The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1899-02-04
Borrowed Plurnes
By E. Nesbit

TT WAS the ideal place for a summer
holiday-a pleasant old farm with a
red roof, where lichens grew in patches
leeli in patches of green; a house with
long. low rooms, elbow grease, and beds
whose coarse homespun linen sheets
smelt of lavender.
There were, indeed, two lavender
bushes in the garden, as well as roses
and stocks, sweet clove-pinks and "old
man" The farm was stocked with in
teresting live creatures-cows. pigs,
chickens, turkeys, and pigeons; there
were sheep dotting the downs behind
the house. and from the front windows,
across the orchard, where the apples
were beginning TO grow hard and
round, you could see the long, shining,
blue line of the sea.
Mabel Roscommon liked that sen line,
and she liked the garden, the orchard.
and the rest of it-all but the turkeys.
She was little afraid Of these. because
she was by profession a high school
teacher and had been taught how to
manage children, but not how to man
age turkeys--an art, by the way. much
simpler. Now she had come to the
farm for her summer holidays. To be
alone was new to her, for she was one
Of a large family; and to be for whole
weeks in this country was new to her,
TOO, for she had never before been near
the sea for more than q week al time.
The down country was to her reve-
lation.
She had big sitting-room to herself
md shared the simple meals of the
farmer and his wife. The laborers and
the maids ate at the lower end of the
long table. Mabel thought it was such
a nice plan-it reminded her somehow
Of the feudal system. The dignified
simplicity of farm life appealed to her.
Gradually passion of love awoke in
her for the little, ordinary, useful
everyday things-the needful work re-
peated at the appropriate hour, the
changing magic of morn and noon and
evening, the restful distances of down
and sea, the intimate fairgrounds of
hedge and orchard At first she read a
good deal, but gradually more and more
time was spent with Mrs. Fry. Mabel
followed her in and out to the dairy, to
the kitchen, to feed the pigs, to collect
the eggs. And the eyes of the faded
middle-aged woman grew tender,
though her words were always the ex-
planatory commonplace or the mourn
full biographical.
But one day-it was the day when
Miss Roscommon first churned the but
ter-NIrs. Fry sighed and said:
"My little Alice would ha' been about
your age if she'd lived. l own / should
ha' dearly to ha' taught her to churn,r
1t was that night that Mabel kissed
Mrs. Fry when she said goodnight"
and almost wished as she crept be-
tween the cold, lavender sheets. that she
had been born farmers daughter.
She had discovered her vocation. 1t
was not teaching, as she had steadfast-
" believed, nor literature, as she had
secretly dreamed; her true vocation
was the pastoral life-not to forget
the great life of the world, the hurry
and hustle, the cleverness and bravery,
the wise and the great; not to forget
them-to honor them from afar, but
to take nd further part in the strife and
struggle of strenuous life; to watch it
from the safe haven of the little life, the
quiet, ordered, placid life of the farm.
This was her vocation-her fate was
high school teaching.
When Robert Fry CAME home-the
only son of his mother, the farmers
wife-Mabel shared in the hustle OF
glad preparation that heralded his
coming. He was in business in Lon
don, but he was coming home for his
holiday, his mother said.