responded the doctor; “high and healthful. Look off yonder, my dear; there lies Prairieville, apparently almost at our feet. They have a fine view of it from the front porch.”