Free The Prodigal Girl by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

of her breath. “I’m just—just—thinking! It’s been rather sudden, you know.”
    “You poor darling! Yes, I know. How I wish I might have saved you all this. It seems as if I couldn’t stand it for you—I—” But Eleanor roused to protest once more:
    “Don’t think of it, Chester. It’s not a bit harder for me than for you. And so long as we bear things together they won’t get the better of us.”
    “You were always brave, Eleanor. But I’m afraid this is going to be particularly hard for you. Going away from comfort and convenience into comparative primitive living. I’m not sure you will be able physically to stand it. And yet I can think of no other way at present.”
    Primitive! She turned a startled look at him in the dark.
    “Where—had you thought of—going, Chester? Had you any plan?”
    “There is only one place. The old farm in Vermont. It’s ours, you know, and I’ve always meant to remodel it someday, make it livable for a summer home. There are associations of my boyhood that I’ve always clung to. But now it seems like a haven, and I guess we’ll have to put up with it as it is for a while, till we can get on our feet again and know what to do.”
    Eleanor’s heart sank. Vermont! And he talked as if it was to be permanent! It must be that he was already out of the firm, or he would not think he could run away at a moment’s notice this way. He must be really down and out. She had never seen him give up like this. How terrible!
    She roused to her maternal tone.
    “Nonsense!” she said briskly. “It will be a lark! I’ve always wanted to go there, and we never seemed to get around to it. Don’t worry another second. Go right to sleep, now. If it isn’t comfortable we’ll make it so, somehow. And it will be good for us to have to go without some of the luxuries we’ve been surrounded with so long that we don’t really have sense enough to be grateful for. What do you think I am? A butterfly? A peacock?”
    “But there’s no running water, Eleanor—” he explained anxiously.
    “Well, there’s likely some kind of water, isn’t there? And we can do the running ourselves.” She actually summoned a bright little laugh. “The twins will just enjoy carrying water.”
    “And no electric lights or gas—” went on the sad, honest voice.
    Eleanor was appalled, but she only hesitated a minute.
    “We’ll make a bonfire then,” she flashed at him. “Now, will you go to sleep?”
    “And you are willing to start tomorrow?” he asked anxiously.
    “If you feel well enough in the morning,” she promised. “Come, go to sleep quick, or I can’t get up in time to get ready!” and she deliberately turned over on her pillow and pretended to settle down for sleep.
    “It will be very cold up there, Eleanor. You’ll need all the warm clothes you can get, and blankets.”
    “All right!” said Eleanor briskly to hide the plunk of a great tear that was rolling down her cheek.
    “You’ll have to wear flannel, real flannel, you know. You can’t get along with flimsy silk stuff such as you wear down here.”
    Eleanor was still a minute over a new thought:
    “Hasn’t that house been shut up for several years? Won’t it be very damp? Do you think it will be safe to go in? We might all get sick!”
    “There’s been a caretaker living in the back part until a month ago. His son-in-law got hurt, and they went down to Albany to live with the daughter and help her out. It can’t be so very damp. And there are stoves. It won’t take long to rustle a fire.”
    There was almost eagerness in his voice, a yearning toward the scenes of his boyhood.
    Eleanor’s heart sank again. Rustle a fire! What mysterious thing was that! She had never made a fire in her life, nor come any nearer to it than to set a match to the fire in the fireplace, or stir it up and put on a stick. What was the new life going to mean? Surely, surely, it couldn’t last. But she must be brave. Something would turn