I do long for an end to snow. Ellen says this is the hardest season. We’re all pent up and pindling after the winter’s struggle to survive. There are times, I must confess, when I feel dreadfully tired. The old animal complains. I feel caught in my body, which will not move fast even to a stern command, and which ties the spirit down. But how much worse for Cornelius! I massage his legs at night—they get terribly stiff.

A flock of evening grosbeaks comes to the feeder and my spirits lift at once. For inside all the weakness of old age, the spirit, God knows, is as mercurial as it ever was. Nick brings in wood, or Eben stops by for a talk, and suddenly all is well. At sunrise I am so elated, often, that I want to sing.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

On Wednesday afternoon Cathy stopped by at Ellen’s when the school bus dropped her off. She and two younger boys were the only passengers to Willard, the last stop. It had rained all day, dreary downpour on top of dirty snow.

“But at least it’s taking some of it away, Mrs. Cornstock.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, going to fetch a glass of milk and cookies.

“It’s good to be home,” said Cathy, sitting in Nick’s chair and looking around the familiar kitchen as if she had been away a long time. “School’s another world.”

“I expect it is.”

Ellen sat down again in the rocker and picked up her sewing. Cathy munched and was silent. One thing she had found out about Ellen was that they could sit like that and not say much, and it was strangely comforting.

“I’d never go back, if I could. Everyone says one has to know things, but I think I’d know more if I just went to work in a nursery school.”

“You might, but it would take longer. School’s a short cut.”

Cathy pondered this.

“Well … but … you were quick and clever, weren’t you? I don’t do very well, and especially at French—and it seems so useless.”

“School was escape from home for me—just the opposite of a jail, as you seem to find it. I couldn’t wait to get there, and I had quite a tussle to get my parents to let me go through high school, I can tell you.”

“Why?”

“They needed me at home. A family in those days took a lot of children to keep it going. I got up at four and did chores.”

“Gosh, you were brave!”

Ellen smiled grimly.

“Not brave to do what you have to do to get what you want.”

“I have considered running away—till I came here.”

“Every child worth his salt runs away sooner or later. If you’re over that, you’ve started to grow up. That’s my view.”

“Did Nick run away when he was little?”