Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/59

Rh me I'd got to go back. She simply couldn't stand another single hour of hearing me blow my nose like that. I was pretty well disappointed at first. I couldn't help the way I blew my nose. It was made that way. 'But, look here,' I said to myself on the train going home, 'why not get it made different then?' And I did. I went down to Boston, and I paid a specialist fifty dollars out of my seventy-five, and he made my nose over! And now I don't have to blow it very often, and when I do, it doesn't sound like a fog-horn. Get rid of your infirmities! That is what I say. Don't accept 'em. I tried to get rid of my fat. I found being so fat stood in the way of my placing myself as a travelling companion. I dieted like mad, but it was no go. I almost put myself in my grave. It appeared that if I was to see the world, I must see it fat. Also it appeared that if I was to see the sea, I must see it sick. I'm not a good sailor. But—rule two—don't let infirmities you can't get rid of, get rid of your ambition. Put them in the pack on your back, like the man in Pilgrim's Progress, and trudge along. Want to know my motto? It's a good one. Just three words—'In spite of'. You got a motto, Reba?"

"Thy will—not mine," flashed across the girl's mind, but she couldn't repeat those words to Cousin Pattie now, after she had just riddled them full of holes.

"I don't believe I have," she said in a low voice.

Cousin Pattie gazed at Reba reflectively. The girl was sitting on the edge of a straight-backed chair, with her feet very close together on the floor, and her hands folded on her knees which were hugged close together.