her faith and brave in her grief, a
messenger came down from the western cloud-throne--a messenger of peace
from the God of the little girl.

XVIII

THE LITTLE TEACHER

WITH one of the biggest brother's checked jumpers pinned across her
breast, and with suds spattered up her bare arms to her shoulders, the
little girl was valiantly attacking the weekly wash. A clothes-basket at
her feet was piled with white garments awaiting the bluing. The tub was
full of colored things that were receiving a second rub. Out of doors,
on a line stretched between the corner of the kitchen and the high seat
of the big farm wagon, flapped the drying sheets and pillow-cases.
Breakfast was cleared away, the beds were made, the sitting-room was
tidied, and it was not eight o'clock, yet she was nearly done. And while
she worked steadily to finish, the boiler on the stove behind her kept
time with its clanking cover to the grating tune of her washboard.

The little girl no longer had to make use of a three-legged
milking-stool in order to reach the tub. Instead, she stood square on
the floor. For she was tall for her scant fifteen years, having grown so
rapidly in the last twelve months that she now came up to the youngest
brother's chin, and required fully ten yards of cloth for a dress. But
she still wore her hair down her back, and, as she bobbed over the
clothes to give them their added drubbing, shiny strands shook
themselves loose from their curly, captive neighbors and waved damply
against her flushing cheeks, till she looked like a gay yellow dandelion
a-sway in a gusty wind.

When the last red shirt was wrung from the water, she began to dip
bucketfuls and empty them on the sloping ground at the farther side of
the storm-cellar, singing blithely as she hurried back and forth. She
was so intent on her carrying that she did not see a horseman who was
turning in at the ash lane, his face eagerly lifted to the windows of
the farm-house. Even when, having tied his mount at the block in front,
he rapped on the sitting-room door, she did not hear him. Finally, when,
receiving no answer, he walked around the corner to the entry, she
stepped out with her last pail and came face to face with him.

Joy leaped into his eyes as he dropped his whip and lifted his hat;
something more than surprise lighted hers as she let her suds fall and
spill over the stone step. Then, stammering a welcome, she surrendered
her hands to the glad gras