In the Way by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online

even if she felt competent to do might end by making her ill.
                  A bright idea suddenly occurred to her. Sally, the cook, of whom she had taken a sorrowful leave but four days before, had been in her foster-mother's family for twelve years. She had been rescued from a life of trouble and taken in by Mrs. Benedict, and she felt a gratitude which knew no bounds. She had clasped the young girl in her arms in a reverent kind of way as she bade her good-bye and said, "Yeh dear little thing, yeh! Miss Ruth, if ye'll jist say the word only one time and wroite me, I'll folly ye to the inds of the earth." Now, it was but four days since she had left and she was going to her sister's to stay till she had found a suitable place. Perhaps it was not too late to secure her. Ruth thought over all the possibilities, pictured Sally, used to large rooms, elegant furniture, and fine cooking, placed in the plain farmhouse, and decided what she would do. She would put the matter before her plainly and let her decide for herself. Ruth ran to the door and called David. He came quickly from the barnyard, where he was busy about some work, thinking to himself how very pleasant it was to have some one there to call him.
                  “David, isn't there some woman who will come in to clean house and go home to her meals for a few days? Or can we get along for a few days almost anyway, you know? I have a plan.”
                  David thought a moment and finally decided on a good, strong colored woman who might be induced to go out by the day for a short time. Then Ruth unfolded her plan. David was somewhat dubious about introducing another unknown quantity into the household, but he was already beginning to have unbounded confidence in the young woman who was at the helm, so he gave his assent to her proposition. Ruth then went in to write Sally, while David prepared to “hitch up” and take the letter to the office.
                  After Ruth had dinner well under way she took a survey of the house, trying not to feel the chill of desolation as she entered one after another the great bare rooms. It made her shudder to feel the cold air that struck her even on this warm day in late summer as she opened the closed rooms. She threw open all the shutters and let the sunlight stream in from garret to cellar, even over the sacred haircloth furniture in the well-guarded "front room" which Aunt Nancy had carefully kept just as it had been when she came, and which, since the mother's death, had not been used. There was a wax cross with clambering, impossible flowers, under a glass globe on the marble-top table. There were several thread tidies in elaborate patterns on the haircloth chairs and sofa. The small box stove that was supposed to heat the room had a grim, leering effect, with a few cobwebs draped across its front. The yellow paper shades had stiff baskets of fruit pictured on them by way of decoration. The ingrain carpet was a bold attempt in crude reds and greens. Beside the glass globe on the center table, there was a large old-fashioned family Bible, and on it lay a red plush album with a looking-glass on the upper cover. It looked absurdly new and out of place amid the old-fashioned atmosphere of the room. It had been Aunt Nancy's purchase of a traveling agent for whom she felt sorry, and she had excused the unwonted extravagance by saying that "the woman needed help, and an album was a handy thing to have in the house, anyway." It was about the only luxury that Aunt Nancy had ever permit-ted herself to purchase in the whole of her lifetime, for she was of a saving disposition and had been brought up to economical habits.
                  There was a framed wreath of hair flowers under glass and there were some portraits on the wall, queer old-fashioned photographs and daguerreotypes in oval gilt, or frames of ancient pine cones and varnished coffee berries. The faces