"That does take up a lot of time," she admitted. "But it's a generator
of energy, leading a chorus is, not a spender of it."

"Oh, come!" protested Marsh. "You can't put that over on me. To do it as
I gather you do . . . heavens! You must pour out your energy and
personality as though you'd cut your arteries and let the red flood
come."

"You pour it out all right," she agreed, "but you get it back a thousand
times over." She spoke seriously, the topic was vital to her, her eyes
turned inward on a recollection. "It's amazing. It's enough to make a
mystic out of a granite boulder. I don't know how many times I've
dragged myself to a practice-evening dog-tired physically with work and
care of the children, stale morally, sure that I had nothing in me that
was profitable for any purpose, feeling that I'd do anything to be
allowed to stay at home, to doze on the couch and read a poor novel."
She paused, forgetting to whom she was speaking, forgetting she was not
alone, touched and stirred with a breath from those evenings.

"Well . . . ?" prompted Mr. Marsh. She wondered if she were mistaken in
thinking he sounded a little irritable.

"Well," she answered, "it has not failed a single time. I have never
come back otherwise than stronger, and rested, the fatigue and staleness
all gone, buried deep in something living." She had a moment of
self-consciousness here, was afraid that she had been carried away to
seem high-flown or pretentious, and added hastily and humorously, "You
mustn't think that it's because I'm making anything wonderful out of my
chorus of country boys and girls and their fathers and mothers. It's no
notable success that puts wings to my feet as I come home from that