Near the little gardener's plot, we
turned from the main road and drove through lately cleared woodland up
to an old farmhouse, high on a ledgy hill, whence there is a fine view
of the country seaward and mountainward. There were few of the once
large household left there: only the old farmer, who was crippled by
war wounds, active, cheerful man that he was once, and two young
orphan children. There has been much hard work spent on the place.
Every generation has toiled from youth to age without being able to
make much beyond a living. The dollars that can be saved are but few,
and sickness and death have often brought their bitter cost. The
mistress of the farm was helpless for many years; through all the
summers and winters she sat in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plain
room. She could watch the seldom-visited lane, and beyond it, a little
way across the fields, were the woods; besides these, only the clouds
in the sky. She could not lift her food to her mouth; she could not be
her husband's working partner. She never went into another woman's
house to see her works and ways, but sat there, aching and tired,
vexed by flies and by heat, and isolated in long storms. Yet the whole
countryside neighbored her with true affection. Her spirit grew
stronger as her body grew weaker, and the doctors, who grieved because
they could do so little with their skill, were never confronted by
that malady of the spirit, a desire for ease and laziness, which makes
the soundest of bodies useless and complaining.
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