Chapter IX
Reading edition
A few days later Ida was once more back at the old farm; and how different now did everything look to her. The days of grumbling and complaint were past forever. She was no longer annoyed by her old aunt's unwitting offences against etiquette; and she found a new and strange pleasure in simple things which she had once regarded with indifference or aversion. She fed the fowls, learned to harness the old horse, and insisted on helping with the work of the dairy. And how proud she was of her first pat of delicious butter!
"It really seems a pity to eat it," she said, as she exhibited it in triumph to Aunt Patty.
One day she took the horse and light wagon and drove to Bell's Falls. She said she had some shopping to do there, and several errands to which she must attend.
"One of them is a commission from Doctor Stone," she said, trying not to smile, but failing signally.
Lately she had received several letters from the old doctor, but she never read them to her aunt and sister.
"Some day you may read them," she said to Aunt Patty, "but not now. Doctor Stone and I have a secret which you and Cynthia are not to know just yet."
"It seems to make you very happy, whatever it is," said Cynthia.
"Well, I am more anxious than happy just now," returned Ida. "But I can't explain why."
About a week after her trip to Bell's Falls, Ida entered the farm-house kitchen late one afternoon with two letters in her hand. Her face was glowing from her brisk walk to and from the village post-office, and her bright eyes were dancing in anticipation of some rare enjoyment.
"One of those letters for me?" asked Cynthia, who was busy at a table making rolls for supper.
"No; both for me," answered her sister, "and great news in both. One is from Aunt Stina, who says she will be home by the 1st of November, and wants me to be ready to live with her again."
"Oh, Ida!"
It was a simultaneous exclamation from Aunt Patty and Cynthia. They both looked blank, and Cynthia dropped her rolling-pin and sat down in the nearest chair, as if she felt suddenly weak.
Ida laughed. She looked wonderfully radiant and happy. "Calm yourselves," she said. "I have other plans in my head. Listen to this." She tossed Aunt Stina's letter into the wood-box back of the stove, and opened the other—a business document—which announced that Miss Ida Worley had been appointed a teacher in the grammar school at Bell's Falls at a salary of seven hundred and fifty dollars per annum, her duties to begin the following Monday. "And as Bell's Falls is only fifteen miles off, I can come home every Friday night," said Ida.
"How'd you ever get the place?" asked Cynthia, when she and Aunt Patty had exhausted their vocabulary of exclamations of delight and astonishment.
"Through Doctor Stone's influence. He knows all three of the trustees. Dear old man! He was so ready to help me!"
"Aunt Stina will be dreadfully disappointed that she isn't to have you again, Ida."
"Perhaps so, just at first. But she will hire a companion—some one who will suit her much better than I. She won't approve of my teaching, and will wonder that I prefer it to a life of idleness in her house. But I am longing to feel that I am of some use in the world—not a drone in the hive."
"You dear child!" said Aunt Patty. "Your kind and unselfish act in helping that poor fever-stricken woman has brought a great reward. Had you passed her by you would never have known Doctor Stone, and wouldn't now have a chance to show what a busy bee you can become."
"My first month's salary shall be spent in fitting out my dear Aunt Patty with everything she needs in the way of comfortable dress," said Ida, with her arms around her aunt's waist, "and the month after that every cent shall go to Cynthia. Oh, I can hardly wait to begin! How thankful I am that I came here last June. It was the beginning of a new life. And to think how I mourned and made myself utterly miserable because I couldn't go abroad with Aunt Stina!"
Cynthia's plain little face fairly beamed with joy. "And now Aunt Stina is never to have you again," she said.
"Never again! I belong now to you and Aunt Patty."