“Then Kate Comstock’s got to help,”
said Wesley. “Can the two of you make one,
and get that lunch to-morrow?”
“Easy, but she’ll never do it!”
“You see if she doesn’t!” said Wesley.
“You get up and cut it out, and soon as Elnora
is gone I’ll go after Kate myself. She’ll
take what I’ll say better alone. But she’ll
come, and she’ll help make the dress. These
other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora.
She’ll no doubt need them more now than she
will then, and we can give them just as well.
That’s yours, and this is mine, or whichever
way you choose.”
Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out
the folds of a long, brown raincoat. Margaret
dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She
tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it
with the umbrella.
“Did it look anything like rain to-night?”
she inquired so anxiously that Wesley laughed.
“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping
back in her chair, the coat still over her shoulders.
“I couldn’t buy this much stuff for any
other woman and nothing for my own,” said Wesley.
“It’s Christmas for you, too, Margaret!”
He shook out fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods
that would look lovely against Margaret’s pink
cheeks and whitening hair.
“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed,
and fled sobbing into his arms.
But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals
in the cooking stove and boiled one of the dress patterns
in salt water for half an hour. Wesley held the
lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry.
Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be
hot the first thing in the morning.
WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
Four o’clock the following morning Elnora was
shelling beans. At six she fed the chickens and
pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin, built a
fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast. Then
she climbed the narrow stairs to the attic she had
occupied since a very small child, and dressed in
the hated shoes and brown calico, plastered down her
crisp curls, ate what breakfast she could, and pinning
on her hat started for town.
“There is no sense in your going for an hour
yet,” said her mother.
“I must try to discover some way to earn those
books,” replied Elnora. “I am perfectly
positive I shall not find them lying beside the road
wrapped in tissue paper, and tagged with my name.”
She went toward the city as on yesterday. Her
perplexity as to where tuition and books were to come
from was worse but she did not feel quite so badly.
She never again would have to face all of it for the
first time. There had been times yesterday when
she had prayed to be hidden, or to drop dead, and
neither had happened. “I believe the best
way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it,”
muttered Elnora grimly.
