In other words, I am his sister, ten years younger. Years
ago Andrew was a business man, but his health failed and, like so
many people in the story books, he fled to the country, or, as he
called it, to the bosom of Nature. He and I were the only ones left
in an unsuccessful family. I was slowly perishing as a conscientious
governess in the brownstone region of New York. He rescued me from
that and we bought a farm with our combined savings. We became real
farmers, up with the sun and to bed with the same. Andrew wore
overalls and a soft shirt and grew brown and tough. My hands got
red and blue with soapsuds and frost; I never saw a Redfern
advertisement from one year's end to another, and my kitchen was a
battlefield where I set my teeth and learned to love hard work.
Our literature was government agriculture reports, patent medicine
almanacs, seedsmen's booklets, and Sears Roebuck catalogues. We
subscribed to Farm and Fireside and read the serials aloud. Every
now and then, for real excitement, we read something stirring in the
Old Testament--that cheery book Jeremiah, for instance, of which
Andrew was very fond.
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