dull, and heavy, and ineffectual. On summer days the little
town often lay shimmering in the heat, the yellow road
glaring in it, the red bricks of the high school reflecting
it in waves, the very pine knots in the sidewalks gummy and
resinous with heat, and sending up a pungent smell that was
of the woods, and yet stifling. She must have felt an
almost irresistible temptation to sit for a moment on the
cool, shady front porch, with its green-painted flower
boxes, its hanging fern baskets and the catalpa tree looking
boskily down upon it.

But she never did. She had an almost savage energy and
determination. The unpaid debts were ever ahead of her;
there were the children to be dressed and sent to school;
there was the household to be kept up; there were Theodore's
violin lessons that must not be neglected--not after what
Professor Bauer had said about him.

You may think that undue stress is being laid upon this
driving force in her, upon this business ability. But
remember that this was fifteen years or more ago, before
women had invaded the world of business by the thousands, to
take their place, side by side, salary for salary, with men.
Oh, there were plenty of women wage earners in Winnebago, as
elsewhere; clerks, stenographers, school teachers,
bookkeepers. The paper mills were full of girls, and the
canning factory too. But here was a woman gently bred,
untrained in business, left widowed with two children at
thirty-eight, and worse than penniless--in debt.