she finished with a dryness
that had that grim quality: "With me--it didn't.

"So there came a time," she went on, and seemed newly to have gained
serenity, "when I saw that I had to give up--go under--or get through
myself what I wasn't going to get through anyone else. Oh, it's not the
beautiful way--not the complete way. But it's one way!" she flashed in
fighting voice. "I fought for something, Ruth. I held it. I don't know
that I've a name for it--but it's the most precious thing in life. My
life itself is pretty limited; aside from the children"--she softened in
speaking of them--"my life is--pretty barren. And as for the
children"--that fighting spirit broke sharply through, "they're all the
more reason for not sinking into things--not sinking into _them_," she
laughed.

As she stopped there Ruth asked eagerly, eyes intently upon her: "But
just what is it you mean, Annie? Just what is it you fought for--kept?"

"To be my _own_!" Annie flashed back at her, like steel.

Then she changed; for the first time her work fell unheeded in her lap;
the eyes which a minute before had flashed fight looked far off and were
dreamy; her face, over which the skin seemed to have become stretched,
burned by years of sun and wind, quivered a little. When she spoke again
it was firmly but with sadness. "It's what we think that counts, Ruth.
It's what we feel. It's what we _are_. Oh, I'd like richer living--more
beauty--more joy. Well, I haven't those things. For various reasons, I
won't have them. That makes it the more important to have all I can
take!"--it leaped out from the gentler thinking like a sent arrow.
"Nobody holds my thoughts. They travel as far as they themselves have
power to travel. They bring me whatever they can bring me--and I shut
nothing out. I'm not afraid!"

Ruth was looking at her with passionate earnestness.

"Over there in that town,"--Annie made a little gesture toward it, "are
hundreds of women who would say they have a great deal more than I have.
And it's true enough," she laughed, "that they have some things I'd like
to have. But do you think I'd trade with them? Oh, no! Not much! The
free don't trade with the bond, Ruth."

And still Ruth did not speak, but listened with that passionate
intentness.

"There in that town," Annie went on, "are people--most a whole townful
of them--who are going through life without being really awake to life
at all. They move around in a closed place, doing the s