She
haunted the post-office, and if a stranger was seen coming up the
street toward her cottage she watched feverishly for his turning
in at her gate with the tidings of her husband's safety. Night
after night she Jay awake, hoping, praying that she might hear his
step returning on a furlough to which wounds or sickness had
entitled him. The natural and inevitable result was illness and
nervous prostration.
Practical neighbors had told her that her course was all wrong;
that she should be resigned and even cheerful for her children's
sake; that she needed to sleep well and live well, in order that
she might have strength to provide for them. She would make
pathetic attempts to follow this sound and thrifty advice, but
suddenly when at her work or in her troubled sleep, that awful
word "missing" would pierce her heart like an arrow, and she would
moan, and at times in the depths of her anguish cry out, "Oh,
where is he? Shall I ever see him again?"
But the unrelenting demands of life are made as surely upon the
breaking as upon the happy heart.
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