“I suppose more than a few women feel that at times—more than we know. I was the marrying kind, I guess. I just can’t imagine not being married to Cornelius.”

Ellen sighed; then the pinched look left her face and she lit up with interest. “Nick told me he can eat by himself—that’s a step forward.”

“Yes, he’s better in some ways. He’s putting up a terrific fight way down deep inside him. Never admits he’s discouraged. By spring I’ll know better. We must take him down to Boston soon and see what the doctors say.” But Christina was not in the mood to talk about Cornelius. She pushed away thinking about the future, even from her own mind. “What else did you do to keep the kids learning and quiet?”

“I thought up games—games where they had to use their wits—like, how would you pack a covered wagon to go west? What would you put in it—tools and the like? What kind of food? Maybe a few lilac roots?”

“What a wonderful idea!”

“I still play that game sometimes when I can’t sleep.” Then she laughed. “Sometimes I teased them by misspelling a word and seeing if anyone could catch me out.”

“And did they?”

“Once I got caught out myself—misspelled ‘recommendation’—left out one m. I gave them an extra ten minutes’ recess as a reward for knowing better than their teacher!” But suddenly the laughter ebbed and Ellen looked keenly at her friend. “It was the halt leading the blind! They learned what they learned thoroughly, but not enough—not nearly enough, Christina.”

“Of course the school year was awfully short—just seventeen or twenty weeks, if I remember. With the children helping on the farms in spring, summer, and fall …”

“Rufus told me he never did get to school in the summer term after he was seven. And he was one, for all his faults, who hankered after learning.”

“Yet the amazing thing is how many boys from villages like this went on to Dartmouth, got law degrees, became doctors …”

“The bright ones got out—bright like Eben—or went west. What’s left has grit and that’s about it. Look around you—people who amount to anything in this town left and came back different. My own daughters never say so, but they’ve gone on—they’re different.”

“In what way?”

“Buy things instead of making them—even food. They wouldn’t bother to bake beans in the oven. They open a can.”

“Why is that better?” Christina was amazed that it could seem better.

“It gives them time to read, time to play too.”

“But is it better to work all day in a telephone office like Sarah and earn enough to buy canned food rather than grow it as their father did and cook it as you do?”