Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/67

Rh out—You're doing something with this land that no one else has the courage or the patience to do—This land which means so much and so little."

She stirred again and was silent a moment, staring at the ceiling.

"I suppose every one thinks their troubles are worse than anybody else's, so there's never been anybody to listen to ours. The people who might be friendly are in trouble themselves; the others don't care—much. I've had it bottled up in me so long and it's taken so much of my strength—the trouble, I mean—that I'll have to talk of it now if—if I'm ever going to talk."

She moved her head so she might look into Helen's face.

"You've been here long enough to know what goes on. I just want you to know that we—Thad and I—know you're right—now. Maybe there are some others who know that, too, but they won't take the trouble to say it—perhaps. We've been only nodding acquaintances, you and I, yet we've had so much in common."

In the pause the girl seemed to be thinking carefully, planning what she would say next.

"I'll have to go to the beginning—You see, this was to have been our home; our cottage, our vine and our fig tree. Thad and I worked in the same office in Chicago—we hated it, both of us, hated the city, hated the grind that didn't seem to get people anywhere but to wealth—a very few. We'd never known the country, but we used to spend our Sundays walking and we got the idea that when we married we'd like to go back to the land—"

A sound, like the shadow of a laugh, came from her troubled chest.