“You got to come up to my house, he says; ma needs help, she’s sick. He sent you this.”
He gave her a note from Alec which read:—
“Dear Ellen: It was always easier for you to do housework out of your house than in.”
That was all.
“Ma’s sick; she’s got a new baby.”
So every day Ellen trudged over the mountain-road and back. No sooner was Mrs. Bascom beginning to be up and around again, and Ellen still going to see her and the baby, than Mrs. Sylvester hurt her foot a little and was kept in her chair, so more than ever fell to Ellen. She wrote:—
“It is as though I had been walking down a long corridor and suddenly had opened a door into the light; when I came in sight of our house to-night and thought of all the people who can be happier because of me, tears of happiness came to my eyes, and I should have been glad if I could have gone down on my knees there and thanked God that I was of use in the world to those whom I love. All the selfish winter of my heart melted and my mind went out to my friend who helped me to find myself and to bring me home again. I suppose this is the road people have to travel to learn the meaning of life. You hear a bird sing by the road and you stop to listen, and by and by your heart starts beating again.”
CHAPTER XXVI
When Alec came back in the early summer, he told me he was to stay for the year. The academy had offered him a place in it, and so had another school and he had chosen the academy.