"Only the young are happy to-day."




VIII

THE TURN OF THE YEAR

A fortnight later, the dress-maker was called in haste to Barly Farm,
to sew coarse and fine linen, and a dress for Anna to be married in.
But it all had to be done within the week, towels, sheets,
pillow-cases, table-cloths, and aprons. "More than a body could sew in
a month," she declared. For Anna was going to have a baby. "Do what
you can," said Mrs. Barly, "and we'll have to get along with that."
And so we find Miss Beal at the farm by eight each morning, wishing the
day were longer, to enable her tongue to catch up to her fingers; for
she thought that she knew a thing or two, and could see what was
directly in front of her nose. "I'm nobody's fool," she said, as she
guided the cloth, snapped the thread, and rocked the treadle of the
sewing machine; and she sang to herself from morning to evening. As
the only songs she knew were from the hymnal, she sang, with a heart
overflowing with praise:

Ah how shall fallen man
Be just before his God?
If He contend in righteousness,
We sink beneath His rod. Amen.

or again: