cre for the sunsets.

The tillable land, except for the garden, she "let out on shares,"
always under the friendly guardianship of neighbor Tom; while Tom's boys
cared for the little garden in season, and saw to it that the woodpile
was always ample and ready for the stove. And, in addition to these
fixed and regular homely services, there were many offerings of helpful
hands whenever other needs arose; for, as time passed, there came to be
in all the Elbow Rock district scarce a man, young or old, who did not
now and then honor himself by doing some little job for Auntie Sue;
while the women and girls, in the same neighborly spirit, brought from
their own humble households many tokens of their loving thoughtfulness.
And never did one visit that little log house by the river without
the consciousness of something received from the silvery-haired old
teacher--a something intangible, perhaps, which they could not have
expressed in words, but which, nevertheless, enriched the lives of
those simple mountain people with a very real joy and a very tangible
happiness.

For six years, Auntie Sue continued teaching the Elbow Rock
school;--climbing the hill in the morning from her log house by the
river to the cabin schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain-side
above; returning in the late afternoon, when her day's work was over,
down the winding road to her little home, there to watch, from the porch
that overlooked the river, the sunset in the evening. And every year the
daily climb grew a little harder; the days of work grew a little longer;
she went down the hill in the afternoon a little slower. And every year
the sunsets were to her eyes more beautiful; the evening skies to her
understanding glowed with richer meaning; the twilight hours filled her
heart with a deeper peace.

And so, at last, her teaching days were over; that is, she taught no
more in the log schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain-side. But
in her little home beside the river she continued her work; not from
text-books, indeed, but as all such souls must continue to teach, until
the sun sets for the last time upon their mortal days.

Work-worn, toil-hardened mountaineer mothers, whose narrow world denied
them so many of the finer thoughts and things, came to counsel with
this childless woman, and to learn from her a little of the art of
contentment and happiness. Strong men, of rude dress and speech, whose
lives were as rough as the hills in whi