They could see certain details,
however, for they were all one great family of little people, and it
was no unaccustomed thing for them to watch a moral conquest, though
they had no conception of an intellectual one.
Accordingly, there was a shout of triumph from a corner of the room
one morning,--such a shout that seventy or eighty youngsters held
their breath to see what was happening.
After weeks upon weeks of torn cards, broken threads, soiled
patterns, wrong stitches, weak hand held in place by strong hand,
Marm Lisa had sewed without help, and in one lesson, the outline of a
huge red apple; and there she stood, offering her finished work to
Mistress Mary. The angels in heaven never rejoiced more greatly over
the one repentant sinner than the tired shepherdesses over their one
poor ewe lamb, as she stood there with quivering hands and wet eyes,
the first sense of conscious victory written on her inscrutable brow,
and within the turbid, clouded brain the memory of a long struggle,
and a hint, at least, of the glory she had achieved.
Rhoda took the square of neat cardboard with the precious red circle
that meant so much, and ran into the playground with it, hugging it
to her heart, and crying and laughing over it like a child.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68