This world is a hard place to live in. I wish somebody would tell me
what we are born for anyway, and what's the use of living.

There are so many things that hurt, and you get so mixed up trying to
understand, that if you don't keep busy you'll spend your life guessing
at a puzzle that hasn't any answer.

Miss Katherine has gone away. Gone to stay two months, anyhow. Maybe
three.

Her Army brother, the one who is a Captain, has been sent to Texas, and
his wife and children were taken ill as soon as they got there.

Of course, they sent for Miss Katherine; that is, asked her by telegraph
if she wouldn't come. She went. And she'll be going to somebody all her
life, for she's the kind that is turned to when things go wrong.

Miss Webb is awful worried. She says a cool head and a warm heart are
always worked to death, and the person who has them is forever on call.

Miss Katherine has them.

She had to go, of course. We were not sick, except a few snifflers. We
didn't exactly need her, and her brother did; but oh the difference her
being away makes!

Three months of doing without her is like three months of daylight and
no sunlight. It's like things to eat that haven't any taste; like a room
in which the one you wait for never comes.