CHAPTER V

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      The rage and sorrow that seethed in Phoebe's soul were such as in some passionate hearts have led to deeds of desperation. And indeed she did feel desperate as she fled along the road, pursued by the thought of her sister-in-law's angry words.

      To have such awful words spoken to her, and on her birthday; to feel so cornered and badgered, and to have no home where one was welcome, save that hateful alternative of going to Hiram Green's house! Oh, why was it that one had to live when life had become a torture?

      She had gone a long distance before her mind cleared sufficiently to think where she was going. The sight of a distant red farm-house made her pause in her wild walk. If she went on she would be seen from the well-watched windows of that red house, and the two women who lived there were noted alike for their curiosity and for their ability to impart news.

      In a sudden panic Phoebe climbed a fence and struck out across the field toward Chestnut Edge, a small hill rising to the left of the village. There she might hope to be alone a little while and think it out, and perhaps creep close to her mother once more through the letter which she pressed against her heart. She hurried over the rough stubble of the field, gathering her buff garments with the other hand to hold them from any detaining briars. She seemed like some bright golden leaf blowing across the pasture to frolic with the other leaves on the nut-crowned hillside.

      Breathless at last she reached the hill and found a great log where she sat down to read her letter.

      " My dear little grown-up girl," it began, and as Phoebe read the precious words again the tears burst from her smarting eyes, welling up from her aching heart, and she buried her face in the letter and stained it with her tears.

      It was some time before she could conquer herself and read farther.

      " This is your eighteenth birthday, dear child, and I have thought so much about you and how you will be when you are a young woman, that I want to be with you a little while on your birthday and let you know how much, how very much, I love you. I cannot look forward into your life and see how it will be with you. I do not know whether you will have had sad years or bright ones between the time when I said good-by to you and now when you are reading this. I could not plan positively, dear little girl, to have them bright ones, else you surely know I would. I had to leave you in God's care, and I know you will be taken care of, whatever comes. If there have been trials, somehow, Phoebe, little girl, they must have been good for you. Sometime you will learn why, perhaps, and sometime there will be a way out. Never forget that. God has His brightness ready somewhere for you if you are true to Him and brave. Somehow I am afraid that there will have been trials, perhaps very heavy ones, for you were always such a sensitive little soul, and you are going among people who may not understand.

      " In thinking about your life I have been afraid for you that you would be tempted because of unhappiness to take some rash impulsive step before God is ready to show you His plan for your life. I would like to give you a little warning through the years, and tell you to be careful.

      " You have entered young womanhood, and will perhaps be asked to give your life into the keeping of some man. If I were going to live I would try to train you through the years for this great crisis of your life. But when it comes, remember that I have thought about you and longed for you that you may find another soul who will love you better than himself, and whom you can love better than you love anything else in the world, and who will be grand and noble in every way. Dear child, hear your mother's voice, and don't take anything less. It will not matter so much if he is poor, if only he loves you better than himself and is worthy of your love. Never marry anyone for a home, or a chance to have your own way, or freedom from good honest work. There will be no happiness in it. Trust your mother, for she knows. Do not marry anyone to whom you cannot look up and give honor next to God. Unless you can marry such a man it is better not to marry at all, believe your mother, child. I say it lovingly, for I have seen much sorrow and would protect you.

      " And now, my sweet child, with a face like the dawn of the morning, and eyes so untroubled, if when you read this anything has come into your life to make you unhappy, just try to lay it all down for a little while and feel your mother's love about you. See, I have made this bright sunny dress for you, every stitch set with love, and I want you to wear it on your birthday to remind you of me. It is yellow, because that is the glory color, the color of the sunshine I have always loved so much. I want you to think of me in a bright, sunny, happy way, and as in a glory of happiness, waiting for you; not as dead, and lying in the grave. Think of my love for you as a joy, and not a lost one, either, for I am sure that where I am going I shall love you just the same, and more.

      " I am very tired and must not write any more, for there are other letters yet to write and much to do before I can feel ready to go and leave you, but as I am writing this birthday letter for you I am praying God that He will bring some brightness into your life, the beginning of some great joy, on this your eighteenth birthday, that shall be His blessing, and my birthday gift to my child. I put a kiss here where I write my name and give you with it more love than you can ever understand.

      " YOUR MOTHER."

      The tears rained down upon her hands as she held the letter, and when it was finished she put her head down on her lap and cried as she had not cried since her mother died. It seemed as if her head were once more upon that dear mother's lap and she could feel the smooth, gentle touch of her mother's hand passing over her hair and her hot temples as when she was a little child.

      The sunlight sifted softly down between the yellowed chestnut leaves, sprinkling gold upon the golden hem of her gown, and glinting on her shining hair. The brown nuts dropped now and then about her, reverently, as if they would not disturb her if they could help it, and the fat gray squirrels silently regarded her, pausing in their work of gathering in the winter's store, then whisked noiselessly away. It was all quite still in the woods except for the occasional falling of a nut, or the stir of a leaf, or the skitter of a squirrel, for Phoebe did not sob aloud. Her grief was deeper than that. Her soul was crying out to one who was far away and yet who seemed so near to her that nothing else mattered for the time.

      She was thinking over all her sad little life, telling it to her mother in imagination, trying to draw comfort from the letter, and to reconcile the realities with what her mother had said. Would her mother have been just as sure that it would all come out right if she had known the real facts? Would she have given the same advice? Carefully she thought it over, washing the anger away in her tears. Yes, she felt sure if her mother had known all she could not have written more truly than she had done. She would have had her say " No " to Hiram, just as she had done, and would have exhorted to patience with Emmeline, and to trust that brightness would sometime come.

      She thought of her mother's prayer for her, and almost smiled through her tears to think how impossible that could be. Yet—the day was not done—perhaps there might be some little pleasant thing yet, that she might consider as a blessing and her mother's gift. She would look and wait for it and perhaps it would come. It might be Albert would be kind—he was, sometimes—or if it were not too late she might go down to the village and make her call on Mrs. Spafford. That might be a beautiful thing and the beginning of a joy—but no, that was too far away and her eyes were red with weeping. She must just take this quiet hour in the woods