And, being blind, no more I ask.

* * * * *

"But listen, listen, day by day,
To hear their tread
Who bear the finished web away,
And cut the thread,
And bring God's message in the sun,
'Thou poor blind spinner, work is done."


After this came two other small books, _Bits of Travel_ and _Bits of
Talk about Home Matters_. She paid for the plates of the former. Fame
did not burst upon Helen Hunt; it came after years of work, after it
had been fully earned. The road to authorship is a hard one, and only
those should attempt it who have courage and perseverance.

Again her health failed, but not her cheerful spirits. She travelled
to Colorado, and wrote a book in praise of it. Everywhere she made
lasting friends. Her German landlady in Munich thought her the kindest
person in the world. The newsboy, the little urchin on the street
with a basket full of wares, the guides over the mountain passes, all
remembered her cheery voice and helpful words. She used to say, "She
is only half mother who does not see her own child in every child. Oh,
if the world could only stop long enough for one generation of mothers
to be made all right, what a Millennium could be begun in thirty
years!" Some one, in her childhood, called her a "stupid child" before
strangers, and she never forgot the sting of it.