For a Good Girl

For a week, Kate lay so dazed she did not care whether she lived
or died; then she slowly crept back to life, realizing that
whether she cared or not, she must live. She was too young, too
strong, to quit because she was soul sick; she had to go on. She
had life to face for herself and her children. She wondered dully
about her people, but as none of the neighbours who had taken care
of her said anything concerning them, she realized that they had
not been there. At first she was almost glad. They were
forthright people. They would have had something to say; they
would have said it tersely and to the point.

Adam, 3d, had wound up her affairs speedily by selling the logs he
had bought for her to the Hartley mills, paying what she owed, and
depositing the remainder in the Hartley Bank to her credit; but
that remainder was less than one hundred dollars. That winter was
a long, dreadful nightmare to Kate. Had it not been for Aunt
Ollie, they would have been hungry some of the time; they were
cold most of it. For weeks Kate thought of sending for her
mother, or going to her; then as not even a line came from any of
her family, she realized that they resented her losing that much
Bates money so bitterly that they wished to have nothing to do
with her. Often she sat for hours staring straight before her,
trying to straighten out the tangle she had made of her life. As
if she had not suffered enough in the reality of living, she now
lived over in day and night dreams, hour by hour, her time with
George Holt, and gained nothing thereby.