"Go get dinner, everybody, so we can get back to work," she directed
weakly as she raised the spoon to her lips and then rested a moment
before she could take another sip. And with the last spoonful she
looked up and whispered to Rose Mary, "You'll have to do the rest
child, I can't drive any farther with a broke heart. I've got to lay
myself in the arms of prayer and go to sleep." And so rested, Rose
Mary left her.
Then finding the motive powers which had been driving her removed,
little Miss Amandy stole away to the cedar grove behind the garden
fence, the boys scampered with the greatest glee across the Road to
the scene of mop and broom action behind the store, and Uncle Tucker
stiffly mounted old Gray to drive the cows away to their separate
homes. The thrifty neighbors had been glad to buy and pay him cash for
the sleek animals, and their price had been the small capital which
had been available for Uncle Tucker to embark on the commercial seas
in partnership with Mr. Crabtree.
Thus left to herself in the old house, Rose Mary wandered from room to
room trying to put things in shape for the morrow's moving and
breasting her deep waters with what strength she could summon. Up to
this last day some strange hope had buoyed her up, and it was only at
this moment when the inevitable was so plainly closing down upon her
and her helpless old people that the bitterness of despair rose in her
heart. Against the uprooting of their feebleness her whole nature
cried out, and the sacrifice that had been offered her in the
milk-house days before, seemed but a small price to pay to avert the
tragedy.
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