The democrat wagon from The Shoals was at the station to meet the party, and Mrs. Carson, who had driven down in her little pony cart, helped to get the family settled in it. The little hair trunk was put in behind, and the tribe of Kitchell, with a new light in their bright black eyes, turned to the future. “A dear little strong, staunch woman, isn’t she?” said Lucy Carson to her husband as they drove toward their home. “And the two girls are as nice little daughters as anyone would care to have—much better looking than Hi. But the fourth child, the little boy, looks sickly. We’ll have to put him on special diet—plenty of milk and eggs.” Mr. Carson smiled happily to himself. The languor was going out of his wife’s voice; the pallor of her face was flushed with a lovely rose pink. As she sat beside him, in her soft cream-colored frock, with her lilac scarf drifting from her shoulders, her pale amethysts in their setting of old yellow gold clasping collar and belt, he thought her the sweetest woman he ever had seen. She was sweeter even than before sorrow had come to her. He had loved her then; but there was something very like worship in the feeling he had toward her now. “We’ll drive on through the hills the short way,” she said, brimful and flowing over with the home-romance of the Kitchells, “and be at the door to welcome them.” And so they were. As the democrat wagon drew up, filled with the wondering and somewhat awed Kitchells, their good “neighbors”—they would not have tolerated the word “benefactors”—stood at the door of the cabin to meet them. And tired little Anne Kitchell, her four children following her, stepped into the door of her new home. The old life with the shame of a drunken husband, killed in a shameful row, was left behind. She had the chance to begin a new life, and to this feeling the new furniture of the house contributed more than she could realize. Hi ran from room to room, staring, his big mouth open, his heart swelling. Once he waved his long arms over his head, unable to contain himself, and not wanting to really whoop with delight. He listened while Mrs. Carson talked to his mother of this and that; showed her the kitchen and the store closets, with their supplies of food and of house linen, and the plain, good wardrobes she had prepared for the family. “If I’ve made any mistakes, Mrs. Kitchell, the things can be changed. I worked according to Hi’s direction. No, you’re not to thank me. Not at all. This is a sort of bonus offered you for your being so obliging in coming to us in our need. We want to get our factory started as soon as possible, and we couldn’t spare you the time to sew for your family.”